THE TOWN OF BOSTON TO THE COLONIES.1
[MS., Committee of Correspondence Papers, Lenox Library.]
BOSTON May 13th : 1774
I am Desired by the Freeholders and other Inhabitants of this Town to enclose you an Attested Copy of their Vote passed in Town meeting legally assembled this day.2 The Occasion of this Meeting is most Alarming: We have receiv'd a Copy of an Act of the British Parliament (which is also inclos'd) wherein it appears that the Inhabitants of this Town have been tryed and condemned and are to be punished by the shutting up of the Harbour, and other Ways, without their having been called to answer for, nay, for aught that appears without their having been even accused of any crime committed by them; for no such Crime is alleged in the Act.
The Town of Boston is now Suffering the Stroke of Vengeance in the Common Cause of America. I hope they will sustain the Blow with becoming fortitude; and that the Effects of this cruel Act, intended to intimidate and subdue the Spirits of all America will by the joynt Efforts of all be frustrated.
The People receive this Edict with Indignation. It is expected by their Enemies and feard by some of their Friends, that this Town singly will not be able to support the Cause under so severe a Tryal. As the very being of every Colony, considerd as a free People depends upon the Event, a Thought so dishonorable to our Brethren cannot be entertaind, as that this Town will now be left to struggle alone.
General Gage is just arrivd here, with a Commission to supercede Govr Hutchinson. It is said that the Town of Salem about twenty Miles East of this Metropolis is to be the Seat of Government— that the Commissioners of the Customs and their numerous Retinue are to remove to the Town of Marblehead a Town contiguous to Salem and that this if the General shall think proper is to be a Garrisond Town. Reports are various and contradictory.
I am &c.
Sent to the Come of Correspondence for
Connecticutt New York New Jersey & Philadelphia
by Mr Revere—and in that sent to Philadelphia there were Copies of the Vote of the Town inclosd for the Colonies to the Southward of them which they were desired to forward with all possible Dispatch with their own Sentiments.
to Rhode Island Providence p Post Portsmouth p Ditto
to Peyton Randolph Esqr to be communicated by him to the Gentlemen in Virginia which was sent by Mr Perez Moulton as far as Philadelphia to be thence forwarded by the Post.
_______________________________________________________________ 1The letter was signed by Adams, but only the annotations at the end are in his autograph. Another draft is also in the Committee of Correspondence Papers. The final text of the letter as sent to the Committee of Correspondence of Connecticut, with the subscription and signature in the autograph of Adams and the body of the letter in the autograph of Thomas Cushing, is in Emmet MS., No. 344, Lenox Library, and is printed in Bulletin of New York Public Library, vol. ii., p. 201. 2Boston Record Commissioner's Report, vol. xviii., pp. 173, 174.