The address to their constituents is replete with serious and temperate argument. In this paper, the several causes which had led to the existing state of things, were detailed more at large; and much labour was used to convince their judgments that their liberties must be destroyed, and the security of their property and persons annihilated, by submission to the pretensions of Great Britain. The first object of congress being to unite the people of America, by demonstrating the sincerity with which their leaders had sought for reconciliation on terms compatible with liberty, great earnestness was used in proving that the conduct of the colonists had been uniformly moderate and blameless. After declaring their confidence in the efficacy of the mode of commercial resistance which had been recommended, the address concludes with saying, "your own salvation, and that of your posterity, now depends upon yourselves. You have already shown that you entertain a proper sense of the blessings you are striving to retain. Against the temporary inconveniences you may suffer from a stoppage of trade, you will weigh in the opposite balance, the endless miseries you and your descendants must endure, from an established arbitrary power. You will not forget the honour of your country, that must, from your behaviour, take its title in the estimation of the world to glory or to shame; and you will, with the deepest attention, reflect, that if the peaceable mode of opposition recommended by us, be broken and rendered ineffectual, as your cruel and haughty ministerial enemies, from a contemptuous opinion of your firmness, insolently predict will be the case, you must inevitably be reduced to choose, either a more dangerous contest, or a final, ruinous, and infamous submission. "Motives thus cogent, arising from the emergency of your unhappy condition, must excite your utmost diligence and zeal, to give all possible strength and energy to the pacific measures calculated for your relief. But we think ourselves bound in duty to observe to you, that the schemes agitated against the colonies have been so conducted, as to render it prudent that you should extend your views to mournful events, and be in all respects prepared for every contingency. Above all things, we earnestly entreat you, with devotion of spirit, penitence of heart, and amendment of life, to humble yourselves, and implore the favour of Almighty God; and we fervently beseech his divine goodness to take you into his gracious protection."[240] [Footnote 240: Mr. Lee, Mr. Livingston, and Mr. Jay, were also the committee who brought in this address.]