Address of the City of Williamsburg to Lord Dunmore

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Williamsburg, December 5, 1774.

To his Excellency the Right Honourable JOHN, Earl of DUNMORE, his Majesty' s Lieutenant and

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MY LORD: We his Majesty' s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Mayor, Recorder, Aldermen, and Common Council, of the City of Williamsburg, in Common Hall assembled, beg leave to embrace the earliest opportunity of congratulating your Lordship on the conclusion of a dangerous and fatiguing service in which you have lately been engaged, and on your return to this City.

It is with pleasure we hear your Lordship has been able to defeat the designs of a cruel and insidious enemy, and at the same time that your Lordship has escaped those dangers to which your person must have been frequently exposed.

Permit us also, upon this occasion, to express our congratulations on the addition to your family by the birth of a daughter; and to assure you that we wish to your Lordship every degree of felicity, and that we shall contribute towards its attainment, as far as lies in our power, during your residence among us.

To which his Excellency was pleased to return the following Answer:

GENTLEMEN: I am obliged to you for this Address. The fatigue and danger of the service which I undertook, out of commiseration for the deplorable state which, in particular, the back inhabitants were in, and to manifest my solicitude for the safety of the country in general, which his Majesty has committed to my care, has been amply rewarded by the satisfaction I feel in having been able to put an effectual stop to a bloody war.

I thank you for the notice you are pleased to take of the event which has happened in my family; and, I doubt not that, as I have hitherto experienced the marks of your civility, you will continue in the same friendly disposition toward me.