Meeting of Merchants, Etc., Bristol

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Guildhall, Bristol, September 27, 1775.

At a numerous and respectable meeting of the Merchants, Traders, and others, interested in and well-wishers to American Commerce, held at the Guildhall, at eleven o' clock this morning, Mr˙ Hayes, an eminent American merchant, in the chair, the following Resolutions were agreed to:

1. Resolved, That the trade with North-America is of very great advantage to Great Britain in general, and to this City in particular.

2. That any measures which contribute to the destruction of that trade are an essential injury to the internal commerce and manufactures of this Kingdom.

3. That the present unhappy contest between Great Britain and her Colonies hath a manifest tendency to destroy the commercial connection and political union which have for many years subsisted between the two Countries.

4. That the loss of our trade to America will deprive many thousand industrious poor of the means of procuring a daily subsistence: a melancholy fact, of which we have already ample experience in this City.

5. That the late importation of American grain into this City hath greatly contributed to lower the price of all the necessaries of life, and has been the means of preserving multitudes from the calamitous consequences of famine.

6. That an approbation of measures calculated to destroy the commercial intercourse between the two Countries, and spread the horrours of a civil war over a very considerable part of the British Dominions, would be highly disgraceful to the inhabitants of a City that depends solely upon trade for its support, and to every friend to humanity and the general happiness of society.

A motion was then made, that a petition be presented to His Majesty, praying his interposition to put a stop to a ruinous civil war, that our trade may thereby be restored to its former flourishing state. One person objected to it, on a supposed disinclination in His. Majesty to receive petitions respecting the American dispute. He was replied to, and appeared to be convinced. A petition was then produced, read paragraph by paragraph, and passed without a dissenting voice. The petition was then signed by the gentlemen present, and afterwards left at the Bush Tavern, in Corn Street; and when the signatures are fully completed, it is to be presented to the King, by our Representatives in Parliament.