Address of the Noblemen

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Address of the Noblemen, Gentlemen, and Freeholders of the County of Forfar, transmitted to the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Weymouth, one of His Majesty' s principal Secretaries of State, and presented to His Majesty.

Most Gracious Sovereign:

The Noblemen, Gentlemen, and Freeholders of the County of Forfar, filled with sentiments of duty to your Majesty, beg leave to lament the unhappy disputes which have arisen between the Parent State and those subjects whom they have always wished to consider as her friends.

Sensible of the freedom of every subject of Great Britain, and grateful for the happiness we enjoy under your Majesty' s auspicious Government, we see with indignation those insidious arts by which the American Colonies have been deluded into an unlawful and unjust desire of independency.

But while we view with abhorrence those seditious individuals who, from a violent and restless temper, or the impulses of ambition, have seduced their brethren into rebellion, we compassionate the unhappy people who, by partial or unjust representations, have been involved in scenes of distress. We flatter ourselves they have already become sensible of their errors, and that they will gladly embrace the earliest opportunity of returning to their duty and allegiance. Should they perversely continue in arms, however anxiously we may wish for their friendship, we most entreat your Majesty to adopt such measures as shall appear necessary to enforce a due obedience to the laws and Constitution of Great Britain.

We beg leave to assure your Majesty that we shall readily contribute, with our lives and fortunes, to suppress the rebellion in your Colonies. To bring about so desirable an event, is one of the most ardent wishes of our hearts, and is only secondary to our ambition to testify, on every occasion, our duty and attachment to your Majesty.

Signed by order and in presence of the meeting, by Sir John Ogilvy, Baronet, Praeses, at Forfar, the 13th day of November, 1775. JOHN OGILVY.