on its first appearance, secure ourselves against those arts in which a contrary conduct will undoubtedly plunge us. I will venture to say, that there is no American so unreasonable as even to wish you to take the field against your friends from the other side of the Atlantick. All they expect or desire from you is, to remain neutral, and to contribute your proportion of the expenses of the war. This will be sufficient testimony of your attachment to the cause they espouse. As you participate of the blessings of the soil, it is but reasonable that you should bear a propoitionable part of the disadvantages attending it.

To the virtuous and deserving among the Americans, nothing can be more disagreeable than national reflections; they are, and must be, in the eyes of every judicious man, odious and contemptible, and bespeak a narrowness of soul which the virtuous are strangers to. Let not, then, any disrespectful epithets which the vulgar and illiterate may throw out, prejudice you against them; and endeavour to observe this general rule, dictated at least by humanity, “that he is a good man who is engaged in a good cause.”

Your enemies have said you are friends to absolute monarchy and despotism, and that you have offered yourselves as tools in the hands of Administration, to rivet the chains forging for your brethren in America. I hope and think my knowledge of you authorizes the assertion that you are friends to liberty, and the natural and avowed enemies of tyranny and usurpation. All of you, I doubt not, came into the Country with a determined resolution of finishing here your days; nor dare I doubt but that, fired with the best and noblest species of human emulation, you would wish to transmit to the rising generation that best of all patrimonies, the legacy of freedom.

Private views, and offers of immediate reward, can only operate on base and unmanly minds. That soul in which the love of liberty ever dwelt must reject, with honest indignation, every idea of preferment, founded on the ruins of a virtuous and deserving people. I would have you look up to the Constitution of Britain as the best and surest safeguard to your liberties. Whenever an attempt is made to violate its fundamental principles, every effort becomes laudable which may tend to preserve its natural purity and perfection.

The warmest advocates for Administration have candour sufficient to admit that the people of Great Britain have no right to tax America. If they have not, for what are they contending? It will, perhaps, be answered, for the dignity of Government. Happy would it be for those who advance this doctrine to consider, that there is more real greatness and genuine magnanimity in acknowledging an error, than in persisting in it. Miserable must that state be, whose rulers, rather than give up a little punctilio, would endanger the lives of thousands of its subjects in a quarrel, the injustice and impropriety of which is universally acknowledged. If the Americans wish for any thing more than is set forth in the Address of the last Congress to the King and people of Great Britain—if independence is their aim—by removing their real grievances, their artificial ones (if any they should avow) will soon appear, and with them will their cause be deserted by every friend to limited monarchy, and by every well-wisher to the interest of America. I have endeavoured, in this uncultivated homespun essay, to avoid prolixity as much as possibly I could. I have aimed at no flowers of speech, no touches of rhetorick, which are too often made use of to amuse, and not to instruct or persuade the understanding. I have no views but your good, and the credit of the Country from whence you came.

In case Government should prevail, and be able to lax America without the least show of representation, it would be to me a painful reflection to think, that the children of the land to which I owe my existence, should have been the cause of plunging millions into perpetual bondage.

If we cannot be of service to the cause, let us not be an injury to it. Let us view this Continent as a country marked out by the great God of nature as a receptacle for distress, and where the industrious and virtuous may range in the fields of freedom, happy under their own fig-trees, freed from a swarm of petty tyrants, who disgrace countries the most polished and civilized, and who more particularly infest that region from whence you came.

SCOTIUS AMERICANUS.

ELIZABETH CITY COUNTY (VIRGINIA) C0MM1TTEE.

Hampton, November 23, 1775.

The following gentlemen were chosen a Committee for the County of Elizabeth City, and Town of Hampton, agreeable to an ordinance of the late Colony Convention in that case made and provided, viz: John Tabb, George Wray, John Allen, Miles King, Augustine Moore, Ed-ward Cooper, Wilson Miles Cary, Westwood Armistead, John King, Joseph Cooper, William Mallory, Simon Hollier, George Booker, James Wallace Bayliy, John Par’ sons, Henry King, Jacob Wary, John Jones, William Roscow Wilson Curie, John Cary, and Moscley Armitead, gentlemen.

William Roscow Wilson Curie, Esq., was unanimously chosen Chairman, and Robert Bright, gentleman, unanimously chosen Clerk.

William Roscow WilsonCurle Wilson Miles Cary, Miles King, Jacob Wray, and John King, gentlemen, were chosen a Committee of Correspondence; and William Roscow Wilson Curie, Wilson Miles Cary, Miles King, and John Cary, gentlemen, appointed Deputies to attend the District Committee.

ROBERTBRIGHT, Clerk.

FAIRFAX COUNTY (VIRGINIA) COMMITTEE TO THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.

Fairfax County, Virginia, November 23, 1775.

SIR: The Committee of this County, informed of the present scarcity of salt in this Colony in general, and in this part of it in particular, sensible of the difficulty, perhaps impracticability of procuring it, if not done this winter, and apprehensive of the great distress and discontent that the want of this necessary article may occasion among the people, as well as the impossibility of furnishing proper provisions for the regiments of minute-men and draughts from our militia which may be called into service next spring, have directed us to apply to the honourable the Continental Congress, praying them to encourage the importation of salt, either by permitting the expottation of country produce in return, in such manner as is allowed upon the importation of military stores, or in such other manner as that honourable Board shall judge best. We beg leave, Sir, through you, to lay this request, as a matter of the utmost impoitance to the good people of this Colony and the publick service, before the gentlemen of the Congress; and are, with the greatest respect, Sir, your most obedient servants,

Committee of Correspondence for FAIRFAX County.

To the Honourable John Hancock, Esq., President of the Congress in Philadelphia.

Williamsburgh, November 23, 1775,

MR. PURDIE: Permit a farmer, more versed in matters of husbandry than politicks, but anxious for the success of America, in the piesent contest with Great Britain, to lay before the publick some plain observations relating to our commercial opposition. We have seen the non-importation agreement zealously supported, and generally submitted to. The non-exportation has now taken place, and demands our vigilant attention. In the prosecution of this measure, success is almost certain. In war, the event is doubtful; and the measure, however just, to be lamented by the friends of humanity and their country. It has been shown, it can be demonstrated, that the direct and circuitous commerce of Britain with her Colonies amounts to more than a third of her whole trade. Deprive her of this great and constant stream of wealth, and yon hazard her bankruptcy. No country upon earth can, at this time, furnish the materials Great Britain used to draw from her Colonies, and which afforded such ample employment for her ingenious artists. Where can she suddenly find a vent for the large quantities of manufactures America used to consume ? New channels of commerce are not hastily opened. In this operation, other States, now in possession of the business, must be supplanted. In her American trade, Britain stood alone and unrivalled. For many years past, great part of Europe has depended on America for bread. Ireland has