privy Council have or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power or Authority to do. In short, this Measure appears to me to be repugnant to the first Principles of natural Justice. The interrested Servants of the Crown, and some of them pensiond, perhaps byassd & corrupted being the constituted Judges, whether this or that Subject shall be put to answer for a supposd Offence against the Crown, & that in a distant Country, to their great Detriment & Danger of Life & Fortune, even if their Innocence shd be made to appear. What Man is safe from the malicious Prosecution of such Persons, unless it be the cringing Sycophant, and even he holds his Life and Property at their Mercy. It should awaken the American Colonies, which have been too long dozing upon the Brink of Ruin. It should again unite them in one Band. Had that Union which once happily subsisted been preservd, the Conspirators against our Common Rights would never have venturd such bold Attempts. It has ever been my Opinion, that an Attack upon the Liberties of one Colony is an Attack upon the Liberties of all; and therefore in this Instance all should be ready to yield Assistance to Rhode Island. But an Answer to the most material Part of your Letter must be referd, for the Reasons I have given, to another Opportunity. In the mean time I am with due Regards to the Gentlemen who have honord me with their Letter Your assured Friend & very hbl Servt 1 Of Providence, R. I. Under date of December 25, 1772, Deputy Governor Sessions, Chief Justice Stephen Hopkins, John Cole, and Moses Brown had written to Adams with reference to the Gaspee affair and to Lord Dartmouth's letter to the Governor of Rhode Island of September 4, 1772. A copy is in S. A. Wells, Samuel Adams and the American Revolution, vol. i., pp. 363-365. A copy of a letter, under date of February 15, 1773, from Sessions, Hopkins, Cole, and Brown to Adams, acknowledging the receipt of three letters from Adams in response to their letter of December 25, 1772, is in ibid., pp. 370, 371. In this letter to Adams his correspondents comment as follows: "At or about the time we wrote you, we transmitted copies of the same to several gentlemen in North America, from the most of whom we have received answers, agreeing nearly in sentiments, with those you were pleased to communicate to us though no one has entered into a disquisition of the subject so fully and satisfactorily as you have." The original letter is also in the Lenox Library. THE COMMITTEE OF CORRESPONDENCE OF BOSTON TO THE COMMITTEE OF CORRESPONDENCE OF CAMBRIDGE.1 [MS., Committee of Correspondence Papers, Lenox Library.] BOSTON Decr 29 1772 GENTLEMEN Your cordial Approbation2 of our sincere Endeavors for the Common Safety, affords us great Encouragement to persevere with Alacrity in the Execution of our Trust. Our hands have been abundantly strengthend by the generous and manly Resolves of our worthy Brethren in the several Towns who have hitherto acted.