Address of the Town of Southampton

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Address of the Mayor, Bailiffs, Burgesses, and Inhabitants of the Town of Southampton, presented to His Majesty by the Right Honourable Hans Stanley, and John Fleming, Esquire, their Representatives in Parliament.

Most Gracious Sovereign:

We, your Majesty' s dutiful and loyal subjects, the Mayor, Bailiffs, Burgesses, and Inhabitants of the Town of Southampton, humbly approach your throne, expressing our acknowledgments of the many blessings we enjoy under your Majesty' s auspicious reign.

Zealous for the honour of our Sovereign, the prosperity of our Country, and the support of the laws of this Kingdom, we ardently wish your Majesty may very long rule in the hearts of all your people, wherever dispersed through your extensive Dominions, and cannot but lament that our fellow-subjects in America, forgetful of the succour and protection so constantly afforded them by this their Parent State, have suffered themselves to be deluded by the arts of wicked and licentious men, and proceeded to acts of rebellion against your royal person and Government. In testimony, therefore, of our abhorrence of those pernicious maxims by which they pretend to justify their conduct, we presume to entreat your Majesty to use the most effectual means to assert your royal authority, vindicate the injured supremacy of the British Legislature, and recall the infatuated Colonists to their allegiance. And because we fear the milder influence of reason and persuasion will still be found inadequate to those truly desirable ends, while those unhappy men continue wilfully ignorant of your Majesty' s gracious intentions towards them, and blind to the pleasing prospect of accommodation, we beg leave to assure your Majesty that we will, at the hazard of all that is valuable to us, support the dignity of your Crown, and exert all our power to preserve the utmost limits of your Empire undiminished, and in due obedience to your Majesty and your illustrious family.

May the God of wisdom and of power direct your Majesty' s counsels for the restoration of harmony and peace, or go forth with your fleets and armies in the prosecution of your undoubted rights over every part of the Dominions which He, by whom Kings reign, has committed to your care.

In testimony whereof, we, the said Mayor, Bailiff' s, and Burgesses, have affixed our common corporate seal and names, and we, the said inhabitants, have subscribed our names, the 13th day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five.