Petition of the Principal Gentlemen

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Petition of the principal Gentlemen, Merchants, Freemen, and Inhabitants of the City of Worcester, presented to His Majesty by Lord Viscount Mahon and Sir Watkin Lewes.

May it please your Majesty:

At a time when a part of your Majesty' s subjects and a few of our fellow-citizens are approaching your royal presence with Addresses, which are supposed to convey to your Majesty the genuine sentiments of the people of Great Britain, will your Majesty permit your dutiful and loyal subjects of one, not the most inconsiderable cities in your Majesty' s Dominions, with unfeigned assurance of attachment to your royal person and the illustrious House of Hanover, thus publickly to bear testimony against them, as we hold ourselves bound by every tie of duty to your Majesty, to ourselves, and to our Country.

We think ourselves more particularly called upon, lest the same delusive arts of misrepresentation should be practised here with the same success as in America, which have involved that Country in a civil war; nor are we without apprehensions, that should the same unfortunate measures be pursued, when this Kingdom is drained of its forces, some Powers in Europe (our natural enemies) may avail themselves of the opportunity, and transfer the seat of war into this Country.

We desire likewise to represent to your Majesty the melancholy decline of our trade and manufactures, (owing, in a great measure, as we apprehend, to the unhappy disputes with America,) and the gloomy situation of our artificers and their families.

We should be far from wishing to wound your royal ear with the lamentations of distress, but truth obliges us to approach your throne, and humbly to beseech your Majesty to adopt such measures, as in your royal wisdom shall seem most expedient, for putting a stop to the further effusion of blood, for reconciling Great Britain and her Colonies, for reuniting the affections of your now divided people, and for establishing, on a permanent foundation, the peace, commerce, and prosperity of all your Majesty' s Dominions.