From the large number of ancient documents that have been submitted to the publishers two are here printed as of special interest and value. The first contains a vote passed at town-meeting in 1809, showing the temper of the inhabitants of Amherst in the days immediately preceding the war of 1812, the second gives a graphic account of the burning of a small-pox hospital, one of the first established in this section. TOWN VOTE IN 1809. At a legal Town meeting of the freeholders and other Inhabitants of the town of Amherst, holden on the 30 day of January 1809, for the purpose of considering the alarming state of the country, the following resolves were passed: viz. Whereas it is the right as well as the duty of citizens peaceably to assemble, and express their opinion of public men and public measures; as well as petition the government for redress of grievances, while they suffer: And whereas the exercise of this right and this duty become all important. At this awful crisis of our public concerns, when grievous and embarrassing restraints are laid upon our commerce: when we are forbidden the use of the ocean, that great highway of nations, which we have inherited from our Fathers, and which the God of Nature hath given us, in common with others of mankind. When the natural and lawful traffic among ourselves is, under the sanction of law, shackled in almost every possible manner; when in consequence thereof, distress and embarrassment are felt by every class in the community, and many thousands of our valuable citizens thrown out of employment, and themselves. their wives, and children, thereby reduced to want and beggary: When we are threatened as a nation, with hostility from abroad, and with a military despotism from within; In fine, when one universal ruin threatens to swallow up the rights liberties and independence of our country, the dearest birthright inherited from our ancestors, and the choicest blessings which the God of Nature hath been pleased to bestow upon us. We the people of this town, feeling a deep and solemn sense of the calamities and disastrous situation, into which these United States are plunged; and the duty lying upon us and all good citizens, to rally round the Constitution of our country, and bear public testimony to our rights; and our abhorrence of all such whether in or out of power, who dare to invade them, do hereby resolve: I. That we are firmly and inviolably attached to the constitution of the United States, and to that charter of our liberties, under God, and a faithful adherence to its principles, under the administrations of WASHINGTON and ADAMS, do we ascribe our unexampled prosperity, as a nation, during the first twelve years of its existence. 2. That in all countries, a distinction ought to be made between the government and the administration of the government. The constitution of government may be pure, and the administration corrupt. And in our own country. while we admire our national constitution, and the republican principles contained therein, as explained and illustrated by the administration of a WASHINGTON: we are constrained to believe, and with sorrow to express this belief, that the measures pursued by our present administration, for these eight years, have an anti-republican tendency, and are contrary to the spirit and genius of our excellent constitution. Eight years ago, we were respected abroad, we were happy at home, at peace with ourselves, and with all the world; we were engaged in a lucrative commerce, our treasury and our store houses were full, and we were strangers to the cries of want. But through the unskilfulness of our present administration, as a nation, we are despised abroad, among foreign nations; we are in distress at home: we are in a state of warfare among ourselves, and with all the world. Our commerce is destroyed, our treasury and our pockets are empty; and our poverty continually increasing upon us. 3. That the reason assigned by the government for passing the catalogue of Embargo Laws, are in our estimation totally insufficient for a measure, so doubtful in principle, and so ruinous in its consequences to the people of these United States. 4. That whatever reasons might have existed, at the commencement of the Embargo system, they must now be done away, as the prohibitions thereby laid on our commerce are known to be pleasing to France and harmless towards Great Britain, and to generate evils for the people of these United States, incalculably greater than for any nation on earth, and that therefore, a continuance of the Embargo, by the administration, is a wanton sacrifice of the interests of the people, and an abandonment of the principles of the Constitution. 5. That the rights and privileges guaranteed to us by our national and state constitutions and bill of rights, are essential to the security of freedom, and that any laws annulling or infringing those important immunities, is contrary to the Constitution; and not obligatory upon the citizen. And that therefore, the late act of Congress making further provision for enforcing the embargo, strikes at the root of civil liberty, and is a gross and violent outrage of the most essential provision of the Constitution, and the rights of the people. 6. That we view with alarm, the increase of the standing army of the United States and the numerous detachments from the militia, as we can see no reason therefor, unless it be, to enforce obedience to a wicked and obnoxious law, at the point of the bayonet. 7. That we view with deepest concern, the obstinate determination of the administration, to persist in a measure once adopted against the prayers and remonstrances of a large portion of their constituents, and we believe against the true interests of our country. Most of all do we deplore that cool and deliberate tyranny, which at present pervades our public councils, and which, unless arrested, by the genius of New England, will inevitably lead to a more confirmed despotism, or to a division of these United States. 8. And that we will use all constitutional measures to procure redress of the evils and calamities which we in common with our fellow citizens of the United States suffer; and inasmuch as our former petitions to the President of the United States have been unattended to, we will confide in the wisdom and patriotism of the Legislature of our own state, to devise such methods, as they may deem consistent with the Constitution, to restore the sinking interests and honor of our common country. SAMUEL GAMWELL, Moderator. Attest SAM. F. DICKINSON, Town Clerk. THE PROCEEDINGS OF BURNING THE HOSPITAL. Hadley November the 7 1776 on thursday the 7 day of November Sun about one hour high at night there came to us as we were In the hospital of Doct Colmans erecting three men who were said by those who knew them that they were Paterson and Cofrin of Pelham and -toon of Amherst and orderd us to leave the hospital and go of or we must take the fate of staying we told them that we should Not leave the house for we came In by order and we meant to Stay they told us that the house should not stand one hour and half and went away and In the fore part of the evening of the above mentiond day there came the above mentined Paterson and asked If we did not Intend to go of and leave the house we told him we did not there Immediately apeard a larg body of men I Judge Not less than forty and cried out fire It Some Says not yet but within two or three minutes there was a general voice fire Immediately upon that Reuben Dickinson Junr Benjamin Buckman and Samuel Buckman run Into the house and took fire from the herth and put It Into a slawbunk and knoct the slaw bunk to peices and put on the fire In the slaw bunk and gatherd other fuel and put to the fire and knoct the windows to peices and soon got the house all In a flame besides the above mentioned Names I saw In the Body Noah Dickinson Noadiah Luis James hendrick all of Amherst a true account of the Proceedings of this Burning fiveteen of us out of our house who were under Enoculation according to my observation. NATHANIEL WHITE. Index of Part I. Abbe, Mason 79, 609 Adams, Charles B 177, 180, Adams, Charles D 268, 412, Adams, David 83, 612 412 Adams, Isaiah 599, 600 514, 520 | Adams, William 463 Ainsworth, Forester 414 Aitcheson, John S 494 Alexander, C L 304 Allen, B W 409, 437, 450, Allen, Benjamin 300, 388 Allen, Jonathan 93, 612 Alvord, Moses 84 144, 147-149, 153, 155-182, Anderson, William 513,520 Ayres, Amos 85, 113, 600, Backus, Simon 110 376, 538, 576, 504, 585 |