Any Relaxation in Putting the Colony in a Complete State of Defence

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Friday, March 24, 1775, A˙ M.

Adjourned to three o' clock this afternoon.

Afternoon.

The Committee appointed to bring in a Resolve expressing the danger there would be in relaxing from the present preparations for Defence, &c˙, reported. The Report was accepted, and ordered that it be attested, and published in all the Boston Newspapers, and is as followeth, viz:

In Provincial Congress, Concord, March 25, 1775.

Whereas, it is indispensably necessary for the safety of a free people, and the preservation of their liberties, that they, at all times, keep themselves in a state of actual defence, against every invasion or depredation; and this Colony being still threatened by a powerful Army posted in its capital, with a professed design of executing certain Acts of the British Parliament, calculated to destroy our invaluable rights and liberties, and the Government of this Colony, as by Charter and Law established therein:

Therefore, Resolved, That the measures that have heretofore been recommended by this and the former Provincial Congress, for the purpose of putting this Colony into a complete state of defence, be still more vigorously pursued by the several Towns, as well as individual inhabitants; and that any relaxation would be attended with the utmost danger to the liberties of this Colony, and of all America; especially as by the latest advices from Great Britain we have undoubted reasons for jealousy, that our implacable enemies are unremitting in their endeavours, by fraud and artifice, as well as by open force, to subjugate this people, which is an additional motive to the inhabitants of this Colony to persevere in the line of conduct recommended by the Congress, and be ready to oppose with firmness and resolution, at the utmost hazard, every attempt for that purpose.

Adjourned to ten o' clock to-morrow morning.