Address of the House of Burgesses to the Governour

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Virginia Assembly, convened by the Governour. Address of the House of Burgesses to the Governour on the foregoing Petition. Disapprove the imprisoning Officers by either Government. Recommend a temporary boundary until the King shall direct a proper line to be fixed upon. Request the Governour to exercise the powers he is invested with to suppress the Indian disturbances,

Upon which the HOUSE addressed his EXCELLENCY as follows:

MY LORD: We his Majesty' s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Burgesses of Virginia, now sitting in General Assembly, beg leave to return your Excellency our sincere thanks for the written message, and the several papers therein referred to, which you were pleased to lay before us.

It is our most earnest wish and desire to cultivate and improve that good understanding and friendship which hath hitherto subsisted between our sister Colony of Pennsylvania and Virginia, and therefore we cannot sufficiently lament that any unhappy incident should have interposed which may tend to destroy this pleasing harmony, and create any dissention between us. But, my Lord, however strongly we may be impressed by these sentiments, we shall, on all occasions, think it our indispensable duty to support the just rights of our inhabitants, and protect them from oppression, in whatever quarter it may arise.

The imprisoning officers, acting under the authority of Government in either country, upon a dispute about a boundary, which appears to us never to have been established with any degree of accuracy, we cannot but consider as a wide departure and deviation from that plain and simple plan of accommodation which has been observed in former contests of this nature, and should have suggested a more conciliatory conduct on this occasion; much more should we have expected that it would have prevented that sanguinary measure of subjecting men to death, which, with concern, we observe hath been so precipitately and incautiously adopted.

For the present, we take the liberty of recommending to your Excellency to endeavour to have an equitable temporary line fixed between this Colony and Pennsylvania, until his Majesty shall be pleased to direct the proper and true boundary to be established.

It gives us pain, my Lord, to find that the Indians have made fresh encroachments and disturbances on our frontiers. We have only to request that your Excellency will be pleased to exert those powers with which you are fully invested, by the acts of Assembly, for making provision against invasions and insurrections; which, we doubt not, will be found sufficient to repel the hostile and perfidious attempts of those savage and barbarous enemies.