The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol 2, page 159 by Samuel Adams
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ore in Character than a political Address to the Man in Power C.
Postscript the 2d. I am inform'd that it was first propos'd to address his Excellency at Cambridge, after Dinner on the Day of Election, and that the Reason assign'd for it was, because it had been unjustly asserted that his had stood Sponsor at a Christening - The Truth of which Assertion, however, it is also said, might have been made evident by enquiring of a worthy Clergyman of the Church of England in that Town, C.
TO ARTHUR LEE.
[R. H. Lee, Life of Arthur Lee, vol. ii., pp. 173-577.]
BOSTON, July 31st, 1771.
SIR,-
Since I received your favour of the 28th of March, I have observed by the London papers that the lord-mayor and alderman are liberated. From the wisdom and firmness which formerly distinguished that opulent and independent city, we expected that when they had so fair an occasion for exerting themselves, the power which has too long oppressed and insulted the nation and the colonies, would have been made to bend. But we have seen complimentary letters and addresses to the imprisoned gentlemen, and their answers; while by a stretch of arbitrary power they have been kept in confinement, till by a prorogation instead of a dissolution, they have been discharged of course. Is this my friend a matter of such triumph? Does it not show that Britons are unfeeling to their condition? Or has brutal force at length become so formidable, that after having in vain petitioned those whose duty it is to redress their grievances, they are afraid to imitate the virtue of their ancestors in similar cases, and redress their grievances themselves?
Mr. Hume, if I mistake not, somewhere says, that if James the Second had had the benefit of the riot-act, and such a standing army as has been granted since his time, it would have been impracticable for the nation to have wrought its own delivery, and establish the constitution of '88. If the people have put it in the power of a wicked and corrupt ministry to