Boston March 4 1775.
Describes conditions in Massachusetts.1 "The Town of Marshfield, have lately applied to G. Gage for Leave to have a Meeting, according to the Act of Parliament, & have resolvd as you may observe by the inclosd. They will be dealt with according to the Law of the Continental Congress. The Laws of which are more observd throughout this Continent than any human Laws whatever.
"Another Congress will meet at Philadelphia in May next. Every Colony has appointed its Delegates (I mean those which did before) except N York, whose Assembly I have just heard have resolvd not to send any. The People of that City & Colony, are infested with Court Scriblers who have labord, perhaps with some Success, to divide them; they are however in general firm, and have with regard to the Arrival of a Ship from London since the first of February, behaved well. You know their Parliament is septennial - and therefore must be corrupted. It is best that the Tories in their house have acted without Disguise. This is their last Session and the house will, I hope, be purgd at the next Election.2
"There is a Combination in that Colony of high Church Clergy men & great Landholders—of the former, a certain Dr C3 is the head; who knows an American Episcopate cannot be establishd and consequently he will not have the pleasure of strutting thro the Colonies in Lawn Sleeves, until the Authority of parliament to make Laws for us binding in all Cases whatever is settled. The Latter are Lords over many Slaves; and are afraid of the Consequences that would follow, if a Spirit of Liberty should prevail among them. This however is so far the Case that I doubt not the People will chuse Delegates for the Congress, as they did before. When that Congress meets, it is expected, that they will agree upon a Mode of opposition (unless our Grievances are redressd) which will render the Union of the Colonies more formidable than ever. Concordia res parva crescunt
"We have lately opend a Correspondence with Canada which, I dare say will be attended with great and good Effects."4
File copy, New York Public Library. Adams, Writings (Cushing), 3:194 - 98.
1 Adams’ earlier Accounts of Massachusetts affairs in his letters to Lee of January 29 and February 14, 1775, are in Adams, Writings (Cushing), 3:169 - 72, 179 - 80.
2 New York’s delegates to Congress were not elected until April 22, 1775, when a provincial convention of representatives from nine of 14 counties chose a 12-man delegation. Am. Archives, 4th ser. 2:358.
3 Myles Cooper, loyalist president of King’s College.
4 Adams had arranged for the Boston Committee of Correspondence to send John Brown (1744 - 80), Pittsfield, Mass., lawyer and militia colonel, as agent to Canada to sample sentiment toward the American colonies. DAB; and Allen French, The First Year of the Armorican Revolution (New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1934), pp. 145 - 46. For Brown’s report to the committee, March 29, 1775, see Am. Archives, 4th ser. 2:243 - 45. For Brown’s later appearance at the second Congress, see Silas Deane’s Diary, May 18, 1775.