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[360]

The colonies began also to think of permanent

chap. XIX.} 1765. Nov
union. ‘join or die’ became more and more their motto. At Windham, in Connecticut, the freemen, in a multitudinous assembly, agreed with one another, ‘to keep up, establish, and maintain the spirit of union and liberty;’ and for that end they recommended monthly county conventions, and also a general meeting of the colony.

At New London, the inhabitants of the county of

Dec.
that name, holding a mass meeting in December, unanimously decided in carefully prepared resolves, that every form of rightful government originates from the consent of the people; that lawful authority cannot pass the boundaries set by them; that if the limits are passed, they may reassume the authority which they had delegated; and that if there is no other mode of relief against the Stamp Act and similar acts, they must reassume their natural rights and the authority with which they were invested by the laws of nature and of God. The same principles were adopted at various village gatherings, and became the political platform of Connecticut.

In New-York, the validity of the British Navigation Acts was more and more openly impugned, so that the merchants claimed a right to every freedom of trade enjoyed in England. When the General applied for the supplies, which the province was enjoined by the British Mutiny Act to contribute for the use of the troops quartered among them, the assembly would pay no heed whatever to an act of parliament to which they themselves had given no assent; and in the general tumult, their refusal passed almost unnoticed.

Everywhere the fixed purpose prevailed, that

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