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graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance, employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves.

SAMUEL SEABURY

Samuel Seabury, the most effective of the loyalist pamphleteers, was born in Groton, Connecticut, in 1729, and graduated at Yale. At the outbreak of the Revolution he was rector of a parish in Westchester, New York. Like many other Americans of education, social position, and Church of England connections, he took the conservative side. The no-trade agreement, adopted by the first Continental Congress in September, 1774, was immediately attacked in a well-written pamphlet, Free Thoughts on the Proceedings of the Continental Congress, by "a Westchester Farmer." The authorship, attributed to various loyalists, was then thought, and is now definitely known, to belong to Seabury. This, along with The Congress Canvassed and two other similar pamphlets written during the next two months, called forth many replies, the ablest, A Full Vindication and The Farmer Refuted, being from the youthful pen of Alexander Hamilton, then an undergraduate at King's College. For his toryism Seabury was a year later seized by a mob, which pillaged his rectory; he finally escaped within the British lines and was made chaplain of the King's American regiment. Unlike many loyalists he remained in this country after the war and outlived his unpopularity. He died in 1796, honored as the first bishop of the American Episcopal Church.

Though he had cultivated only his parish glebe, Seabury could convincingly assume the views and style of a farmer. He argued that farmers would suffer from the no-trade agreement; he denounced the Congress as an illegal and tyrannical body, and proposed loyalty with home rule as the best and safest solution. He showed narrowness in his suspicion of the other colonies-especially of "the mad schemes of our Eastern neighbors;" and shortsightedness in his prophecy that if the colonists should (quite improbably)

win the impending war, they would "turn their arms on one another." But he wrote with great cogency, wit, and vigor in support of views which he held with honesty and courage. We who believe in independence and union cannot now find his arguments convincing; but we can respect an American who, like many others of his time, made great sacrifices for loyalty and freedom of speech.

THE DANGER TO THE FLAX-GROWERS [FROM "FREE THOUGHTS ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE Continental CONGRESS." 1774]

When a trading people carelessly neglect, or wilfully give up any branch of their trade, it is seldom in their power to recover it. Should the Irish turn their trade for flax-seed to Quebec; and the West Indians get their flour, horses, &c., from thence, or other places; the loss to the farmers of this province would be immense.

You know, my Friends, that the sale of your seed not only pays your taxes, but furnishes you with many of the little conveniencies, and comforts of life; the loss of it for one year would be of more damage to you, than paying the threepenny duty on tea for twenty. Let us compare matters a little. It was inconvenient for me this year to sow more than one bushel of seed. I have threshed and cleaned up eleven bushels. The common price now is at least ten shillings; my seed then will fetch me five pounds, ten shillings. But I will throw in the ten shillings for expenses. There remain five pounds: in five pounds are four hundred threepences; four hundred three pences currency, will pay the duty upon two hundred pounds of tea, even reckoning the exchange with London at 200 per cent., that is, reckoning 100 7. sterling, to be equal to 200 l. currency; whereas in fact it is only equal to 175 l. or 180 7. at the most. I use in my family about six pounds of tea: few farmers in my neighborhood use so much: but I hate to stint my wife and daughters, or my friendly neighbors when they come to see me. Besides, I like a dish of tea too, especially after a little more than ordinary fatigue in hot weather. Now 200 pounds of tea, at

Ο Ν

The PROCEEDINGS of

THE

CONTINENTAL CONGRESS,

Held at PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 5, 1774:

WHEREIN

Their ERRORS are exhibited,

THEIR

REASONINGS CONFUTED,

AND

The fatal Tendency of their NON-IMPORTATION, NON-EX-
PORTATION, and NON-CONSUMPTION MEASURES, are laid
open to the plainest UNDERSTANDINGS;

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And to those of the Province of New-York

By a

In Particular

FARMER.

Hear me, for I WILL speak!

PRINTED IN THE YEAR M.DCC.LXXIV.

six pounds a year, will last just 33 years, and eight months. So that in order to pay this monstrous duty upon tea, which has raised all this confounded combustion in the country, I have only to sell the produce of a bushel of flax-seed once in THIRTY-THREE years. Ridiculous!

But, to leave jesting. The loss of the sale of your seed only for one year, would be a considerable damage to you. And yet the Congress have been so inattentive to your interests, that they have laid you under, almost, an absolute necessity of losing it the next year. They have decreed, and proclaimed a non-exportation, to commence in September next. The Irish will be alarmed. They will look out somewhere else. Or should they determine to send their ships the earlier, we cannot, without the utmost inconvenience, get our seed to market by that time; especially, not from the remoter parts of the province. The consequence will be, that we must sell our seed at the oil-mills in New York, just at the price the manufacturers shall please to give

us.

upon us.

TYRANNY OF THE CONGRESS

[FROM THE SAME]

Let us now attend a little to the Non-Consumption Agreement, which the Congress, in their Association, have imposed After the first of March we are not to purchase or use any East India tea whatsoever; nor any goods, wares, or merchandise from Great Britain or Ireland, imported after the first day of December next: nor any molasses, syrups, &c., from the British plantations in the West Indies, or from Dominica; nor wines from Madeira, or the Western Islands; nor foreign indigo.

Will you submit to this slavish regulation? You must. Our sovereign Lords and Masters, the High and Mighty Delegates, in Grand Continental Congress assembled, have ordered and directed it. They have directed the committees in the respective colonies, to establish such further regulations as they may think proper, for carrying their association, of which this non-consumption agreement is a part, into execu

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