nius and temper of your laws and constitution,
the task will become more arduous when we call
upon our ministerial enemies to justify, not on-
ly condemning men untried and by hearsay,
but involving the innocent in one common
punishment with the guilty, and for the act of
thirty or forty, to bring poverty, distress and
calamity on thirty thousand souls, and those not
your enemies, but your friends, brethren, and
fellow subjects.
IT would be some consolation to us, if the
catalogue of American oppressions ended here.
It gives us pain to be reduced to the necessity of
reminding you, that under the confidence re-
posed in the faith of government, pledged in a
royal charter from a British Sovereign, the fore-
fathers of the present inhabitants, of the
Massa-
chusets-Bay left their former habitations, and
established that great, flourishing, and loyal
Colony. Without incurring or being charged
with a forfeiture of their rights, without being
heard, without being tried, without law, and
without justice, by an Act of Parliament, their
charter is destroyed, their liberties violated,
their constitution and form of government
changed: And all this upon no better pretence,
than because in one of their towns a trespass was
committed on some merchandize, said to belong
to one of the Companies, and because the Mi-
nistry were of opinion, that such high political
regulations were necessary to compel due sub-
ordination and obedience to their mandates.