The New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

Messieurs Printers,

ALTHOUGH I am not wholly reconciled to the present proposed Plan of Government, yet I think to take it collectively, it is a most excellent composition: especially the 17th article of the Bill of Rights, which secures to the subject a trial by his peers, or jury of the vicinity, than which nothing next to life, can be more dear. And I was grieved to see an act amongst our present code of laws, for the trial of offenders out of the county wherein the offence was committed; and it must be still more grievous to hear that a criminal is now imprisoned upon the same act for a capital offence, and to be tried in another county, where perhaps he is not known but to a very few persons. The preamble to this act severely reflects upon the inhabitants of a whole county, as supposing them too partial to the criminal, which is in other words to say, they are as deep in the mud as he is in the mire; whereas it is well known that not one quarter of the inhabitants of Cheshire ever discovered the least inclination to revolt, and many of those who did, were artfully deceived; many have said they had rather belong to Vermont, if Congress would grant the liberty, but not otherwise; and when the resolve was known, and a printed copy thereof was endeavoured to be distributed thro' these towns, they were no sooner put up in public places but they were taken down and destroyed, and many to this day do not know to the contrary, only by hearay, and that is violently contradicted by their artful enemies. This act is too analogous to the obsolete British act of parliament lately revived for the sake of transporting an American to Great-Britain for an offence committed in America, and was one of the very grievances of which Congress complained, and declared to the world to be the cause of the American revolution. And although I think the prisoner has committed a most daring insult against this State, under the usurpation of a set of men who have as daringly insulted all the United States; and although he may have deserved hanging in the county of Cheshire, yet I hope he will never be convicted by a jury of Rockingham. He is to be tried out of the county he belonged to, because there is a possibility a jury may be prejudiced in his favour there: but is there not greater danger of a jury being prejudiced against him here? and can he then be said to have a fair chance for his life? It may now be asked, what can be done? as it is easier to find out faults than to mend them. I ought to obviate the difficulty. I answer--There are at least four hundred jurors in eight towns out of the pretended claims of Vermont, and within the county of Cheshire, who have never bowed the knee to Baal: and would not an act empowering the supreme court to send out venires to those towns for a jury, and to adjourn the court to one of them, be more consistent with the natural rights of the people? than to make an act that strikes at the very root of freedom, and which alone is enough to make every subject tremble, and every son of liberty execrate, and I hope soon to see it obliterated, erased and blotted out of every book of remembrance, and the memory of every individual.
Ut opto, sic precor.

LIBERTAS.