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Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Letter from the North Carolina Committee of Correspondence to the Virginia Committee of Correspondence
North Carolina. Committee of Correspondence
June 21, 1774
Volume 11, Pages 247-248

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[From Calender of State Papers of Virginia. Vol. 8 pages 64 & 65.]

North Carolina June 21st, 1774.

Gentlemen:

We have been favored with yours of the 31st of May last, accompanied with copies of several letters and papers relative to the unhappy Divisions which now prevail between Great Britain and the Colonies, and the ruinous condition in which the town of Boston is involved as a recent consequence of them.

We sincerely sympathize in the distress of that brave people, and mourn over it as over the common cause of America. We conceive this attempt made on their natural and Constitutional rights as a presage to a similar or more flagrant violation of the Rights of the rest of the Colonies, and that upon the success of this in a great measure depends the fate of American Liberty.

We are of opinion that the method proposed by you of a general Congress to be held by Deputies from the different Colonies will be an expedient, calculated to produce that union in practice and sentiment which is necessary to give success to the measures which may be adopted as Regulations for their conduct at this critical tera. As this cannot be effected but by a Convention of the Representatives of the several provinces from whom such deputation must proceed, we think that the conduct pursued by the late Representatives of Virginia is worthy imitation when the Governors of the several provinces, in obedience to ministerial instructions or of their own accord, shall decline to convene the people in their Legislative capacity.

We had been happy if we had been fully authorized to speak the general sense of the people of this province. Be assured that we will, with all possible expedition, use the best means to obtain it. Should not our Assembly meet on the 26th of July, to which time it now stands prorogued, we shall endeavor in some other manner to collect the Representatives of the people and shall immediately afterwards transmit to you what may be the result of their deliberations. In the mean time we have the fullest confidence that the share they may take in this important controversy will not be unworthy of men who have ever been sacredly retentive of their Constitutional Rights, and desirous to hand them unimpaired to posterity.

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They will, we flatter ourselves, concur with you that the best expedient to bring about a reconciliation with the mother Country and the Colonies will be to put a stop to all commercial Intercourse with her and the West Indies, and thus to carry home to Great Britian the calamitous consequences of her own measures.

We cannot enough applaud the generous spirit exhibited by the Colony of Virginia upon this emergency, and wish the example may be as diffusive as it is truly laudable.

We are with great respect,
Gent. your mo. ob't humble serv'ts,
EDWRD VAIL
JOHN ASHE,
SAM. JOHNSTON,
CORN' HARNETT
JOHN HARVEY
ROBERT HOWE,
JOSEPH HEWES,
WILL. HOOPER
To the Committee of Correspondence of Virginia.