The further proceedings of the truly patriotic town of Marblehead, together with your own esteemed favours of the 16th and 21st instant, came to my hand in due season, The proceedings I immediately communicated to our chairman; and from your hint that it was thought proper to suspend the publication, together with assurances of letters from some other towns speedily, we agreed also to suspend the calling a meeting of our committee, which however will be done soon. Agreeably to the intimations in your last I find in the Essex Gazette1 a, - what shall I call it? a disapprobation, to use their own term, signed by a few men, of the proceedings of a whole town. If "in fact there was but about twenty persons who voted at the meeting" and all the rest were against the measure, I wonder much that they did not follow the example of so eminent a person as the single dissentient and outvote you when they had it in their power. Or why could not the twenty-nine disapprobators have attended the meeting the second time and prevented your taking such measures from which they "are apprehensive the town will incur a great deal of public censure"? This would indeed have been meritorious. I am a stranger to most of the gentlemen who have thus signalized themselves; Mr. Mansfield I once thought a zealous whig, perhaps I was mistaken. After all, the whole seems to be but a weak effort; their third reason appears to me so excessively puerile, that I am surprised that gentlemen of character could deliberately set their hands to it.
Your last proceedings sent to us in manuscript are attested by the town clerk. I am sorry to observe that the printed copy in the Essex Gazelle is without his attestation, because an advantage may be made of it in our Court Gazette to lessen its credit and authority; to prevent which I intend the next Monday's papers shall have it from the manuscript unless (which I cannot much expect) I shall be otherwise advised by you.
I was thinking that you might turn the tables upon your disapprobating friends, by getting a much larger subscription from persons who were not at the meeting and approve of the proceedings. Whether it be prudent or worth while to try this method you must certainly be a better judge than I am.
The tools of power, little and great, are taking unwearied pains to prevent the meeting of the towns, but they do not succeed altogether to their wishes. I cannot help entertaining some sanguine hopes that the measures we have pursued will have a happy event.
1 Published at Salem, by S. and E. Hall.
TO DARIUS SESSIONS.1
[Ms., Samuel Adams Papers, Lenox Library.]
BOSTON Decr 28 1772
SIR
This day I had the Honor of receiving a Letter signd by yourself and other Gentlemen of Note in Providence. The Subject is weighty, & requires more of my Attention than a few Hours, to give you my digested Sentiments of it; neither have I yet had an Opportunity of advising with the few among my Acquaintances, whom I would chuse to consult upon a Matter, which in my Opinion may involve the Fate of America. This, I intend soon to do; and shall then, I hope, be able to communicate to you (before the Time you have set shall expire) such Thoughts, as in your Judgment, may perhaps be wise and salutary on so pressing an Occasion. Thus much however seems to me to be obvious at first View; that the whole Act of Parliament so far as it relates to the Colonies, & consequently the Commission which is founded upon it, is against the first Principles of Government and the English Constitution, Magna Charta & many other Acts of Parliament, declaratory of the Rights of the Subject; & therefore the Guardians of the Rights of the Subject will consider whether it be not their Duty, so far from giving the least Countenance to the Execution of it, to declare it, ipso Facto null & Void. This Commission seems to be substituted in the Room of a Grand Jury, which is one of the greatest Bulwarks of the Liberty of the Subject; instituted for the very Purpose of preventing Mischeife being done by false Accusers. By the Act of Parliament of the 25th of Ed. 3d (in the true Sense of the Words the best of Kings) it is establishd, that none shall be taken by Suggestion made to the King or his Council (which seems to me to be the present Point) unless it be by Indictment or Presentment of good & lawful People of the same Neighbourhood, where such Deeds be done - And, "if any thing be done against the same it shall be redressd & holden for none." But certain Persons proscribd in the Colony of Rhode Island, are to be taken without such Indictment or Presentment, & carried away from the Neighborhood where Deeds unlawful are suggested to the King to have been committed, & there put to answer contrary to that Law, which even so long ago was held to be the old Law of the Land. - One Reason given in the Act for taking away that accursed Court called the Star Chamber was, because all Matters examinable & determinable before that Court might have their due Punishment and Correction by the Common Law of the Land and in the ordinary Course of Justice elsewhere. But here seems to be a stopping of the ordinary Course of Justice; & by setting up a Court of Enquiry founded upon a Suggestion of evil Deeds made to the King & of certain Persons supposd to be concernd therein, Jurisdiction is given to others than the constituted ordinary Courts of Justice, & in a Way other than the ordinary Course of the Law, that is, an arbitrary Way to examine & draw into Question Matters & things which, by the Act for regulating the privy Council it is declared, that neither his Majesty nor his privy Council have or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power or Authority to do. In short, this Measure appears to me to be repugnant to the first Principles of natural Justice. The interrested Servants of the Crown, and some of them pensiond, perhaps byassd & corrupted being the constituted Judges, whether this or that Subject shall be put to answer for a supposd Offence against the Crown, & that in a distant Country, to their great Detriment & Danger of Life & Fortune, even if their Innocence shd be made to appear. What Man is safe from the malicious Prosecution of such Persons, unless it be the cringing Sycophant, and even he holds his Life and Property at their Mercy. It should awaken the American Colonies, which have been too long dozing upon the Brink of Ruin. It should again unite them in one Band. Had that Union which once happily subsisted been preservd, the Conspirators against our Common Rights would never have venturd such bold Attempts. It has ever been my Opinion, that an Attack upon the Liberties of one Colony is an Attack upon the Liberties of all; and therefore in this Instance all should be ready to yield Assistance to Rhode Island. But an Answer to the most material Part of your Letter must be referd, for the Reasons I have given, to another Opportunity. In the mean time I am with due Regards to the Gentlemen who have honord me with their Letter