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On Friday, July 14th, the following humble Address and Petition was presented to the King, by the Lord Mayor, the Recorder, the Aldermen Bull, Lewes, Hayley, Lee, Planter, Hart, and several of the Common Council:
The humble Address and Petition of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen and Commons of the City of LONDON, in Common Council assembled:
Most gracious Sovereign:
Your Majesty' s most loyal and dutiful subjects, the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Commons of the City of London, in Common Council assembled, with all humility beg leave to lay themselves at your Royal feet, humbly imploring your benign attention towards the grievous distraction of their fellow-subjects in America.
The characteristick of the people, Sire, over whom you reign has ever been equally remarked for an unparalleled loyalty to their Sovereign, whilst the principles of the Constitution have been the rule of his Government; as well as a firm opposition, whenever their rights have been invaded.
Your American subjects, Royal Sire, descended from the same ancestors with ourselves, appear equally jealous of their prerogatives of freemen, without which they cannot deem themselves happy.
Their cheerful and unasked-for contributions, as well as willing services to the Mother Country, whilst they remained free from the clog of compulsory laws, will, we are sure, plead powerfully with the humanity of your disposition, for graciously granting them every reasonable opportunity of giving, as freemen, what they seem resolutely determined to refuse, under the injunction of laws made independent of their own consent.
The abhorrence we entertain of civil bloodshed and confusion will, we trust, Sire, if not wholly exculpate us in your Royal mind, yet plead powerfully in our favour for the warmth with which we lament those measures whose destructive principles have driven our American brethren to acts of desperation.
Convinced of the earnest disposition of the Colonists to remain firm in all duteous obedience to the constitutional
Address of the Corporation of London to the King
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authority of this Kingdom, permit us, most gracious Sovereign, to beseech you, that those operations of force, which at present distract them with the most dreadful apprehensions, may be suspended; and that, uncontrolled by a restraint incompatible with a free Government, they may possess an opportunity of tendering such terms of accommodation as we doubt not will approve them worthy of a distinguished rank amongst the firmest friends of this Country.