Your Friends & Countrymen,
_________________________________________________________________ 1A similar letter was at the same time addressed to residents of Montreal; their reply, dated, April 28, I775, is in Journals of each Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, pp. 751, 752. Cf., W. V. Wells, Life of Samuel Adams, vol. ii., p. 275. 2The session began February 1; the resolution referred to was adopted February 15. Journals of each Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, p. 100.
TO GEORGE READ.
[Collections of Massachusetts Historical Society, 4th ser., vol. iv., pp. 233, 234; the text is also in W. T. Read, Life and Correspondence of George Read, pp. 101, 102.]
BOSTON, Feb. 24, 1775.
SIR,
By your letter of the 6th instant, directed to Mr. David Jeffries, the Committee of this Town appointed to receive and distribute the donations made for the employment and relief of the sufferers by the Boston Port Bill, are informed that a very generous collection has been made by the inhabitants of the County of New Castle on Delaware, and that there is in your hands upwards of nine hundred dollars for that charitable purpose. The care you have taken, with our worthy friend Nicholas Vandyke, Esq., in receiving these contributions, and your joint endeavors to have them remitted in the safest and most easy manner, is gratefully acknowledged by our Committee; and they have directed me to request that you would return their sincere thanks to the people of New Castle County, for their great liberality towards their fellow subjects in this place who are still suffering under the hand of oppression and tyranny. It will, I dare say, afford you abundant satisfaction to be informed that the inhabitants of this Town, with the exception only of a contemptible few, appear to be animated with an inextinguishable love of liberty. Having the approbation of all the sister Colonies, and being thus supported by their generous benefactions, they endure the most severe trials, with a manly fortitude which disappoints and perplexes our common enemies. While a great continent is thus anxious for them, and constantly administering to their relief, they can even smile with contempt on the feeble efforts of the British administration to force them to submit to tyranny, by depriving them of the usual means of subsistence. The people of this Province, behold with indignation a lawless army posted in its capital, with a professed design to overturn their free constitution. They restrain their just resentments, in hopes that the most happy effects will flow from the united applications of the Colonies for their relief.
May Heaven grant that the councils of our sovereign may be guided by wisdom, that the liberties of America may be established, and harmony restored between the subjects in Britain and the Colonies,
I am, your very obliged friend and humble servant,