Your Letter of the 10 Inst.1 did not come to my hand till this Evening. It is a great Satisfaction to me to be assured from you that the Friends to Liberty in Marblehead are active & that there is like to be a Town meeting there. Our Committee are industrious, and I think I may promise you, they will be ready to report to the Town in two or three days; so that if your Town should think proper to make an Adjournment for ten days or a Fortnight, they will doubtless by that time if not before have an Opportunity of acting upon our Resolutions. I am sorry when any of our Proceedings are not exactly according to your Mind. The Word you object to2 in our resolves was designd to introduce into our State of Grievances "the Chh Innovations and the Establishment of those Tyrants in Religion, Bishops" which as you observe will probably take place. I cannot but hope, when you consider how indifferent too many of the Clergy are to our just & righteous Cause, that some of them are the Adulators of our Oppressors, and even some of the best of them are extremely cautious of recommending (at least in their publick performances), the Rights of their Country to the protection of Heaven, lest they should give offence to the little Gods on Earth, you will judge it quite necessary that we should assert [and] vindicate our Rights as Christians as well as Men & Subjects.
The Town of Roxbury are to meet on Monday next; and a great Number in Cambridge have subscribed a Petition to their Selectmen for a Meeting there. I have recd a Letter from a Gentleman of Influence in Plymouth who is pleasd to say, he thinks the general plan adopted here will produce great Consequences if supported with Spirit in the Country; & that he believes there will be no Difficulty in getting a Meeting there & carrying the point in seconding this town. He tells me, the Pulse of his fellow Townsmen beat high and their resentment he supposes is equal to that of any other Town. May God grant, that the Love of Liberty & a Zeal to support it may enkindle in every town. If the Enemies should see the flame bursting in different parts of the Country & distant from each other, it might discourage their attempts to damp & quench it. I am well assured they are alarmd at the Measure now taking, being greatly apprehensive of the same Consequences from it which our good friend at Plymouth hopes and expects. This should animate us in carrying it into Execution. I beg you would exert your utmost Influence in your neighboring towns and elsewhere. I hear Nothing of old Salem. I fear they have had an opiate administerd to them. I am told there has been a Consultation there, a Cabal in which his E — y presided. Pray let me still be favord with your Letters & be assured I am sincerely
YOUR FRIEND,
1 T. Austin, Life of Elbridge Gerry, vol. i., pp. 18, 19; the original is in the Samuel Adams Papers, Lenox Library. 2 "Christians."
THE RIGHTS OF THE COLONISTS, A LIST OF VIOLATIONS OF RIGHTS AND A LETTER OF CORRESPONDENCE.1
Adopted by the Town of Boston, November 20, I772.2
[Boston Record Commissioners' Report, vol. xviii., pp. 94-108.]
The Committee appointed by the Town the second Instant "to State the Rights of the Colonists and of this Province in particular, as Men, as Christians, and as Subjects; to communicate and publish the same to the several Towns in this Province and to the World as the sense of this Town with the Infringements and Violations thereof that have been, or from Time to Time may be made. Also requesting of each Town a free Communication of their Sentiments Reported First, a State of the Rights of the Colonists and of this Province in particular — Secondly, A List of the Infringements, and Violations of those Rights. — Thirdly, A Letter of Correspondence with the other Towns. — 1st. Natural Rights of the Colonists as Men. — Among the Natural Rights of the Colonists are these First. a Right to Life; Secondly to Liberty; thirdly to Property; together with the Right to support and defend them in the best manner they can - Those are evident Branches of, rather than deductions from the Duty of Self Preservation, commonly called the first Law of Nature -
All Men have a Right to remain in a State of Nature as long as they please: And in case of intollerable Oppression, Civil or Religious, to leave the Society they belong to, and enter into another. — When Men enter into Society, it is by voluntary consent; and they have a right to demand and insist upon the performance of such conditions, And previous limitations as form an equitable original compact. —-
Every natural Right not expressly given up or from the nature of a
Social Compact necessarily ceded remains.