Address of the Justices

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Address of the Justices assigned to keep the peace, and of the Grand Jury, Gentlemen, Clergy, Freeholders, and principal Inhabitants of the Liberty of the Tower of London, and Precincts thereof, presented to His Majesty by Robert Pell, David Wilmot, John Spiller, Thomas Tryon Cotton, and Richard Rutson, Esquires, and the Reverend Doctor Mayo.

The humble Address of the Justices assigned to keep the peace, and of the Grand Jury, Gentlemen, Clergy, Freeholders, and principal Inhabitants of the Liberty of the Tower of LONDON, and Precincts thereof.

Deeply impressed with a due sense of the blessings we enjoy under your Majesty' s mild and gracious Government, we, your Majesty' s faithful and loyal subjects, think it our indispensable duty, at this alarming crisis, to declare our abhorrence of the unnatural rebellion in America, excited, encouraged, and supported by the advice and assistance of a few disappointed seditious persons at home.

We feel exceedingly for the distresses of our deluded brethren, and lament the situation into which their own obstinacy and unjust spirit of independency have brought them, under the false colour of opposing the right of British taxation; attempting, at the same time, to captivate your royal mind by setting up charters, granted by the Crown, as superior in operation and effect to those wise and wholesome laws enacted by the British Legislature, for the good of all your Majesty' s subjects, abroad and at home.

It is with the greatest respect and gratitude we observe your Majesty, instead of countenancing arbitrary Government, resting the valuable privileges of Britons on their natural and proper basis, viz: King, Lords, and Commons.

May, therefore, that period soon arrive, when the leaders and abetters of this most unnatural rebellion shall be brought to shame and punishment, and due subordination and respect be paid to the British laws. To accomplish which desirable ends, to restore peace and happiness, and to promote every other constitutional purpose, we beg leave to assure your Majesty that we will, to the utmost of our power, support the honour and dignity of the Crown, and maintain, with our lives and properties, the authority of the British Legislature over the whole Empire, against all invaders of our glorious Constitution.