little understood, and the minds of the people much agitated,
we feel a desire to lay before them some of the causes of the
late excitement. We have long been under guardians, placed
in authority over us, without our having any voice in the
selection, and, as we believe, not constitutional. Will the
good people of Massachusetts revert back to the days of their
fathers, when they were under the galling yoke of the mother
country? when they petitioned the government for a redress of
grievances, but in vain? At length they were determined to try
some other method; and when some English ships came to Boston,
laden with tea, they mustered their forces, unloaded and threw
it into the dock, and thereby laid the foundation of their
future independence, although it was in a terrible war, that
your fathers sealed with their blood a covenant made with
liberty. And now we ask the good people of Massachusetts, the
boasted cradle of independence, whom we have petitioned for a
redress of wrongs, more grievous than what your fathers had
to bear, and our petitioning was as fruitless as theirs, and
there was no other alternative but like theirs, to take our
stand, and as we have on our plantation but one harbor, and no
English ships of tea, for a substitute, we unloaded two wagons
loaded with our wood, without a wish to injure the owners of
the wagons. And now, good people of Massachusetts, when your
fathers dared to unfurl the banners of freedom amidst the
hostile fleets and armies of Great Britain, it was then that
Marshpee furnished them with some of her bravest men to fight
your battles. Yes, by the side of your fathers they fought
and bled, and now their blood cries to you from the ground to
restore that liberty so unjustly taken from us by their sons.