"Gentlemen, as a free and full enjoyment of the inherent rights and privileges of natural free born subjects of Great Britain, long since precisely known and ascertained by uninterrupted practice and usage from the first settling of this country down to this day is of the utmost value and ought to be contended for as the best frame of government in the world, (though with decency, yet with the utmost firmness; having the strongest affection and loyalty to the King and the highest veneration for that august assembly the Parliament, and sincere regard for all our fellow subjects in Great Britain) any attempt to deprive us of our rights and privileges as colonists must be very alarming. And as such we cannot forbear mentioning some of the proceedings of the late ministry, and especially of the late Parliament, commonly called the Stamp Act, which very conditions on which our ancestors settled this country and enlarged his majesty's dominion in America at their sole expense with vast treasure and blood; that it totally deprives us of the happiest frame of civil government expressed in our charter for by the charter of this province the General Assembly has the power of making laws for its internal government and taxation, and that no freeman shall be taxed but by his own consent either in person of by proxy. And by this act a single judge of the Admiralty has power to try and determine our properties in controversies arising from internal concern without a jury, which in our opinion is contrary to the very expressions of Magna Charta, that no free man shall be taxed but by the oath of good and lawful men of the vicinage, and by this act it is certain that it puts it in the power of Mr. Informer or Prosecutor to carry the subject more than a thousand miles distance for trial. Who, then, would not pay a fine rather than to be thus harassed guilty or not? What can be worse? If his majesty's subjects in America are not to be governed according to the known stated rules of the constitution, as those in Great Britain are, what then will be wanting to render us miserable and forlorn slaves? But supposing that these difficulties were imaginary only, yet we have reason to except against that act as we apprehend, considering the almost insupportable load of debt the province is now under and the scarcity of money. We have reason to think that the execution of that act for a short space would drain the country of its cash and strip multitudes of their property and reduce them to absolute beggary. What then would be the consequence resulting from so sudden and convulsive a change in the whole course of our business we tremble to consider .Gentlemen, as these are our sentiments of the act, we, the freeholders and other inhabitants of this town legally assembled for that purpose, claim a share to join with all the friends of liberty on so important a point; but when we consider the answer (this day read before the town) of this Hon. House to his excellency's speech at the opening of the present session , so minutely pointing out the inherent rights of the colonies, and the spirit that runs through the whole form, it gives us the utmost satisfaction and strongest confidence under God to rely on the wisdom and integrity of the respectable body of the House, under whose paternal care and protection we have ever been a happy people. And we remain with the utmost assurance that no measures will be wanting by this Hon. House in joining with all the other colonies in such remonstrances and petitions as are consistent with our loyalty to the King and relation to Great Britain for the repeal of said act, which we hope, by the blessing of God, will have its desired effect."
This report was signed by Capt. John Goldsbury, Dea. Jabez Fisher and Ensign Lemuel Kollock.
This act, so odious to our patriotic sires, signed March 8, 1765, by a commission on account of the King's insanity, rendered invalid every written instrument which was not drawn upon stamped paper, to be purchased of the agents of the British Government at exorbitant prices, and punished every violation with severe penalties, suits for which were to be brought in any Admiralty or King's Marine Court throughout the colonies. The excitement extended throughout the province. The foregoing report was read to the town on the very day the act was to go into operation. Boston had assumed an attitude of defiance; its people had determined that stamped paper should not be used; had hung Oliver, the distributor, in effigy upon the old Liberty tree, and made him swear that he had not and would not distribute the odious stamps; shouted liberty, property and no stamps; demolished the stamp office, and making a bon-fire of its materials on Fort Hill, had consigned the images of Oliver, Bute and Grenville to the flames, calling themselves Sons of Liberty and rending the air with hurrahs for Pitt and liberty, even going so far as to ransack the house of Hutchinson, the Chief Justice, spoiling his furniture and throwing his books and manuscripts into the street. At a meeting in Faneuil Hall these riotous proceedings were denounced, but Boston's resistance to the Stamp Act was sustained by numerous towns in the province, among which Wrentham's voice was heard in the emphatic yet temperate words of the manifesto above written.
Jabez Fisher, the representative to the General Court, was instructed the following year to vote against charging the province for any of the damages caused by the riotous proceedings above mentioned, and also against extravagant grants for superfluities; but to join in measures designed for the detection and punishment of the riotors. At this same time he was instructed to vote for a statue in honor of the most patriotic Pitt, without any limitation annexed as to its cost.
But in November following a committee reported to the town that "considering his majesty's gracious recommendation and the application of the sufferer, the vote passed in August last be reconsidered, and the following instructions be given to our representative": To Mr. Jabez Fisher, Sir, we, your constituents, his majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects, in town meeting assembled, considering the gracious desire of his majesty that a veil be cast over the late times of tumult and disorder, and considering it as a point of prudence and true policy, instruct you that you give your vote to the purport of the bill which is prepared by the Hon. House of Representatives at their last session intitled, "An act for granting compensation to the sufferers and of free and general pardon, indemnity and oblivion to the offenders in the late times, and that you use your influence accordingly." This report being read twice before the town, after consideration and some debate was unanimously voted and accepted. The town chose a delegate to a convention to be holden in Faneuil Hall on the 22d day of September, 1768, to consult and advise such measures as his majesty's service and the peace and safety of his subjects in the province may require.
In 1771 Jabez Fisher was chosen representative to attend a General Court, to be held at Harvard College. The House was convened at Salem and Cambridge to avoid the influence of the people of Boston upon that assembly. The quarrels with the governor at every session of the Court tended to make clearer and clearer the fact, that the British government intended to coerce the colonies. The House protested against being adjourned from Boston; and learning that the government officials were receiving salaries from the crown, it passed a tax bill including these officers in the list of persons to be taxed, which the governor rejected on the ground that he was expressly forbidden from giving his consent to such an act upon any pretense whatsoever, which so roused the ire of the members of the House that they declared they knew of no commissioners of his majesty's customs, nor of any revenue his majesty had a right to establish in North America. The governor also rejected the grants made to the agents of the Province in Europe. Vessels of war, twelve in number, arrived and anchored in the harbor, and Sam Adams declared "that America must under God work out finally her own salvation." The clergymen of Boston refused, with one exception, to read the governor's proclamation for Thanksgiving but "implored Almighty God for the restoration of lost liberties. In April, 1772, the governor convened the assembly at Boston, and here the quarrel was renewed. A resolve having been passed denouncing the payment of salary to the governor of Great Britain, he was informed by the secretary for the colonies that the king had made provision for the support of his servant in the Massachusetts' Bay. A town meeting was called, --- the Court not being in session, John Hancock was moderator. The governor was asked by this meeting "if stipends had been fixed to the offices of judges. He refused to answer. A message condemning the measure as contrary to the subject might be referred to the General Court. This request was also refused, and the General Court was not permitted to meet in December, the time to which it had been prorogued. The governor in his reply denied the right of the town to debate such matters. Upon which it was voted that the inhabitants of Boston have ever had and ought to have the right to petition the king for the redress of such grievances as they feel, or for prevention of such as they have reason to apprehend, and to communicate their sentiments to other towns. And Samuel Adams then proposed that step which it has been said "included the whole Revolution," viz.: a committee of correspondence to consist of twenty-one persons to state the rights of the colonies and of this province in particular as men and Christians and as subjects, and to communicate and publish the same to the several towns, and to the world as the sense of this town, with the infringements or violations thereof that have been or from time to time may be made." This was the origin of the famous committee of correspondence, and it is in answer to their letter that the inhabitants of Wrentham, on the 11th day of January, 1773, returned the following spirited and patriotic rely.
"First, Resolved that the British constitution is grounded on the eternal law of nature, a constitution whose foundation and centre is liberty, which sends liberty to every subject that is or may happen to be within any part of its ample circumference; that every part of the British dominions hath a right freely to enjoy all the benefits and privileges of this happy constitution and that no power of legislation or government upon earth can justly abridge nor deprive any part of the British dominions of those liberties without doing violence to this happy constitution and its true principles; that every part of the British dominions in which acts of the British parliament rates are exercised contrary to the true principles of the constitution have and always ought to have a right of petitioning and remonstrating to the king , lords and commons of Great Britain, that all such acts of parliament may speedily be removed, abrigated and repealed; that the province of the Massachusetts Bay have a right, not only by nature and the laws of England, but by social compact to enjoy all the rights, liberties and immunities of natural and free born subjects of Great Britian, to all intents and purposes whatsoever; and that acts of the British parliament imposing rates and duties on the inhabitants of this province while they are unrepresented in parliament are violations of those rights and ought to be contended for with firmness.
Resolved, that it is the opinion of this town that the act of the British parliament in assuming the power for the legislation of the colonies in all cases whatsoever, and in consequence of that act have carried into execution that assumed power in laying duties on divers articles in the colonies for the express purpose of raising a revenue without their consent, either by themselves or their representative, whereby the right which every man has to own property is wholly taken away and destroyed; and what is still more alarming is to see the amazing inroads which have been made and still are making, on our charter rights and privileges by placing a Board of Commissioners among us and so large a commission with a train of dependents to sap the foundation of our industry; our coasts surrounded with fleets; standing armies placed on free cities in time of peace without the consent of the inhabitants whereby the streets of the metropolis of this province have been stained with the blood of its innocent inhabitants; the governor of the province made independent of the grants of the General Assembly; large salaries affixed to the Lieut. Governor, the judges of the Admiralty, etc.; the amazing stretch of the power of the courts of vice-admiralty in a great measure depriving the people in the colonies of the right of trial by jury and such like innovations which are intolerable grievances, tending wholly to deprive us of our charter rights and privileges, pull down the constitution and reduce us to a state of abject slavery." Another resolve against fixed salaries for the judges of the Courts of Common law follows, and another showing the tendency of these measures thus denounced to produce absolute government. The last one acknowledges the care and vigilance of Boston and assures them that as this town hopes never to be wanting in their duty and loyalty to their king so they are ever ready to do everything in their power in a constitutional way to assist in carrying into execution such measures as may be adopted to remove those difficulties we feel and to prevent those we have reason to fear. In the name of the Committee,
The instructions given to Mr. Fisher, the delegate to the Provincial Congress at Concord, were drafted by Ebenezer Daggett and Lemuel Kollock. They allude to the fact that he is chosen at a time when the province is in consternation and confusion, briefly advert to the causes thereof and instruct him to make the charter of the province the rule of his conduct, refusing to acknowledge any mutilations or alterations of the charter as valid; and that he should acknowledge those counselors who were elected by the General Court, as the only constitutional council of this province and if the congress should consequently be dissolved, then to join with members from this and other towns in a general provincial congress.
Capt. Peres Cushing and Mr. Joseph Spear were appointed chief gunners of the two field pieces, and directed to see that each piece is fixed and kept with a carriage and utensils fit for action as soon as may be. It was voted also to increase the town's stock of ammunition. The constables were ordered to pay all province taxes on their hands or to be collected by them to Henry Gardner of Stow, instead of Harrison Gray, the royal treasurer, and it was voted that the town would indemnify them against any consequences of such payment. This was decidedly a revolutionary step. The attitude of the town was unmistakable. No wonder they got their guns ready for immediate use and laid in more powder and ball. If King George had prevailed in the war against the colonies our patriotic predecessors might have been hung for treason. In September, 1776, these guns were at Boston.
In January, 1775, the town proceeded to create a military establishment providing for the enlistment of minute men, and proposed to send beef, pork, grain and other provisions for the poor of Boston.
Also a muster roll of the company in the Colony which marched from Wrentham, on the alarm on the 19th of April, 1775, under the command of Captain Benjamin Hawes in Col. John Smith's regiment.
Also a muster roll of the company in the colony service which marched from Wrentham on the alarm on the 19th of April, 1775, under the command of Captain Lemuel Kollock in Col. John Smith's regiment.
There were also companies commanded by Captain John Boyd, Asa Fairbanks and Elijah Pond respectively that marched from Wrentham on the 19th day of April, 1775, in the Colony service. Captain Thomas Bacon commanded a company that marched from Wrentham, April 30th 1775. Captain Samuel Cowell also had command of a company about the same time. It also appears from the military rolls at the State House, that a number of men of the company called the north company in the west precinct enlisted into the Continental Army in 1778. Also a company under the command of Captain Samuel Fisher, composed largely of Wrentham men, enlisted for three years of during the war.
Captain Oliver Pond of Wrentham, enlisted in the eight month's service in the Continental Army in Col. Joseph Read's regiment, April 27th, 1775. He was first captain of this the Sixth Mass.; the regiment was afterwards called the 13th Mass. Regt. Upon the expiration of the time, eight months, he again enlisted for one year. He went with the army from the neighborhood of Boston to New York and thence to the "Jerseys," and participated in the battles of Trenton and Princeton and other contests of the campaign.
In 1777, in consequence, it is understood of some acts or of some purposed acts of the Continental Congress in regard to the army and its officers which were displeasing to him, he resigned his office of captain and left the army.
But when Shay's rebellion broke out he took command of the military company which marched from Wrentham and vicinity to Springfield, where the rebels refusing to lay down their arms, and having been fired upon fell into confusion and soon dispersed. The roll of that company was almost the only paper of Captain Pond's that escaped the fire when the house in which he was residing was burnt.
He was often honored by his fellow-townsmen by appointment to places of trust and responsibility. A soldier of the Revolution who had known him well summed up his opinion of the hero in these two lines of his epitaph:
"None more faithful to his trust."
On the 20th of May, of the same year, the inhabitants gave their votes in favor of the first Constitution and Frame of popular government in Massachusetts. But the people of the colony rejected it. At the same time provision was again made for the families of non-commissioned officers and soldiers who had gone to the war.
In September, 1780, a committee was chosen to procure beef for the army, and in January of the following year the sum of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds was granted to hire the men called for to serve in the Continental Army for three years and to pay for beef for the army. The Federal Court having required Wrentham to furnish a certain number of shirts, hose and blankets the selectmen inform the assessors that the sum of £416 in silver is necessary for this purpose, and as there is no money in the treasury they are requested to assess that sum upon the inhabitants in silver money.
This was about the time, when notwithstanding successes at the south, the country seemed to be on the brink of ruin. Although aid seemed at hand upon the arrival of Rochambeau and DeGrasse, and although some temporary relief had been obtained yet no sufficient and reliable means of supplying the wants of the army had been provided. The enemy was in possession of a large part of the country; the Americans whose campaigns were to be extensive had scarcely an army and were wholly without money. Their bills of credit were worthless, not being a legal tender or taken even for taxes. Borrowing of France, Spain and Holland was attempted. Franklin obtained a gift of six millions of livres from Louis XVI, who also guaranteed a loan of ten millions made by Holland to the United States. This success added to the labors of Robert Morris, the new treasurer, who brought not only zeal and great ability but his own private fortune to the rescue, brought confidence to the public, and economy took the place of waste.
Upon the conclusion of the war the town instructed the representative "to use his influence to persuade the General Court to call on Congress to redeem the outstanding bills of credit now in the hands of treasurers and individuals in this State; and that the delegates in Congress be directed to obtain, without delay, a liquidation of all Continental accounts that this State may speedily know their due proportion of the public expense so that a just average may be made through the United States as soon as may be of the public debt."
Foxborough having been incorporated June 10th, 1778, from parts of Wrentham, Walpole. Stoughton and Sharon, a report was made of the amounts due to several persons within the limits of the new township, being the sums which they had paid towards building the meeting-house. The whole sum was £26 0s. 10d. 3f.
It was in the same year, 1779, voted "that Mr. Bean use Doct. Watts' hymns as well as psalms in singing in public assembly in this town."
Having in May, 1780, voted against the new constitution the inhabitants granted 50 ,000 pounds to defray town charges, and upon the 4th of Sept. cast their first votes for a Governor and other State officers, Fifty-seven votes were given, all for John Hancock. The representative was instructed to vote for the repeal of the excise act, "because it obliges every individual who consumes rum and other spiritous liquors to pay duties on the same; the most wealthy who purchase large quantities are not subject to pay any duties of the same as the act now stands." The voters expressed their disapprobation of the act of the Continental Congress called the commutation act, granting half pay for life to all officers who should serve until the end of the war; they also disapproved of the society of the Cincinnati.