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To the Honourable Provincial Congress now sitting at WATERTOWN, the Petition of the Committee of Correspondence for the Town of PLYMOUTH humbly sheweth:
That your petitioners have this day received intelligence that a vote passed your House the — instant, determining to remove to Head-Quarters that part of Colonel Cotton' s Regiment which has been, by order of your most respectable body, stationed in this place, for the security and protection of the lives and property of this greatly exposed and much threatened Town. We, your petitioners, have lately received undoubted intelligence by one of our townsmen, who has been taken by a tender and carried into Boston, that Admiral Graves made particular inquiry into the circumstances of this Town, and said that we were a rebellious people, and that in consequence of our building a fort in opposition to the King' s Troops, it should not be long before he would blow the Town about our ears. Your petitioners are very sensible that should the Troops be called away from this station, the Town of Plymouth, as well as the adjacent villages, will lie open to the ravages of our enemies, and that it will be no difficult matter for them to plunder and destroy us. The poor of this Town are already much distressed by reason of the stop put to the
For and by order of the Committee of Correspondence for the Town of Plymouth:
ANDREW CROSWELL, Clerk.
P˙ S. The Committee of Correspondence for the Town of Duxburyand Kingston, which lie on Plymouth Bay, join in the general prayer of the above petition.
Plymouth Committee to Massachusetts Congress
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fishery, and can scarcely subsist upon what they get out of the clam banks and by fishing in boats; and should they be driven from their huts into the barren country that surrounds us, they must (for aught we see) perish with hunger and for want of habitations, there not being houses within twenty miles sufficient to receive them. These poor people consist principally of women and children, their husbands and parents having enlisted themselves into the service of the Colony. Your petitioners are very far from desiring to create any unnecessary expense to the Colony, but, at the same time, think it necessary that said Troops remain with us; and are of opinion that, should they be withdrawn, the Town will be immediately evacuated; and, for the above reasons, your petitioners, as in duty bound, &c.
GAMALIEL BRADFORD, JR.
JOHN GRAY.