* The names of those who were arrested and imprisoned, which are named in the text, were copied from a single Petition for relief, {Historical Manuscripts, etc. : Petitions, x.xxiii.. 108) ; but there were many others. The names of^those farmere, in Salem, whose Farms, Stock, Tools, Crops, Household Furniture, etc., were thus seized and sold, were taken from the same Historical Manuscripts, etc. : Miscellaneous Papers, xx.w. 3117, in which the properties are mentioned, in detail.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, 1774-1783.

the personal and domestic and political Rights whiih tiiose tanners indisputably possessed, under the Constitution and the Laws of the Kinfiduui-- they would have been unworthy of their manhood and of their families, of their homes and of their Rights, had they failed to become excited and alarmeii, to have armed and organized and fought, for themselves and their wives and their little ones, for their homes and tlu'ir proi>erties and their Rights, whenever anil by whomsoever and under whatever pretence of illgotten authority, these might have been assailed. It was a mistake, iis well iis a crime, therefore, to assume authority for the arrest and imjjrisoninent of men and for the sequestration of their properties and the im]iovi'rishniont of the aged and of the dependent and heljtless, without a shadow of legal authority ami in audacious defiance of it ; without a shadow of existing necessity, even from the standpoint of the Rebellion, for the enactment of such extreme measures; and with u reasonable assurance that a manly selfrespect among those who were proscribed, would be surely aroused, not only for their own and their families' protection, but, as far as they could do it, for the suppression of that haughty lawlessness which had presumed to create and to enforce so grave an enactment of despotism. It was loudly declared to have been the most ardent wish of even the most advanced advocate of rebellion, to have secured a reconciliation with the ilother Country and a restoration of harmony and good-will among the adverse parties throughout the several Colonies : ' how much more of wisdom there would have been displayed among those who had seized the reins of government, therefore, had they practised their hands in the work of reconciliation and harmony and goodwill among their neighbors, instead of driving the staid and the quiet and the conscientious and the law-abiding, among the latter, into active and bitter ])artisauship, and of spreading alarm and strife and misery and ruin over the entire County.