or endeavours to retard our union, through ignorance or unfriendliness, opposes the necessary means of our safety, and marks what ought to be the line of conduct towards them; for there is every reason in the world for it, and none against it. This may be the means of preventing any further attacks, and our greatest security against them, if made; for to be in preparation for defence, is defence; this will secure against falling to pieces, and is the best guard against the seeds of discord and corruption our enemies would sow amongst us; whereas to neglect the necessary means of our safety, is to invite distraction, and criminally expose ourselves to its ravages. Were the British fleets and armies all recalled, never more to return, such a confederation would be absolutely necessary. If the controversy is to be settled by treaty, it cannot be done without it; and if neither of these should take place, (as there is not the least probability of either,) and the war be pursued, and a Declaration of Independence be made, it will be as necessary as our political existence; for we can no more subsist together without it, than the human body without the ligaments that compact the joints, connect and hold all the parts together. It is a dictate of nature; our necessities urge, our social passions strongly solicit our union; strength and beauty are its constant attendants, and the divine benediction from Heaven is pronounced upon it.

J. R.

Connecticut, May 9, 1776.

Litchfield, May 9, 1776.

Daniel Griswold, of Litchfield, being complained of to the Committee of Inspection for this town, for speaking frequently against the measures of Congress, and other inimical conduct, was judged guilty; and that all the lovers of liberty may treat him as his conduct deserves, said Committee have ordered that he be advertised as an enemy to the natural rights of mankind.

ANDREW ADAMS, chairman.

GENERAL WARD TO GENERAL WASHINGTON.

Boston, May 9, 1776.

SIR: By Mr. Harrison’s letter of the 2d instant, I am acquainted that you have been informed, “the regiments stationed on Dorchester Heights and Bunker-Hill have not been employed in carrying on the works for the defence of Boston;” which representation is an injurious falsehood, and I beg to be informed who made it. I have paid the strictest attention to your instructions, and constantly employed the men to the greatest advantage in forwarding the works for the defence of the town and harbour of Boston, that I could. Six companies of Colonel Sargent’s regiment have been employed in demolishing the enemy’s works on Bunker-Hill, and building the fort on Charlestown Point, until these were nearly completed; since, the greatest part of them have been at work on Noddle’s Island. Colonel Hutchinson’s regiment has been employed in the works on Dorchester Point, next to Castle-Island, until that fort was nearly finished, and then I ordered part of the regiment to work on Castle-Island in repairing the batteries there. I believe I can truly affirm, that more work has never been done in the American Army by an equal number of troops than has been performed by the troops which are stationed here, in the same space of time; but because fifteen hundred men could not throw up work as fast as six or seven thousand had done in time past, there appeared to some people an unaccountable delay.

I have the pleasure to inform your Excellency that, on the 17th instant, Captáin Tucker, commander of the armed schooner Hancock, took two brigs in the bay, (within sight of the men-of-war,) and carried them into Lynn. One of them was from Cork, ninety tons burden, laden with beef, pork, butter, and coal; the other was from the Western-Islands, laden with wine and fruit, about a hundred tons burden. Neither of them give any important intelligence; they brought no papers nor letters that had any relation to publick affairs. The master of the Irish vessel says he sailed from Cork the 1st of April; that five regiments lay there ready to embark for America; that he heard that Hessians and Hanoverians were coming to America, but had not heard of any troops having sailed from Great Britain or Ireland for America this spring.

I am your Excellency’s obedient humble servant,

ARTEMAS WARD.

To General Washington.

LORD MIDDLETON TO SIR JOHN CONWAY COLCHURST.

Marlborough Street, May 10, 1776.

I must take the liberty of troubling you to make my most grateful acknowledgments to those gentlemen who have done me the honour to look upon my Parliamentary conduct in so flattering and favourable a light as to have fixed upon me to present their Petition to his Majesty.

It gives me great pleasure to observe, that the sentiments which they have there expressed perfectly concur with my own; it gives me concern to think that their apprehensions are so well grounded. Be the success and consequences what they will, I sincerely lament that the legislature of this country is willing to deny the blessing secured to us by the glorious Revolution, to any of the members of this once flourishing and united empire.

I have the honour to be, sir, your most humble servant,

MIDDLETON.

PETITION OF THE PROTESTANT INHABITANTS OF CORK TO THE KING.

To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty.

The humble and dutiful Petition of the Freemen, Freeholders, Citizens, Merchants, Traders, and Protestant Inhabitants of the City of CORK.

We, your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Freemen, Freeholders, Citizens, Merchants, Traders, and Protestant Inhabitants of the City of Cork, beg leave to approach your Majesty with a state of our feelings on the present crisis of our foreign and domestick affairs, conscious that, however dubious the success, and whatever the event, it is the privilege and duty of a loyal, manly, and free people, to conduct truth to the foot of the Throne, where her voice may be distinguished from those of corruption, interest, and adulation.

We think ourselves particularly called upon at this time to declare our sentiments, lest your Majesty should be influenced by an Address now surreptitiously preparing here, purporting to be the act of this Corporation, and affecting to convey the real sense of this ancient, loyal, and opulent city.

The present unnatural dispute with America, originally grounded on the most arbitrary claims of former Ministers, progressively sustained by the usurpations of succeeding Administrations, and most impoliticly carried on by the present, cannot but fill us with the most gloomy and alarming apprehensions. In the pursuit of an inexpedient, unnecessary, and, perhaps, illegal power of taxation, over a bold, numerous, experienced, free, and distant people, we have seen our armies defeated, our fame tarnished, and our revenue exhausted; our American trade totally destroyed, which formed the broadest basis of British wealth and prosperity; our West-India trade, dependant on America for supplies of provisions and lumber, mouldering into ruin; and our African commerce, intimately connected with that of the West-Indies, almost totally annihilated; our national honour lowered to the dust by an introduction of foreign mercenaries to fight our domestick quarrels on the most unequitable and disadvantageous terms; and the glory of the British arms forever sullied, by the newly adopted mode of piratical war, which, in the destruction of many unoffending maritime cities of America, displays a spirit of dark revenge and gloomy depredation, unprecedented in the annals of any enlightened age or polished nation.

Whatever may be the event of this expensive and dreadful contest, it must be alike fatal to the victor and the vanquished; nothing can remain to either but poverty, ruin, and desolation.

As members of your Majesty’s widely extended dominions, we must share in this general mass of publick calamity; as members of this opulent and commercial city, and natives of this maritime and lately rising kingdom, we find ourselves most particularly interested; our linen trade (the great support of the nation) is in imminent danger, through the wants of its usual marts, and the extreme dearness of flaxseed, now no longer supplied from the Colonies, but with great

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