PREFACE. THIRTEEN years of the annals of Rhode Island are included in this volume; i. e. from the year 1757, to the year 1769, both inclusive. The struggle between Great Britain and France for the ascendancy in North America, the beginning of which was narrated in the previous volume of these records, is continued in this; indeed, the history of, and correspondence connected with, this important event, constitutes the larger portion of its matter. In the campaigns against the French, on the northern frontier, the troops of Rhode Island took an active part, as the correspondence of the principal actors in these events, will show. The letters of General Lord Amherst, General Abercrombie, Lord Loudoun, Admirals Colville, Durell, the Commissioners of Trade and Foreign Plantations, William Pitt, the Earls of Hillsborough and Egremont, etc., etc., are quite numerous in the volume. Among other topics of interest to which it has reference, are the campaigns against Canada, and the French fortresses at Fort William Henry, Ticonderoga, Oswego, Niagara, etc. The particulars connected with the convention of British colonies at New York, in the year 1765, in which Rhode Island took part, with the instructions from the respective colonies to their commissioners; the resolutions passed; the report of the convention; together with the memorials to the King, and Houses of Lords and Commons,-will be found at length in this volume. The important paper drawn up by Stephen Hopkins, by order of the General Assembly, in 1764, entitled "The Rights of the Colonies Examined," is printed at length. This celebrated essay was printed in Providence, and afterwards re-printed in London, where it produced a sensation. The events connected with the passage of the famous stamp act, by the British Parliament, the resistance to which was but a foreshadowing of the more serious resistance which followed a few years later, also took place during the period included in this volume, and are duly recorded therein. The originals of nearly all the letters and documents published in this volume, are among the archives of the State. PROVIDENCE, January, 1861. J. R. B. |