of the Arms and Ammunition which shall be found there on board, but also of a fine of a thousand guilders over and above, at the charge of the commander, whose ship shall be answerable and liable to execution for the same.

That we have further thought fit to enact, and we do hereby enact, that during the aforesaid further term of one year, no Gunpowder, Guns, Shot, or other instruments of war, shall be embarked on board any other ships, whether foreign or belonging to this Country, to be transported abroad, without consent and permission of the College of Admiralty, under whose jurisdiction the embarkation shall be made, on pain of confiscation of the Arms, Gunpowder, Guns, Shot, or other Ammunition, which shall have been embarked without permission, and of the commander’s incurring a fine of a thousand guilders, on board of whose ship the said Arms and Ammunition shall have been embarked, and his ship be answerable and liable to execution for the said fine.

And that no one may pretend ignorance here we call upon and require the States, the hereditary Stadtholder, the Committee of Council, and the deputations of the States of the respective Provinces, and all other the officers and justices of these Countries, to cause this our Proclamation to be forthwith promulgated, published, and affixed in all places where the same is necessary, and where such publication is wont to be made; and we further charge and command the Counsellors of the Admiralty, the Advocates-General, and Commis-General, together with all Admirals, Vice Admirals, Captains, Officers, and Commanders, to pay obedience to this our Proclamation, proceeding, and causing to be proceeded against the transgressors thereof, without favour, connivance, dissimulation or composition; for such have we found meet.

Given at the Hague, under the seal of the State, the signature of the President of our Assembly, and the counter-signature of our Greffier, August 18, 1775.

G. VAN HARDENBROEK.

By order of the States-General:

H. FAGEL.

NANSEMOND COUNTY (VIRGINIA) COMMITTEE.

At a meeting held for Nansemond County, August the 18th, 1775:

It being reported that Messrs. Donaldson and Hamilton, merchants in the Town of Suffolk, had intentionally shipped a considerable quantity of Provisions to Boston, in the Brigantine John, Hugh Kennedy master, contrary to a resolution:of the Committee of New-York, made April 27th, 1775, and acceded to by the several Provinces; the aforesaid gentlemen appeared, and several depositions and protests being read, fully convinced this Committee that the said Donaldson and Hamilton intended the voyage of the said brig for Antigua, and that it was by the express direction of the Governour and Captain of the man-of-war, (who had information of her loading with Provisions three weeks before she sailed) that the said brig was taken, and carried to Boston. The aforesaid gentlemen being charged with shipping some Ham and Butter, on the 17th of April last, to Henry Lloyd, a gentlemen of Boston:

Resolved, That the said gentlemen in so doing have not violated the Association, the said articles being shipped prior to any resolution to the contrary.

By order of the Committee:

JOHN GREGORIE, Clerk.

THOMAS JOHNSON, JUN., TO HORATIO GATES.

Annapolis, August 18, 1775.

MY DEAR SIR: I received yours of the 21st July, and in a day or two afterwards forwarded your letter to Mrs. Gates, by my brother, with directions, if she had left Fredericktown, where she then was on a visit, and had no immediate good opportunity, to send a servant on purpose.

I shall be very unhappy that petitioning the King, to which measure I was a friend, should give you or any one else attached to the cause of America and liberty, the least uneasiness. You and I, and America in general, may almost universally wish, in the first place to establish our liberties; our second wish is, a reunion with Great Britain; so may we preserve the empire entire, and the constitutional liberty, founded in whiggish principles, handed down to us by our ancestors. In order to strengthen ourselves to accomplish these great ends, we ought, in my opinion, to conduct ourselves so as to unite America and divide Britain; this, as it appears to me, may most likely be effected by doing rather more than less in the peaceable line, than would be required if our petition is rejected with contempt, which I think most likely. Will not our friends in England be still more exasperated against the Court? And will not our very moderate men on this side of the water be compelled to own the necessity of opposing force by force? The rejection of the New-York petition was very serviceable to America. If our petition should be granted, the troops will be recalled, the obnoxious acts repealed, and we restored to the footing of 1763. If the petition should not be granted, but so far attended to as to lay the groundwork of a negotiation, Britain must, I think, be ruined by the delay: if she subdues us at all, it must be by a most violent and sudden exertion of her force; and if we can keep up a strong party in England, headed by such characters as Lord Chatham, and the others in the present opposition, Bute, Mansfield, and North, and a corrupt majority, cannot draw the British force fully into action against us. Our friends will certainly continue such as long as they see we do not desire to break from a reasonable and beneficial connexion with the Mother Country; but if, unhappily for the whole Empire, they should once be convinced by our conduct that we design to break from that connexion, I am apprehensive they will thenceforth become our most dangerous enemies; the greatest and first law of self-preservation will justify, nay compel it. The cunning Scotchmen and Lord North fully feel the force of this reasoning; hence their industry to make it be believed in England that we have a scheme of Independence, a general term they equivocally use, to signify to the friends of liberty a breaking off all connexion; and to Tories, that we dispute the supremacy of Parliament. In the Declaratory Act is the power of binding us, by its acts, in all cases whatever; the latter we do most certainly dispute, and I trust shall successfully fight against, with the approbation of every honest Englishman.

Lord North’s proposition, and consequent resolution of Parliament, were insidiously devised to wear the face of peace, and embarrass us in the choice of evils—either to accept and be slaves, or reject and increase the number and power of our enemies. I flatter myself that your petition will present to him only a choice of means injurious to his villanous schemes.

Our Convention met the very day of my getting home. The meeting was very full; we sat close many days, by six o’clock in the morning, and by candlelight in the evening. Our people were very prompt to do every thing desired; they have appropriated £100,000 for the defence of this Province, a great part of it to be laid out in the military line immediately, part contingently, and the rest for establishing manufactories of salt, saltpetre, and gunpowder.

We have an association ascertaining the necessity and justifiableness of repelling force by force, to be universally signed; and strict resolutions with regard to our Militia, which is to be as comprehensive here as perhaps in any country in the world, when called to action. We are to be subject to the congressional rules and regulations for the Army. A Committee of Safety, composed of sixteen, is, in the recess of the Convention, to have the supreme direction. We yet retain the forms of our Government, but there is no real force or efficacy in it; if the intelligence we have from England looks toward war, I dare say this Province will not hesitate to discharge all officers, and go boldly into it at once.

I have not lately heard any thing particular from Virginia that can be depended on; their Convention has had a long sitting, and I have no doubt but spirited measures, becoming themselves and adequate to their circumstances, are adopted. We have the pleasure now and then to hear of your successful skirmishes. I long to hear that you have all your riflemen, and am particularly anxious as to their conduct. The spirit has run through our young men so much, that if the business proceeds, notwithstanding the scarcity of men in this and the other Southern Provinces, I believe we must furnish you with a battalion or two; if, as