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Birmingham, February 8, 1775.
SIR: The Merchants and Manufacturers who have had a principal share of the American Trade from this Town and neighbourhood, beg your acceptance through our hands of their warmest acknowledgments for your liberal support of our Petition to the Honourable House of Commons, wherein are stated the evils we already feel, and the greater we have yet to apprehend, from a continued stagnation of so important a branch of our Commerce as that with North America.
At the same time we also unite in expressing our particular thanks for the motion you was pleased to make for an inquiry into the manner of both the late Petitions from the Town of Birmingham having been obtained, an inquiry which could scarcely have failed to give some useful intelligence, and to have fully justified our application to Parliament at so critical a juncture.
We cannot wonder, sir, that defamation should have made its appearance on such an occasion as this, which is the notorious evidence of a weak cause, and whose mischiefs, we are persuaded, will be as transient as its efforts have been intemperate.
We only take the liberty, therefore, of adding our sincere wishes, that you may long fill your distinguished place in the British Senate; and that your persevering endeavours to preserve the rights of the subject, to maintain the prosperity of our Commerce, and to secure the tranquillity of this extensive Empire, may meet with a success adequate
S˙ Freeth,
To Edmund Burke, Esquire.
The Merchants, Traders, and Manufacturers, to Mr˙ Edmund Burke
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to the patriotick zeal with which they are animated. Being, with the greatest regard, sir, your much obliged and most obedient servants,
J˙ Twigg,
W˙ Russell,
R˙ Rabone,
J˙ Wilkinson,
J˙ Kettle,
J˙ Richards,
J˙ Smith,
W˙ Welsh,
J˙ Rickards,
J˙ Startin,
G˙ Russell,
J˙ Welsh,
J˙ Bingham,
J˙ Walford.