and to the resolves for arresting persons here and sending them to England for trial is treason, the lords and commons, and the whole nation, were traitors at the revolution.
They know that all America is united in sentiment, and in the plan of opposition to the claims of administration and parliament. The junto in Boston, with their little flocks of adherents in the country, are not worth taking into the account; and the army and navy, though these are divided among themselves, are no part of America; in order to judge of this union, they begin at the commencement of the dispute, and run through the whole course of it. At the time of the Stamp Act, every Colony expressed its sentiments by resolves of their assemblies, and every one agreed that parliament had no right to tax the Colonies. The house of representatives of the Massachusetts Bay, then consisted of many persons, who have since figured as friends to government; yet every member of that house concurred most cheerfully in the resolves then passed. The congress which met that year at New York, expressed the same opinion in their resolves, after the paint, paper and tea act was passed. The several assemblies expressed the same sentiments, and when your Colony wrote the famous circular letter, notwithstanding all the mandates and threats, and cajoling of the minister and the several governors, and all the crown officers through the continent, the assemblies with one voice echoed their entire approbation of that letter, and their applause to your Colony for sending it. In the year 1768, when a non importation was suggested and planned by a few gentlemen at a private club, in one of our large towns, as soon as it was proposed to the public, did it not spread through the whole continent? Was it not regarded, like the laws of the Medes and Persians, in almost all the Colonies? When the paint and paper act was repealed, the southern Colonies agreed to depart from the association in all things but the dutied articles, but they have kept strictly to their agreement against importing them, so that no tea worth the mentioning, has been imported into any of them from Great Britain to this day. In the year 1770, when a number of persons were slaughtered in King Street, such was the brotherly sympathy of all the Colonies, such their resentment against an hostile administration; that the innocent blood then spilt, has never been forgotten, nor the murderous minister and governors, who brought the troops here, forgiven, by any part of the continent, and never will be. When a certain masterly statesman, invented a committee of correspondence in Boston, which has provoked so much of the spleen of Massachusettensis, of which much more hereafter; did not every Colony, nay every county, city, hundred and town upon the whole continent, adopt the measure? I had almost said, as if it had been a revelation from above, as the happiest means of cementing the union and acting in concert? What proofs of union have been given since the last March? Look over the resolves of the several Colonies, and you will see that one understanding governs, one heart animates the whole body. Assemblies, conventions, congresses, towns, cities, and private clubs and circles, have been actuated by one great, wise, active and noble spirit, one masterly soul, animating one vigorous body.