and as there is no council there, and the inconveniences arising 1775. from the suspension of the powers of government are intolerable, especially at a time when general Gage hath actually levied war and is carrying on hostilities against his majesty's peaceable and loyal subjects of that Colony; that, in order to conform as near as may be to the spirit and substance of the Charter, it be recommended to the Provincial Convention to write letters to the inhabitants of the several places which are entitled to representation in Assembly, requesting them to choose such representatives, and that the Assembly, when chosen, do elect Counsellors; and that such assembly or Council exercise the powers of Government, until a Governor of his Majesty's appointment will consent to govern the Colony according to its Charter." the advice; which On this recommendation, the provincial congress of Massachu- Massachusetts authorized James Warren, their president, to issue writs in setts follows his own name, requiring the freeholders in every town to convene calls an and elect their representatives to meet at Watertown on the 20th assembly; of July. The writs were issued, and the summons was readily proceed to obeyed. A full house convened at the time appointed, and legislate. unanimously chose Mr. Warren speaker. Regardless of the vacant chair, the assembly chose a council; and the two branches proceeded to legislation. resolves On the 4th of July, the continental congress resolved, that the Congress two acts passed in the first session of the present parliament, re- against straining the trade and commerce of the American colonies, acts of par"are unconstitutional, oppressive, and cruel; and that the com- liament. mercial opposition of these colonies to certain acts enumerated in the Association of the last Congress, ought to be made against these, until they are repealed." Thus defensive and conditional, hitherto, were the most spirited acts of congress; nor was it yet foreseen, that within one year from the day of the last resolve, the style would be changed, and the acts of that body be in future absolute and independent. necessity of On the 6th of July, the representatives of the United Colonies Manifesto. in Congress agreed to a Declaration, in form of a manifesto, Causes and setting forth the causes and necessity of their taking up arms. taking up After a spirited but temperate preamble, presenting an historical arms. view of the origin, and progress, and conduct of the colonies, and of the measures of the British government towards them since the peace of 1763, the Declaration alleges, that "Parliament, assuming a new power over them, have in the course of eleven years given such decisive specimens of the spirit and consequences attending this power, as to leave no doubt of the effects of acquiescence under it. They have undertaken to give and grant our money without our consent, though we have ever exercised an exclusive right to dispose of our own property; statutes have 1775. been passed for extending the jurisdiction of courts of admiralty and vice admiralty beyond their ancient limits; for depriving us of the accustomed and inestimable privilege of trial by jury in cases affecting both life and property; for suspending the legislature of one of the colonies; for interdicting all commerce to the capital of another; and for altering fundamentally the form of government established by charter, and secured by acts of its own legislature solemnly confirmed by the crown; for exempting the murderers' of colonists from legal trial, and, in effect, from punishment; for erecting in a neighbouring province, acquired by the joint arms of Great Britain and America, a despotism. dangerous to our very existence; and for quartering soldiers upon colonists in time of profound peace. It has also been resolved in parliament, that colonists, charged with committing certain offences, shall be transported to England to be tried.-But why should we enumerate our injuries in detail? By one statute it is declared, that parliament can of right make laws to bind us IN ALL CASES WHATSOEVER. What is to defend us from so enormous, so unlimited a power?" Having adverted to their fruitless petitions to the throne, and remonstrances to parliament; to the unprovoked assault of the troops of general Gage on the inhabitants of Massachusetts, at Lexington, and Concord; to the perfidy of that general towards the inhabitants of Boston; to his proclamation, declaring the good people of these colonies rebels and traitors, superseding the course of the common law, and ordering the use and exercise of the law martial; to the butchery of the colonists by his troops; to the burning of Charlestown, and other flagrant acts of hostility and oppression; the Declaration proceeds: "Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. Our internal resources are great, and, if necessary, foreign assistance is undoubtedly attainable. We gratefully acknowledge, as signal instances of the Divine favour towards us, that his Providence would not permit us to be called into this controversy, until we were grown up to our present strength, had been previously exercised in warlike operation, and possessed of the means of defending ourselves. . . With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, DECLARE, that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance, employ for the preservation of our liberties, being with one mind resolved, to die Free-men, rather than live Slaves." Disclaiming an intention to dissolve the union between the colonies and the parent country, and to raise armies with ambitious designs of separating from Great Britain, and establishing independent states, they thus conclude: "In 1775. our own native land, in defence of the freedom that is our birth right, and which we ever enjoyed till the late violation of it. . . for the protection of our property, acquired solely by the honest. industry of our forefathers and ourselves, against violence actually offered, we have taken up arms. We shall lay them down when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, and all danger of their being renewed shall be removed, and not before. With an humble confidence in the mercy of the supreme and impartial Judge and Ruler of the universe, we most devoutly implore his divine goodness to protect us happily through this great conflict, to dispose our adversaries to reconciliation on reasonable terms, and thereby to relieve the empire from the calamities of civil war." day of In consideration of "the present critical, alarming, and ca- Recomlamitous state" of the colonies, congress recommended, that the mends a 20th day of July be observed by the inhabitants of all the English fasting and colonies on this continent, as a day of public humiliation, fasting, prayer. and prayer. The day was observed accordingly; and it was the first general fast ever kept on one day, since the settlement of the colonies. On that day, previous to divine service, congress met, and received a communication from the convention of Georgia, stating, that this colony had acceded to the general Receives delegates association, and appointed delegates to attend the continental from congress. That most remote colony was already partially re- Georgia. presented there. The inhabitants of St. John's parish had engaged early and decisively in the cause of liberty and of their country; and had chosen a delegate to attend this congress at Philadelphia. On the third day of the session, Lyman Hall A delegate previously applying for admission to congress, as a delegate from that parish, sent from it was unanimously agreed, that he be admitted, subject to such St. John's. regulations as the congress should determine, relative to his parish. voting. The inhabitants of the parish, in an address to congress, forbear "to give a particular detail of their many struggles in the cause of liberty; the many meetings thereby occasioned and held in this parish; the endeavours they have used to induce the rest of the province to concur with them; the attendance of their committee on the provincial conventions held at Savannah, with their proceedings, and the reasons of their dissent from them;" but send an abstract of them, and refer the congress to their delegate for the rest. On receiving an answer to the representation of their case to the first congress, with a copy of the continental association entered into the last year, the parish sent an address to the committee of correspondence in Charlestown, South Carolina, a copy of which was now communicated to congress by their delegate. 1775. Early and By this paper it appears, that the inhabitants of the parish of St. John's embraced the earliest opportunity of acceding to the Continental Association, by subscribing it, on condition that trade decisive and commerce with the other colonies be continued to them; proceedings of St. John's that, at a provincial congress held at Savannah in January, they parish in informed the other parishes assembled on that occasion, that they Georgia. had already acceded to the General Association, and earnestly requested them to accede to it; and that, disappointed in the expectation of that measure, they applied to the South Carolina committee of correspondence, to admit them to an alliance with them, and requesting them to allow trade and commerce to be continued to them, to be conducted under such regulations and restrictions as should be consistent with the Continental Association, which, on their part, they "engage with all possible care to keep inviolate." Detached as they were from the rest of the province by their resolutions, and sufficiently distinct by their local situation, large enough for particular notice, adjoining a particular port, and in that respect capable of conforming to the general association, if connected with Carolina, with the same fidelity as a distant parish of the same province, "we must, they say, "be considered as comprehended within the spirit and equitable meaning of the Continental Association, and hope you will not condemn the innocent with the guilty, especially when a due separation is made between them." Their address having been laid before a very full committee of the colony of South Carolina, and undergone the most mature consideration, an answer was given to them, expressing the highest sense of their arduous struggles in favour of the common cause of America, and most sincerely lamenting their present unhappy situation; but recommending a continuance of their laudable exertions, and the laying of their case before the ensuing Continental Congress, as the only means of obtaining relief, and to put them in the situation they wished, which the committee apprehended to be entirely out of their power. Upon the receipt of this answer, they seriously considered, in what manner to conduct themselves in the present situation; and it was concluded, that, until they could obtain trade and commerce with some other colony, it was absolutely necessary to continue it in some respects with their own, and determined, that it be carried on under the following regulations: "1. That none of us shall directly or indirectly purchase any slave imported at Savannah (large numbers of which, we understand, are there expected) till the sense of the Congress shall be made known to us. 2. That we will not trade at all with any merchant at Savannah or elsewhere, that will not join in our associating Agreement, otherwise than under the inspection of a Committee for that purpose appointed, and for such things as they shall judge necessary, and when they 1775. shall think there are necessary reasons for so doing." A committee was then appointed to sit weekly for those purposes; and it was resolved, that a delegate be sent from this parish to the Congress to be held at Philadelphia in May next. On the day appointed for that election, 21st of March, at a full meeting, Choose Lyman Hall was unanimously chosen to represent the inhabitants L. Hall a of the parish, who were "determined faithfully to adhere to and delegate to abide by the determinations" of congress.1 This decisive and unprecedented measure of the sons of liberty, in an enlightend and very respectable section of the colony, doubtless accelerated its entire accession to the continental union. That accession, which had now become recognized, while it relieved the embarrassments of St. John's Parish, added an important link to the chain of confederated colonies, which now extended from New Hampshire to Georgia. congress. Early in this session of congress, it was unanimously resolved, Resolutions That all exportations to Quebec, Nova Scotia, the island of of congress; St. John's, Newfoundland, Georgia, except the parish of St. John's, and to East and West Florida, immediately cease; and that no provision of any kind, or other necessaries, be furnished to the British fisheries on the American coasts, until it be otherwise determined by the Congress.2 The favourable exception of the parish of St. John's in Georgia was now superseded, by the extension of the benefits of the union to the whole colony. For these benefits, a parliamentary exception, made in favour of the colony while it remained loyal, was now voluntarily renounced as insidious in its design, and injurious in its effect. The conven- of Georgia tion of Georgia, adhering to all the resolutions of the continental convention. congress, took energetic measures against England. It declared, that the exception made of Georgia, in the acts of parliament against the colonies, ought rather to be considered as an injury than a favour, since this exception was only an artifice to separate the inhabitants of this province from their brethren. The convention resolved also, that they would admit no merchandise which should have been shipped in England after the first of July; and that, dating from the 10th of September, none should be exported from Georgia for England; also, that all commerce should cease with the English islands of the West Indies, and with those parts of the American continent which had not ac 1 Journal of the Proceedings of the Congress, held at Philadelphia May 10, 1775. These credentials were "signed by order of the Inhabitants, By Daniel Roberts, and twenty others, members of the Committee.”—Midway, St. John's Parish, in the Province of Georgia. 2 Journals of Congress. This resolution passed 17 May. |