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ness, and he told him, that he could say, that he saw some light.

Cheapside, 11th inst.

The person so met and accompanied by Mr. Barclay, I understood to be Lord Hyde, going either to Lord Dartmouth's or Lord North's. knew not which.

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In the following week arrived the proceedings of the congress, which had been long and anxiously expected, both by the friends and adversaries of America.

The petition of congress to the king was enclosed to me, and accompanied by the following letter from their president, addressed to the Ame rican agents in London, as follows:

TO PAUL WENTWORTH, ESQ., DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, WILLIAM BOLLEN, ESQ., DR. ARTHUR LEE, THOMAS LIFE, ESQ., EDMUND BURKE, ESQ., CHARLES GARTH, Esq.

GENTLEMEN,

Philadelphia, October 26, 1774.

We give you the strongest proof of our reliance on your zeal and attachment to the happiness of America, and the cause of liberty, when we commit the enclosed papers to your care.

We desire you will deliver the petition into the

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hands of his majesty; and after it has been sented, we wish it may be made public through the press, together with the list of grievances. And as we hope for great assistance from the spirit, virtue, and justice of the nation, it is our earnest desire that the most effectual care be taken, as early as possible, to furnish the trading cities and manufacturing towns throughout the united kingdom, with our memorial to the people of Great Britain.

We doubt not but that your good sense and discernment will lead you to avail yourselves of every assistance that may be derived from the advice and friendship of all great and good men, who may incline to aid the cause of liberty and mankind.

The gratitude of America, expressed in the enclosed vote of thanks,' we desire may be conveyed to the deserving objects of it, in the manner that you think will be most acceptable to them.

It is proposed that another congress be held on the 10th May next, at this place; but in the mean time we beg the favor of you, gentlemen, to transmit to the speakers of the several assemblies, the

This piece is wanting; but it was a vote of congress declaratory, in their own names, and in the behalf of all those whom they represented, of their most grateful acknowledgments to those truly noble, honorable, and patriotic advocates of civil and religious liberty, who had so generously and powerfully, though unsuccessfully, espoused and defended the cause of America, both in and out of parliament.

earliest information of the most authentic accounts you can collect, of all such conduct and designs of ministry or parliament, as it may concern America to know. We are, with unfeigned esteem and regard, Gentlemen, by order of the congress,

HENRY MIDDLETON, President.

TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.

MOST GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN,

We your Majesty's faithful subjects of the colonies of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, the counties of Newcastle, Kent, and Sussex on Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, in behalf of ourselves and the inhabitants of those colonies who have deputed us to represent them in general congress, by this our humble petition, beg leave to lay our grievances before the throne.

A standing army has been kept in these colonies ever since the conclusion of the late war, without the consent of our assemblies and this army, with a considerable naval armament, has been employed to enforce the collection of taxes.

The authority of the commander in chief, and under him, of the brigadiers-general, has in time of peace been rendered supreme in all the civil governments in America.

The commander in chief of all your Majesty's forces in North America has, in time of peace, been appointed governor of a colony.

The charges of usual offices have been greatly increased; and new expensive and oppressive offices have been multiplied.

The judges of admiralty and vice-admiralty courts are empowered to receive their salaries and fees from the effects condemned by themselves. The officers of the customs are empowered to break open and enter houses, without the authority of any civil magistrate, founded on civil information.

The judges of courts of common law have been made entirely dependent on one part of the legislature for their salaries, as well as for the duration of their commissions.

Counsellors holding their commissions during pleasure, exercise legislative authority.

Humble and reasonable petitions from the representatives of the people have been fruitless. The agents of the people have been discountenanced, and governors have been instructed to prevent the payment of their salaries.

Assemblies have been repeatedly and injuriously dissolved. Commerce has been burthened with many useless and oppressive restrictions.

By several acts of parliament, made in the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth years of your Majesty's reign, duties are imposed on us, for the purpose of raising a revenue, and the powers of admiralty and vice-admiralty courts are extended beyond their ancient limits, whereby our property is taken from us without our consent, the trial by jury in many civil cases is abolished, enormous forfeitures are incurred for slight offences, vexatious informers are exempted from paying damages, to which they are justly liable, and oppressive security is required from owners before they are allowed to defend their right.

Both houses of parliament have resolved, that colonists may be tried in England for offences alleged to have been committed in America, by virtue of a statute passed in the thirty-fifth year of Henry the Eighth; and in consequence thereof, attempts have been made to enforce that statute.

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statute was passed in the twelfth year of your Majesty's reign, directing that persons charged with committing any offence therein described, in any place out of the realm, may be indicted and tried for the same, in any shire or county within the realm, whereby inhabitants of these colonies may, in sundry cases by that statute made capital, be deprived of a trial by their peers of the vicinage.

In the last sessions of parliament, an act was passed for blocking up the harbor of Boston; another, empowering the governor of the Massachusetts Bay to send persons indicted for murder in that province to another colony, or even to Great Britain, for trial, whereby such offenders may escape legal punishment; a third, for altering the chartered constitution of government in that province; and a fourth, for extending the limits of Quebec, abolishing the English and restoring the French laws, whereby great numbers of British freemen are subjected to the latter, and establishing an absolute government, and the Roman Catholic religion, throughout those vast regions that border on the westerly and northerly boundaries of the free Protestant English settlements; and a fifth, for the better providing suitable quarters for officers and soldiers in his Majesty's service in North America.

To a sovereign who "glories in the name of Briton" the bare recital of these acts must, we presume, justify the loyal subjects, who fly to the foot of his throne, and implore his clemency for protection against them.

From this destructive system of colony administration, adopted since the conclusion of the last war, have flowed those distresses, dangers, fears, and jealousies, that overwhelm your Majesty's dutiful colonists with affliction; and we defy our most subtle and inveterate enemies, to trace the unhappy differences between Great Britain and these colonies, from an earlier period, or from other causes than we have assigned. Had they proceeded on our part from a restless levity of

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