We receivd your favor by the hand of Mr Wood, and observe the Art of the Tories in your part of the Province to make the People believe the Non Consumption Agreement is a Trick of the Merchants of this Town, that they may have the Advantage of selling off the Goods they have on hand at an exorbitant Rate. So far is this from the Truth, that the Merchants importing Goods from England, a few excepted, were totally against the Covenant. They complaind of it in our Town Meeting as a Measure destructive to their Interest. Some of them have protested against it as such; and they are now using their utmost Endeavors to prevent it. Can it then be rationally said by the Advocates for Tyranny that it is a Plan laid by the Merchants? The Enemies of our Constitution know full well that if there are no Purchasers of British Goodsc there will be no Importers. On the Contrary if the People in the Country will purchase there are People in the City avaricious enough to import. Hence it is that they are so agitated with the Non Consumption Agreement that they will not hesitate at any rate to discredit it. We highly applaud your Zeal for the Liberties of your Country and are with great Regard Your friends & fellow Countrymen, TO ANDREW ELTON WELLS.1 [MS., Samuel Adams Papers, Lenox Library.] BOSTON July 25 1774 MY DEAR BROTHER I beg you to believe me when I tell you that incessant publick Business has prevented my writing to you as often as my own Inclination would lead me to do it. I assure you I feel an exquisite Pleasure in an epistolary Chat with a private Friend, and I never contemplate a little Circle but I place you and your Spouse as two, or I had rather say, ONE.--But consider my Brother, or to use a dearer Apellation my Friend, consider our Native Town is in Disgrace. She is suffering the Insolence of Power. But she prides herself in being calld to suffer for the Cause of American Freedom and rises superior to her proud oppressors, she suffers with Dignity; and while we are enduring the hard Conflict, it is a Consolation to us that thousands of little Americans who cannot at present distinguish between the Right hand & the left, will reap the happy Fruits of it; and among these I bear particularly in my mind my young Cousins of your Family.