The first committee of correspondence formed in Massachusetts in the wake of the Sugar Act. While the original group was ineffective, additional, more successful committees of correspondence organized in order to communicate information throughout the colonies and to coordinate protests during the 1770s. The Boston committee of correspondence circulated this letter from the Virginia committee in April 1773.
BOSTON, APRIL 9, 1773.
SIR,
THE Committee of Correspondence of this Town have received the following Intelligence, communicated to them by a Person of Character in this Place. We congratulate you upon the Acquisition of such respectable Aid as the ancient and patriotic Province of Virginia, the earliest Resolvers against the detestable Stamp-Act, in Opposition to the unconstitutional Measures of the present Administration. The Authenticity of this Advice you may depend upon, as it was immediately received from one of the Honorable Gentlemen appointed to communicate with the other Colonies.
We are,
Your Friends and humble Servants,
Signed by Direction of the Committee for Correspondence in Boston,William Cooper Town-Clerk.
To the Town-Clerk of [blank], to be immediately delivered to the Committee of Correspondence for your Town, if such a Committee is chosen, otherwise to the Gentlemen the Selectmen, to be communicated to the Town.
Extract of a Letter from a Gentleman of distinction in Virginia, to his Friend in this Town, dated March 14th, 1773.
“I RECEIVED the papers you sent me, and am much obliged to you for them, our assembly sitting a few days after, they were of use to us. You will see by the enclosed Resolutions the true sentiments of this colony, and that we are endeavouring to bring our sister colonies into the strictest union with us, that we may RESENT IN ONE BODY any steps that may be taken by administration to deprive ANY ONE OF US of the least particle of our rights & liberties; we should have done more but we could procure nothing but news-paper accounts of the proceedings in Rhode-Island. I hope we shall not be thus kept in the dark for the future, and that we shall have from the different Committees the earliest intelligence of any motion that may be made by the TYRANTS in England to carry their INFERNAL purposes of enslaving us into execution; I dare venture to assure you the strictest attention will be given on our parts to these grand points.”
In the House of Burgesses, in Virginia March, 1773.
“WHEREAS the minds of his Majesty’s faithful subjects in this colony have been much disturbed by various rumours and reports of proceedings tending to deprive them of their ancient, legal and constitutional rights.
“And whereas the affairs of this colony are frequently connected with those of Great Britain, as well as of the neighbouring colonies, which renders a communication of sentiments necessary, in order therefore to remove the uneasinesses and to quiet the minds of the people, as well as for the other good purposes above mentioned.
“Be it resolved, That a standing committee of correspondence and inquiry be appointed, to consist of eleven persons, viz. the honourable Payton Randolph, Esq; Robert Carter Nicholas, Richard Bland, Richard Henry Lee, Benjamin Harrison, Edmund Pendleton, Patrick Henry, Dudley Digges, Dabney Carr, Archibald Cary, and Thomas Jefferson, Esqrs; any six of whom to be a committee, whose business it shall be to obtain the most early and authentic intelligence of all such acts and resolutions of the British parliament or proceedings of administration, as may relate to, or affect the British colonies in America, and to keep up and maintain a correspondence and communication with our sister colonies, respecting these important considerations, and the result of such their proceedings from time to time to lay before this house.
“Resolved, That it be an instruction to the said committee, that they do, without delay, inform themselves particularly of the principles and authority, on which was constituted a court of inquiry, said to have been lately held in Rhode-Island, with powers to transport persons accused of offences committed in America, to places beyond the seas to be tried.
“Resolved, That the Speaker of this House do transmit to the Speakers of the different assemblies of the British colonies, on this continent, copies of the said resolutions, and desire the will lay them before their respective assemblies, and request them to appoint some person or persons of their respective bodies, to communicate from time to time with the said committee.
Source: Printed Broadside from Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, 1773.