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DEAR SIR: This covers a Bill brought into the House of Commons by Lord North, against the town of Boston, for destroying the tea sent out on account of the East India Company; by its complexion you may judge what will be the fate of America. I am sorry to see what little opposition it met with in the House of Commons —
I suppose there will be a general Congress from the Colonies; — on their deliberations the fall or rise of your country will depend. You will undoubtedly form some resolutions, and strictly adhere to them, or give up the dispute and submit at once to English tyranny. A determination to stop the exports of your country, and not import any British manufactures, will in two years restore you to liberty, and draw poverty and ruin on the mother country.
I have enclosed you the Petition to the King, with the names of those who signed it.
Lord North made a motion in the House of Commons for leave to bring in a bill to regulate the government of the Massachusetts Bay, the substance of which, I understand, is to invest such powers in the Governor as to enable him to hear, determine, and turn out at pleasure; in fact, to be as arbitrary as he pleases.
If Boston acquiesces, the next step will probably be to punish Philadelphia for sending the tea back, and thus, by crushing each respectively, enforce a submission by the whole, to any tax Britain may please to impose.
May heaven protect you, and direct your resolutions to the happiness of your country — may you be free from the chains of slavery intended by a wicked and arbitrary Government.
Letter from a Gentleman in London to His Friend at Annapolis, Md.
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not a division on the passage of the bill! In the House of Lords it met with more opposition; a number of able speakers opposed it, but the court party prevailed. You may be surprised that there was not a Petition presented to the House sooner than there was; the Americans residing here waited for the body of merchants to take the lead, but they acted on this important occasion as in every other matter of this nature heretofore.