To the People of Great Britain, from the delegates appointed by the several English Colonies of New Hampshire, &c.

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'In almost every age, in repeated conflicts, in long and bloody wars, as well civil as foreign, against many and powerful nations, against the open assaults of enemies, and the more dangerous treachery of friends, have the inhabitants of your island, your great and glorious ancestors, maintained their independence and transmitted the rights of men, and the blessings of liberty, to you their posterity.

'Be not surprised, therefore, that we, who are descended from the same common ancestors; that we, whose forefathers participated in all the rights, the liberties, and the Constitution, you so justly boast of, and who have carefully conveyed the same fair inheritance to us, guaranteed by the plighted faith of government and the most solmen compacts with British sovereigns, should refuse to surrender them to men, who found their claims on no principles of reason, and who prosecute them with a design, that by having our lives and property in their power, they may with the greatest facility enslave you.

'The cause of America is now the object of universal attention: it has at length become very serious. This unhappy country has not only been oppressed, but abused and misrepresented; and the duty we owe to ourselves and posterity, to your interest, and the general welfare of the British empire, leads us to address you on this very important subject.

Know then, that we consider ourselves, and do insist, that we are and ought to be as free as our fellow subjects in Britain, and that no power on earth has a right to take our property from us without our consent.

'That we claim all the benefits secured to the subject by the English Constitution.

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'The Parliament assert, that they have a right to bind us in all cases without exception, whether we consent or not.

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'Such declarations we consider heresies in English politics.

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'We call upon you yourselves, to witness our loyalty and attachment to the common interest of the whole empire: did we not, in the last war, add all the strength of this vast continent to the force which repelled our common enemy? Did we not leave our native shores, and meet disease and death, to promote the success of British arms in foreign climates? Did you not thank us for our zeal, and even reimburse us large sums of money, which you

confessed we had advanced beyond our proportion, and far beyond our abilities? You did.

'Before we had recovered from the distresses which ever attend war, an attempt was made to drain this country of all its money, by the oppressive Stamp Act. Paint, glass, and other commodities, which you would not permit us to purchase of other nations, were taxed.

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For the necessary support of government here, we ever were and every shall be ready to provide. And whenever the exigencies of the state may require it, we shall, as we have heretofore done, cheerfully contribute our full proportion of men and money. To enforce this unconstitutional and unjust scheme of taxation, every fence that the wisdom of our British ancestors had carefully erected against arbitrary power, has been violently thrown down in America, and the inestimable right of trial by jury taken away in cases that touch both life and property.

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'It gives us pain to be reduced to the necessity of reminding you, that under the confidence reposed in the faith of government, pledged in a Royal Charter from a British sovereign, the forefathers of the present inhabitants of the Massachusetts Bay, left their former habitations, and established that great, flourishing, and loyal Colony. Without incurring or being charged with a forfeiture of their rights, without being heard, without being tried, without law, and without justice, by an Act of Parliament, their Charter is destroyed, their liberties violated, their Constitution and form of government changed.

'We night tell of dissolute, weak, and wicked Governors, having been set over us; or legislatures being suspended for asserting the rights of British subjects.

'We believe there is yet much virtue, much justice, and much public spirit in the English nation. To that justice we now appeal. You have been told that we are seditious, impatient of government, and desirous of independency. Be assured that these are not facts, but calumnies. Permit us to be as free as yourselves, and we shall ever esteem a union with you to be our greatest glory and our greatest happiness; we shall ever be ready to contribute all in our power to the welfare of the empire; we shall consider your enemies as our enemies, and your interest

as our own.

'But, if you are determined that your ministers shall wantonly sport with the rights of mankind-if neither the voice of justice," the dictates of the law, the principles of the Constitution, or the suggestions of humanity, can restrain your hands from shedding

human blood in such an impious cause, we must then tell you, that we will never submit to be hewers of wood, or drawers of water, for any ministry or nation in the world.

'Place us in the same situation that we were at the close of the last war, and our former harmony will be restored.

'But lest the same supineness, and the same inattention to our common interest, which you have for several years shown, should continue, we think it prudent to anticipate the consequences.

By the destruction of the trade of Boston, the ministry have endeavored to induce submission to their measures. The like fate may befall us all. We will endeavor, therefore, to live without trade, and recur for subsistence to the fertility and bounty of our native soil, which will afford us the necessaries, and some of the conveniences of life. We have suspended our importation from Great Britain and Ireland; and, in less than a year's time, unless our grievances should be redressed, shall discontinue our exports to those kingdoms and the West Indies.

It is with the utmost regret, however, that we find ourselves compelled by the overruling principles of self-preservation, to adopt measures detrimental in their consequences to numbers of our fellow subjects in Great Britain and Ireland. But, we hope that the magnanimity and justice of the British nation will furnish a Parliament of such wisdom, independence, and public spirit, as may save the violated rights of the whole empire from the devices of wicked ministers and evil counsellors, whether in or out of office; and thereby restore that harmony, friendship, and fraternal affection, between all the inhabitants of his Majesty's kingdoms and territories, so ardently wished for by every true and honest American.'

Committee appointed, October 11th.

'October 21. The Congress then resumed the consideration of the memorial to the inhabitants of the British Colonies, and the same being debated by paragraphs and amended, was approved, and is as follows:

'To the inhabitants of the Colonies of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the Counties of Newcastle, Kent and Sussex on Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina:

FRIENDS AND COUNTRYMEN,

We, the Delegates appointed by the good people of these Colonies, to meet at Philadelphia, in September last, for the purposes mentioned by our respective constituents, have in pursuance of the trust reposed in us, assembled, and taken into our most serious consideration, the important matters recommended to the Congress. Our resolutions thereupon will be herewith communicated to you. But, as the situation of public affairs grows daily more and more

alarming; and, as it may be more satisfactory to you, to be informed by us, in a collective body, than in any other manner, of those sentiments that have been approved, upon a full and free discussion, by the representatives of so great a part of America, we feel obliged to add this address to these resolutions.

'In every case of opposition by a people to their rulers, or of one State to another, duty to Almighty God, the Creator of all, requires that a true and impartial judgment be formed of the measures leading to such opposition; and of the causes by which it has been provoked, or can in any degree be justified, that neither affection on the one hand, nor resentment on the other, being permitted to give a wrong bias to reason, it may be enabled to take a dispassionate view of all the circumstances, and to settle the public conduct on the solid foundations of wisdom and justice.

'From councils thus tempered, arise the surest hopes of the Divine favor, the firmest encouragement to the parties engaged, and the strongest recommendation of their cause to the rest of mankind.

'With minds deeply impressed by a sense of these truths, we have diligently, deliberately and calmly enquired into, and considered those exertions, both of the legislative and executive power of Great Britain, which have excited so much uneasiness in America, and have with equal fidelity and attention, considered the conduct of the Colonies.

Upon the whole, we find ourselves reduced to the disagreeable alternative of being silent, and betraying the innocent, or of speaking out, and censuring those we wish to revere. In making our choice of these distressing difficulties, we prefer the course dictated by honesty, and a regard for the welfare of our country.

'Soon after the conclusion of the late war, there commenced a miserable change in the treatment of these Colonies. By a Statute made in the fourth year of the present reign, a time of profound peace, alleging "the expediency of new provisions and regulations for extending the commerce between Great Britain and his majesty's dominions in America, and the necessity of raising a revenue in said dominions, for defraying the expenses of defending, protecting and securing the same," the Commons of Great Britain undertook to give and grant to his Majesty many rates and duties to be paid in these Colonies.

To enforce the observance of this Act, it prescribes a great number of severe penalties and forfeitures; and, in two sections, makes a remarkable distinction between the subjects in Great Britain, and those in America. By the one, the penalties and forfeitures in curred there are to be recovered in any of the King's courts of record, at Westminster, or in the court of Exchequer, in Scotland; and by the other, the penalties and forfeitures incurred here, are to be recovered in any court of record, or in any court of Admiralty or Vice-Admiralty, at the election of the informer or prosecutor.

'The inhabitants of these Colonies, confiding in the justice of Great Britain, were scarcely allowed sufficient time to receive and consider this Act, before another, well known by the name of the Stamp Act, and passed in the fifth year of this reign, engrossed their whole attention. By this Statute the British Parliament exercised, in the most explicit manner, a power of taxing us, and extending the jurisdiction of courts of Admiralty and Vice-Admiralty, in the Colonies to matters arising within the body of a county, and directed the numerous penalties and forfeitures, thereby inflicted, to be recovered in the said courts.

'In the same year, a tax was imposed upon us, by an Act establishing several new fees in the customs. In the next year, the Stamp Act was repealed; not because it was founded in an erroneous principle, but, as the repealing Act recites, because "the continuance thereof would be attended with many inconveniences, and might be productive of consequences greatly detrimental to the commercial interest of Great Britain."

'In the same year, and by a subsequent Act, it was declared, "that his Majesty in parliament, of right, had power to bind the people of these Colonies, by Statutes, in all cases whatsoever."

In the same year another Act was passed, for imposing rates and duties, payable in these Colonies. In this Statute, the Cornmons, avoiding the terms of giving and granting, "humbly besought his Majesty that it might be enacted, &c."

'But, from a declaration in the preamble, that the rates and duties were "in lieu of" several others granted by the Statute, first beforementioned, for raising a revenue, and from some other expressions, it appears that these duties were intended for that purpose.

In the next year, 1767, an Act was made "to enable his Majesty to put the customs, and other duties in America, under the management of commissioners, &c.," and the King, thereupon, erected the present expensive board of commissioners, for the express purpose of carrying into execution the several Acts relating to the revenue and trade in America.

'After the repeal of the Stamp Act, having again resigned ourselves to our ancient unsuspicious affections for the parent State, and anxious to avoid any controversy with her, in hopes of a favorable alteration in sentiments and measures towards us, we did not press our objections against the above-mentioned Statutes, made subsequent to that repeal.

'Administration, attributing to trifling causes a conduct that really proceeded from generous motives, were encouraged in the same year, 1767, to make a bolder experiment on the patience of America.

'By a Statute, commonly called the Glass, Paper, and Tea Act, made fifteen months after the repeal of the Stamp Act, the Commons of Great Britain resumed their former language, and again