Chap. XLIX.} 1773. July. |
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had come to light, circulated through the Province,
and were discussed by the single-minded country people during the week, as they made hay or gathered in the early harvest; on Sundays, the ministers discoursed on them, and poured out their hearts in prayers for the preservation of their precious inheritance of liberty.
‘We devote not only what little we have in the world,’ said the people of Pearsontown, ‘but even our lives to vindicate rights so dearly purchased by our ancestors.’1 The town of Abington became convinced that the boasted connection with Great Britain was ‘not worth a rush.’2 The natural right of mankind to improve the form of Government under which they live,3 was inculcated even from the pulpit; and at the time when the Pope was abolishing the order of the Jesuits, some of the clergy of Boston predicted that ‘in fifteen years,’4 the people of America would mould for themselves a new Constitution.
1 Original Papers, 705.
2 Abington to Boston, 29 July, 1773.
3 Hutchinson to R. Jackson, 12 August, 1773.
4 Hutchinson to Israel Mauduit, 23 August, 1773.
Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1859.
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