nies, for the restoration and establishment of our just rights, civil and religious, and for renewing that harmony and union between Great Britain and the colonies, so earnestly wished for by all good men.

18. Whereas, the universal uneasiness which prevails among all orders of men, arising from the wicked and oppressive measures of the present administration, may influence some unthinking persons to commit outrages upon private property: we would heartily recommend to all persons of this community, not to engage in any routs, riots, or licentious attacks upon the property of any persons whatsoever, as being subversive of all order and government; but by a steady, manly, uniform, and persevering opposition, to convince our enemies, that in a contest so important, in a cause so solemn, our conduct shall be such as to merit the approbation of the wise, and the admiration of the brave and free of every age and of every country.

19. That should our enemies, by any sudden invasion, render it necessary for us to ask the aid and assistance of our brethren in the country, some one of the committee of correspondence, or a selectman of such town, or the town adjoining where such hostilities shall commence, or shall be expected to commence, shall despatch couriers with written messages to the selectmen or committees of correspondence of the several towns in the vicinity, with a written account of such matters, who shall despatch others to committees or selectmen more remote, till proper and sufficient assistance be obtained; and that the expense of said couriers be defrayed by the county, until it shall be otherwise ordered by the provincial congress.

Voted, That Joseph Warren, Esq. and Doct. Benjamin Church, of Boston, Deacon Joseph Palmer and Col. Ebenezer Thayer, of Braintree, Capt. Lemuel Robinson, William Holden, Esq. and Capt. John Homans, of Dorchester, Capt. William Heath, of Roxbury, Col. William Taylor and Doct. Samuel Gardner, of Milton, Isaac Gardner, Esq., Capt. Benjamin White and Capt. Thomas Aspinwall, of Brookline, Nathaniel Sumner, Esq. and Mr. Richard Woodward, of Dedham, be a committee to wait on his excellency the governor, to inform him that this county are alarmed at the fortifications making on Boston neck, and to remonstrate against the same, and the repeated insults offered by the soldiery to persons passing and repassing into that town, and to confer with him upon those subjects.

WILLIAM THOMPSON, Clerk.

The committee appointed at the convention, accordingly prepared, and on Monday, September 12th, 1774, presented the following address, viz. :

To his Excellency Thomas Gage, Esq., Captain General and Commander in Chief of his Majesty's province of Massachusetts Bay.

May it please your Excellency:-The county of Suffolk, being greatly, and in their opinion, justly alarmed, at the formidable appearances of hostility, now threatening his majesty's good subjects of this country, and more par

ticularly of the town of Boston, the loyal and faithful capital of this province, beg leave to address your excellency, and to represent, that the apprehensions of the people are more especially increased by the dangerous design now carrying into execution, of repairing and mantling the fortification at the south entrance of the town of Boston, which, when completed, may, at any time, be improved to aggravate the miseries of that already impoverished and distressed city, by intercepting the wonted and necessary intercourse between the town and country, and compel the wretched inhabitants to the most ignominious state of humiliation and vassallage, I y depriving them of the necessary supplies of provisions, for which they are chiefly dependant on that communication.

We have been informed, that your excellency, in consequence of the application of the selectmen of Boston, has, indeed, disavowed any intention to injure the town in your present manœuvres, and expressed your purpose to be for the security of the troops and his majesty's subjects in the town. We are at a loss to guess, may it please your excellency, from whence your want of confidence in the loyal and orderly people of this country could originate. A measure so formidable, carried into execution from a preconceived though causeless jealousy of the insecurity of his majesty's troops and subjects in the town, deeply wounds the loyalty, and is an additional injury to the faithful subjects of this country, and affords a strong motive for this application. We therefore entreat your excellency, to desist from your design, assuring your excellency, that the people of this county are by no means disposed to injure his majesty's troops; they think themselves aggrieved and oppressed by the late acts of parliament, and are resolved, by divine assistance, never to submit to them; but have no inclination to commence a war with his majesty's troops; and beg leave to observe to your excellency, that the ferment now excited in the minds of the people, is occasioned by some late transactions, by seizing the powder in the arsenal at Charlestown, by withholding the powder lodged in the magazine of the town of Boston from the legal proprietors, insulting, beating, and abusing passengers to and from the town by the soldiery, in which they have been encouraged by some of their officers, putting the people in fear, and menacing them in their nightly patrols into the neighboring towns, and more particularly, by fortifying the sole avenue by land to the town of Boston. In duty, therefore, to his majesty, and to your excellency, and for the restoration of order and security in this county, we, the delegates from the several towns in this county, being commissioned for this purpose, beg your excellency's attention to this our humble and faithful address, assuring you,that nothing less than an immediate removal of the ordnance, and restoring the entrance into that town to its former state, and an effectual stop of all insults and abuses in future, can place the inhabitants of this county in that state of peace and tranquillity, in which every free subject ought to live.

By order of the committee,

Boston, Sept. 10, 1774.

JOSEPH WARREN, Chairman.

To which address, his excellency was pleased to make the following an

swer:

GENTLEMEN: I hoped the assurances I gave the selectmen of Boston, on the subject of your address to me, had been satisfactory to every body. I cannot possibly intercept the intercourse between the town and the country; it is my duty and interest to encourage it; and it is as much inconsistent with my duty and interest to form the strange scheme you are pleased to suggest, of reducing the inhabitants to a state of humiliation and vassallage, by stopping their supplies; nor have I made it easier to effect this, than wl at nature has made it. You mention the soldiers insulting, beating, and abusing passengers as a common thing; an instance, perhaps, may be given of the bad behavior of some disorderly soldiers; but 1 must appeal to the inhabitants of both town and country, for their general good behavior, from their first arrival to this tin e. I would ask, what occasion there is for such numbers going armed in and out of the town, and through the country, in an hostile manner? Or, why were the guns removed, privately, in the night, from the battery at Charlestown?

The refusing submission to the late acts of parliament, I find general throughout the province; and I shall lay the same before his majesty.

THOMAS GAGE.

Sept. 12, 1774.

The committee of the delegates from the several towns in the county of Suffolk, who presented the address to the governor, on receiving his answer, met together, and having carefully perused the same, were of opinion, that his excellency's answer could not be deemed satisfactory to the county. And further thought, his excellency, in his reply, had been pleased to propose several questions, which, if unanswered by the committee, would leave on the minds of persons not fully acquainted with the state of facts, some very disagreeable impressions concerning the conduct and behavior of the people in this county and province. And the following address was unanimously voted to his excellency.

May it please your Excellency :-The answer you have been pleased to favor us with, to the address this day presented to you, gives us satisfaction so far as it relates to your own intentions; and we thank your excellency, for the declaration which you have made, that it is your duty and interest to encourage an intercourse between town and country; and we entreat your indulgence, while we modestly reply to the questions proposed in your anYour excellency is too well acquainted with the human heart not to be sensible, that it is natural for the people to be soured by oppression, and jealous for their personal security, when their exertions for the preservation of their rights are construed into treason and rebellion. Our liberties are invaded by acts of the British parliament; troops arc sent to enforce those

swer.

acts; they are now erecting fortifications at the entrance of the town of Boston; upon the completing those, the inhabitants of the town of Boston will be in the power of a soldiery, who must implicitly obey the orders of an administration, who have hitherto evinced no singular regard to the liberties of America. The town is already greatly impoverished and distressed by the operation of the barbarous port-bill. Your excellency, we are persuaded, from principles of humanity, would refuse to be an actor in the tragical scene that must ensue upon shutting up the avenues to the town, and reducing the inhabitants by distress and famine, to a disgraceful and slavish submission; but that cruel work may possibly be reserved for a successor, disposed and instructed thereto. Daily supplies of provisions are necessary for the subsistence of the inhabitants of the town. The country, disgusted and jealous at the formidable operations now carrying on, survey with horror, a plan concerted, whereby the inhabitants of the town of Boston may be imprisoned and starved, at the will of a military commander. They kindly invite them to abandon the town, and earnestly solicit them to share the homely banquet of peace in the country. Should their refusal involve them in miseries hitherto unheard of, and hardly conceived of, the country must stand acquitted, and will not hold their liberties so loosely, as to sacrifice them to the obstinacy of their brethren in Boston.

Your excellency has been pleased to order the powder from the magazine in Charlestown; to forbid the delivery of the powder in the magazine of Boston to the legal proprietors; to seize the cannon at Cambridge; and to bring a formidable number from Castle-William, which are now placed at the entrance of the town of Boston; and has, likewise, in addition to the troops now here, been pleased to send for reenforcements to Quebec, and other parts of the continent. These things, Sir, together with the dispositions of the ships of war, we humbly think, sufficiently justify the proceedings for which your excellency seems to be at loss to account.

Your excellency has suggested, that nature has made it easy to cut off the communication between town and country. Our only request is, that the entrance into the town may remain as nature has formed it. If security to his majesty's troops is the only design in the late manœuvre, we beg leave to assure your excellency, that the most certain, and by far the most honorable method of making them secure and safe, will be to give the people of the province, the strongest proof that no design is forming against their liberties. And we again solicit your excellency, with that earnestness which becomes us on this important occasion, to desist from every thing which has a tendency to alarm them, and particularly from fortifying the entrance into the town of Boston. We rely on your excellency's wisdom and candor, that in your proposed representation to our common sovereign, you will endeavor to redeem us from the distresses which we apprehend were occasioned by the grossest misinformation, and that you will assure his majesty, that no wish of independence, no adverse sentiments or designs towards his majesty or his troops now here, actuate his good subjects in this colony; but that their sole intention is, to preserve pure and inviolate those rights to which,

as men and English Americans, they are justly entitled, and which have been guarantied to them by his majesty's royal predecessors.

A copy of the foregoing was delivered to Mr. Secretary Flucker, by the chairman, with a desire, that he would, as soon as was convenient, present it to the governor, and request his excellency to appoint a time for receiving it in form. The secretary informed the chairman the ensuing day, that he had seen the governor, and had given him the copy of the address, but, that he declined receiving it in form. The chairman mentioned to him the importance of the business, declaring his belief, that the troops were not in any danger, and that no person had, so far as he had been informed, taken any steps which indicated any hostile intention, until the seizing and carrying off the powder from the magazine in the county of Middlesex; and that if any ill consequences should arise, that should affect the interest of Great Britain, the most candid and judicious, both in Europe and America, would consider the author of the ferment now raised in the minds of the people, as accountable for whatever consequences might follow from it.

He therefore desired the secretary, once more to make application to his excellency, and to state the affair to him in that serious manner which the case seemed to require. The secretary accordingly made a second application to the governor, but received for answer, that he had given all the satisfaction in his power, and he could not see that any further argumentation upon the subject would be to any purpose. Upon this, the committee were again convened, and it was unanimously Resolved, that they had executed the commission intrusted to them by the county, to the utmost of their ability. And after voting that the reply to his excellency's answer should be inserted in the public papers as soon as possible, they adjourned without day.

Every vote passed by the delegates of the county, and by the committee appointed to wait on the governor, was unanimous.

CONVENTION OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY.

Ar a meeting of the following gentlemen, being committees from every town and district in the county of Middlesex, and province of Massachusetts Bay, held at Concord, in said county, on the 30th and 31st days of August, 1774, to consult upon measures proper to be taken at the present very important day, viz.:

Capt. Thomas Gardner, Doct. Samuel Blodget, Capt. Samuel Whittemore, Mr. Loammi Baldwin, Mr. Abraham Watson, Capt. Ezekiel How, Mr. Samuel Thatcher, Mr. John Maynard, Capt. Eliphalet Robbins, Mr. Phinehas Gleason, Capt. Ephraim Frost, Mr. Samson Belcher, Mr. Joseph Wellington, Mr. Thomas Plympton, Mr. Nathaniel Sparhawk, Mr. Hezekiah