Curiosities of History: Boston, September Seventeenth, 1630-1880Wheildon, William W. (William Willder)
History
Curiosities of History: Boston, September Seventeenth, 1630-1880
Wheildon, William W. (William Willder)
Boston (Mass.) -- Description and travel; Boston (Mass.) -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775
"WHEREAS the Proceedings of the House of Representatives, in the
present Session of the General Court, make it necessary, for his
Majesty's Service, that the said General Court should be dissolved:--
"I have therefore thought fit to dissolve the said General Court, and
the same is hereby dissolved accordingly, and the Members thereof are
discharged from any further Attendance.
"GIVEN under my Hand at Salem, the 17th Day of June, 1774, in the
Fourteenth Year of his Majesty's Reign.
By his Excellency's Command,}
} T. GAGE.
THO'S FLUCKER, Secretary. }
"GOD SAVE THE KING."
Gen. Gage's next proclamation was against the existence of the famous
"Committee of Correspondence," which Samuel Adams had originated, and the
"solemn league and covenant" "to suspend all commercial intercourse with
the island of Great Britain," &c. And "in tenderness to the inhabitants of
this province," he issued this proclamation of warning.
Then, as if to cap the climax of pretension and folly, not to say
hypocrisy, on the 25th of July, while he relied upon the counsels and
efforts of the tory party, issued what may be called a very curious
proclamation, such as possibly, under some circumstances, might have been
issued by Gov. Endicott, in the early days of New England Puritanism; but
the Puritans had long before this time passed out of power. The following
is the proclamation:--
MASSACHUSETTS BAY.
By the GOVERNOR. A PROCLAMATION.
_For the Encouragement of Piety, and Virtue, and for preventing and
punishing of vice, profanity and immorality._
In humble imitation of the laudable example of our most gracious
sovereign _George_ the third, who in the first year of his reign was
pleased to issue his Royal proclamation for the encouragement of piety
and virtue, and for preventing of vice and immorality, in which he
declares his royal purpose to punish all persons guilty thereof; and
upon all occasions to bestow marks of his royal favor on persons
distinguished for their piety and virtue:
"I therefore, by and with the advice of his Majesty's Council, publish
this proclamation, exhorting all his Majesty's subjects to avoid all
hypocrisy, sedition, licentiousness, and all other immoralities, and
to have a grateful sense of all God's mercies, making the divine laws
the rule of their conduct.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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