TO CHARLES THOMSON.
[MS., Samuel Adams Papers, Lenox Library.]
BOSTON June 30 1774
SIR
Your Letter by order of your Committee directed to Mr Cooper with the inclosed Resolves came to my hand this day. I shall as soon as possible call a Committee of the Town who are appointed to consider of Ways and Means for the Employment of the poor, and to appropriate and distribute such Donations as our generous friends shall make for the Reliefe of those Inhabitants who may be deprivd of the Means of Subsistence by the Operation of the Port Bill. This Committee consists of the standing Overseers of the poor who are to act in Concert with others who had been before appointed for the purposes above mentiond, as you will observe by the inclosed Votes of the Town. The principal Reason assignd in the Vote for joyning the Overseers is because by an Act of this province they are a corporate body empowerd to receive Monies &c for the Use of the poor, but those Gentlemen have since informd the others of the joynt Committee that they cannot consistently with the Act of their Incoporation admit of any but their own Body in the Distribution of the Monies that may at any time come into their hands for the Use of the poor. They are heartily desirous of acting in Concert agreable to the Vote of the Town but consider themselves as under Restraint by the Law. The Donors may if they please consign their Donations to any one Gentleman (William Phillips Esqr) to be appropriated for the EMPLOYMENT or RELIEFE of such Inhabitants of the Town of Boston as may be deprived of the Means of Subsistence by the Operation of the Act of Parliament commonly stiled the Boston Port Bill, at the best Discretion of the Overseers of the poor of Boston joynd by a Committee appointed by said Town to consider of Ways and Means for the Employment of the poor.
I have given my private Sentiment, and am with great Respect &
Gratitude to the Gentl of the City & County of Philadelphia,
Your friend & fellow Countryman,1
________________________________________________________________ 1In the interval before the date of the next letter an article signed "Candidus" was published in the Massachusetts Spy, July 7, 1774. This is attributed to Adams by W. V. Wells, and portions are printed in his Life of Samuel Adams, vol. ii., pp. 187,197.