The People receive this Edict with Indignation. It is expected by their Enemies and feard by some of their Friends, that this Town singly will not be able to support the Cause under so severe a Tryal. As the very being of every Colony, considerd as a free People depends upon the Event, a Thought so dishonorable to our Brethren cannot be entertaind, as that this Town will now be left to struggle alone.
General Gage is just arrivd here, with a Commission to supercede Govr Hutchinson. It is said that the Town of Salem about twenty Miles East of this Metropolis is to be the Seat of Government— that the Commissioners of the Customs and their numerous Retinue are to remove to the Town of Marblehead a Town contiguous to Salem and that this if the General shall think proper is to be a Garrisond Town. Reports are various and contradictory.
I am &c.
Sent to the Come of Correspondence for
Connecticutt New York New Jersey & Philadelphia
by Mr Revere—and in that sent to Philadelphia there were Copies of the Vote of the Town inclosd for the Colonies to the Southward of them which they were desired to forward with all possible Dispatch with their own Sentiments.
to Rhode Island Providence p Post Portsmouth p Ditto
to Peyton Randolph Esqr to be communicated by him to the Gentlemen in Virginia which was sent by Mr Perez Moulton as far as Philadelphia to be thence forwarded by the Post.
_______________________________________________________________ 1The letter was signed by Adams, but only the annotations at the end are in his autograph. Another draft is also in the Committee of Correspondence Papers. The final text of the letter as sent to the Committee of Correspondence of Connecticut, with the subscription and signature in the autograph of Adams and the body of the letter in the autograph of Thomas Cushing, is in Emmet MS., No. 344, Lenox Library, and is printed in Bulletin of New York Public Library, vol. ii., p. 201. 2Boston Record Commissioner's Report, vol. xviii., pp. 173, 174.
THE COMMITTEE OF CORRESPONDENCE OF BOSTON TO THE COMMITTEE OF CORRESPONDENCE OF PHILADELPHIA.1
[MS., Committee of Correspondence Papers, Lenox Library.]