Address of the Borough of Barnstaple

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Address of the Mayor, Recorder, Aldermen, Capital Burgesses, and principal Inhabitants of the Borough and Parish of Barnstaple, in the County of Devon, presented to His Majesty by John Clevland, Esq˙, one of their Representatives in Parliament.

The humble Address of the Mayor, Recorder, Aldermen, Capital Burgesses, and principal Inhabitants of the Borough and Parish of BARNSTAPLE, in the County of DEVON.

Most Gracious Sovereign:

We, your Majesty' s most dutiful and loyal subjects, beg leave to approach your royal presence with professions of our zealous fidelity and attachment to your sacred person and Government. It is with gratitude we acknowledge your great care and regard for the publick welfare; and, impressed with a due sense of that prudence and tender concern for your people, which has at all times so eminently distinguished your Majesty' s reign, we cannot but view with horrour and detestation the present ungrateful and unnatural rebellion fomented in a distant part of your Empire. Of the necessity and propriety of those measures which have been already pursued to check and control the factious and misguided, to prevent their baneful influence over the minds of the weak and unwary, and support the honour and dignity of the British Crown, we are fully persuaded; and we rest assured that your Majesty will continue to take such steps as may serve most effectually to recall this infatuated and deluded people to a just sense of that duty which they owe to the best of Kings, and convince them of that submission and obedience which the supreme legislative authority of these Kingdoms may justly require from them. To show ourselves devoted to your Majesty' s person and Government, we shall at all times deem our greatest glory and honour; and we trust that we shall always strenuously endeavour to cultivate among our fellow-subjects sentiments of the greatest loyalty, fidelity, and affection.

May the crown of these Realms long flourish on your royal head, and may the blessings which we enjoy under your mild and auspicious reign be perpetuated to a grateful and loyal people, under the government of your latest posterity.