I have been so totally taken up, that I dont know whether I have acknowledged your Agreeble Letters or not. They have been of Use as well as Amusement to me I assure you.

You can hardly conceive the avidity with which your Letter and Mr. Trumbulls, and indeed every Scrap of Letter or Newspaper from Boston is read here. You cannot conceive the Esteem And Honour in which the Mass. is held here.

While I write this, the Gentlemen Delegates are all around me reading your News Papers. I hear them all around me praising and admiring. By G——d says one, I dont believe there is such a People in the World! Another answers him, I really dont think there is so fine a People upon the Globe. So cool, so cautious, so prudent, and yet so unalterably determined.

My Dear Friend, pray write to me by every opportunity. Dont wait for Returns from me. I have so much Business, so much Pleasure—so much Ceremony and so much Trifling to do here that I have not Time to write a Line. Yet I will give you a remembrancer when I can.

The Congress are well united—but all is quiet as yet. We shall do tolerably well.

As Choice a Collection as North America can Afford, I will answer for it.

The spirit of liberty is amazingly increased, so that there is scarce a tory and hardly a neutral to be found in the country. This province seems ripe for a more popular government, if not restrained by congress, who will doubtless give all the encouragement to all that the good of the whole will admit of. Some talk of resuming our first charter, others of absolute independency. Our eye is to the congress—may wisdom direct your every step.—You will see that our government has told us, that the refusing submission to the late acts of parliament is general throughout the province; and that he should lay the same before his majesty:1 and since that I have received satisfaction that our friends to government are convinced they can't carry these acts into effect; and are willing, if possible, to keep matters in a state of suspense until they hear from home. At the same time they continue to entrench and fortify the neck, professedly, and I believe really and only, for self-defence.

Nothing very material has taken Place here since Mr. Revere left Boston,1 by whom you will have particular Accounts. The Fortifications at the Entrance of the Town and Entrenchments &c. on the Neck advance rapidly, they have three hundred Soldiers constantly at Work there. Seven Regiments are already here with a Train of thirty Peices of Cannon, and two more Regiments from Quebec2 are 167every Week expected. What all these formidable military Maneuvres are to terminate in, Time will discover. General Gage professes to act only on the defensive. I wish we may not soon find something else is design'd besides the bare Protection of his Troops. Should he commence one Act of Hostility, such is the Spirit that prevails universally, a civil War would inevitably be the Consequence. The People expect and are preparing for the worst. It is thought that within a Month there has been sold out of this Town 5000 small Arms. Guns are so scarce here now that there is not a complete firelock to be purchased. The Countrymen almost every where turn out and exercise three Times a Week. There is said to be fifty Cannon in the upper Part of the County of Middlesex completely fitted for Service. May Heaven interpose at this very critical Period and avert the Calamities which must ensue, should we recur to this dernier Resort. But should it be necessary to recur to it, I shall think myself fortunate to be here, to join my Countrymen in their noble Cause. We can never bleed in a more righteous one.

There has not been any Court allowed to sit in any County since the first of Sepr. Nor do we attempt to fill any Writs. The extreme Inconveniences that must soon be felt from this Supension of all Law Processes, will I fear produce the most shocking Convulsions. We already suffer greatly. You sympathise with Us, Sir, and will undoubtedly represent the Necessity we are in of Relief. The nervous3 Language with which You convey your virtuous, patriotic and sympathising Feelings must make Impressions on your Brother Delegates. I am sure of all your Exertions in this Way, and from them form the most sanguine Expectations.

Whatever general, continental Measures may be agreed to for the other Colonies to adopt, some particular ones must be advised to for this Province particularly. The Acts of Parliament though they affect all the Colonies are immediately operative only in this. By them our Charter is destroy'd, and we thereby reduc'd to resort to first Principles.—I am prevented pursuing the Subject by a Call for my Letter.