The Massachusetts Spy, Or, Thomas's Boston Journal

From the Public Ledger, July 30.

To the Earl of Dartmouth.

My Lord,

If Christianity was compatible with the lazy apathy of the stoics; if rational piety was the parent of fanaticism, you, my Lord, would be the best Christian and the best pietist that hath existed since the days of Constantine. If moral honesty would serve as a substitute for political virtue, you would also make an admirable minister. But unfortunately there is a gift with which you are not endowed; there are talents which seldom fall to the lot of men of your Lordship's cast, yet are so essential, that without this gift, without these talents, to attempt moving in the sphere of political life, is truly ridiculous, is altogether contemptible. May I whisper in your Lordship's ear, what the loud trump of nature hath sounded forth to all the world beside, that you was designed for private not for public station? To grace some lonely monkish cell, not figure in a drawing room! This whisper of truth, if attended to in time, will lead to a correction of a mistake, by producing your RESIGNATION.

You have rashly been prevailed upon to undertake the superintendence of American affairs, and that too at a time, when those affairs were hourly hastening to a most unfortunate catastrophe; Lord Hillsborough foresaw this, and prudently retired, before the storm gathered to a head. The casuistical Baronet of Nettleham, he too quitted the scene of action, content with having thrown the whole drama into confusion; you my Lord, are left disconsolate in the critical emergency of distress: The period is now arrived, when you must incur the censure or applause of an enraged, insulted, yet loyal people.

The Americans have been most candidly traduced, and it is now apparent who have been their traducers: the letters of Messrs. Hutchinson and Oliver, prove beyond contradiction, that the destruction of the charter rights, and liberties of the colonies, hath been aimed at by the Ministry at home, as well as the friends of that Ministry abroad: the shameful scheme was conceived by our cabinet council, and it remained for such agents as Hutchinson, Oliver, Paxton, and others, to give it existence. As the design was EXECRABLE, the means employed to execute it, were infamous, were dishonourable, and such as would cause a blush in the cheeks of an infidel savage to countenance: A Chief Justice of a province degenerating into a common INFORMER! argues a species of villainous treachery language cannot paint: A Chief Justice of a province, basely undermining that constitution he was appointed to support, using every art to enslave those people whose freedom he was sworn to maintain! What, my Lord, is this, but to heap perjury upon treason, and for pure "villainies" sake, to be villainous in the extreme! Yet men guilty of such crimes, have been not only countenanced, but caressed, not merely employed but highly honoured by your predecessors in office!

Will you, Lord Dartmouth, a disciple of justice, a professor of the Christian graces, will you consent to the continuance of such men in places of profit, of honour and of trust? Will you thus commence patron of inhumanity? Will you shew lenity to those who, actuated by principles of barbarity, have caused the destruction of their fellow subjects? I speak boldly but I speak truths, in order that villains may feel daggers, and honest nature be shocked.

I affirm then that all the troubles and military murders in America, during those troubles, happened in consequence of the traitor commissioners misrepresentations of the King's Ministers in that country. Is more affirmed than the confidential correspondence of Hutchinson, Paxton, and Oliver proves? What can we think when the Chief Justice of a free province, writes thus in a letter: "There must be an abridgement of what are called English liberties." And who can doubt the intentions of the British court, when we see such a man held in estimation by the King and Ministry.

Again, Charles Paxton says, "unless we have immediately two or three regiments, it is the opinion of all the friends of government, that Boston will be in open rebellion." To this, amongst other informations, America is indebted for the introduction of so many troops at Boston, and the subsequent slaughter of the inhabitants by the military.

These facts, my Lord, and some others, which will shortly be made public, account sufficiently for those differences which have so long unhappily subsisted between Great Britain and her colonies.

The nature of your office implies a power of healing those differences, of amicably adjusting each subject of complaint; by your conduct we shall see whether you actually possess this power, for if speedy justice is rendered the colonies, by the removal, and punishment of those heralds of sedition, those traitors to their trust, Hutchinson, Oliver, Paxton, and the rest of the cabal; if this be done, we shall then know that you are in very deed American Minister; if it be not done, it will be manifest to the world, that you are the puppet of the day, incapable to move unless some secret hand shall touch the MASTER WIRE.

AN AMERICAN.