Address of the Town of Shrewsbury

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Address of the Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses, of the Town of Shrewsbury, in Common Council assembled, presented to His Majesty by the Mayor, William Owen, Esq˙, a Lieutenant in His Majesty' s Navy.

Most Gracious Sovereign:

We, your Majesty' s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the Town of Shrewsbury, in Common Council assembled, actuated by the warmest zeal for your royal person, and the firmest attachment to our most excellent Constitution, humbly presume to approach the throne, and to offer up our tribute of

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Firmly persuaded that it has been the great object of your Majesty' s reign to cherish and preserve true liberty in every part of your Dominions, it is with the deepest concern that we behold our fellow-subjects in America hurried into an unnatural rebellion against their Sovereign, not only rejecting every reasonable overture of accommodation, but imperiously dictating to the Parent State, which, at the expense of its blood and treasure, hath raised, nourished, and protected them.

With equal grief, but not without indignation, we look upon a discontented faction at home, promoting and encouraging these unhappy disturbances. In this situation, we rely upon the wisdom of your Majesty and the Great Council of the Nation, under the direction of Divine Providence, to adopt such measures as shall be roost consistent with the dignity of the Crown, the honour of Parliament, and the safety and welfare of the whole British Empire. And we think it an indispensable duty we owe to your Majesty, to the State, to ourselves, and to posterity, to express these our sentiments of loyalty and affection, and to make a tender of our most faithful services to support, by every means in our power, the due authority of the Legislature, and to enforce that good order and obedience to the laws so essential to Government, and so conducive to the welfare and happiness of the people.

Given under the common seal, in the Guildhall, at Shrewsbury, this sixth day of October, 1775.

WILLIAM OWEN, Mayor.

JOHN ASHBY, Town Clerk.