Address and Declaration of the Provincial Congress to the Governour

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SOUTH-CAROLINA.

We, His Majesty' s loyal subjects, the Representatives of the people of this Colony in Congress assembled, beg leave to disclose to your Excellency the true causes of our proceedings; not only that, upon your arrival among us, you may receive no unfavourable impression of our conduct, but that we may stand justified to the world.

When the ordinary modes of application for redress of grievances, and the usual means of defence against arbitrary impositions have failed, mankind generally have had recourse to those that are extraordinary. Hence the origin of the Continental Congress, and hence the present representation of the people in this Colony.

It is unnecessarly to enumerate the grievances of America; they have been so often represented, that your Excellency cannot be a stranger to them. Let it therefore suffice to say, that the hands of His Majesty' s Ministers, which have long lain heavy, now press us with intolerable weight. We declare, that no love of innovation, no desire of altering the Constitution of Government, no lust of independence, has had the least influence upon our councils. But, alarmed and roused by a long succession of arbitrary proceedings by wicked Administrations; impressed with the greatest apprehensions of instigated insurrections, and deeply affected by the commencement of hostilities by the British Troops against this Continent, solely for the preservation and defence of our lives, liberties, and properties, we have been impelled to associate and take up arms.

We sincerely deplore those slanderous informations and wicked counsels by which His Majesty has been led into measures which, if persisted in, must inevitably involve America in all the calamities of civil war, and rend the British Empire. We only desire the secure enjoyment of our invaluable rights, and we wish for nothing more ardently than a speedy reconciliation with our Mother Country upon constitutional principles.

Conscious of the justice of our cause, and the integrity of our news, we readily profess our loyal attachment to our Sovereign, his Crown and dignity; and trusting the event to Providence, we prefer death to slavery.

These things we have thought it our duty to declare, that your Excellency, and through you,our august Sovereign, our fellow-subjects, and the whole world, may clearly understand, that our taking up arms is the result of dire necessity, and in compliance with the first law of nature.

We entreat and trust, that your Excellency will make such a representation of the state of this Colony, and of our true motives, as to assure His Majesty that, in the midst of all our complicated distresses, he has no subjects in his wide dominions who more sincerely desire to testify their loyalty and affection, or who would be more willing to devote their lives and fortunes in his real service.

By order of the provincial Congress at Charlestown:

HENRY LAURENS, President.