GENTLEMEN

Yesterday we receivd your Letter dated the 22d of March, wherein
we have the disagreeable Intelligence of your "having resignd the
several offices in which you have acted for the Town" of
Marblehead, and that you shall "accept them no more--without
material Alteration in the Conduct of the Inhabitants."

When we heard of the unhappy Circumstances of that Town--The
Contest that had arisen to so great a Degree of Violence on
Account of the Hospital lately erected there, it gave us great
Concern and Anxiety, lest it might issue to the Prejudice of the
Common Cause of American Freedom. We were apprehensive that the
Minds of the Zealous Friends of that good Cause, being warmly
agitated in such a Controversy, would become thereby disaffected
to each other, and that the Advantage which we have hitherto
experienced from their united Efforts would cease. We are
confirmd that our Fears were not ill grounded, by your
relinquishing a Post, which, in our Opinion, and we dare say in
the Opinion of your Fellow Townsmen you sustaind with Honor to
your selves and Advantage to your Country. But Gentlemen, Suffer
us to ask, Whether you well considerd, that although you derivd
your Being as a Committee of Correspondence from that particular
Town which appointed you, yet in the Nature of your office, while
they continued you in it you stood connected in a peculiar
Relation with your Country. If this be a just View of it, Should
the ill Conduct of the Inhabitants of Marblehead towards you,
influence you to decline serving the publick in this office, any
more than that of the Inhabitants of this or any other Town? And
would you not therefore have continued in that office, though you