of this Province, we will deliberate and resolve upon every measure that may come before us, with that temper, coolness, and moderation, which the important instant demands.

With pleasure we acknowledge our gratitude to your Excellency for the generous sentiments you express for the peace and prosperity of this Colony; and your Excellency may rest assured, that the utmost efforts of this House shall upon every occasion be exerted to second your Excellency’s humane endeavours to restore that harmony, cordiality, confidence, and affection, which ought to subsist between Great Britain and her Colonies.

By order of the House:

THOMAS KNOX GORDON.

In the Upper House Assembly, July 11, 1775.

His Excellency’s Answer.

GENTLEMEN: I thank you most sincerely for this very kind and affectionate address. Your warm declarations of loyalty and duty to His Majesty on the present trying occasion, cannot fail of being particularly agreeable to me, as it is a convincing proof of your regard for the real interests of this Province.

WILLIAM CAMBPELL.

July 12, 1775.

To his Excellency the Right Honourable Lord WILLIAM CAMPBELL, Captain-General, Governour, and Commander-in-Chief in and over his Majesty’s Colony of SOUTH –CAROLINA:

The humble Address of the Commons House of Assembly of the said Colony:

May it please your Excellency:

We, His Majesty’s loyal subjects, the Representatives of the inhabitants of this Colony, met in General Assembly at this very alarming and critical period, beg leave to assure your Excellency that we are willing to postpone the consideration of our private affairs whenever the publick exigences demand, our attention; fully convinced that the safety of private property entirely depends upon the security of publick rights.

We most sincerely lament that His Majesty’s Councils, and the conduct of his Ministers, have incapacitated us from meeting your Excellency, whose zealous endeavours in Great Britain for the welfare of this Colony claim our grateful acknowledgements, with those effects of joyful congratulation, the effects of real sentiments upon your arrival and assumption of the reins of Government, with which, in happier times, we have ever been accustomed to meet His Majesty’s Representatives; but the calamities of America, our present dangerous and dreadful situation, occupy all our thoughts, and banish from us every idea of joy and pleasure.

Although we will not doubt the fervent zeal of your Excellency’s heart for the real interest and happiness of this Colony, nor the sincerity of your Excellency’s professions to be instrumental in restoring that harmony, cordiality, confidence, and affection which ought to subsist between Great Britain and her colonies; yet we cannot but express our surprise at the severe censures which you Excellency has thought proper to pass on “measures” which have been “adopted” by the good people of this Colony, in confederacy with all the Colonies on this Continent, from Nova-Scotia, to Georgin, for their own safety, and for the preservation of their liberties, and the liberties of generations yet unborn.

In times, when the spirit of the Constitution has full operation, and, animating all the members of the State, gives security to civil liberty, then we claim to be “the only legal Representatives of the People in this Province, the only constitutional guardians of its Welfare;” but in the present unhappy situation of affairs, though our constituents might have thought us competent, yet as our meeting depended upon the pleasure of the Crown, they would not trust to so precarious a contingency, but wisely appointed another representative body, for necessary, for special, and important purposes.

We want words to give an idea of our feelings at your Excellency’s expression, “If there are any grievances that we apprehend the people of this Province labour under,” as if you doubted their existence. The world resounds with a catalogue of them. Your Excellency surely cannot be unacquainted with them. We should have esteemed it a high obligation, if your Excellency had pointed out to us what effectual mode for the redress of those grievances could have been pursued, or what steps we have omitted which we ought to have taken, in order to avert the inevitable ruin of this once flourishing Colony. Every pacifick measure which human wisdom could devise has been used; the most humble and dutiful Petitions to the Throne, Petitions to the House of Lords and House of Commons of Great Britain, have been repeatedly presented, and as often treated, not only with slight, but with rigour and resentment: we, therefore, with all due deference to your Excellency’s judgment, beg leave to observe, that the present are the only measures which seem best calculated for our preservation, and the removal of our intolerable grievances. However, not confiding in them alone, we wait the event, and leave the justice of our cause to the great Sovereign of the Universe, upon whom the fate of Kingdoms and Empires depends.

By order of the House:

RAWLINS LOWNDES, Speaker.

In the Commons House of Assembly, July 12, 1775.

His Excellency’s Answer.

Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen:

Immediately after my arrival in this Province, it was intimated to me by your Speaker, and some others of your Members, that it would be convenient for your private affairs, if I delayed meeting the General Assembly for about three weeks; on that account alone I consented to it, and therefore little expected the tacit reflection contained in the beginning of your Address.

As I have already declined entering into any discussion of the present unhappy disputes, I shall not undertake the disagreeable task of replying particularly to your Address. It was my duty to lay before you the fatal consequences that I apprehended must ensue from the measures lately adopted, and I have faithfully and conscientiously discharged it; but as they appear to you in so very different a point of view, as even to meet with your disapprobation, I most sincerely lament that I cannot prevent the ruin I foresee, and shall only add my fervent wishes, that the great Sovereign of the Universe, to whom you appeal, will in his goodness avert those evils with which this Country is so imminently threatened.

WILLIAM CAMPBELL.

July 12, 1775.

A Message from the Commons House to his Excellency the Governour.

May it please your Excellency:

We beg leave to assure your Excellency that this House, in their Address, was far from intending any, the least, reflection on your Excellency’s conduct, in not meeting us sooner in General Assembly, and are sorry your Excellency should view it in that light. All we meant was, to assure you how ready we shall ever, be to sacrifice our private interest to the publick service; at the same acknowledging your Excellency’s goodness in so readily consenting, on the application of our Speaker, to postpone the calling of the General Assembly to the time you fixed for their meeting, of which this House had been duly informed by their Speaker.

By order of the House:

RAWLINS LOYNDES, Speaker.

In the Commons House of Assembly, July 12, 1775.

FINCASTLE COUNTY (VIRGINIA) COMMITTEE.

At a Committee held for Fincastle County, July 10, 1775.

WILLIAM CHRISTIAN, Esq., Chairman.

The Committee, taking into their consideration the clandestine removal of the Gunpowder from the Magazine of this Colony by order of our Governonr are clearly and unanimously of opinion, that his Lordship’s conduct reflects much dishonour on himself, and that he very justly deserves the censure so universally bestowed on him.

Resolved, That the spirited and meritorious conduct of Patrick Henry, Esquire, and the rest of the gentlemen