mature consideration of the Committee, some of which were no better than C., a sort of recantation was drawn up and signed by C., but by no means satisfactory to the people. Upon which some concluded we should proceed in the new mode of making converts, by bestowing upon C. a coat of tar and feathers; but after some hesitation, and much persuasion, were prevented from using any violent measures, unless beating the drum a few rods, and two boys throwing an egg apiece unknown to the men, which, as soon as they were observed, were immediately stopped. No threatening or abusive language was made use of to intimidate or affright him. This is as near the state of the matter as I can recollect. This they have made a riot of, and J. M., Esq., as King’s Attorney, has acted in this matter.

Now, if such offenders as C. are permitted to bring us under the cognizance of the civil law, all the friends to liberty here in Sussex may as well give up as contend any longer; for we are too weak to oppose Ministerial tools.

This from your’s to serve,

SAMUEL MCMASTERS.

To Doctor James Tilton.

DR. JAMES TILTON TO SAMUEL McMASTERS.

SIR: Yours of the 14th instant came safe to hand. I am not a little surprised at the contents of it. I have heard a great deal of Sussex toryism, but imagined, if you had really such among you, they would have acted more ingeniously than by playing off the civil law, as an engine, against the sons of liberty. The recent success of Mr. H., I should have thought, would have taught them better. Your Grand Jury must certainly have been infatuated with very undue prejudices, or they never could have countenanced such an indictment as you mention.

I wish I was able to give you such advice as would be profitable to your deluded countrymen; but when I consider that I am writing to a man younger than myself, and who has perhaps as little influence in Sussex as I have in Kent, I conceive I cannot testify my esteem for a lover of our liberty belter than by communicating my sentiments, on present troubles, in as short and plain a manner as I can.

I lay it down as a maxim, that the claim of England on America, “to tax her in all cases whatsoever,” is affrontive to common sense, not to be tolerated, but spurned at by freemen, and to be resisted to the last extremity whenever attempted to be put in execution. It is found equally true, by our experience, that the civil or municipal laws of the Provinces are not sufficient to defend us against the unjust and cruel means used to bring us under unjust and arbitrary taxation. What resource, then, had America left her? Why, she appealed to the law of nature, which, having a like respect to all, is founded only in justice and truth. In doing this, however, the Americans have not violated the Constitution of England, (as their enemies have suggested,) for that being founded in liberty cannot be repugnant to the eternal and immutable laws of truth and justice. By the law of nature, then, and the Constitution of England, we are perfectly right in defending our rights and liberties. The law of nature is above all others, and constantly governs in the last exigency of affairs. In our present struggle, is it not equally necessary to guard against intestine enemies as foreign foes? But by what law of the land can we do it? By none, and therefore we appeal to the law of nature. By this law, the Representatives of a people in Committee publish an enemy and make him infamous forever; and by this law the people at large tar and feather tories and traitors. The sole object of natural law is justice; and agreeable to it, in Mr. C.’s case, the only question should be, has his punishment been more than adequate to his crimes? If he has discovered himself unfriendly to his Country, and especially to America, his light escape could be owing to nothing but great partiality or uncommon humanity in his countrymen. And as to those men, who would now take advantage of the civil law against those who were the instruments of justice on C., in behalf of their Country, I take it for granted they have a plentiful stock of ignorance or an uncommon share of boldness and wickedness; and I will venture to add, that were they in any part of the United Colonics, besides Sussex, they would in the one case meet with proper instruction, and in the other suitable correction.

TO THE INHABITANTS OF NEW-YORK.

New-York, November 14, 1775.

Of late, I have observed in Mr. Rivington’s and Mr. Gaine’s newspapers, sundry publications that have the same pernicious tendency with those that used to abound in those papers some months ago, before the flight of Cooper, Wilkins, &c., and the silence, association, and pretended reformation of many inveterate, rancorous enemies to the rights and freedom of the British Colonies, for which we are now contending. Indeed, considering the conduct and avowed principles of these tory gentry, there was no person, of common understanding, that believed there was any reality or sincerity in the apparently sudden change of their disposition from enemies to friends of the English Constitution, the rights and liberties of their Country. The seeming change, we have the greatest reason to believe, was only the effect of the basest of all causes—pusillanimity and cowardice—upon finding the friends to their Country to be the strongest party. After a silence and inactivity of several months, these tory vermin begin to creep out again, one after another, and, according to their natures, renew their works of mischief. At first, they begin with small matters, and, if they pass with impunity, proceed to those that are greater, enormous, and intolerable. They begin their operations with caution and secrecy, They appear disguised and in small numbers; but, emboldened by one another, they soon increase in number, work more openly, and at last venture to show themselves, and act without disguise. But the work in which we are now engaged is of too much consequence for us to suffer it to be interrupted, and its success endangered by an ill-judged lenity and indulgence to those most noxious animals, who aim at nothing less than our destruction, and stripping us of every tiling that can be held valuable by reasonable creatures. It behooves us, then, as we value our lives, and, what should be still dearer to us than our lives, the rights and liberties of our Country and posterity, to hunt out, find, and destroy, or at least disable, these most detestable creatures, that otherwise will destroy or enslave us. This is no time for ceremony or forbearance. Our all is at stake. We must succeed in the enterprise in which we are engaged, or perish in the attempt, and be the most abject, miserable, and despised people of all the human race. Shall we hazard all these dreadful consequences, rather than punish, as they justly deserve, a set of wretches who are labouring, by every secret art of deceit and villany, to bring them upon us, and ruin us forever? No. Rather let them be perished and rooted out. The publications in Mr. Rivington’s and Mr. Gaine’s papers, that gave rise to these reflections, are more than I can now remember, as I have not those papers by me. One, however, was a copy of a long letter from London, tending to represent the proceedings of the people in America, in defence of their just rights and freedom, as unreasonable, criminal, and rebellious; the conduct of the Parliament and Ministry of England, to be lawful and necessary. That their disposition towards America was friendly and benevolent; that they aimed at nothing but a constitutional, legal authority over America, equally necessary for its own welfare, as that of all other parts of the British Dominions. That the whole body of the Nation, except an inconsiderable part, of little weight or influence, were unanimously against us. That the manufacturing part of the Nation were little affected by our Non-Importation Agreement, and that we must be finally overcome by the power of Great Britain. The whole tendency and design of the letter was to disunite and discourage us in our necessary defence, to persuade us to give up our rights and liberties to Great Britain, submit to the authority it claims over us, and to its mercy for our oppoposition to it.

This vile letter, which, by the style and sentiments, I imagine is the production of Dr. Cooper, was first published in Mr. Rivington’s, and the next week in Mr. Gaine’s paper. Since that publication, several others of the like tendency have appeared in each of these papers, among which may be reckoned Mowat’s nonsensical, insolent letter to the people of Falmouth, before he began his act of murder and high treason in firing upon the Town. The Address of the Quakers, dated 26th October, signed John Pemberton, published in Mr. Rivington’s last paper, without the answer and refutation of it, contained in the