another, that of emptying our jails into their settlements; Scotland, too, having within these two years obtained the privilege it had not before, of sending its rogues and villains also to the plantations. I say, reflecting on these things, they said one to another (their newspapers are full of such discourses): "These people are not content with making a monopoly of us, forbidding us to trade with any other country of Europe, and compelling us to buy everything of them, though in many articles we could furnish ourselves ten, twenty, and even fifty per cent. cheaper elsewhere; but now they have as good as declared they have a right to tax us ad libitum internally and externally; and that our constitutions and liberties shall all be taken away if we do not submit to that claim. 46 'They are not content with the high prices at which they sell us their goods, but have now begun to enhance those prices by new duties; and, by the expensive apparatus of a new set of officers appear to intend a new augmentation and multiplication of those burdens that shall still be more grievous to us. Our people have been foolishly fond of their superfluous modes and manufactures, to the impoverishing our own country, carrying off all our cash, and loading us with debt; they will not suffer us to restrain the luxury of our inhabitants as they do that of their own, by laws; they can make laws to discourage or prohibit the importation of French superfluities, but though those of England are as ruinous to us as the French ones are to them, if we make a law of that kind they immediately repeal it. Let "Thus they get all our money from us by trade; and every profit we can anywhere make by our fisheries, our produce, or our commerce, centres finally with them; but this does not signify. It is time, then, to take care of ourselves by the best means in our power. us unite in solemn resolution and engagements with and to each other, that we will give these new officers as little trouble as possible, by not consuming the British manufactures on which they are to levy the duties. Let us agree to consume no more of their expensive gewgaws. Let us live frugally, and let us industriously manufacture what we can for ourselves; thus we shall be able honorably to discharge the debts we already owe them, and after that we may be able to keep some money in our country, not only for the uses of our internal commerce, but for the service of our gracious Sovereign, whenever he shall have occasion for it, and think proper to require it of us in the old constitutional manner. For, notwithstanding the reproaches thrown out against us in their public papers and pamphlets, notwithstanding we have been reviled in their Senate as rebels and traitors, we are truly a loyal people. Scotland has had its rebellions, and England its plots against the present royal family; but America is untainted with those crimes; there is in it scarce a man, there is not a single native of our country, who is not firmly attached to his King by principle and by affection. "But a new kind of loyalty seems to be required of us—a loyalty to Parliament; a loyalty that is to extend, it is said, to a surrender of all our properties, whenever a House of Commons, in which there is not a single member of our choosing, shall think fit to grant them away without our consent; and to a patient suffering the loss of our privileges as Englishmen, if we cannot submit to make such surrender. We were separated too far from Britain by the ocean, but we were united to it by respect and love, so that we could at any time freely have spent our lives and little fortunes in its cause; but this unhappy new system of politics tends to dissolve those bands of union, and to sever us forever. These are the wild ravings of the, at present, half distracted Americans. To be sure, no reasonable man in England can approve of such sentiments, and, as I said before, I do not pretend to support or justify them; but I sincerely wish, for the sake of the manufactures and commerce of Great Britain, and for the sake of the strength, which a firm union with our growing colonies would give us, that these people had never been thus needlessly driven out of their senses. I am yours, etc., F. S. TO THE SONS OF LIBERTY. SAMUEL ADAMS. DEARLY BELOVED : Boston, March 18, 1769. Revolving time hath brought about another anniversary of the repeal of the odious Stamp Act-an act framed to divest us of our liberties and to bring us to slavery, poverty, and misery. The resolute stand made by the Sons of Liberty against the detestable policy had more effect in bringing on the repeal than any conviction in the Parliament in Great Britain of the injustice and iniquity of the act. It was repealed from principles of convenience to Old England, and accompanied with a declaration of their right to tax us; and since, the same Parliament have passed acts which, if obeyed in the colonies, will be equally fatal. Although the people of Great Britain be only fellow-subjects, they have of late assumed a power to compel us to buy at their market such things as we want of European produce and manufacture; and at the same time, have taxed many of the articles for the express purpose of a revenue; and, for the collection of the duties have sent fleets, armies, commissioners, guardacostas, judges of admiralty, and A, P.-2. another, that of emptying our jails into their settlements; Scotland, too, having within these two years obtained the privilege it had not before, of sending its rogues and villains also to the plantations. I say, reflecting on these things, they said one to another (their newspapers are full of such discourses): "These people are not content with making a monopoly of us, forbidding us to trade with any other country of Europe, and compelling us to buy everything of them, though in many articles we could furnish ourselves ten, twenty, and even fifty per cent. cheaper elsewhere; but now they have as good as declared they have a right to tax us ad libitum internally and externally; and that our constitutions and liberties shall all be taken away if we do not submit to that claim. "They are not content with the high prices at which they sell us their goods, but have now begun to enhance those prices by new duties; and, by the expensive apparatus of a new set of officers appear to intend a new augmentation and multiplication of those burdens that shall still be more grievous to us. Our people have been foolishly fond of their superfluous modes and manufactures, to the impoverishing our own country, carrying off all our cash, and loading us with debt; they will not suffer us to restrain the luxury of our inhabitants as they do that of their own, by laws; they can make laws to discourage or prohibit the importation of French superfluities, but though those of England are as ruinous to us as the French ones are to them, if we make a law of that kind they immediately repeal it. Let "Thus they get all our money from us by trade; and every profit we can anywhere make by our fisheries, our produce, or our commerce, centres finally with them; but this does not signify. It is time, then, to take care of ourselves by the best means in our power. us unite in solemn resolution and engagements with and to each other, that we will give these new officers as little trouble as possible, by not consuming the British manufactures on which they are to levy the duties. Let us agree to consume no more of their expensive gewgaws. Let us live frugally, and let us industriously manufacture what we can for ourselves; thus we shall be able honorably to discharge the debts we already owe them, and after that we may be able to keep some money in our country, not only for the uses of our internal commerce, but for the service of our gracious Sovereign, whenever he shall have occasion for it, and think proper to require it of us in the old constitutional manner. For, notwithstanding the reproaches thrown out against us in their public papers and pamphlets, notwithstanding we have been reviled in their Senate as rebels and traitors, we are truly a loyal people. Scotland has had its rebellions, and England its plots against the present royal family; but America is untainted with those crimes; there is in it scarce a man, there is not a single native of our country, who is not firmly attached to his King by principle and by affection. "But a new kind of loyalty seems to be required of us-a loyalty to Parliament; a loyalty that is to extend, it is said, to a surrender of all our properties, whenever a House of Commons, in which there is not a single member of our choosing, shall think fit to grant them away without our consent; and to a patient suffering the loss of our privileges as Englishmen, if we cannot submit to make such surrender. We were separated too far from Britain by the ocean, but we were united to it by respect and love, so that we could at any time freely have spent our lives and little fortunes in its cause; but this unhappy new system of politics tends to dissolve those bands of union, and to sever us forever. These are the wild ravings of the, at present, half distracted Americans. To be sure, no reasonable man in England can approve of such sentiments, and, as I said before, I do not pretend to support or justify them; but I sincerely wish, for the sake of the manufactures and commerce of Great Britain, and for the sake of the strength, which a firm union with our growing colonies would give us, that these people had never been thus needlessly driven out of their senses. I am yours, etc., F. S. TO THE SONS OF LIBERTY. SAMUEL ADAMS. Boston, March 18, 1769. DEARLY BELOVED: Revolving time hath brought about another anniversary of the repeal of the odious Stamp Act—an act framed to divest us of our liberties and to bring us to slavery, poverty, and misery. The resolute stand made by the Sons of Liberty against the detestable policy had more effect in bringing on the repeal than any conviction in the Parliament in Great Britain of the injustice and iniquity of the act. It was repealed from principles of convenience to Old England, and accompanied with a declaration of their right to tax us; and since, the same Parliament have passed acts which, if obeyed in the colonies, will be equally fatal. Although the people of Great Britain be only fellow-subjects, they have of late assumed a power to compel us to buy at their market such things as we want of European produce and manufacture; and at the same time, have taxed many of the articles for the express purpose of a revenue; and, for the collection of the duties have sent fleets, armies, commissioners, guardacostas, judges of admiralty, and A. P.-2. a host of petty officers, whose insolence and rapacity are become in. tolerable. Our cities are garrisoned; the peace and order which here. tofore dignified our streets are exchanged for the horrid blasphemies and outrage of soldiers; our trade is obstructed; our vessels and cargoes, the effects of industry, violently seized; and, in a word, every species of injustice that a wicked and debauched Ministry could invent is practised against the most sober, industrious, and loyal people that ever lived in society. The joint supplications of all the colonies have been rejected, and letters and mandates, in terms of the highest affront and indignity, have been transmitted from little and insignificant servants of the Crown to his Majesty's grand and august sovereignties in America. These things being so, it becomes us, my brethren, to walk worthy of our vocation, to use every lawful means to frustrate the wicked designs of our enemies at home and abroad, and to unite against the evil and pernicious machinations of those who would destroy us. I judge that nothing can have a better tendency to this grand end than encouraging our own manufactures, and a total disuse of foreign superfluities. When I consider the corruption of Great Britain, their load of debt, their intestine divisions, tumults and riots, their scarcity of provisions, and the contempt in which they are held by the nations about them; and when I consider, on the other hand, the state of the American colonies with regard to the various climates, soils, produce, rapid population, joined to the virtue of the inhabitants, I cannot but think that the conduct of Old England towards us may be permitted by Divine wisdom, and ordained by the unsearchable providence of the Almighty, for hastening a period dreadful to Great Britain. "A SON OF LIBERTY." LETTERS FROM "FARMER."-LETTER XII. JOHN DICKINSON. Philadelphia, February 15, 1768. MY DEAR COUNTRYMEN-Some states have lost their liberty by particular accidents: but this calamity is generally owing to the decay of virtue. A people is travelling fast to destruction, when individuals consider their interests as distinct from those of the public. Such notions are fatal to their country, and to themselves. Yet how many are there, so weak and sordid as to think they perform all the offices |