PETITION OF THE MAYOR, ALDERMEN, AND LIVERY OF LONDON, PRESENTED TO THE KING APRIL 10, 1775.*

To the King's Most Excellent Majesty:

The humble Address, Remonstrance, and Petition of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Livery of the City of LONDON, in Common-Hall assembled:

We, your Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Livery of the City of London, beg leave to approach the Throne, and to declare our abhorrence of the measures which have been pursued, and are now pursuing, to the oppression of our fellow-subjects in America. These measures are big with all the consequences which can alarm a free and commercial people; a deep, and, perhaps, fatal wound to Commerce; the ruin of Manufactures; the diminution of the Revenue, and consequent increase of Taxes; the alienation of the Colonies; and the blood of your Majesty's subjects.

But your Petitioners look with less horrour at the consequences, than at the purpose of those measures. Not deceived by the specious artifice of calling despotism dignity, they plainly perceive that the real purpose is, to establish arbitrary power over all America.

Your Petitioners conceive the liberties of the whole to be inevitably connected with those of every part of an Empire founded on the common rights of mankind. They cannot, therefore, observe, without the greatest concern and alarm, the Constitution fundamentally violated in any part of your Majesty's Dominions. They esteem it an essential, an unalterable principle of liberty, the source and security of all constitutional rights, that no part of the Dominion can be taxed without being represented. Upon this great leading principle, they most ardently wish to see their fellow-subjects, in America, secured in what their humble Petition, to your Majesty, prays for—Peace, Liberty, and Safety. Subordination in Commerce, under which the Colonies have always cheerfully acquiesced, is, they conceive, all that this country ought, in justice, to require. From this subordination such advantages flow, by all the profits of their commerce centring here, as fully compensate this Nation for the expense incurred, to which they, also, contribute, in Men and Money, for their defence and protection, during a general war; and, in their Provincial wars, they have manifested their readiness and resolution to defend themselves. To require more of them would, for this reason, derogate from the justice and magnanimity which have been hitherto the pride and character of this country.

It is, therefore, with the deepest concern that we have seen the sacred security of Representation, in their Assemblies, wrested from them; the Trial by Jury abolished, and the odious powers of Excise extended to all cases of Revenue; the sanctuary of their Houses laid open to violation, at the will and pleasure of every Officer and Servant in the Customs; the Dispensation of Justice corrupted, by rendering their Judges dependent, for their seats and salaries, on the will of the Crown; Liberty and Life rendered precarious, by subjecting them to be dragged over the Ocean, and tried for treason or felony here; where the distance, making it impossible for the most guiltless to maintain his innocence, must deliver him up, a victim to Ministerial vengeance. Soldiers and others, in America, have been instigated to shed the blood of the people, by establishing a mode of trial which holds out impunity for such murder; the capital of New England has been punished with unexampled rigour, untried and unheard, involving the innocent and the suspected in one common and inhuman calamity; Chartered Rights have been taken away, without any forfeiture proved, in order to deprive the people of every legal exertion against the tyranny of their rulers; the Habeas Corpus Act, and Trial by Jury, have been suppressed, and French Despotick Government, with the Roman Catholic Religion, have been established, by law, over an extensive part of your Majesty's Dominions, in America; dutiful Petitions for redress of those grievances, from all your Majesty's American subjects, have been fruitless.

To fill up the measures of these oppressions, an Army has been sent to enforce them.

Superadded to this, measures are now planned, upon the most merciless policy, of starving our fellow-subjects into a total surrender of their liberties, and an unlimited submission to arbitrary Government.

These grievances have driven your Majesty's faithful subjects to despair, and compelled them to have recourse to that resistance which is justified by the great principles of the Constitution, actuated by which, at the glorious period of the Revolution, our ancestors transferred the Imperial Crown of these Realms from the Popish and tyrannical race of the Stuarts, to the illustrious and Protestant House of Brunswick.

Your Petitioners are persuaded that these measures originate in the secret advice of men who are enemies, equally, to your Majesty's title, and to the liberties of your people. That your Majesty's Ministers carry them into execution by the same fatal corruption which has enabled them to wound the peace and violate the Constitution of this country; thus they poison the fountain of publick security, and render that body, which should be the guardian of liberty, a formidable instrument of arbitrary power.

Your Petitioners do, therefore, most earnestly beseech your Majesty to dismiss, immediately and forever, from your Councils, these Ministers and advisers, as the first step towards a full redress of those grievances which alarm and afflict your whole people. So shall peace and commerce be restored, and the confidence and affection of all your Majesty's subjects be the solid supporters of your Throne.

The King's Answer, delivered to the Lord Mayor by the Earl of HERTFORD, Lord Chamberlain,

It is with the utmost astonishment that I find any of my subjects capable of encouraging the rebellious disposition which, unhappily, exists in some of my Colonies in North America.

Having entire confidence in the wisdom of my Parliament, the great Council of the Nation, I will steadily pursue those measures which they have recommended for the support of the constitutional rights of Great Britain, and the protection of the commercial interests of my Kingdoms.

THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN'S LETTER TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LORD MAYOR, THE DAY AFTER HIS PRESENTING TO HIS MAJESTY THE HUMBLE ADDRESS, ETC., OF THE COMMON-HALL.

MY LORD: The King has directed me to give notice that, for the future, his Majesty will not receive, on the Throne, any Address, Remonstrance and Petition, but from the Body Corporate of the City.

I, therefore, acquaint your Lordship with it, as Chief Magistrate of the City; and have the honour to be, my Lord, your Lordship's most obedient humble servant,

HERTFORD.

THE LORD MAYOR'S ANSWER TO LORD HERTFORD'S LETTER.

Mansion House, May 2d, 1775.

MY LORD: It is impossible for me to express, or conceal the extreme astonishment and grief I felt at the notice your Lordship's letter gave me, as Chief Magistrate of the City, "that, for the future, his Majesty will not receive, on the Throne, any Address, Remonstrance and Petition, but from the Body Corporate of the City."

I entreat your Lordship to lay me, with all humility, at the

* On Monday, the 10th of April, at two o'clock, the Lord Mayor, accompanied by the Sheriffs, and the Aldermen Bull, Sawbridge, Hayley, Lewes, and Newenham, went up to St. James's, with the Address, Remonstrance, and Petition of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Livery, in Common-Hall assembled, "praying for the removal of his present Ministers, for their iniquitous measures with respect to our fellow-subjects in America." The Lord Chamberlain having previously informed the Sheriffs, that his Majesty would not receive more than the usual number of Liverymen, the following gentlemen were appointed a Committee of the Livery, to attend the Lord Mayor from Guildhall to St. James's, on this occasion, viz: William Lee, Esq., Mr. Luke Stavely, Mr. Deputy House, Mr. William Saxby, Mr. Henry John Mascall, Mr. Richard Hern, Mr. John Crompton, Mr. Thomas Gorst, and Mr. John Jacob. When the City Council had read the paper, he gave it to the Lord Mayor, who delivered it to the King, with a half bent knee, and the most profound reverence. His Majesty handed the Petition to the Lord in waiting, and then deliberately taking a paper from his pocket, read the answer. A silence of two minutes ensued, when the Lord Mayor made a low bow, then retreated backwards to the middle of the room, made a second, and, in like manner, a third, at the door, when the King moved his hat to his Lordship, and thus ended the business.