transmit a copy of these resolves to the committee of correspondence in Boston; and that any three of the above said committee be a quorum. A true copy of record, examined by GURDON SALTONSTALL, Recorder. NOTE.-The following song shews the spirit of the Americans, previous to the war. COMPOSED BY A SON OF LIBERTY. [Written Feb. 13th, 1770.] TUNE-THE "BRITISH GRENADIER." That seat of science, Athens, and earth's great mistress, Rome- Proud Albion bow'd to Cæsar, and num'rous lords before- We led fair Freedom hither, and lo! the desert smil'd! A Paradise of pleasure was open in the wild : Your harvest, bold Americans-no power shall snatch away!— Torn from a world of tyrants, beneath this western sky We formed a new Dominion-a land of liberty: The world shall own their masters here-then hasten on the day- God bless this maiden climate! and through her vast domain, Lift up your heads my heroes! and swear with proud disdain, Some future day shall crown us the masters of the main, At a meeting of the inhabitants of the town of Windham, legally warned and held in Windham, June 23d, 1774. Nathaniel Wales, Jr., Esq., Moderator. This meeting being impressed with a deep sense of the present alarming aspects of Divine Providence over the British colonies in North America, arising from the present depressed situation and condition of the capital of a neighboring province, in having their harbor and port blocked up by ships-of-war, in hostile array, to the terror of the people, totally and actually obstructing all commerce by sea into or from said port, thereby forcibly preventing the due performance of all private maritime contracts, rendering useless their whole navigation, stores, and wharves, built and erected at a vast expense by the inhabitants. A principle which threatens ruin and distruction both to the liberties and properties of every subject throughout the British empire. And being further alarmed by a bill late depending before the Parliament of Great Britain, for regulating the government of the Massachusetts Bay, too long to be here recited, though replete with arbitrary, threatening resolutions, threatening destruction to all corporations in Great Britain, and all chartered rights in America. In view of these, as well as many other impending dangers and calamities, and from a firm belief and persuasion that there is a supreme, almighty, infinitely good and merciful Being, who sits at the helm of universal nature, by whom kings reign, and princes decree justice, and who has the hearts of all princes and potentates of the earth in his hands, and under his almighty control; and however faulty the instruments and procurers of those calamities may be, yet, considering our sins and impieties, they are just as coming from the hand of God, and are to be averted by humiliation, deep repentance, and reformation. We therefore sincerely wish and hope a day may be set apart for solemn fasting and prayer, as recommended by our late General Assembly; and beg further to intimate to our brethren in the several towns in this colony, to render the observation of that day more agreeable to the divine direction, (viz: to undo the heavy burdens, and let the oppressed go free, to distribute to the necessities of the distressed,) that on that day we be united in opening our hearts in contributing to the relief of the injured and oppressed indigent inhabitants of the town of Boston, es pecially those who are now more immediately so, by means of the late iron hand of oppression on that worthy metropolis. But fully to express our sense of the late attempts upon the town and port of Boston, the arbitrary attacks on the most sacred rights of communities, the violent depredations on private property and liberty, and those more virulent efforts to break down the great barriers of civil society, founded on the solemn compact of kings; a principle proclaiming sudden destruction upon all corporations throughout the British dominions, at the will and pleasure of a vengeful British ministry, even without complaint, notice, trial, or constitutional adjudication or forfeiture, words fail, and the English language is deficient. But this is in part executed, and much more than threatened, only under the pretence at most, that some of the inhabitants of Boston, or the neighboring towns, have committed a trespass on the property of the East India Company, a company (horrendum dictu !) who have spread destruction over the eastern world! Behold the tragic scenes in that eastern clime! the murders of millions, by sword and baneful famine; depriving those innocents of the necessaries of life, who by the favor of heaven and their own industry, were overflowing with the wealth and profusion of the Indias, and all to satisfy the insatiable lust of gain and oppression! Let the Spanish barbarities in Mexico, and the name of a Cortez, sink in everlasting oblivion, while such more recent superior cruelties bear away the palm in the late annals of their rapine and cruelty; though many worthy individuals of that body ought, no doubt to be excused from the general imputation. We applaud the solemnity of the noble Virginians and Philadelphians, in their religious observations of that memorable first day of June; we approve their opinions and sentiments as to the threatened calamities and dangers impending America; as also the Maryland resolves, with the others by many worthy towns and bodies of people in this and neighboring provinces. We only wish there may be no delay in appointing time and place for a General Congress, which only can give union, firmness, and stability to the whole. We impatiently wait for injured Boston to give the lead in that appointment. Providence, no doubt has put into our hands the means to work out our temporal salvation, which has been repeatedly suggested. Let us, dear fellow Americans, for a few years at least, abandon that narrow, contracted principle of self-love, which is the source of every vice; let us once feel for our country and posterity; let our hearts expand and dilate with the noble and generous sentiments of benevolence, though atttended with the severer virtue of self-denial. The blessings of heaven attending, America is saved; children yet unborn will rise and call you blessed; the present generation will, by future-to the latest period of American glory, be extolled and celebrated as the happy instruments, under God, of delivering millions from thraldom and slavery, and secure permanent freedom and liberty to America. We cannot close this meeting, without expressing our utmost abhorrence and detestation of those few in a devoted province, styling themselves ministers, merchants, barristers, and attorneys, who have, against the sense and opinion of the rest of that respectable government, as also of the vast extended continent, distinguished themselves, in their late fawning, adulating addresses to Governor Hutchinson, the scourge of the province which gave him birth, and the pest of America. His principles and conduct, (evidenced by his letters, and those under his approbation) are so replete with treason against his country, and the meanness of selfexaltation, as cannot be palliated by art, nor disguised by subtilty. In general, we esteem those addresses a high-handed insult on the town of Boston, and the province of Massachusetts Bay in particular, and on all the American colonies in general. Those styled merchants may plead their profound ignorance of the constitutional rights of Englishmen, as an excuse in some degree; but for those who style themselves barristers and attorneys, they have either assumed a false character, or they must in some measure be acquainted with the constitutional rights of Englishmen, and those of their own province-for them to present such an address, is a daring affront to common sense, a high insult on all others of the profession, and treason against law; and from that learned profession, (who are supposed to be well acquainted with the English constitution, and have the best means, and are under the greatest advantages to defend the rights of the subject, and who have been famed as the great supporters of English liberty,) for any of them to make a sacrifice of ALL to their pagod of vanity, and fulsome adulation, is mean, vile, and unpardonable, and cannot be accounted for upon any other principles, but those of their mastér, who would sacrifice his country, to be come the independent head of a respectable province; and the few leaders of this infamous law-band, would, it seems, give their aid and support therein, to obtain the first places in his new kingdom. The addressing clergy, we leave to the reproaches of their own consciences, but lament to find that they are the first in the ignominious homage of their idol. The foregoing is a true copy of record, Test, SAMUEL GRAY, Town Clerk. At a very full meeting of the inhabitants of the town of Farmington, legally warned and held in said Farmington, the 15th day of June, A. D. 1774. Col. John Strong, Moderator. Voted, That the act of Parliament for blocking up the port of Boston, is an invasion of the rights and privileges of every American, and as such are determined to oppose the same, together with all other such arbitrary and tyrannical acts, in every suitable way and manner that may be adopted in General Congress, to the intent we may be instrumental of securing, and transmitting our rights and privileges inviolate to the latest posterity. That the fate of American freedom depends greatly upon the inhabitants of the town of Boston, in the present alarming crisis of public affairs:-We therefore entreat them by every thing that is dear and sacred, to persevere with unremitted vigilance and resolution, till their labors shall be crowned with the desired success. That, as many of the inhabitants of the town of Boston, must, in a short time, be reduced to the utmost distress, in consequence of their Port Bill, we deem it our indispensable duty, by every proper and effectual method, to assist in affording them speedy relief. In pursuance of which, a committee was appointed with all convenient speed, to take in subscriptions of wheat, rye, Indian corn, and other provisions, of the inhabitants of this town, and to collect and transport the same to the town of Boston, there to be delivered to the selectmen of said town, to be by them distributed at their discretion, to those who are incapacitated from procuring a necessary subsistence, in consequence of the late oppressive measures of administration. That William Judd, Fisher Gay, Selah Hart, and Stephen Hotchkiss, Esq'rs., Messrs. John Treadwell, Asahel Wadsworth, |