George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 6, 10th edition.

‘ [447] our rights and liberties are restored.’¹ The people of

Chap. XLIX.} 1773. Jan.

Medfield would also ‘have a final period put to that most cruel, inhuman and unchristian practice, the Jan. Slave-trade.’² Acton spoke out concisely and firmly. ‘Prohibiting slitting-mills,’ said South Hadley, ‘is similar to the Philistines prohibiting smiths in Israel, and shews we are esteemed by our brethren as vassals.’ ‘We think ourselves obliged to emerge from our former obscurity, and speak our minds with freedom,’ declared Lunenburg, ‘or our posterity may otherwise rise up and curse us.’ ‘We of this place are unanimous,’ was the message from Pepperell; ‘our resentment riseth against those who dare invade our natural and constitutional rights.’ With one voice they named Captain William Prescott, to be the chief of their Committee of Correspondence; and no braver heart beat in Middlesex than his. Lynn called for a Provincial Convention; Stoneham invited the sister Colonies to harmony; Danvers would have ‘strict union of all the Provinces on the Continent.’ ‘Digressions from compacts,’ said the men of Princetown, ‘lessen the connection between the Mother Country and the Colonies.’

South Carolina, too remote for immediate concert, was engaged in the same cause. They marked their affection for Rawlins Lowndes, one of their discarded Judges, and ‘in great esteem throughout the Province,’ by electing him the Speaker of their Assembly. The Governor ‘directed the Assembly to return to their House and choose another;’ but they