Extract from the Proceedings of the Town of Windham, in Connecticut

v1:445

June 23, 1774.

We cannot close this meeting without expressing our utmost abhorrence and detestation of those few in a devoted Province, styling themselves Ministers, Merchants, Barristers and Attorneys, who have, against the sense and opinion of this vast Continent, distinguished themselves in their late fawning, adulating Address to Governour Hutchinson, the scourge of the Province which gave him birth, and the pest of America. His principles and conduct, evidenced by his letters, and those under his approbation, are so replete with treason against his country, and with the meanest of self-exaltation, as cannot be palliated by art, nor disguised by subtlety.

We esteem those Addresses a high-handed insult on the town of Boston, and the Province of Massachusetts Bay in particular, and all the American Colonies in general. Those styled Merchants may plead their profound ignorance of the constitutional rights of Englishmen, as an excuse, in some degree. But for those who style themselves Barristers and Attorneys, they have either assumed a false character, or they must, in some measure, be acquainted with the constitutional rights of Englishmen, and those of their own Province. For them to present such an Address is a daring affront to common sense, a high insult on all others of the profession, and treason against law. And from that learned profession, who are supposed to be well acquainted with the English Constitution, and have the best means, and are under the greatest advantages to defend the rights of society, and who have been famed as the greatest supporters of English liberties, for any of them to make a sacrifice of their all to this Pagod of vanity and fulsome adulation, is mean, vile, and unpardonable, and cannot be accounted for upon any other principles but those of their master, who would sacrifice his country to be the independent head of a respectable Province, and the few leaders of this Infamous law band, would, it seems, give their aid and support therein to obtain the first places in this new Kingdom. The addressing Clergy we leave to the reproaches of their own consciences, but lament to find they are the first in their ignominious homage to their idol.