ARTICLE SIGNED "CANDIDUS."
[Boston Gazette, June 27, 1774.]
Messieurs EDES & GILL,
From an Extract of a Letter from a Southern Colony, and the Publications in last Thursday's Gazette, it is very evident a Scheme has been concerted by some Persons to frustrate any Attempts that might be made to suspend our Trade with Great- Britain, till our most intolerable Grievances are redressed. The Scheme appears to be, to SEEM to agree to the Suspension in Case all agreed, and then by construing some Passage in a Letter from the Committee of another Province, that they had NOT AGREED, to declare that the conditional Signers were NOT HOLDEN. A GAME or two of such Mercantile Policy would soon have convinced the World that Lord North had a just Idea of the Colonies; and that notwithstanding their real Power to prove a Rope of Hemp to him, they were a Rope of Sand in Reality, among themselves. I would beg Leave to ask the voluminous Querists referr'd to. whether they conceive a Non-consumption Agreement would ever have been tho't of in the Country, could our Brethren there have persuaded themselves that the Merchants were in earnest to suspend Trade the little Time there was between our receiving the Port Bill, and the Appointment of a Congress, or any other general Measure come into, from which a radical Relief might be expected? 2. Whether the Trade in their last Meeting declaring, That their CONDITIONAL Agreement was DISSOLVED, on Pretence that Advices from New York and Philadelphia were totally discouraging, was not highly unbecoming a People whose peculiar Circumstances rendered it their duty to stop their Trade to Great Britain the Moment the Port-Bill reached the Shore of America? 3. Whether they conceive the Committee of Boston planned the Non-consumption Agreement, and sent it first into the Country for their Adoption? or rather, whether the Country, enraged at their preposterous Management, did not originate the Plan and press the Committee to have it digested, printed and recommended throughout the Colony? 4. I would enquire whether a Backwardness in the Province, actually suffering, to come into the only peaceful Measure that remains for our Extrication from Slavery, would not naturally excuse every other Province from taking one Step for the common Salvation? 5. Whether in that Case all the Trade of the Province, whether consisting of Spring, Summer or Fall Importations, would in the End be worth an Oyster-Shell? 6. Whether all the Bugbears started against the Worcester Covenant, as holding up the taking a solemn Oath to "withdraw all Commercial Connexions," which our honest Commentators tell the People means even to deny buying or selling Greens or Potatoes to them, does not betray a great want of that Candor and manly Generosity, which is expected from well- bred and reasonble Citizens? 7. Whether the suggestion that the Boston Merchants ceasing to Import, will throw the Trade into the Hands of Importers in other Provinces, is not utterly unbecoming an Inhabitant of that Town, into which the Beneficence of the whole Continent is ready to flow in the most exemplary Manner? For Shame! Self Interested Mortals, cease to draw upon your worthy Fellow Citizens the just Resentment of Millions. If there may be Some Punctilios wrong in the Non-consumption Agreement, the united Wisdom of the Continent will surely be capable of setting Matters right at the general Congress; and no Gentleman Trader, be his Haste ever so great to get Rich, need distress himself so mightily about the Profits of one Fall-Importation, if the constant Clamour of the Trade for two Years past, that they did Business for nothing, had any Foundation.