authority of Parliament, against every disturbance and opposition whatever.

We pray that God may bless your Majesty’s councils with wisdom, restore peace to every part of the British Empire, and that your Majesty may long reign in the hearts of a free, united, and happy people.

Signed in our name, in our presence, and at our appointment; and the common seal of the Burgh is hereunto affixed, by

DAVID GRIEG, Provost.

Aberbrothock, October 31, 1775.

ADDRESS OF THE FREEHOLDERS, ETC., OF THE SHIRE OF DUMFRIES.

Address of the Justices of the Peace, Freeholders, and Commissioners of Supply of the Shire of Dumfries, presented to His Majesty by Major Robert Laurie, their Representative in Parliament.

Most Gracious Sovereign:

We, your Majesty’s most loyal and dutiful subjects, the Justices of the Peace, Freeholders, and Commissioners of Supply of the Shire of Dumfries, in Quarter Session assembled, humbly beg leave to approach your throne with earnest assurances of our steady attachment to your Majesty’s person and Government, and firm resolution to support the honour and dignity of your crown, and the Constitution of our Country, against all open and disguised enemies.

We have, with indignation and abhorrence, beheld a set of factious men in your Majesty’s American Dominions, endeavouring to set in opposition the executive and legislative part of the Constitution, and, under the pretext of grants derived from the one, to claim absolution from their allegiance due to the other. While they endeavour to assert principles so totally subversive of sound government by force of arms, we cannot look on the profession they make, of reverence to your Majesty, in any other light than as empty sounds; and we consider them as equally enemies to your Majesty, the liberty of their fellow-subjects, and the peace and tranquillity of the British Empire.

Actuated by these sentiments, we conceive it our indispensable duty to exert every effort to protect your Majesty’s sacred person, to re-establish peace and concord throughout the British Empire, to give vigour and energy to the operation of law, and to assert and vindicate that system of government that has been handed down to us by our ancestors.

In the present crisis, we must lament that the part of Britain, in which we live, is destitute of the internal defence which a well-regulated militia would produce. Had we been possessed of such a safeguard to your Majesty’s Government, and the liberty and tranquillity of the Country, the military force that may be proper for our security might have operated against the enemies of your Majesty, in every part of your Dominions.

That your Majesty may be long preserved to disappoint the designs of your open and secret enemies, that you may transmit to your posterity the British Empire, undivided, and secured by that excellent Constitution by which it has hitherto been cemented; and that your Majesty’s family may continue, to the end of time, to reign over a free and happy people, is the earnest wish of, may it please your Majesty, your Majesty’s most dutiful and devoted subjects.

Signed in name and by appointment of the meeting, in their presence, by

ROBERT GRIERSON Præses.

October 31, 1775.

ADDRESS OF THE GENTLEMEN, ETC., OF HALIFAX, IN THE COUNTY OF YORK.

Address of the Gentlemen, Clergy, Merchants, Manufacturers, and other Inhabitants of the Town and neighbourhood of Halifax, in the County of York, transmitted to the Earl of Dartmouth, one of His Majesty’s principal Secretaries of State, and presented to His Majesty.

To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty.

The humble Address of the Gentlemen, Clergy, Merchants, Manufacturers, and other Inhabitants of the Town and neighbourhood of HALIFAX, in the County of YORK.

Most Gracious Sovereign:

Permit us to express our grateful sense of the blessings we enjoy under your Majesty’s auspicious reign, and our detestation of the conduct of your Majesty’s Colonists in America, now in open rebellion against your crown and the well-founded laws of this realm.

The mild and prudent measures pursued by your Majesty to awake them from their infatuation to a due sense of their allegiance, would, we hoped, have had the desired effect; but we fear they have been too much countenanced by some of our own countrymen, whose seditious practices we totally disavow; assuring your Majesty, that we will at all times exert ourselves, to the utmost of our power, in support of your Majesty and the measures which the wisdom of your Parliament may think expedient for establishing the legislative rights of the Mother Country over all her Colonies.

We think it our duty to inform your Majesty, that the trade of this Town and neighbourhood (notwithstanding the assertions of ill designing men to the contrary) is in a more flourishing state than for many years past, and that the people are fully employed in every branch of the manufactures.

May the Almighty grant success to your Majesty’s endeavours for effecting a speedy restoration of peace and tranquillity, and may your reign be very long and glorious, over a free and united people.

ADDRESS OF THE BOROUGHS OF DUNFERMLINE, INVERKEITHING, AND CULROSS.

Address of the Boroughs of Dunfermline, Inverkeithing, and Culross, presented to His Majesty by Lieutenant-Colonel Archibald Campbell, their Representative in Parliament.

To the King’s Most Excellent Majesty.

The humble Address of the Boroughs of DUNFERMLINE, INVERKEITHING, and CULROSS.

Most Gracious Sovereign:

We, your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, presume to approach your throne with the deepest and most grateful sense of the manifold blessings which, under the dispensation of Divine Providence, we have happily enjoyed during the course of your Majesty’s auspicious reign.

It is with equal sorrow and surprise that we find ourselves called upon to express our abhorrence and detestation of those rebellious violences into which some of your Majesty’s subjects on the Continent of America have been unhappily deluded, and to such a degree as to manifest a desire of shaking off all dependance upon that Legislature which they have so often petitioned in time of distress, by which they were so frequently and so effectually relieved, and by whose favour and under whose protection their prosperity and opulence have been carried to so great a height.

It is the sincere and ardent wish of these your ancient and faithful Boroughs, that peace and good order in that part of your Empire may be speedily and happily re-established by the wisdom of your Majesty’s councils, and by the success of your arms in support of your crown and dignity, and the authority of the British Legislature. And we beg leave to assure your Majesty that we are ready, from every principle of loyalty and attachment, to contribute cheerfully thereto, by the utmost exertions in our power.

May it please your Majesty, we are your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects.

Signed by order, and in the name of our respective Councils:

JOHN KIRK, Chief Magistrate of Dunfermline.

ARCH. CAMPBELL, Chief Magistrate of Inverkeithing.

JAMES JOHNSTON, Chief Magistrate of Culross.

Dunfermline, October, 1775.

PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE.

Committee Chamber, October 31, 1775.

The Sub-Committee appointed to receive and determine on applications for liberty to ship Provisions, &c., reported, that Captain Zebulon Baker, of Sloop Betsey, had applied for permission to load Flour, &c., for Kennebeck, and that they had forbid any immediate proceeding therein,