Join or Die -- An Appeal to the People

v1:364

The Act of Parliament for blocking up the harbour of Boston, in order to reduce its spirited inhabitants to the most servile and mean compliances ever attempted to be imposed on a free people, is allowed to be infinitely more alarming and dangerous to our common liberties, than even that hydra the Stamp Act, (which was defeated by our firmness and union,) and must be read with a glowing indignation by every real friend of freedom in Europe and America. Though the town of Boston is now intended to be made a victim to Ministerial wrath, yet the insult and indignity offered to our virtuous brethren in that capital, who have so nobly stood as a barrier against slavery, ought to be viewed in the same odious light as a direct hostile invasion of every Province on the Continent, whose inhabitants are now loudly called upon, by interest, honour and humanity, to stand forth, with firmness and unanimity, for the relief, support and animation of our brethren in the insulted, besieged capital of Massachusetts Bay. The generals of despotism are now drawing the lines of circumvallation around our bulwarks of Liberty, and nothing but unity, resolution and perseverance, can save ourselves and posterity from what is worse than death — slavery!

Newport, Rhode Island, May 30, 1774.