A sense of unprovoked injuries will arouse the resentment of the most peaceful. Such injuries these Colonies have received from Britain. Unjustifiable claims have been made by the King and his minions, to tax us without our consent. These claims have been prosecuted in a manner cruel and unjust to the highest degree. The frantick policy of Administration hath induced them to send fleets and armies to America, that by depriving us of our trade, and cutting the throats of our brethren, they might awe us into submission, and erect a system of despotism in America which should so far enlarge the influence of the Crown as to enable it to rivet their shackles upon the people of Great Britain.

This plan was brought to a crisis upon the ever memorable 19th of April. We remember the fatal day ! The expiring groans of our countrymen yet vibrate on our ears, and we now behold the flames of their peaceful dwellings ascending to Heaven! We hear their blood crying to us from the ground for vengeance; charging us, as we value the peace of their manes, to have no further connection with a King who can unfeelingly hear of the slaughter of his subjects, and composedly sleep with their blood upon bis soul! The manner in which the war has been prosecuted hath confirmed us in these sentiments. Piracy and murder, robbery and breach of faith, have been conspicuous in the conduct of the King’s troops; defenceless towns have been attacked and destroyed; the ruins of Charlestown, which are daily in our view, daily remind us of this; the cries of the widow and the orphan demand our attention; they demand that the hand of pity should wipe the tear from their eye, and that the sword of their country should avenge their wrongs. We long entertained hopes that the spirit of the British nation would once more induce them to assert their own and our rights, and bring to condign punishment the elevated villains who have trampled upon the sacred rights of men, and affronted the majesty of the people. We hoped in vain. They have lost their love to freedom; they have lost their spirit of just resentment. We therefore renounce with disdain our connection with a kingdom of slaves. We bid a final adieu to Britain.

Could an accommodation be now effected, we have reason to think that it would be fatal to the liberties of America; we should soon catch the contagion of venality and dissipation which hath subjected Britons to lawless domination. Were we placed in the situation we were in in 1763; were the powers of appointing officers, and commanding the Militia, in the hands of Governours, our arts, trade, and manufactures would be cramped; nay, more than this, the life of every man who has been active in the cause of his country would be endangered.

For these reasons, as well as many others which might be produced, we are confirmed in the opinion, that the present age will be deficient in their duty to God, their posterity, and themselves, if they do not establish an American Republick. This is the only form of Government which we wish to see established; for we can never be willingly subject to any other King than He, who, being possessed of infinite wisdom, goodness, and rectitude, is alone fit to possess unlimited power.

We have freely spoken our sentiments upon this important subject; but we mean not to dictate; we have unbounded confidence in the wisdom and uprightness of the Continental Congress; with pleasure we recollect that this affair is under their direction; and we now instruct you, sir, to give them the strongest assurance that, if they should declare America to be a free and independent Republick, your constituents will support and defend the measure to the last drop of their blood, and the last farthing of their treasure.

Attest

SAMUEL MERRIT, Town Clerk.

BRUNSWICK, (BRISTOL COUNTY,) MASSACHUSETTS.

Whereas the honourable Congress of the United Colonies thought it necessary to know the minds of the people in regard to Independence; at a full meeting of the freeholders and other inhabitants of the town of Brunswick, on the 3 Ist of May, 1776, it was unanimously voted, that if the honourable Congress should, for the safety of the United Colonies, declare them independent of the King of Great Britain, they will solemnly engage with their lives and fortunes to support the Congress in that measure.

ADDRESS OF THE GENERAL, ASSEMBLY OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND TO THE KING.

May it please your Majesty:

We, your Majesty’s most dutiful subjects, the Ministers and Elders met in the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, animated with the same sentiments of loyalty which prevail among the people under our care, embrace this first opportunity of joining with them in declaring that, at this interesting juncture, our attachment to your Majesty’s person and Government, and our zeal for the Constitution and rights of Great Britain, continue firm and unshaken.

Under a Constitution founded on the principles of liberty, and governed by a Sovereign whose reign has been uniformly distinguished by a sacred regard for the rights of his people, we have enjoyed a felicity which our forefathers struggled and prayed for, but did not obtain; and we daily bless that God, by whom Kings reign, for your mild and equitable administration. Sensible of our own happiness, and reposing with confidence on your Majesty’s attention to the welfare of all your people, it is with no less astonishment than regret, that we have beheld those alarming events which disturb the tranquillity of your reign.

But while we deeply bewail the progress of that spirit which hath prompted our fellow-subjects in North-America to take arms in opposition to your Majesty’s authority, and the supremacy of the British Legislature, we contemplate with peculiar satisfaction that striking proof which your Majesty now gives of your paternal affection, by vesting in the same respectable persons whom you have intrusted with the command of your formidable fleets and armies, the power of displaying the extent of your Majesty’s clemency, and of conciliating the alienated minds of your subjects.

We consider ourselves as called upon, in the present situation of publick affairs, to exert our utmost diligence in discharging the important functions of our sacred office., in order to confirm the people committed to our charge in their reverence for the laws of their country, in their attachment to the system of legal Government established by the glorious Revolution, and in their loyalty towards your Majesty, whom they have experienced to be the faithful guardian of those liberties which your illustrious House was called to maintain. These endeavours shall ever be accompanied with our fervent prayers to Almighty God, that he may go forth with the fleets and armies of our country; that he may bless the humane means employed by your Majesty to recall our fellow-subjects to a sense of their duty, and to put a speedy period, without effusion of blood, to the present dangerous and unnatural rebellion; that He who stilleth the tumults of the people, and ruleth the spirit of man, may, in his good time, turn the hearts of the children unto their fathers; that out of confusion order may arise; that, in place of anarchy and civil discord, submission to legal authority may return; and the union between Great Britain and her Colonies may be happily re-established, so that both may lqng rejoice under the Government of your Majesty as their common parent and benefactor.

May it please your Majesty, your Majesty’s most faithful, most obedient, and most loyal subjects, the Ministers and Elders met in this National Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

Signed in our name, in our presence, and at our appointment by

JOHN KER, Moderator.

Edinburgh, May 28, 1776.

To the Chairman and Members of the Committee for DINWIDDIE County:

The Memorial of RICHARD HANSON, of the Town of PETERSBURGH, showeth:

That your Memorialist has heard, with much concern, that he stands charged before this Committee with having wilfully violated an order of the honourable Continental Congress, for the observation of Friday, the 17th instant, (May,) as a solemn fast-day. Your Memorialist most solemnly declares, that at the time of his giving the invitation to his neighbours, which has excited against him the said complaint, he did not recollect that it was the day set apart for that purpose, until it was so late in the day that he apprehended his countermanding the invitations might be supposed to arise rather from a want of hospitality than a