Appendix. 427

portant Considerations; and the Result of Such their Proceedings
from Time to time to lay before this house

Extracted from the Journals of the House of Representatives of
the Province of New Hampshire Attest William Parker Cler
To the Honorable The Speaker of the House of Burgesses of
the Colony of Virginia

[Endorsed on back] New Hampshire May 27^th 1773

(5)
Province of the Massachusetts Bay June 3^d: 1773
Sir

The very judicious and important Resolves enter'd into by the
House of Burgesses of his Majesty's most ancient Colony of Vir-
ginia on the 12^th of March last, together with your obliging Letter
inclosing the same, have been laid before the House of Representa-
tives of this Province.

The Wisdom of the Measure proposed in those Resolves, and
the great and good Effects that may reasonably be expected to flow
from them, not only to the Colonies but the Parent State, were so
obvious, that the House immediately adopted them; and appointed
a Committee to keep up and maintain a free Communication with
Virginia and the rest of the Sister Colonies.

That there has long been a Settled Plan to subvert the political
Constitutions of these Colonies and to introduce arbitrary Power,
cannot in the opinion of this House admit of Doubt. Those who
have aim'd to inslave us, like a Band of Brothers, have ever been
united in their Councils and their Conduct. To this they owe their
Success. Are they not in this Regard worthy Imitation? Here it is
praise worthy to be instructed even by an Enemy.

The Object, which the Conspirators against our Rights seem of
late to have had much in View, has been either to lull the Colonies
into a State of profound Sleep and Security, which is forever the
forerunner of Slavery; or to foment Divisions among them. How
necessary then, how important is it to counteract and defeat them in
this fatal Design? — to awaken and fix the Attention of all to the
common Danger — to open and maintain an uninterrupted Inter-
course among the Colonies, that all may be fully appris'd of the
true State and Circumstances of each, and that the Councils of the
whole may be united in some effectual Measures for restoring the
publick Liberty.

That this may be the happy Effect of the truly laudable and gen-
erous Design of the House of Burgesses of Virginia is the most

Original
from Vir-
ginia State
Library.