'Stand Fast In The Liberty Wherewith Christ Has Made Us Free'

After the Boston Tea Party, where colonists threw 342 chests of British East India tea overboard, the British Parliament passed the Boston Port Bill to blockade the harbor and starve citizens into submission.

The Committee of Correspondence sent word to the other Colonies, who called a Day of Fasting and Prayer, June 1, 1774, “to seek divine direction and aid.”

In August of 1774, William Prescott led the men of Pepperell, Massachusetts, to deliver many loads of rye, telling Boston’s inhabitants:

“We heartily sympathize with you, and are always ready to do all in our power for your support, comfort and relief; knowing that Providence has placed you where you must stand the first shock. We consider we are all embarked in (the same ship) and must sink or swim together. … If we submit to these regulations, all is gone. Our forefathers passed the vast Atlantic, spent their blood and treasure, that they might enjoy their liberties, both civil and religious, and transmit them to their posterity. … Now if we should give them up, can our children rise up and call us blessed? … Let us all be of one heart, and stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free; and may he, of his infinite mercy grant us deliverance out of all our troubles.”

William Prescott, born Feb. 20, 1726, was a colonel who fought for the British in King George’s War, 1745, and in the French and Indian War, 1755. But now Colonel William Prescott fought for independence from Britain.

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