Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
BY HIS EXCELLENCY
JAMES BOWDOIN, Esquire,
Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
A PROCLAMATION.
WHEREAS information has been given to the Supreme Executive of this Commonwealth,
that on Tuesday last, the 29th of August, being the day appointed by law for
the sitting of the Court of Common Pleas and Court of General Sessions of the
Peace, at NORTHAMPTON, in the county of HAMPSHIRE, within this Commonwealth,
a large concourse of people, from several parts of the county, assembled at
the Court-house in NORTHAMPTON, many of whom were armed with guns, swords, and
other deadly weapons, and with drums beating and fifes playing, and in contemp
and open defiance of the authority of this Government, did, by their threats
of violence and keeping possession of the Court-House until twelve o-clock on
the night of the same day, prevent the sitting of the Court, and the orderly
administration of justice in that county:
AND WHEREAS this high-handed offence is fraught with the most fatal and pernicious
consequences, must tend to subvert all law and government; to dissolve our excellent
Constitution, and introduce universal riots, anarchy and confusion, which would
probably terminate in absolute despotism, and consequently destroy the fairest
prospects of political happiness, that any people was ever favoured with; and
which this people will realize, if they do not suffer themselves to be misguided
by the machinations of internal real enemies, who treacherously assume the character
of their best and most zealous friends:
I HAVE therefore thought fit, by and with the advice of the council, to issue
this proclamation, calling upon all Judges, Justices, Sheriffs, Grand Jurors,
Constables,
and other officers, civil and military; within this Commonwealth, to prevent
and suppress all such violent and riotous proceedings, if they should be attempted
in their several counties.
AN I DO hereby, pursuant to the indispensable duty I owe to the good people
of this Commonwealth, most solemnly call upon them, as they value the blessings
of freedom and Independence, which at the expence of so much blood and treasure
they have purchased—as they regard their faith, which in the sight of
God and the world, they pledged to one another, and the people of the United
States, when they adopted the present Constitution of Government—as they
would not disappoint the hopes, and thereby become comtemptible in the eyes
of other nations, in the view of whom they have risen to glory and empire—as
they would not deprive themselves of the security derived from well-regulated
Society, to their lives, liberties and property; and as they would not devolve
upon their children, instead of peace, freedom and safety, a state of anarchy,
confusion and slavery,-- I do most earnestly and most solemnly call upon them
to aid and assist with their utmost efforts the aforesaid officers, and to unite
in preventing and suppressing all such treasonable proceedings, and every measure
that has a tendency to encourage them. And the Attorney-General is hereby directed
to prosecute and bring to condign punishment the Ringleaders and Abettors of
the aforesaid attrocious violation of law and government; and also the Ringleaders
and Abettors of any similar violation in future, whensoever or wheresoever it
shall be perpetrated within this Commonwealth.
GIVEN at the Council-Chamber, in Boston, this second day of September, in the
year of
our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-six, and in the eleventh year
of the Independence of the United States of America.
JAMES BOWDOIN.
By his Excellency's command.
JOHN AVERY, jun. Secretary.
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