" While we consider this conduct as an insult offered to this Colony, we "are disposed to attribute it to an imprudent though well-intended zeal " for the public cause ; and cannot entertain the most distant thought "that your Colony will approve of the measure. It is unnecessary to "use arguments to show the impropriety of a proceeding that has a "manifest tendency to interrupt that harmony and union which, at "present, happily subsists throughout, and is so essential to the interest "of the whole Continent. It is our earnest desire that you would take " the most effectual steps to prevent any of the people of your Colony "from entering into this, for the like purposes, unless invited by our " Provincial Congress, a Committee of Safety, or the General Commit- " tee of one of our Counties, as we cannot but consider such intrusions " as an invasion of our essential rights, as a distinct Colony ; and com- " mon justice obliges us to request that you will give orders that all the " types be returned to the Chairman of the General Committee of the " City and County of New-York. We beg you will not consider this re- " quisition us an attempt to justify the man from whom the types were " taken : we are fully sensible of his demerits ; but we earnestly wish "that the glory of the present contest for Liberty may not be sullied by " an attempt to restrain the Freedom of the Press.