All which the Town beg leave humbly to represent to your honor as cogent Reasons for the Tryal of the said Prisoners as early as possible in the present Term.
Wherefore your Memorialists humbly pray your Honor to appoint special Justices in the Room of those taken off as aforesaid,2 in order for the Tryal of the said Prisoners, or otherwise that your Honor wd take such Steps to prevent the Delay of Justice at this important Crisis as in your Wisdom shall seem meet.
And as in Duty bound your Memsts shall ever pray.
Signd in Behalf of the Town at the Meeting aforesaid.
1Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and John Barret were on March 19, 1770, appointed by the Boston town-meeting "a Committee to draw up a Memorial to the Lieuvetenant Governor and Council praying that special Justices may be appointed for the Superior Court now sitting in the room of those who may be necessarily prevented by sickness from attending their duty; that so the Tryals of the many Criminals now committed may not be postponed. . . ." At the same session the committee reported a draft, which was accepted.—Boston Record Commissioners' Report, vol. xviii., p. 15. [back]
2At this point the words "whom the Town reverence & esteem" were stricken from the original draft.
TO JOHN HANCOCK.
[MS., Samuel Adams Papers, Lenox Library; a text with slight variations is in W. V. Wells Life of Samuel Adams, vol. i., p. 343.]
BOSTON May 11 1770