New York Committee of Sixty to the New Haven Committee, 17 April 1775
New York Committee of Sixty to the New Haven Committee
[New York, 17 April 1775]
Gent
We have recd. your friendly ^Your^ Letter of the 6th: March Inst.1 and haves ^been^ laid it before the Committee. They have directed us to return you their Thanks for the Candor diffused thro’ & particularly for your it and to assure you that the association is rig had been rigidly adhered excep has hitherto been rigidly adhered to except in the Instance of landing some goods from the Beulah by the Messrs. Murray’s whose Case has been published And all Dealings with them have accordingly ceased.
Notwithstanding a small Majority of our House of Assembly have taken no notice of the Proceedings of the Congress the People ^in general^ are zealous in the Cause. A provincial Convention for the Appointment of Delegates will be held next month ^this week^ and this City & the City and county of Albany ^County & indeed all the almost all the principal Counties in the Province^ have already chosen their Deputies.2
The anonymous Letter you have recd. contains many Misrepresentations, and in Times like these we must expect them ^Misrepresentation is too common to cause Surprize.^ It is the Interest of our Enemies to sow Jealousies & Dissentions among us which ^&^ Nothing had ^but^ mutual Confidence & a free & candid Intercourse between us ^with each other^ can prevent it.
The Beulah has very probably gone to Halifax but this was not in our Power to hinder—All we could do was to prevent her unloading here—for this Purpose a Subcommittee was appointed to watch her, at a very considerable Expence, and we have Reasons to believe proved very useful3
In short we have no Reason to apprehend a Defection of this Colony, whose Inhabitants are as sensible of the Blessings of Liberty as any People on
the Continent and will are never consent to yield them to the Disposal of any Ministry whatever too well apprized of the Importance of the present Union of the Colonies not to violate or destroy it.
Men there ^are^ among us, and such there are in every Colony, to whom a Defection would be an agreable Event, but happily for us this is not the Case with the Maj. Bulk of the People & ^At present^ little more is to be feared from this Class of Individuals than impotent Invectives & illna illiberal Calumny We are Gent[lemen] with the greatest Respect your most obt. & h’ble Servts.
Dft, NNC (EJ: 12757). Endorsed: “Dr. Letter from New York Com[mitte]e I think to that of Boston. 1775.” Alexander McDougall’s notes of committee meetings make it clear that the draft was composed in reply to a letter from the New Haven committee; his notes for 17 Apr. 1775 state: “Mr Jay reported an Answer to the Letter from the Committee of Connecticut, which inclosed an Anonymous Letter from that Body. The answer was approved.” NHi: McDougall.
1. Letter not found.
2. These alterations in the manuscript show that JJ first prepared the letter in the last week of March, immediately after the receipt of the New Haven letter; he then revised it in the third week of April and submitted the draft to the Committee of Sixty. His description of a convention that would meet “next month” was changed to “this week.” The election of delegates from New York City “and the city and county of Albany” became “almost all the principal Counties in the Province.” Albany’s slate was chosen 21 Mar.; no other county elected delegates before 6 Apr. NHi: McDougall; , 188.
3. Anonymous letter not found. Robert (1721–86) and John (1737–1808) Murray were prominent New York merchants who made one of the few attempts to circumvent the nonimportation association at that port. Their vessel, the Beulah, arrived at New York on 9 Feb. Under the terms of the association, the Murray brothers were obliged to reship the Beulah’s cargo. A subcommittee of the Committee of Sixty kept the vessel under constant surveillance and accompanied the Beulah when she set sail on 6 Mar. 1775. The subcommittee’s boat was forced to return to shore off Sandy Hook, and part of the ship’s cargo was loaded onto a smaller vessel and carried to Elizabethtown, N.J. This deception was discovered immediately. The Murrays admitted their violation of the association in a letter to the Committee of Sixty of 13 Mar. On 16 Mar., the committee voted to publish the facts in accordance with the eleventh article of the association. This article instructed committees enforcing the association to “forthwith cause the truth of the case to be published in the gazette” when they learned of violations. , 2: 48, 144–48, 288; , 1: 79.