two committe-men each, to adopt such resolutions respecting trade as the present exigency seems to require. They met lately at Christiana, and were unanimously of opinion that the Philadelphia agreement should be supported; and for this purpose, two persons were appointed, in each town, a committee of inspection to watch the trade. The duty of these persons is to examine what goods are brought into this government, and in case they discover any sales by shop-keepers of articles not excepted, to report the same to the general committee, who shall determine what shall be done thereupon."

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Mr. Read was elected chairman of this general committee. The subordinate committees performed their duty with so much diligence and activity, that they equalled the agents of the best organized police, in the discovery of delinquents. Every section of the county was subjected to a system of espionage, so inconsistent with American notions of liberty, that nothing but the urgency of the case, and the benefits which it produced, could have induced the citizens to tolerate it. The adherents of Great Britain were too small in number to shield the violaters of the compact from its penalties. When information was given against them, they generally appeared before the general committee, who inflicted no other punishment than requiring

from the offender a public declaration of sorrow for the offence, a promise not to repeat it, and payment to the committee of the proceeds of sales of nonexcepted articles, for the use of the poor of the county. The delinquents, however, were few in number.

At a meeting of the inhabitants of Newcastle county, on the twenty-ninth of June, 1774, Mr. Read was appointed, with twelve other persons, to conduct a subscription for the relief of the poor inhabitants of Boston, who were deprived of the usual means of subsistence by the act of parliament commonly called the Boston port bill. The people eagerly adopted this mode of manifesting their abhorrence of a cruel and ineffectual act of despotism, and their sympathy with those whom it reduced to want. By pecuniary sacrifices for their relief, they, in some measure, made themselves partakers of their sufferings, and their patriotism. In February, 1775, Mr. Read, who had been appointed, in conjunction with Nicholas Van Dyke, Esq., to receive the donations, remitted nine hundred dollars to the Boston committee, being the amount of subscriptions in Newcastle county. The notification to the committee at Boston occasioned the following letter from Samuel Adams to Mr. Read:

SIR,

Boston, February 24th, 1775.

By your letter of the sixth instant, directed to Mr. David Jeffries, the committee of this town, appointed to receive and distribute the donations made for the relief and employment of the sufferers under the Boston port bill, are informed that a very generous collection has been made by the inhabitants of the county of Newcastle, 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 Van Dyke, Esq., in receiving these contributions, and your joint endeavours to have them remitted in the safest and most easy manner, are gratefully acknowledged by our committee; and they have directed me to request that you would return their sincere thanks to the people of Newcastle, 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 place with the exception 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 administering to their relief, they can smile with contempt at 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 their capital, with the professed design to overturn their free constitution. They restrain their just resentment, in hopes that the most happy effects will result from the united applications of the colonies for their relief..

May heaven grant that the counsels of our sovereign may be guided by wisdom, that the liberties of America may be established, and harmony be restored between the subjects in Britain and her colonies.

I am, Sir,

Your sincere friend,

And fellow countryman,
SAMUEL ADAMS.

P. S. The committee have a prospect of negociating this matter with a friend in Philadelphia. George Read, Esquire:

On the first of August, 1774, Mr. Read was elected by the general assembly of Delaware, together with Cæsar Rodney, and Thomas M'Kean, Esquires, to represent that state in the American congress, which met in the month of September, in Philadelphia. Mr. Read represented the state of Delaware in congress during the whole revolutionary war, excepting a short interval, when by virtue of his office of vice-president, he acted as her chief magistrate, in consequence of the capture of president M'Kinley immediately after the battle of Brandywine.

In the year 1775, the decisive appeal to arms was made. While Mr. Read, in conjunction with the sages of congress, was giving tone and direction to the ardour of our armies, two of his family were asserting the liberty of their country in the field;-colonel Read, who was lately gathered to his fathers in a venerable old age; and colonel, afterwards general, Thomson, who had married the sister of Mrs. Read. The following letter from general Thomson, who, at the head of the first rifle regiment raised in Pennsylvania, joined the American army besieging Boston, indicates the sprightly courage of the Irishman, while it exhibits, in pleasing characters, the naivete of the soldier: