Appendix 6

    MEMORIAL OF THE AMERICAN BOARD OF CUSTOMS TO THE LORDS COMMISSIONERS OF THE TREASURY

    Duplicate.

    May it please your Lordships,

    In our former Memorials to Your Lordship we represented the Disaffection of the People here to the Revenue Laws,1 & from the many treasonable Publications that had been spread thro’ all the Provinces, & the Correspondence carried on by the several Assemblies we were persuaded there had been a long concerted extensive Plan of Resistance to the Authority of Great Britain and we believe that the Seizure referred to in the incld. Papers has hastened the People of Boston to the Commission of Actual Violence, some that was attended.

    From their outrageous Behaviour towards our Officers, & their repeated threats of immediate violence to our own Persons, we found it absolutely necessary in order to save His Majesty’s Commission from further Insult, & to preserve our Lives, to take Shelter on board His Majesty’s Ship the Romney in Boston Harbour, from whence we are removed into Castle William to carry on the Business of the Revenue till we can receive such Protection as will enable us to act in safety at Boston.

    We herewith lay before Your Lordships Copies of our Minutes of the 13.th & 14.th instant, together with Copies of sevl. Affidavits and Letters relative to our present Situation, agreeable to the Schedule inclosed, and we beg leave to submit our Opinion, that nothing but the immediate Exertion of military Power will prevent an open Revolt of the Town, which may probably spread throughout the Provinces.

    Which is humbly submitted.

    Hen. Hulton

    J Temple.

    Wm Burch

    Chas. Paxton

    John Robinson

    Castle William, Boston Harbour, June 16th 1768.

    LS, RC     T 1/465, ff 120-122.

    Endorsed: Letter from the Comm.rs of Customs in America to the Lords of The Treasury, dated Castle William, Boston Harbour June 16.th 1768. In Mr Bradshaws of 22d July 1768. A full list of enclosures to this letter is provided in Appendix 7. Thomas Bradshaw, secretary to the Treasury, forwarded a copy of the memorial to the secretary of state on 22 Jul., CO 5/757, ff 163-164; with the memorial at ff 225-226. There is another copy in Coll. Mass Papers, 1768. Bradshaw replied to the American Board of Customs on 28 Jul., T 28/1, f 332. Copies of the letter and enclosures were laid before both houses of Parliament on 28 Nov. 1768. HLL: American Colonies Box 1.