From the New York Journal of Dec. 1. TO PHILIP LIVINGTON, JAMES DE LAncy, JACOB WALTON, Esquires, representatives in General Assembly for the city and county of New York. GENTLEMEN:-We, freeholders and freemen of the city and county of New York, having not only seen by the printed proceedings of the honourable house of assembly now sitting, that a requisition of money has lately been made to them for quartering of troops in this city; but having also heard it reported, that they may be in danger of being dissolved, if they presume to read and * answer the Boston letter, as a house, conceive it to be an indispensable duty we owe to ourselves, and to our posterity, to convey to you, our representatives, by these our instructions, the sentiments of a great number of our constituents, as to the part they expect you will act on an occasion no less important and interesting than, perhaps, ever came under your consideration-But why do we say consideration? -For, if you had a right to consider, you would have a right to approve, or refuse as you thought fit; and in such case, might be said to exercise your own judgments without restraint. Whereas, it is notorious, that you have now no other alternative than to provide for defraying the expenses for quartering the troops or cease to exist a house. The act laying you under this severe inhibition is, we conceive more oppressive and dangerous in its consequences, than was the pernicious stamp act, for reasons too obvious to be enumerated. Nor can we comprehend the difference, (as to taxation only) between a law compelling our representative to levy taxes on us; or by taxing us directly, without the consent of such representatives. -In either case, the very essence and idea of a free representation, is totally extinguished and destroyed; nor is it of any use to be anxious in the choice of our representatives; if after they are chosen they must be subject to the dictatorial mandates of other persons.-No, gentlemen,-We expect and desire of you, that while you are manifesting your zeal for promoting his majesty's service, by providing quarters for troops in this city, as is pretended, for its protection and defence; you do carefully avoid the most tacit implication of having recognized the act of parliament requiring you to make such a provision on penalty of being deprived of your legislative capacity. This act we regard, as it has been by several of the other colony assemblies, as a most flagrant infraction of your sacred rights and privileges. We do therefore expect and desire that you will also bear record against it, and use your best endeavours to get resolves inserted in the journals of the house, asserting in the most firm, full, and perspicuous manner, your natural and constitutional rights that posterity may know, that however ready and desirous you were on all occasions of demonstrating your loyalty and affection to our most gracious sovereign, no menaces could deter you from showing a due regard to the invaluable liberties and interests of your constituents. As to the circular letters of Lord H. inhibiting the respectable assemblies on this continent from answering the Boston letter, but requiring them to treat it with the contempt it deserves, on pain of being immediately annihilated, we cannot but regard it as the most daring insult that ever was offered to any free legislative body. And we therefore do entreat you to move in the house of assembly, and to use your utmost endeavours there, not only to have the Boston letter read, but also to have it answered in a respectable manner, as it desires nothing of her sister colonies but to unite in seeking legal redress from the grievances they labour under: and as the unanimity it recommends to the colonies, is their only bulwark and defence against the late measures to oppress and enslave them. Any attempts to divert or intimidate you from so glorious a purpose, ought to be treated with the contempt and just indignation, which they cannot but excitę in the minds of the virtuous representatives of a free people. Gentlemen-From the number of the respectable signers of the instructions now delivered to you, we presume you will be fully convinced that they contain the sentiments of the inhabitants of this city in general, and therefore we doubt not you will cheerfully use your best endeavours to carry them into execution, agreeable to their wishes: and we flatter ourselves, you will find them not foreign to the sentiments of the other inhabitants of this colony. [The foregoing were presented on Thursday last.] Gaz. Jan. 20, 1769. Extract of a letter from a gentleman in London, dated August 31, 1768, received by Captain Dashwood. who fill the ears "You have among you a number of and poison the hearts of the people in power with jealousies and prejudices of a most malignant nature; or otherwise, by the united representations of the real friends of the colonies, some healing measures might be adopted, as would lead us all in a state of security, freeedom, and happiness; but this is not a time to take revenge, or to indulge passion: for the people here are wrought up into a state of prejudice little short of madness; and therefore there is the greater necessity for keeping cool, dispassionate and prudent. From all appearances at present, there are no set of leading men here, who will dare to espouse your cause; even a spirit of opposi you tion will not induce them to assert your rights; therefore to save the kingdom from falling into anarchy and a civil war, you must not oppose the laws in question, nor would I have you submit to them; suppress your passions, avoid luxury, evade as far as possible the execution of the said laws for a time, and depend upon it they will be repealed, as inexpedient, anti-commercial, and destructive; and if I may venture to give my sentiments of the mmay believe they are sensible that it is impossible to execute the right in question; nor do I believe any m- will in future attempt it. What gives offence, is the flat denial of a right in the B P to tax America; though an act of Parliament declares that right, and our warm friend, Lord C—, says, he could constitutionally declare that right to be in the assemblies, till the act was passed, but dare not now deny the right of P; so that you see, the way left to get clear of the present difficulties, is to keep that fatal question out of sight; for the people of England will support the power of England, in supporting it, whether upon equitable principles or not. I know of no way so effectual as that of stopping your importation from England, which is both lawful and commendable; and I wish the Quakers in Philadelphia had been wise and virtuous enough to have joined you last year in this salutary measure." Gaz. Jan. 18, 1769. Extract of a letter from a gentleman at Boston, to his friend in London, dated Dec. 8. "I arrived here here about three weeks ago from Halifax. Notwithstanding what you may have heard of the disturbances at Boston, be assured they never were formidable; had there been a single company of soldiers, with a good officer at their head, in the town of Boston, and a frigate in the harbour, the force would have been sufficient to have prevented or quelled every disturbance that has happened here since passing the stamp act. "As far as words will go, and no farther, will they oppose government. They deny the authority of every act of parliament that makes against them, and claim the protection of every act that favours them. "You are much mistaken if you think they want the fleet and army removed: they begin already to feel the sweets of the money that is spent among them: and don't be surprised, if a few months hence you hear of its being voted in a town meeting of Boston, to petition General Gage and Commodore Hood, for the continuance of the troops and ships of war among us; and should they be all withdrawn, the people will make fresh riots to endeavour to bring them back." We hear that there is lately arrived in London, from the Labra dor coast, an Esquimaux woman with her child, the first that ever was in Europe. She has been dressed in our habit, and behaves with the greatest propriety. It is said she has been to the theatres, and after her first astonishment, and finding that the whole was fictious, she entered into the spirit of the place, and could not be distinguished from any other common spectator, but by the peculiar violence of her laughing. She calls it the joking house, and thinks tragedy has no business there. The character that delighted her most was that of Mungo in The Padlock. Philadelphia, Nov. 30. Letters from London mention, that Dr. Franklin is indefatigable in his endeavours to convince the ministry of the loyalty of the American colonies; and that a tender and motherly behaviour on the part of Britain, would go farther to support her authority with her American children, than all her forces by sea and land. [Pennsylvania Gazette.] Gaz. Jan. 18, 1769. TO EDWARD LONG and JAMES RISBY WHITEHORNE, Esquires. Gentlemen, We the justices and vestry of the parish of St. Ann, Jamaica, in vestry assembled, in behalf of ourselves and other the freeholders of this parish, having undoubted right to give instructions to you our immediate representatives in assembly on all points which may fall under your consideration in that house, which by their nature, or consequence may affect us, in common with the rest of our fellow subjects, freeholders of this island, think it indispensably necessary to exercise that right on the present occasion, to the end that being expressly informed by us what our sentiments are, you may better know what we do, and shall expect from you, in the further execution of that important trust, which we have delegated into your hands, and confided to your integrity. In the course of the last session of assembly, an application was made to the house of assembly for reimbursing to the treasury of Great Britain a sum of money, which, in compliance with the late Governor Lyttleton's request, had been drawn out of that treasury, for gratifying the regular troops in this island with an additional pay, during the series wherein the representatives of the people, were, to the great injury of this island, prevented and restrained by that governor from transacting the public business. As the time appointed for your next meeting is near at hand, when it is extremely probable the application just mentioned will again be renewed, we esteem it highly proper at this crisis to declare ourselves fully to you upon that head. When we consider that the late Governor Lyttleton solicited this money from the British treasury, that he might support those troops without the aid of the people of this island; when we reflect that the express end for which he solicited the money, and the probable purpose (as far as we can judge) for which it was so readily sup plied to his request, was no other than to enable him to persist in the discontinuance of assemblies, until he should render them dependent and useless, and to bring about so total a change in our constitution, as would manifestly have impaired, if not destroyed, our rights and liberties as British subjects, we cannot be brought to think either the motive upon which it was solicited by the governor, or the end for which it was apparently supplied, of such a nature as to justify an application to the house from government, to tax us for reimbursing the treasury. We cannot believe it to be any part of our compact with the crown, that we should be compelled to repay any debts originally contracted by a governor of this island, for effecting his pernicious designs, avowedly contrived and intended to subvert our freedom; but we are well assured, that should we under these circumstances consent to be burthened with a tax for such purpose, we should throw an irresistible temptation in the way of future bad governors to practice similar designs; we shall afford them the surest grounds for hoping success, and the fullest encouragement for expecting an indemnification out of our purses, even if such designs should prove ineffectual. We consider all application to the people for this money, as indirectly leading us to give our sanction to the measures of the governor who borrowed it, as well as to the conduct of those ministers who supplied it: and apprehending, as we do, that if a precedent of this kind was once to be established by a concession of the house of representatives, it might be construed to imply an approbation on the part of the people of those measures, and an invitation to fresh attempts of the like nature againt us; we, from an ardent desire to see the peace, welfare and constitutional freedom of our country preserved inviolate, do now express our hopes, and thus publicly require of you, our representatives in assembly, that should the reimbursement of this money again become the subject of deliberation in the assembly, you will by every means exert yourselves to prevent us from being taxed for that purpose; and as we have reason to be satisfied with your past conduct in the house, so we shall rest assured that nothing will be left undone on your part, to make the sense of your constituents, in this particular, the rule of your future conduct. Signed by order of the vestry. J. HADEN. At a vestry held at St. Ann's, on the 30th of August, 1768, were present. Lucius Tucker, Those marked thus are magistrates. Gaz. Jan. 28, 1769. |