The writer in the Massachusetts Gazette, who signs Chronus, in his address to the publick, recommended petitioning and humbly representing the hardship of certain measures; and yet before he finished his first paper, he pointed out to us the unhappy effects in former times of the very method he had prescribed. Those "intemperate patriots" it seems, the majority of both houses of the general assembly, not hearkning to the cool advice of the few wise men within and without doors, must needs make their humble representations to the King and Council upon the claims of New- Hampshire and Rhode-Island: And what was the consequence? Why, he says the province lost ten times the value of the land in dispute. Did Chronus mean by this and such like instances, to enforce the measure which he had recommended? They certainly afford a poor encouragement for us to persevere in the way of petitioning and humble representation. But perhaps he will say, the General Assembly had at that time no reason to complain of the incroachment of these sister colonies their claims were just; and the discerning few who were in that mind were in the right. Just so he says is the case now. For he tells us that "no one has attempted to infringe the peoples rights." Upon what principle then would he have us petition? It is possible, for I would fain understand him, that what Candidus and others call an invasion of our rights, he may choose to denominate a Grievance; for if we suffer no Grievance, he can certainly have no reason to advise us to represent the hardship of certain measures. And I am the rather inclin'd to think, that this is his particular humour, because I find that the stamp-act, which almost every one looked upon as a most violent infraction of our natural and constitutional rights, is called by this writer a Grievance. And he is so singular as to enquire, "What Liberties we are now deprived of," aitho' an act of parliament is still in being, and daily executed, very similar to the stamp-act, and form'd for the very same purpose, viz, the raising and establishing a revenue in the colonies by virtue of a suppos'd inherent right in the British parliament, where the colonies cannot be represented, and therefore without their consent. The exercise of such a power Chronus would have us consider as a Grievance indeed, but not by any means a deprivation of our rights and liberties, or even so much as the least infringement of them. Mr. Locke has often been quoted in the present dispute between Britain and her colonies, and very much to our purpose. His reasoning is so forcible, that no one has even attempted to confute it. He holds that "the preservation of property is the end of government, and that for which men enter into society. It therefore necessarily supposes and requires that the people should have property, without which they must be suppos'd to lose that by entering into society, which was the end for which they