The Virginia Gazette

BALTIMORE, March 11.

It appears by the address of the General Assembly of the island of Barbados to his excellency Governor Hay, in answer to his late speech, that since the intercourse with this continent (the granary of the West Indies) hath been cut off, the poor white inhabitants of that island have been put to the most wretched shifts to keep themselves from starving, and that many of the planters have been to the greatest degree distressed to find subsistence for their gangs of slaves. After representing, in an elegant pathetic manner, their deplorable situation, and their apprehension that the miseries of a famine may yet, in some parishes, prove their dreadful lot, they add, that from every consideration that can affect them as men or citizens, they cannot but look with eagerness for a joyful end of the present most horrid conflict on the continent of America. In this address the Assembly complain, that the honour of their House stands impeached before their King, whom they had supplicated in the season of their distress, and their country deprived of the hopes of his favour, by the ill offices of his Excellency. They also observe, that being perfectly sensible of the happiness which in that island they partake of in the free and noble form of government of their mother country, they will be equally careful not to violate the sacred trust by any unbecoming trespass on the one part, nor to betray it by any mean surrender of their glorious birthright on the other; happy whilst they see no occasion offer to force them away from that temper, calmness, and moderation recommended by his Excellency, yet prepared, however painful it may be to them in a different conjuncture, to show that sense of injury, and adopt that spirit of resentment, inseparable from the character of a faithful and independent representative of the people.