The Virginia Gazette

PHILADELPHIA. September 12.

Extract of a letter from a very respectable character in London to a gentleman in this city, dated July 5, 1774.

THE present state of political affairs furnishes nothing less disagreeable than my last informed. The Quebec bill, we apprehend, will produce the most distressing jealousies among the protestant inhabitants of that country, and, indeed, of all America. With us the staunchest friends to the Hanoverian succession have not scrupled publicly to pronounce it the most daring stretch of the prerogative of the crown, and the most sinful violation of the rights of a free people that the annals of Britain, or any other nation in the world, record. You have the address and petition of the lord mayor, aldermen, and commons, of this city, to his majesty, which is considered one of the grandest and most spirited addresses ever handed to a throne, so that many hundreds of them, elegantly framed and glazed, have been purchased as household pictures by the nobility, gentry, &c. to transmit to future ages the virtuous sincerity, and honest boldness, of so respectable a body of men. The coin of prophecies is now become current here, and we have too much reason to fear that some presage, of dreadful import, will, ere long, be realized. Very much, all, indeed, depend on the hardihood and public virtue of the Americans. If the brave Bostonians maintain theirs, at this trying juncture, all will be well; for their conduct will furnish a criterion whereby to regulate government here, in a judgment of the success of the iniquitous measures they propose adopting throughout America. It is strongly imagined that many presses, I mean printing presses, in the colonies, are at present fettered by golden chains, sent over by the ministry for that purpose. One or two to the northward of you have been publicly mentioned; but as a little time must discover the truth or falsity of this suspicion, I shall forbear entering into particulars. The public prints from your city, as well as those from Virginia, are in admired request with all ranks of people, except the tools of despotism; but should the ministry succeed in the enterprizes they have already undertaken, with respect to the colonies, you will assuredly be robbed of that darling privilege, the freedom of the press; for effecting which, a scheme, I am well informed, is now agitating in cabinet, upon a new plan, lately hatched by a certain lord, whose name is always opposite to the sun in its meridian, and who has publicly declared that he is determined strenuously to oppose the meridian of your glory in the western world.