Petition from Natives of America Against the Passage of the Bil

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The following Petition from Natives of America, then in London, against the passage of the Bill, was presented to the King:

To the King' s Most Excellent Majesty,

The Petition of several Natives of America, most humbly showeth:

That your Petitioners, being your Majesty' s most faithful subjects, are obliged to implore your gracious interposition, to protect them in the enjoyment of those privileges, which are the right of all your People.

Your Majesty' s Petitioners have already seen with unspeakable grief, their earnest prayers rejected, and heavy penalties inflicted, even on the innocent among their countrymen, to the subversion of every principle of justice, without their being heard. By this alarming procedure, all property was rendered insecure; and they now see in two Bills, (for altering the Government of Massachusetts Bay, and the impartial administration of justice there,) the intended subversion of the two grand objects of civil society, and constitutional protection, to wit, Liberties and Life.

Your Petitioners most humbly represent to your Majesty, that to destroy or assume their chartered rights, without a full and fair hearing, with legal proof of forfeiture; and the abrogating of their most valuable laws, which had duly received the solemn confirmation of your Majesty' s Royal predecessors, and were thence deemed unchangeable without the consent of the People; is such a proceeding, as renders the enjoyment of every privilege they possess, uncertain and precarious. That an exemption of the soldiery from being tried in the Massachusetts Bay for murder, or other felony, committed upon your Majesty' s subjects there, is such an encouragement for licentiousness, and incentive to outrage, as must subject your Majesty' s liege People to continued danger.

Your Petitioners and their countrymen, have been ever most zealously attached to your Majesty' s person and family. It is therefore, with inexpressible affliction that they see an attempt, in these proceedings against them, to change the principle of obedience to the Government, from the love of the subject towards their Sovereign, founded on the opinion of his wisdom, justice, and benevolence, into the dread of absolute power and laws of extreme rigour, insupportable to a free People.

Should the Bills above mentioned, receive your royal sanction, your Majesty' s faithful subjects will he overwhelmed with grief and despair.

It is therefore our earnest prayer, that your Majesty will be graciously pleased to suspend your royal assent, to the said Bills.

Stephen Sayre,
William H˙ Gibbs,
William Lee,
William Blake,
Arthur Lee,
Isaac Motte,
Edmund Jennings,
Henry Laurence,
Joshua Johnson,
Thomas Pinckney,
Daniel Bowley,
Jacob Read,
Benjamin Franklin,
John F˙ Grimke,
Thomas Busten,
Philip Neyle,
Edward Bancroft,
Edward Fenwicke,
Thomas Bromfield,
Edward Fenwicke, Jun˙,
John Boylston,
John Peronneau,
John Ellis,
William Middleton,
John Williams,
William Middleton, Jun˙,
John Alleyne,
Ralph Izard, Jun˙,
Ralph Izard,
William Heyward.