The Virginia Gazette

Extract of a Letter from a Gentleman of the Law in a neighbouring Colony, to his Friend in Providence.

"The very extraordinary Stretch of Power, in erecting a Court of Inquisition at Rhode Island, arbitrarily to apprehend, and most cruelly and unconstitutionally to carry beyond Sea for Trial, those Persons concerned in burning the Gaspee, is justly alarming to every Lover of his Country, and our once happy Constitution. We ought to consider the Measures as levelled not at Rhode Island merely, but as a flagrant Attack upon American Liberty in general. The Commission granted in 1674 to Maverick, Carr, and others, though acknowledged by all to be destructive of the Liberties of the People, and unsupported by the Constitution, was not so fatal as the present Commission. There our Ancestors had the small Consolation of having their Causes heard and determined where they were able to procure their Evidences, &c. but to be drawn three Thousand Miles from the Jurisdiction where the supposed Offences are committed, to be there tried by Minions of Power, renders all Hopes of Acquittal vain, and a Defence impossible. How soon this may be the Fate of some in our Colony, as well as in yours, I know not. This at least ought to be the Desire of every honest Man, that none of us may, like Slaves, submit to the Insults of the Tools of Administration; but, like Men, show, by every constitutional Method, that we intend to hold our Liberties free from Invasion, and transmit them inviolate to unborn Generations, for whom, as well as ourselves, we hold them in Trust."