the only means by which these important ends can be attained. We trust your Majesty will exert it, and, in so doing, your Majesty may be assured of our most hearty support.

Signed by order and in presence of the meeting.

EGLINTOUNE, Prases.

Ayr, October 11, 1775.

ADDRESS OF THE CITY OF EDINBURGH.

Address of the Lord Provost, Magistrates, and Town Council of the City of Edinburgh, presented to His Majesty by the Right Honourable Sir Lawrence Dundas, Baronet, their Representative in Parliament.

To the King’ s Most Excellent Majesty.

The humble Address of the Lord Provost, Magistrates, and Town Council of the City of EDINBURGH, in Common Council assembled.

Most Gracious Sovereign:

Sensible of the many blessings which we enjoy under your Majesty’ s mild and equitable Administration, we cannot refrain, at this important crisis, from expressing our abhorrence of that rebellious spirit which has prompted your deluded subjects in America to take arms in opposition to your Majesty’ s Government, and to the legal authority of Parliament.

We have long beheld, with deep regret, many unwarrantable attempts which have been made to distuib the tranquillity of your Majesty’ s reign. We now bewail the unhappy influence of domestick faction, on the remote parts of the British Empire, which has incited the Colonies to forget what they owe to the Parent State, by which they were reared, and on which they depend, and has precipitated them into measures so undutiful to your Majesty, and so destructive to themselves.

We should ill deserve that liberty and happiness which are secured to us by your Majesty’ s gracious Government, if-we did not declare our fixed resolution of supporting it to the utmost of our power, and express our hopes, that, by the propriety and firmness of publick measures, your Majesty’ s American subjects will soon be induced to return to their allegiance, and to place themselves again under the protection of legal and constitutional Government.

That your Majesty’ s reign may be long and prosperous, and may continue to diffuse the blessings of liberty and peace among a grateful people, is the united and ardent wish of, may it please your Majesty, your Majesty’ s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lord Provost, Magistrates, and Town Council of your City of Edinburgh.

Signed in our name, and by our appointment, the seal of the City being affixed.

JA. STODART, Provost.

Edinburgh, October 11, 1775.

London, October 5, 1775.

Yesterday there was a numerous meeting of the Gentlemen, Merchants, and Traders of this City, at the King’ s Arms Tavern, in Cornhill. At twelve o’ clock, Mr. Baker, who had been Chairman of a previous meeting, came forward and informed the gentlemen present what had been done at that meeting, and the intention of calling them together. He was immediately requested to take the chair, and again addressed the company, begging that they would be deliberate in their resolves.

Mr. Sampson, an American merchant, rose and stated the present unhappy situation of publick affairs, and concluded with moving for an humble Address, Petition, and Remonstrance to His Majesty, relative to the unhappy dispute between Great Britain and the American Colonies.

Mr. Baker then produced an Address to His Majesty, intituled “ The humble Address and Petition of the Gentlemen, Merchants, and Traders of London;” which he requested he might have leave to read.

A motion was then made, seconded, and carried, that the said Petition should be read; and it was twice read accordingly, first by Mr. Baker, in his place, and afterwards by Mr. Wooldridge, merchant, at the lower end of the table.

Mr. Wooldridge having read the Petition, moved that said Petition should be approved by the meeting; which was carried unanimously. He then made a further motion, that the Petition, so approved, be signed by the company present; which was also carried.

The Chairman then informed the meeting that he had in his possession the Address, fairly transcribed on vellum, for signing; and having signed it himself, several of the merchants present followed his example.

A motion was afterwards made, that a Committee of twelve merchants attend the signing; which was carried.

Mr. Alderman Lee then moved, that the four Members for London be requested to attend Mr. Baker, the Chairman of this meeting, on the delivery of the Address to His Majesty; which was also carried in the affirmative unanimously.

Address, Memorial, and Petition of the Gentlemen, Merchants, and Traders of London, unanimously agreed to at a general meeting, called by publick advertisement, and presented to His Majesty on Wednesday, October 11, 1775, by William Baker, Esq., Chairman, accompanied by John Sawbridge and George Haley, Esquires, two of the Representatives of this City, (Mr. Olive having been absent from Town, and Mr. Bull confined by illness.)

To the King’ s Most Excellent Majesty.

The humble Address, Memorial, and Petition of the Gentlemen, Merchants, and Traders of London.

May it please your Majesty:

We, your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Gentlemen, Merchants, and Traders of London, beg leave to approach your Majesty with unfeigned assurance of affection and attachment to your Majesty’s person and Government, and to represent, with great humility, our sentiments on the present alarming state of publick affairs.

By the operation of divers Acts of the British Parliament, we behold, with deep affliction, that happy communion of interests and good offices which had so long subsisted between this Country and America, suspended, and an intercourse which, augmenting, as it grew, the strength and dignity of your Majesty’s Dominions, hath enabled your Majesty to defeat the natural rivals of your greatness in every quarter of the world, threatened with irretrievable ruin.

We should humbly represent to your Majesty, if they had not been already represented, the deadly wounds which the commerce of this Country must feel from these unfortunate measures; that it has not yet more deeply felt them, is owing to temporary and accidental causes, which cannot long continue.

But we beg your Majesty to cast an eye on the general property of this land, and to reflect what must be its fate when deprived of our American commerce.

It fills our minds with additional grief to see the blood and treasure of your Majesty’s subjects wasted in effecting a fatal separation between the different parts of your Majesty’s Empire, by a war, uncertain in the event, destructive in its consequences, and the object contended for lost in the contest.

The experience we have had of your Majesty’s paternal regard for the welfare and privileges of all your people, and the opinion we entertain of the justice of the British Parliament, forbid us to believe, that laws, so repugnant to the policy of former times, would have received their sanction, had the real circumstances and sentiments of the Colonies been thoroughly understood, or the true principles of their connection with the Mother Country been duly weighed. We are therefore necessarily constrained to impute blame to those, by whom your Majesty and the Parliament have been designedly misled, or partially informed of those matters, on a full knowledge of which alone, determinations of such importance should have been founded.

We beg leave further to represent to your Majesty, that in questions of high national concern, affecting the dearest interests of a State, speculation and experiment are seldom to be justified; that want of foresight is want of judgment; and perseverance in measures which repeated experience hath condemned ceases to be error.

We might appeal to the history of all countries to show, that force hath never been employed with success, to change the opinions or convince the minds of freemen; and from the annals of our own, in particular, we learn that the free and voluntary gifts of the subject have ever exceeded the exactions of the sword.

Restraining, prohibitory, and penal laws, have failed to