The Massachusetts Spy, Or, Thomas's Boston Journal

From the [London] MORNING POST, May 14.

To Lord NORTH.

My Lord,

It is but seldom I trouble your Lordship or the public with my sentiments touching parliamentary affairs, my profession leads me to the pursuit of a different study, and my attention is never engaged in any political broil, in which those of my profession are not deeply concerned; and be assured, my Lord, that nothing less than the certainty of that once honourable profession sinking into contempt, and bringing on it the curses of the injured innocent, and the detestation of all men, could have induced me to take up my pen. I revere the name, and have studied the duty of a soldier from my infancy; and when that duty was confined to the legal protection and defence of the state, and the laws of the realm, it was a pleasure as well as an honour to wear a cockade; and suffer me to remind your Lordship, that in the old King's days, a soldier had a friend in every house: The sad reverse, now alas! only brings to mind that we once were happy.

It is only within the circle of a few years past, that the army, my Lord, could with any degree of propriety be deservedly branded with the epithets of military executioners; that firebrand of cruelty, that very germ and essence of Scottish tyranny, Lieutenant General M-, began the bloody tragedy, by massacring the people, and clipping the ears of the civil magistrates in Canada, about the year 1761; since which the succession of a brutal and corrupt administration have, with equal violence to the known laws of God and society, made streams of innocent blood flow in the streets of our capitals, both at home and abroad, to the disgrace of human nature, and the total dishonour and infamy of the army.

The time is now coming, and we hope is near at hand, when that blood unjustly and wantonly spilt in Great-Britain, and in America, will from the earth call out aloud for vengeance, the perpetrators brought to condign punishment, and the land, as well as the name of Soldier, be freed from the curse.

Your expedition to Boston goes on rapidly, my Lord, and you carry your measures in parliament with as much ease, and with as high a hand, as if the whole power of legislation and taxation were vested in your bosom solely. But history, my Lord, are you sure those measures will take on the west side the Atlantic? And have you considered well and reconciled yourself to the consequences if they should not? Perhaps your Lordship depends upon the circumstance of the people of Boston acting in open and avowed rebellion to justify every part of your conduct there, my Lord. You will find yourself fatally mistaken. The inhabitants of that town, and indeed of the whole province, are too great politicians to be ever drove into a measure of that nature, they have disputed every inch of ground with you, upon the principles of the British constitution, and the express letter of their charter. You had fairly lost the field, ---and now you are preparing to attack them upon new ground---by condemning them unheard, and stripping them of every right and privilege at one stroke. How earnestly does your Lordship strive to make that brave and hardy race of men desperate, and to force them into that rebellion the enemies of the state so much wish for: And how stupidly insensible and regardless of the consequences, which you must know can be nothing less than inevitable ruin and bankruptcy on the trading part of this kingdom.

What a happy era for the court of Versailles, who have long wished for a favourable moment to regain their possessions in the western world; but be that as it may, it is well worth your Lordship's while to reflect how contemptible you must appear in the opinion of every thinking and judicious man, when it is made known that those very measures which you have fostered, and are now palming upon the House of Parliament, were planned and formed in Boston, by those enemies to mankind, Hutchinson, Flucker, Oliver, Sewall, Trowbridge, Paxton and Ruggles, and delivered into your hands ready cut and dried, by Sir Francis Bernard.

These facts (which are known to but few people) I shall take occasion to elucidate in my next, and will conclude this letter with the invocation of the poet;---

If, ye powers divine!

Ye mark the movements of this nether world,

And bring them to account,

Crush! crush! those vipers,

Who, singled out by a community to guard their rights,

Shall, for a grasp of filthy ore, or paltry office,

Betray them to the foe.

A SOLDIER.