TO BENJAMIN WATKINS AND ARCHIBALD CARY.1
[Collections of Massachusetts Historical Society, 4th ser., vol. iv., pp. 182, 183.]
BOSTON, February 1, 1775.
GENTLEMEN,
Capt. Tompkins duly delivered your letter, dated Virginia, Chesterfield County, Dec. 1774, directed to Mr. Cushing, Mr. John Adams, Mr. Paine and myself, with a bill of lading inclosed for I,054 bushels of wheat, 376 1/2 bushels corn, and five bushels peas, of which 210 bushels wheat, and 12 1/2 corn we perceive comes from the people of Cumberland. As this Town have appointed a Committee to receive and distribute donations made for the relief and employment of the sufferers by the Boston Port Bill, for which charitable purpose these donations of your constituents are appropriated, your letter and the bill of lading are assigned to them, and in their name I am now to desire you to accept of their grateful acknowledgments for the benevolent part you have taken, and also to make their returns of gratitude to the worthy Gentlemen of Chesterfield and Cumberland County, for the very Generous assistance they have afforded for the relief of the inhabitants of Boston, yet suffering, as you express it, under cruel oppression for the common cause of America. It is a sense of the dignity of the cause which animates them to suffer with that fortitude which you are pleased candidly to attribute to them; and while they are thus encouraged and supported by the sister Colonies, they will, by God's assistance, rather than injure or stain that righteous cause, endure the conflict to the utmost.
The Committee have received 192 1/2 bushels of wheat, mentioned in your letter, as a donation from the people of Goochland County. You will greatly oblige the Committee if you will return their hearty thanks to their generous friends in that County.
I am, with truth and sincerity, Gentlemen, your respectful friend and humble servant,
_________________________________________________________________ 1Of Chesterfield County, Virginia.
TO ARTHUR LEE. [R. H. Lee, Life of Arthur Lee, vol. ii., pp. 223, 224; a text is also in Force, American Archives, 4th ser., vol. i., p. 1239, and a draft is in Samuel Adams Papers, Lenox Library.]
CAMBRIDGE, Feb. 14th, 1775.
MY DEAR SIR,—A few days ago I received your letter of the 7th December, and was greatly pleased to find that you had returned from Rome at so critical a time. A sudden dissolution of the late parliament was a measure which I expected would take place. I must needs allow that the ministry have acted a politic part; for if they had suffered the election to be put off till the spring, it might have cost some of them their heads. The new parliament can with a very ill grace impeach them for their past conduct, after having so explicitly avowed it. The thunder of the late speech and the servile answers, I view as designed to serve the purposes of saving some men from the block. I cannot conclude that lord North is upon the retreat, though there seems to be some appearance of it. A deception of this kind would prove fatal to us. Our safety depends upon our being in readiness for the extreme event. Of this the people here are thoroughly sensible, and from the preparations they are making I trust in God they will defend their liberties with dignity. If the ministry have not abandoned themselves to folly and madness the firm union of the colonies must be an important objection. The claims of the colonies are consistent . . . and necessary to their own existence as free subjects, and they will never recede from them. The tools of power here are incessantly endeavouring to divide them, but in vain. I wish the king's ministers would duly consider what appears to me a very momentous truth, that one regular attempt to subdue those in any other colony, whatever may be the first issue of the attempt, will open a quarrel, which will never be closed till what some of THEM affect to apprehend, and we sincerely deprecate, shall take effect. Is it not then high time that they should hearken not to the clamours of passionate and interested men, but to the cool voice of impartial reason ? No sensible minister will think that millions of free subjects, strengthened by such an union, will submit to be slaves; no honest minister would wish to see humanity thus disgraced.
My attendance on the provincial congress now sitting here will not admit of my enlarging at present. I will write you again by the next opportunity, and till I have reason to suspect our adversaries have got some of my letters in their possession. I yet venture to subscribe, yours affectionately,