Meeting of Guild of Merchants, Dublin

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At Guildhall, Dublin, Ireland, the 17th of July, 1775, being Quarter-Day of the Guild of Merchants of the said City, the following Resolutions were agreed to, viz:

Resolved unanimously, That the sincere thanks of this Guild be presented to the Right Honourable the Earl of Effingham, in testimony of our approbation of his publick conduct, particularly exemplified in his refusing to draw that sword which has been employed to the honour of his Country, against the lives and liberties of his fellow-subjects in America, and honestly and spiritedly resigning a commission which he could no longer hold consistent with the principles of a true Englishman, or of a real friend to the interest of Britain.

Resolved, That the sincere thanks of the Guild be presented to the Right Honourable John Wilkes, Lord Mayor of the City of London, for the essential services he has rendered his King and Country, by his strenuous efforts in the cause of freedom, and for his able, spirited, and judicious defence of the right of the People to petition the Throne.

There was to the last Resolution s single negative, given by a Scotchman who has an employment in our Stamp Office.

Resolved unanimously, That an address of thanks from the Guild be presented to the several Peers who (in support of our Constitution, and in opposition to a weak and wicked Administration) protested against the American Restraining Bills.

And the following gentlemen were appointed, with the Master and Wardens, a Committee to prepare the same, viz: J˙ Napper Tandy, Henry Howison, Sir E˙ Newenham, John Peree, Samuel Gamble, Samuel Stephens, Hugh Crothers.

Who prepared the following:

We, the Masters, Wardens, and Brethren of the Guild of Merchants of the City of Dublin, in Common-Hall assembled, with the most unfeigned respect, beg leave to offer your Lordships the just tribute of our thanks for your noble and spirited, though hitherto ineffectual exertions in the cause of liberty and of your Country, fully evinced in your opposition to the oppressive and unconstitutional proceedings of a corrupt Administration.

With equal grief and indignation we have for years beheld repeated innovations on the free Constitution of these Realms, and daily invasions of the dearest rights and immunities of the subject. We have seen with astonishment Popery established by law in one, and encouraged in every part of the Empire, in the reign of a Protestant Prince, and despotism and arbitrary power promoted by every insidious machination and open violence by the servants of the Crown, in the reign of a Monarch who, from the Throne, declared, he gloried in being a Briton born, and whose family was called to the Throne of these Kingdoms to protect the Protestant Religion, and preserve that Constitution in violate for which our ancestors so freely bled, and for the invading of which a tyrant was expelled the Throne.

But while we contemplate with honour the universal ruin and devastation in which the Empire is nearly involved by the wicket devices of evil men, we with pleasure survey the steady, incorruptible, and patriotick virtues

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Permit us, therefore, to offer your Lordship our warmest, our most grateful acknowledgments, as Protestants, for your steady opposition to the establishment of Popery and slavery in Canada; as freemen, for your manly and spirited opposition to the several Restraining Bills, and your noble efforts in the support of American liberty, and in the cause of our suffering and much oppressed brethren and fellow-subjects there; and we have the fullest reliance on your steady perseverance in the same principles which have so strongly endeared you, not only to us, but to every real friend of the British Empire and its constituents.

In testimony whereof, we have caused the seal of our Corporation to be hereunto affixed, this 17th day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five.

[L˙ S.]