TO CHARLES DICK, CHARLES WASHINGTON, AND GEORGE THORNTON.1
[Collections of Massachusetts Historical Society, 4th ser., vol.
iv., pp. 211.]
BOSTON, March—1775.
GFNTLEMEN, Your letter of the 23d of January last, directed to the Overseers of the Poor of the Town of Boston, has been laid before the Committee appointed to receive and distribute Donations for the sufferers by that cruel and unrighteous Act of the British Parliament, commonly called the Boston Port Bill. I am now in behalf of this Committee to acknowledge the receipt of seven hundred thirty-six and a quarter bushels wheat, twenty- five bushels Indian corn, three barrels flour, and three barrels bread, shipped on board the schooner Betsey, Capt. John Foster, being a very generous contribution of Spotsylvania County, in Virginia, to those sufferers.
You will be pleased, gentlemen, to return the sincere thanks of the Committee to our friends of that County, for the warm sympathy they have in this instance discovered with their distressed brethren in this Capital. Encouraged by these liberal donations, the inhabitants of this Town still endure their complicated sufferings with patience. As men, they feel the indignities which are offered to them. As citizens, they suppress their just resentment. But I trust in God, that this much injured Colony, when urged to it by extreme necessity, will exert itself at the utmost hazard in the defence of our common rights. I flatter myself that I am not mistaken, while they deprecate that necessity, they are very active in preparing for it.
I am, Gentlemen, in behalf of the Committee, your obliged and affectionate friend and countryman,
_________________________________________________________________ 1Of Spottsylvania County, Virginia.