If this is not a division in this grand point, I know not what is : And I doubt not but the ministry will let us know it is to our cost ; for it will furnish them with arguments and fresh courage. Is this a grateful retaliation to that brave and sensible people, for the spirited and early notice they took of the suspending act ? No, it is base ingratitude, and betraying the common cause of liberty.

To what other influence than the deserting the American cause, can the ministry attribute so pusillanimous a conduct, as this is of the Assembly ; so repugnant and subversive of all the means we have used, and opposition that has been made by this and tlie other colonies, to the tyrannical conduct of the British Parhament ! to no other. Can there be a more ridiculous farce to impose on the people than for the Assembly to vote their thanks to be given to the merchants, for entering into an agreement not to import goods from Britain, until the revenue acts should be repealed, while they at the same time counteract it by countenancing British acts, and complying with ministerial requisitions, incompatible with our freedom? Surely they cannot.

And what makes the Assembly's granting this money the more grievous, is, that it goes to the support of troops kept here

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530 PAPERS RELATING TO THE CITY OF NEW-YORK.

not to protect but to enslave us : Has not the truth of this remark been lately exemplified in the audacious, domineering and inhuman Major Pullaine, who ordered a guard to protect a sordid miscreant, that transgressed the laudable non-importation agreement of the merchants, in order to break that, which is the only means left them, under God, to baffle the designs of their enemies to enslave this continent ?