Your letter of the 30th December, addressed to John Hancock, Esq., has been laid before the Committee appointed by this Town, to receive and distribute the donations made for the employment and relief of the sufferers by the Act of Parliament, commonly called the Boston Port Bill. I am directed by the Committee to return you their hearty thanks for the care you have generously taken in the disposal of a parcel of corn, (free of charge,) which was shipped for that charitable purpose, by our friends in Essex County, in Virginia, on board the schooner Sally, James Perkins, master, driven by stress of weather to St. Eustatia. An account of sales of the corn was inclosed in your letter, together with a bill of exchange drawn by Mr. Sampson Mears on Mr. Isaac Moses of New York, for one hundred seventy-one pounds, eight shillings, that currency, being the amount thereof. The opinion you have formed of the inhabitants of this Town, as having so virtuously dared to oppose a wicked and corrupt ministry, in their tyrannical acts of despotism, must needs be very flattering to them. The testimony of our friends so fully in our favor, more especially of those who are not immediately interested in the unhappy contest between Britain and her Colonies, must strongly excite this people to a perseverance in so righteous a cause. Be pleased, Sir, to accept of due acknowledgments for your kind wishes for our speedy relief, and be assured that I am, (in the name of the Committee,) Your very obliged friend and humble servant, ________________________________________________________________ 1At St. Eustatia. TO WILLIAM BLACK.1 [Collections of Massachusetts Historical Society, 4th ser., vol. iv., pp. 188, 189; the text, dated March 2, 1775, is in Force, American Archives, 4th ser., vol. ii., p. 16.] SIR, Your letter of the 24th December last to Mr. Cushing and others, by Capt. Tompkins, of the schooner Dunmore, in which was brought several valuable donations from our friends in Virginia, to the sufferers in this Town by the Port Bill, was communicated to the Committee appointed to receive such donations, and by their direction I am to acquaint you that they cheerfully consented, at your request, that the schooner should be discharged at Salem, thinking themselves under obligation to promote her dispatch, more especially as there was unexpected delay in her loading, and you have very generously declined receiving demurrage. We have repeatedly had abundant evidence of the firmness of our brethren of Virginia in the American cause, and have reason to confide in them that they will struggle hard for the prize now contending for.