I enclose you a copy of a vote, passed by this Town at a very full meeting yesterday, which stands adjourned till Wednesday next, to receive the report of a committee appointed to consider what is proper further to be done. The inhabitants in general abhor the thought of paying for the tea, which is one condition upon which we are to be restored to the grace and favor of Great Britain. Our Committee of Correspondence have written letters to our friends in the Southern Colonies, and they are about writing to the several towns in this Province. The merchants of Newburyport have exhibited a noble example of public spirit, in resolving that, if the other sea-port Towns in this Province alone, will come into the measure, they will not trade to the southward of South Carolina, nor to any part of Great Britain and Ireland, till the harbor of Boston is again open and free; or till the disputes between Britain and the Colonies are settled, upon such terms as all rational men ought to contend for. This is a manly and generous resolution. I wish Plymouth, which has hitherto stood foremost, would condescend to second Newburyport. Such a determination put into practice would alter the views of a nation, who are in full expectation that Boston will be unthought of by the rest of the continent, and even of this Province, and left, as they are devoted, to ruin. The heroes who first trod on your shore, fed on clams and muscles, and were contented. The country which they explored, and defended with their richest blood, and which they transmitted as an inheritance to their posterity, affords us a superabundance of provision. Will it not be an eternal disgrace to this generation, if it should now be surrendered to that people who, if we might judge of them by one of their laws, are barbarians. IMPIUS HAEC TAM CULTA NOVALIA MILES HABEBIT? BARBARUS HAS SEGETES? If our brethren feel and resent the affront and injury now offered to this town; if they realize of how great importance it is to the liberties of all America that Boston should sustain this shock with dignity; if they recollect their own resolutions, to defend the public liberty AT THE EXPENSE OF THEIR FORTUNES AND LIVES, they cannot fail to contribute their aid by a temporary suspension of their trade. I am your friend, TO SILAS DEANE.1 [MS., Samuel Adams Papers, Lenox Library; a text, with variations, is in Correspondence of Samuel B. Webb, W. C. Ford, vol. i., pp. 23, 24.] BOSTON May 18 1774 SIR