advice, and supported us by your strongest influence. If we shall be pushed to a yet greater extremity, your sentiments are perfectly just, that, "If Boston is subjugated, all British America must fall." This sentiment cannot be spread too far and wide. It ought to be inculcated in season and out of season. The yoke of bondage is laid upon our necks; a yoke which neither we nor our fathers have borne. In matters of civil liberty and public oppression, all delay is fatal; the times call for very vigorous_remedies. God grant that America may never see one Province after another plundered, slaughtered and ravaged with impunity. We have the greater number of malignants of any one town on the continent, arising from the causes before hinted. But yet a few, very few comparatively, bowed the knee to Baal. A glorious number, we yet trust, will buckle their hearts to the breastplate, and join hand with the lance, before they will give up their birthright and the goodly heritage of our fathers. You have stretched out to us the hand of your liberality. God reward you a thousand fold. Send up for us the prayers of your love; and may God in mercy answer them for good. We are your obliged friends and countrymen, NATH'L APPLETON, per order. Israel Putnam, Joseph Holland, Daniel Tyler, Jun., Committee of Correspondence for the parish of Brooklyn. 1040 GENTLEMEN, LETTER FROM PRESTON. Preston, Aug. 20th, 1774. At this period of your suffering, and on the reception of your second and third unrighteous Acts of Parliament, usurping authority and oppressing your Town and Province, thereby furnishing a pretext for ruining all the Colonies, we are anxiously looking, that on some indispensable precaution on your part, some important event will take place. We wish you all the wisdom necessary to avoid the blow which, through you, is levelled at this whole continent. We have an enemy to deal with, (Lord North,) that is very subtle in his wiles, like the enemy of our immortal part. It therefore becomes us to be watchful and continually on our guard, and there is great reason to fear that nothing short of another kind of resistance will regain and secure our privileges. Capt. William Belcher, who is one of our Committee, and a zealous friend to the liberties of this country, waits on you with this, and will acquaint you of the spirit of our people and give you a copy of the doings of our Town on the 11th of July last. He will also bring you a small sum of money, toward the relief of your poor. Our subscriptions are still out, and keep adding. They are not yet all collected. I suppose we shall, doubtless, make up about fifty pounds, lawful money. Our Town is small, but well affected in the common cause, and view you as now suffering under the tyranny of the English yoke. It has given us fresh alarm to hear that arms, &c., are not suffered to be brought out of your Town. [We would] be be glad [if] you would furnish us with intelligence of any new artifice of power, and likewise [of] the behavior of your Governor in his common deportment to the people. We are, Gentlemen, your affectionate and sympathizing friends and countrymen, the Committee of Correspondence in behalf of the Town of Preston. P. S.-We received your kind letter in answer to ours, per Jno. Tyler, Esq. To the Committee of Correspondence for the Town of Boston. GENTLEMEN, REPLY TO PRESTON. Boston, August 24th, 1774. We received by Capt. Belcher, your letter of the 20th, and the sum of money you were kind enough to send, for the support of our poor. It gives us pleasure, amidst our sufferings, to find our brethren determined to assist and support us while we are struggling for American freedom. Our enemies, we know, will use every artifice that hell can suggest and human power can execute, to enslave us, but we are determined not to submit. We choose to effect our salvation from bondage by policy, rather than by arms,considering that the blood of freemen who fight for their country, is of more value than the blood of a soldiery who fight for pay. We doubt not but a virtuous continental adherence to a non-importation, non-exportation, and nonconsumption agreement, will produce such changes in Britain, as will compel them to give us every thing we wish. But if this should fail, and we should be obliged to seek redress in the way you have hinted, we flatter ourselves that we shall act like men, and merit the approbation of all America. The conduct of our adversaries is to us astonishing. Policy is no more their guide than justice. They have shut their eyes against daylight, and if they lead the British nation into the pit they have digged for us, the blame must be laid at their own door. The motions of our Governor are like those of other machines-they move as they are directed. He is clad in the garb of ministerial instructions, and has declared his determination implicitly to obey them. We shall always receive with gratitude your advice and assistance, not doubting but the end of our warfare will be Freedom to America. We are, with sincerity, Gentlemen, your very humble servants, J. WARREN, Per order of the Com mittee of Donations. P. S.-The arms have been several times detained in going out of town, but never finally stopt; even if a private gentleman carries one out of town with him for diversion, he is not permitted to bring it back again. To the Gentlemen, the Committee of the Town of Preston. GENTLEMEN, LETTER FROM KILLINGLY. Killingly, Aug. 23d, 1774. The Town of Killingly, sympathizing with their brethren and fellow-patriots of the Town of Boston, who are now suffering in the glorious cause of liberty, by reason of that unconstitutional and oppressive Port Bill, for blocking up your harbor, espouse the cause in which you suffer, and are sensibly affected therewith. We flatter ourselves that these few sheep may be received as a token of gratitude, which not only we, but a whole continent, owe to you, who have so eminently exerted yourselves in the cause of liberty. The noble and resolute stand you have made, in favor of the mutual interest of the Colonies, has given us, as also every friend of liberty, the highest esteem and most unfeigned regard for your patriotism. And our gratitude we cannot more fully express, than by such acts of kindness and benevolence. It is to such as you, under God, we owe the glory of our liberty. We lament the oppression you meet with, yet rejoice that neither the threats or caresses of the mighty are sufficient to taint your virtue, or stifle the ardor which glows in your bosoms. May you resolutely stand fast in the liberty in which the God of nature has made you free, and may your patriotic virtues shine with increasing lustre, and your influence be as extensive as your generous wishes. We assure you, in the name of this Town, that we are well united, and it is the determination and sentiment of our people to maintain their privileges at the risk of their lives and fortunes; and we hope we shall be always ready to contribute, as far as lies in our power, to the necessities of those more immediately called to suffer in the cause. Finally, may we all be united, and we and you see the happy time when Parliament and Liberty meet together, and Britain and America kiss each other, to the joy and satisfaction of every son of Liberty, and the amazement and confusion of all those who wish not well to our political welfare. These are the undissembled wishes and desires of, Gentlemen, your most obedient, humble servants, BRIANT BROWN, BENJA. LEAVENS, PERLEY HOWE, To William Phillips, Esq. and company, Overseers of the Poor of Boston. Committee of Correspondence for Killingly. GENTLEMEN, LETTER FROM EAST HADDAM. East Haddam, Aug. 24th, 1774. of The Town of East Haddam, in the Colony of Connecticut, taking into their serious consideration, in a legal town meeting, the alarming and distressed circumstances that the inhabitants of the Town of Boston are brought into, by the very extraordinary Acts of the British Parliament, in blocking the Town and Port, whereby many your industrious inhabitants are deprived of the means of providing their daily support, and will necessarily bring a very great burthen on the said Town, while they are suffering in the common cause of all America: and, being fully convinced that it is the determination of the British Parliament, in course, to attack all the Provinces and Colonies on the continent of British America, unless they submit to a Parliamentary Tax, &c., think it their duty to do every thing in their power to maintain their liberties and privileges, which they ever ought to have and enjoy as English subjects; in which opinion the inhabitants of this Town are agreed, almost to a man, and as you are the first that are attacked, as the head of all America, and so more immediately suffering, yet all the members in a greater or lesser degree are suffering with you, though not in the means of their present support and subsistences. Under which circumstances the Town of East Haddam, though a small Town, thought it their duty to contribute their mite for the relief of your poor, and thought fit to recommend a subscription for said purpose, and appointed us, the subscribers, a Committee to receive and transmit the same to the Overseers of the Poor of Boston. In pursuance of which, we have collected a few cattle and sheep, which are the free gift of said Town of East Haddam, by subscription, without any reward, or hopes thereof, (as our enemies would insinuate,) which we have committed to the care of Mr. Israel Champion, of said East Haddam, to be transmitted to said Overseers, for them to see used and improved as they see cause, for the purpose aforesaid, hoping that the same will be received, (though a small gift,) as a sincere |