their rights and liberties as inseparably blended with the present Constitution.

Resolved, unanimously, That while Delegates to represent this Province are chosen by the Assembly, and fettered by their Instructions, we neither have nor can have that representation in Congress we desire and ought to have.

Resolved, unanimously, That it is the opinion of this Battalion, that the Delegates of this Province chosen and instructed as they are, can only be a sinking weight added to the many unavoidable and heavy burdens of that respectable body of which they are members.

Resolved, unanimously, That the liberties of Pennsylvania, while in the tenure of the present Government, are only nominal and precarious.

Resolved, unanimously, That a Government competent to the exigencies of our affairs ought to be immediately framed by a Convention appointed for that purpose.

Resolved, unanimously, That we most cheerfully adopt the measures recommended in the Resolve of Congress, in the Protest, the Alarm, and the Circular Letter, which have been read, and are determined to support them, be the consequences what they may.

Resolved, unanimously, That as we fully approve of their resolution, so we most heartily thank the patriotick Committee of this County for appointing a number of their members to meet the 18th instant at Philadelphia, with members appointed by the Committees of the other Counties, to hold a Provincial Conference, for the express purpose of determining the number of which the Convention for forming a new Government shall consist, together with the mode of electing them.

After the above Resolves were deliberately read and approved, the Battalion, as a further testimony of their hearty approbation of the measures adopted, gave three cheers.

The whole was conducted with the greatest decorum.

Unanimously agreed, That the above be signed, on behalf of the Battalion, by

JOHN WHITEHILL.

Leacock, June 10, 1776.

JOSEPH HART TO PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE.

In Committee, Bucks County, June 10, 1776.

GENTLEMEN: Your favour of 21st of May was duly delivered to us by Messrs. Jones and Watkins, in which you were pleased to recommend to us to choose a certain number out of our Committee, to meet Deputies from the other County Committees of this Province on the 18th instant, in Provincial Conference, to agree upon and direct the mode for electing members for a Provincial Convention. But as the matters involved in the said recommendation were of so great consequence to the well-being of this Province, they thought it prudent to adjourn the determination of it to this day, when they again met, and chose Joseph Hart, John Kidd, James Wallace, Renjamin Seigle, and Henry Wynkoop, or any three of them, to represent this County at the aforesaid meeting. And we heartily wish that happiness and glory may attend it.

By order of the Committee.

I am, gentlemen, your very humble servant,

JOSEPH HART, Chairman.

TO THE COMMON PEOPLE OF PENNSYLVANIA.

It is remarkable that the Tories in every Colony have affected to differ from the Whigs only in small matters. Thus, in Massachusetts-Ray the Tories pretended to believe, with the Whigs, that Great Britain could not tax us without our consent; but, at the same time, insisted upon her supreme legislative authority over us. In New-York they attempted to justify external and to reprobate internal taxes. In Pennsylvania they tell us to fight till we are half cut off, and never to relax any of our claims, but by no means ever to think of independence. The Tories among us tell the Whigs further, that they have changed the ground of the controversy. Have not the Tories followed them in every step except the last? Thus, when the Whigs proposed Non-Importation and Non-Exportation Agreements, the Tories urged Petitions to the King only; and when the Whigs proposed making military preparations, the Tories urged them to adhere to the Non-Importation and Non-Exportation Agreements. And now, when a Declaration of Independence is absolutely necessary for our safety and future welfare, they tell us to rely upon our arms, and Great Britain will soon come down to our terms. Talk to them of the numbers and enterprising spirit of our troops, and they will tell you they are no match for the power of Britain. Talk to them of a foreign alliance, and they tell you that all foreign Courts are perfidious, and urge you to depend only upon yourselves. Propose Declarations of Independence in a Committee or Convention, and they will tell you that it is the business of the Congress only to make us independent. Let the Congress pass a resolve for suppressing all authority derived from the King of Britain in the United Colonies, and they will tell you no Congress has a right to interfere with the “domestick police” of a Colony, although this police is derived directly from the Crown. Talk to them of the necessity of instituting a Government under the authority of the people, and they will tell you that our present Government is sufficient for all the exigencies of our affairs, although all power—legislative, executive, and judicial—is lodged in one body, by which means we live under a species of Government which has always been reprobated by good men as the worst in the world. In a word, the history of mankind does not furnish a more absurd or ridiculous character than that of a Tory, or a pretended moderate man.

It is now high time, my dear countrymen, to emancipate yourselves from the delusions of such artful men. You have been told that you are unfit to have any share in the formation of a new Government; and yet you are acknowledged at the same time to compose nine-tenths of the people of Pennsylvania. Strange that the majority should yield to the minority in a matter of so much consequence! But your leaders, it is said, are men of no fortune. I deny the charge. In the first place, you have no leaders—you all act from the impulses of publick and not party spirit; and in the second place, you have nine-tenths of the property of Pennsylvania on your side the question. But you are told that you are all aiming at offices and power. Suppose this were true, you are just in your aims, for all offices and power belong solely to you, and are in your gift.

Here I cannot help making a digression from my subject. It was a custom among the Jews, on certain occasions, to acknowledge the origin of their families as an antidote to pride. ” A Syrian ready to perish was my father,” was the confession with which they approached the Temple. Suppose the same acknowledgment was demanded from some of our uncommon people. I believe the answer should be, a poor tradesman, a day-labourer, or a vagrant, “ready to perish, was my father.” Talk not, ye pretenders to rank and gentility, of your elevated stations. They are derived from those very people whom you treat with so much contempt. Talk not of their vulgar countenances and behaviour. Their vulgarity is seated only in their manners; it occupies a higher place among yourselves—it is seated in your minds. This the profane, obscene, and trifling conversation so peculiar to high-life abundantly witnesses. Had you concurred in the present virtuous and necessary measure of instituting a new Government, you would have probably continued to occupy your posts and offices, with that additional lustre which they would have received from being the unbiased gifts of freemen; but you have now forfeited the confidence of the people by despising their authority; and you have furnished them with a suspicion that in taking up arms you yielded only to the violence of the times, or that you meant to fight for your offices, and not for your country.

A WATCHMAN.

PETITION SIGNED BY A NUMBER OP INHABITANTS OF NEW-JERSEY, AND ADDRESSED TO THE PROVINCIAL CONGRESS SITTING AT BURLINGTON, JUNE, 1776.

Permit us, gentlemen, to assure you that although we daily experience and sincerely lament, in common with our fellow-subjects, inhabitants of the Colonies, the calamitous consequences of the present unhappy controversy with Great Britain, we cannot but think that we should ill discharge the duty we owe to our country, ourselves, our children, and posterity, if we neglected to exert ourselves, by every effort in our power, to prevent our condition, though truly deplorable, from becoming perfectly desperate; which we are convinced must necessarily be the consequence, if a total separation from, and independency of, the Government of