The Virginia Gazette

EXTRACT of a letter.

Dublin, on board land, the captain of which informed me he had seen a London paper giving an account that the king had positively refused to hear a petition from the city, drawn up on hearing the affair of Lexington: Thus, our hopes of redress from that quarter vanish.---The test in Maryland drives away every Tory, who can possibly get money to carry him to Europe; every ship has at least six or even passengers. The one I was yesterday on board of carries out parsons Addison and Boucher, with their families.---Annapolis is thinned; Lloyd, Dulany, and many others, with their families, are embarked. Old mr. Dulany takes his daughter to Nova Scotia, for the recovery of her health; which, it is said, she was not known to want till the test issued.

May we not rejoice, mr. Purdie, that America is in so fair a way of being disgorged of all those filthy, grovelling vermin, formed only to be trampled upon by tyrants, and who, by the grovellingness and servility of their natures, give us the most convincing proofs that so free and pure an air never was intended for their subsistence! Let them therefore herd with their kindred vermin, and breathe an air contaminated, and almost rendered putrid, by the infections of villainy and corruption! I think, however, it would be no breach of christian charity to wish, or even to offer up one fervent prayer, to the just and supreme ruler of the universe, that, instead of the cordial reception with which they flatter themselves, for the most unpardonable of all crimes, they may be met by a mob of honest Englishmen, and be graciously presented with a good suit of thick-set; or that his majesty, drained of all his treasures and places of profit, by the crowd of hungry minions who have so long encircled him, may, to stop their murmurs at disappointment, transport them back again to America, in the capacity of convicts, that they may enjoy slavery and infamy in a land where they could not brook freedom and glory. But, sir, do not you think it probable, that, before they can long enjoy their supposed peaceful retreat, they may be startled with the din of American arms, and with the whistling of her unerring bullets? This is a plan not a little talked of; and it is certain we already have, or can have, all the means of executing it. We have men enough to defend ourselves, and to spare. The most powerful and warlike Indian nations back of us have buried Carleton's wampum, with a determination that it shall never rise again; and have undoubtedly offered their service to fight for us, in any place and manner we desire. Besides, it would take but a few months to train 30 or 40,000 slaves for that purpose; and, as a reward, give them that freedom which we so ardently desire they should enjoy, with every acquisition they could make, whether of treasure or land. This would happily rid us of them, and put it into their power to revenge themselves on those who have enslaved them. But, it will be said, where are our ships? To this we may answer, that mr. Johnstone's pigmies have the most unquestionable assurances that it is but aking and they are furnished with thundering wings to waft them over the Atlantick, by two powerful nations who have, some time, been fabricating them for that purpose-- Quere, whether this scheme of settling our slaves in Great Britain be not far more practicable than mr. Johnstone's favourite one of placing them in the heart of America! a very wise scheme some may add!

S