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Address of the Provost, Magistrates, and Town Council of Dundee, presented to His Majesty by Henry Dundas, Esq˙, Lord Advocate in Scotland, and Representative in Parliament for Edinburghshire.
Most Gracious Sovereign:
Filled with every grateful sentiment at the recollection of the many blessings we enjoyed under the mild and benign Government of your Majesty' s royal progenitors, happy with the continuance and even increase of these blessings under this auspicious reign, we, your Majesty' s loyal subjects, the Provost, Magistrates, and Town Council of Dundee, beg leave to approach the throne with all humility, and, at the same time, with that freedom which becomes a people whose well founded boast is, that they are subjects of a Prince the father of his Country, and live under the most perfect of human Governments.
It is with surprise and wonder we have seen, that these high and distinguished privileges should have operated in so strange a manner on the minds of your Majesty' s subjects in North-America; that benignity, clemency, and the most sacred regard to our glorious Constitution, on the part of your Majesty, should have been returned, by the deluded people of that Country, with clamours and complaints; and that we should now see them in open rebellion,
We cannot forbear to express, in the strongest terms, our high disapprobation of a rebellion so unnatural and unprovoked; and to profess our inviolable attachment to your Majesty' s person and Government, and our resolution of acting the part of loyal and dutiful subjects on all occasions.
We can assure your Majesty, that the measures adopted in America, evidently with a design to prejudice the commerce of Great Britain, have not in any perceptible degree injured the trade of this Town and neighbourhood.
It is our sincere and ardent wish, that the distractions amongst your American subjects may subside, and peace, good order, and just dependence upon the Mother Country, be again restored, without the further effusion of human blood; but should such pleasing expectations fail, we beg leave to express our approbation of vigorous and coercive measures, and our full conviction that further forbearance and lenity would be injurious to the honour and destructive to the interests of every part of the British Empire. And if such measures are adopted, we pray with unfeigned earnestness, that the Supreme Disposer of all may prosper them, and give your Majesty the glory of reestablishing the authority of Great Britain over all her Colonies.
Signed in name and by appointment of the Town Council, at Dundee, the 16th of October, 1775.
PAT˙ MAXWELL, Provost.
Address of the Town of Dundee
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disclaiming the authority of the British Legislature, which has often so effectually exerted itself in their behalf, and saved them from the inevitable ruin that threatened them.