Letter from the Speaker of the House of Assembly of Connecticut

v2:108

Colony of Connecticut, Lebanon, March 14, 1775.

SIR: In pursuance of the direction of the Honourable House of Representatives for this Colony, I have the pleasure of transmitting the enclosed Resolutions, and at the same time to return you their unfeigned thanks for your late kind and seasonable, yet spirited and pertinent mediation, in their behalf, by your Remonstrance and Petition to His Most Gracious Majesty.

The clear knowledge you have of the inherent and unalienated rights of the Colonists, and the readiness you have shewn to assert them, with a temper and firmness worthy of such a cause, of Englishmen and Americans, at once reflects the highest honour on your worthy and patriotick Assembly, and merits the most grateful acknowledgments of this whole Continent.

The unnatural contest between the Parliament of Great Britain and these Colonies is at length, by the unwearied efforts of our enemies for a course of years, brought (to all human appearance) near to a most alarming crisis; in which, threatened as we are by the dreadful alternative of surrendering all for which our fathers suffered and bled, all that is deserving of men, Englishmen and Americans, in life; or suffer all the horrours of a military contention with the Parent State; the striking union of these Colonies, a consciousness of the justice of our cause, and the rectitude of our views, with the approbation of our fellow-men, seem, under Heaven, our greatest consolation and support.

The representations of so respectable a body as the Assembly of your large and important Island will, we flatter ourselves, meet with the most, favourable Attention of His Majesty and his Ministers, and have, a happy tendency towards procuring for us and you, (and indeed the whole Nation, ultimately interested in this great common cause,) the redress of those grievances under which we labour, and the establishment of the liberties and privileges of the whole Empire, on the most sure and permanent basis.

We shall ever be happy in keeping up an intercourse with your Island, and shall, from time to time, with pleasure embrace every opportunity to give you the earliest intelligence, of whatever we shall judge of publick concern, or more immediately affecting the Colonies in general, or your Island in particular; and shall gratefully receive the like favours from you.

I am, by order, and in behalf of the House of Representatives for this Colony, Sir, your most obedient and very humble servant,

WM˙ WILLIAMS, Speaker.
Hon˙ Speaker of the House of Assembly, Jamaica.