AND AND DEPRIVING THEM OF THE NEWFOUNDLAND FISHERIES.

The British Ministry and both Houses of Parliament do not seem to have
been satisfied with having charged Massachusetts and its abettors with
rebellion, and determined to punish the recusant province and its
metropolis accordingly, but they proceeded, during the same session,
even to punish the other New England provinces for alleged sympathy with
the town of Boston and the province of Massachusetts. The very day after
the two Houses of Parliament had presented their joint address to the
King, declaring the existence of "rebellion" in the province of
Massachusetts, abetted by many persons in the other provinces, Lord
North introduced a Bill into the Commons to restrain the trade and
commerce of the provinces of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island,
and Connecticut, to Great Britain and Ireland and the British Islands in
the West Indies, and to prohibit those provinces from carrying on any
fishery on the banks of Newfoundland. Lord North assigned as the reason
for this Bill that the three other New England colonies "had aided and
abetted their offending neighbours, and were so near them that the
intentions of Parliament would be frustrated unless they were in like
manner comprehended in the proposed restraints." The Bill encountered
much opposition in both Houses, but was passed by large majorities.

Shortly after passing this Bill to restrain the trade of the New England
colonies and to prohibit them the fisheries of Newfoundland, as well as
from trading with foreign countries, intelligence reached England that
the middle and southern colonies were countenancing and encouraging the
opposition of their New England brethren, and a second Bill was brought
into Parliament and passed for imposing similar restraints on the
colonies of East and West Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia,
South Carolina, and the counties on the Delaware. It is singular to note
in this Bill the omission of New York, Delaware, and North Carolina. It
was probably thought that the omission of these colonies would cause
dissension among the colonies; but the three exempted provinces declined
the distinction, and submitted to the restraints imposed upon the other
colonies.

Much was expected by Lord North and his colleagues from the General
Assembly of New York, which had not endorsed the proceedings of the
first Continental Congress, held in Philadelphia the previous September
and O