We most heartily concur with Your Honour," that there is a point in national sensibility, as in the feelings of men, where patience and submission end." And when that crisis shall arrive, Your Honour may rest assured that the people of New England" will (as you have been pleased to say) rally round the national constitution." But, sir, they will not "cling" to an administration which has brought them to the brink of destruction; they will not "keep their hold in the extremity of its exit," nor "sink with it into the frightful abyss." No, sir! the people of Massachusetts will not willingly become the victims of fruitless experiment.

We shall be ready at all times, with you, "to cherish the interests of literature, especially the University at Cambridge ;" and the sentiments which Your Honour is pleased to advance, that "no crisis should arrest the progress of the arts and sciences," meets

our concurrence.

We shall endeavour to find a remedy for the "accumulation of depreciated and counterfeit bank bills," to which Your Honour has been pleased to call our attention.

Touching the militia-we cannot conceal our regret that the administration of the general government has not discovered that dependence upon "an establishment," which Your Honour is pleased justly to observe is "so preferable to a standing army in time of peace," "and to which the constitution looks with confidence for the defence of our country:" We regard that institution at once with pride and with confidence-and we agree with Your Honour that it "can never want the patronage of a provident legislature;" surely not in times of peril like these. Your Honour was pleased to anticipate a difference of opinion, but we beg you to "rest assured of our solicitude, assiduity and best endeavours to promote what from" our "own convictions shall appear most conducive to the good of the whole." And we join with Your Honour in the wish that the "wisdom

which is from above, which is gentle and easy to be entreated," may "lead in our councils ;" but we fervently pray moreover, that not only our conduct, but that of the general government, may be directed by that wisdom, which is also "pure-peaceable-full of good fruits-without partiality and without hypocrisy."

ANSWER OF THE HOUSE.

May it please Your Honour,

THE House of Representatives view with deep and serious regret the very peculiar circumstances under which they have assembled, and with fearful anxiety direct their thoughts to that Being, without whose aid the portentous aspect of our publick affairs cannot be changed. In a season of political calamity, when the hand of the general government presses with peculiar rigour upon the people of Massachusetts, the known patriotism of her sons becomes a sure pledge for the display of those virtues which the times require. At such a moment the House of Representatives will investigate with patience and circumspection the causes which have led to the exist ing and threatened evils, and will endeavour to apply such remedies as the powers confided to that branch of the state legislature will constitutionally

warrant.

The afflicting dispensation of Divine Providence, which has deprived this Commonwealth of its late commander in chief, cannot be more sincerely deplored by Your Honour, than it is sensibly felt by the House of Representatives. Elevated to the chair of state, in opposition to the political sentiments of a

majority of the legislature, we are happy to declare, the late Governour Sullivan, in the discharge of his high and important trust, appeared rather desirous to be the governour of Massachusetts, than the leader of a party, or the vindictive champion of its cause.

We receive with respectful attention the assurance of Your Honour's" solicitude, assiduity and best endeavours to promote what shall appear most conducive to the good of the whole ;" and pursuing the fair and obvious construction of the national and state constitutions as a rule of action, we apprehend that it is impossible Your Honour should furnish any occasion for the exertion of candour or indulgence on our part.

We are unwilling to believe that any division of sentiment can exist among the New England states or their inhabitants as to the obvious infringement of rights secured to them by the constitution of the United States; and still more so, that any men can be weak or wicked enough to construe a disposition to support that constitution, and preserve the Union by a temperate and firm opposition to acts which are repugnant to the first principles and purposes of both, into a wish to secede from the other states. If a secession has been conceived by the states or people referred to in Your Honour's communication, it is unknown to the House of Representatives, who absolutely disclaim any participation therein, or having afforded the least colour for such a charge. If ever such suspicions existed, they can have risen only in the minds of those who must be sensible that they had adopted, and were persisting in, measures which had driven the people to desperation, by infringing rights which the citizens of Massachusetts conceive to be unalienable, and which they fondly hoped had been inviolably secured to them by the federal compact.

The legislature and people of Massachusetts ever have been, and now are, firmly and sincerely attached to the union of the states, and there is no sacrifice

they have not been, and are not now, willing to submit to, in order to preserve the same, according to its original purpose. Of this truth Your Honour must be convinced. We do not appeal to the unvarying conduct of our citizens during the glorious administrations of Washington and Adams, when the patriotick endeavours of our statesmen, under the most perplexing embarrassments, pursued and secured the interests and honour of the nation ;-but we can appeal to the patience with which our fellow citizens have borne the administration of those, whose boast it has been to proscribe all the measures of their predecessors, and most of the men whose talents and virtues had assisted in securing to the United States the blessings of a free government. The people in this section of the country had undoubtedly flattered themselves, that the liberal confidence which they had afforded to the professions of their rulers, would induce a regard to their interests; and when experience has shown the incompetency of their measures to the honour or safety of the country, they would have had the magnanimity to correct their errors. It ought not to be matter of surprise that men who, either on the floor of Congress or elsewhere, have adopted measures hostile to the Union, and subversive of its principles, should endeavour to brand with the calumny you mention the efforts of those who sincerely aim at preserving the constitution, by demonstrating the tendency of their acts, and who studiously exert themselves to prevent a dissolution of the federal compact, by stating the dangers of such an event: an event which this house cannot fail to deprecate as the greatest of evils, and to prevent which they will leave no constitutional means unessayed. But it would be greatly to be deplored, if any thing in Your Honour's address could be construed in to a sanction, by the chief magistrate of this commonwealth, of a charge so unfounded and a slander so unmerited.

It is with much pleasure the House of Representatives receive Your Honour's declaration," that no personal gratification shall stand in the way of any arrangement, which shall concentrate the general will and direct its strength for our country's safety." In this declaration so honourable to yourself, sir, the House of Representatives most promptly and cordially concur, and so far as constitutionally they may, sacredly pledge themselves to Your Honour in defence of all those rights which have been violated abroad, or usurped at home.

The House of Representatives agree in sentiment with Your Honour, that "it cannot be necessary to review in detail the continued and aggravated insults and injuries which have been heaped upon us by the warring powers of Europe;" yet it may not be improper to remark, that when a government, in the first instance, from an overweening partiality to one power, an undue prejudice against another, or a timid and pusillanimous policy towards all nations, surrenders essential rights without a struggle, the nation over which it rules becomes the victim of aggression from without, and of imposition from within. The partial developement of publick documents is but too conclusive on this point.

That the regulation of our commercial intercourse and our national defence are most wisely confided to the general government, is a truth so plain and palpable, that we should hold it unnecessary to be repeated here, were it not for the purpose of concurring with Your Honour in the justice of the sentiment; but the liberty of discussing the measures of our general government, with freedom and firmness, though with fairness and moderation, is a right the House of Representatives never will relinquish.

We cannot agree with Your Honour, that in a free country there is any stage at which the constitutionality of an act may no longer be open to discussion and debate; at least it is only upon the high road to despotism that such stages can be found. At such