The Pennsylvania evening post — Philadelphia, Pa., 1776-04-06 00:00:00, page 1

From the LONDON EVENING POST of November 23.
An authentic ccpy of the address and petition to his Majesty,
moved for by the Earl of Abingdon, seconded by the Lord
Craven, and signed by a very great majority of the gen
tlemen, clergy, and freeholders of the county of Berks, at
the meeting held at the Town-hall at Abingdon, pursuant
to an advertisement from the High Sheriff, " for taking
the general sense of the county on the present unhappy dif
ferences between Great-Britain and her colonies," on Tues
day the 7th of November, 1775.
To the KIN G's most excellent MAJESTY.
The humble address and petition of the Freeholders of the
county of Berks.
May it please your Majesty,
YOUR Majesty's most loyal and dutiful fubje&s, free
holders of the county of Berks, though deeply af
feded with the melancholy civil diffentions which
prevail in your empire have acquiesced, with bound
less confidence, in your Majesty's goodness, and in the wis
dom of your Parliament, for the restoration of internal tran
quillity to your dominions, and fatisfaAion and repose to the
minds of all your fubjefts.
We conceive that the inteference of your Majesty's people
otherwise than by their representatives in Parliament (al
though it be their undoubted right) ought to be extremely
rare, and reserved for occasions of the greatest necessity, We
have, therefore, beheld with astonishment persons who pro
fefs uncommon zeal for your Majesty's government, disco
vering a manifeft distrust in his discretion ; urging your Mi
nisters to a continuance of the violent measures which hither
to have produced none but calamitous effects ; and to which
the ministers have shewn, and hill do shew, a disposition which
it does not seem at all necessary to stimulate.
These inflammatory addresses, we humbly apprehend, have
a tendency to distress your Majesty's paternal feelings, and by
urging coercive measures as alone effectual and proper in the
present disorders, to render such concessions as your Majesty's
and the public wisdom may think necessary to make, disho
norable and unfafe to your Majesty and this nation.
Finding the dangerous and seditious attempts to embarrass
your Majesty's councils, and prevent the refcoration of tran
quillity, pursued with an earnestness which fills the minds of
your Majesty's peaceable fubjeds with horror, we are con
strained, very reluctantly, with all possible humility and de
ference, to lay before your Majesty our faithful sentiments
on the origin of the present troubles; on the measures which
have been, and still have pursued, in consequence of those
troubles; and on the dismal effects which we conceive must
result from them.
As the inhabitants of that part of your dominions, which
is the feat of the imperial legislature, we have a due sense of
the necessity of preserving the supreme authority of Parlia
ment over all the British empire : But as English Freeholders,
who value ourselves on our inestimable right of granting our
own property, either by ourselves, or Representatives of our
own Choosing only, we cannot, without diverting ourselves
The PENNSYLVANIA EVENING POST.
Vol. ILJ
Price only P^o Coppers^ Published every Tuesday, Tburfday, and Saturday Evenings.
SATURDAY, APRIL 6, 1776.
173
of every principle of equity, justice, and even of common de
cency, confider the complaints of millions of our fellow fub
je&s, separated from us by an immense ocean, on being taxed
without any voice, directly or indirectly in the grant, to be
entirely groundless, and the result of nothing but a factious
spirit aiming at the dismemberment of the empire.—The sub
stantial and not nominal assent of the fubjeCt in the grant of
their own money, we can never hold to be a frivolous concern
to English Freeholders. It can never be exterminated in
one part of the empire, without being endangered in all.'
And we look with just indignation at the servile and
unmanly spirit, in which the very principle of that sa
cred right is treated with scorn and ridicule, by several
publications industriously circulated; and which, we trust,
receive no countenance from your Majesty's Ministers ; be
cause, if so countenanced, they can have no other effect than
to raise a suspicion, that the government of this country is
Biding from its only firm, natural, and constitutional foun
dations.
We have seen, with much concern, the disorders which
have arisen in America on this furious ground. We lament;
we blame them; but we cannot think them unnaturalin those
in whom the love of freedom is united with the ordinary weak
ness and imperfection of human nature.
It is for that principle, joined with that infirmity, that we
presume to fhpplicate your Majesty's clemency.
The disorders have arisen from a complaint, plausible at
least of one right violated ; and we can never be brought to
imagine that the true remedy for such disorders consists in an
attack on all other rights, and an attempt to drive the people
either to unconstitutional submission or absolute despair.
Sire, the affairs of your empire are diffracted, because they
are mifconduCted. The consequences of the measures pursued
are as evident as they are deplorable.
Your Majesty's Ministers, finding the forces of your natu
ral born fubjefts not fufficiently powerful for, or not {effi
ciently disposed to, the present coercive service, have listened
to the offers of foreign nations, who have thought fit, it seems,
voluntarily, and therefore in a manner the more alarming to
all true Englishmen, to interfere in our domestic differences..
Proftrateu before your throne, with faces fuffufed with
shame, for this apparent nakedness of our country, and with
hearts oppressed with anxiety for its future destiny, we depre
cate, whilst yet it is in fufpence, this most perilous and des
perate proceeding. English dignity and English government,
Whilff resting on their true bottom, can never stand in need of
Ruffian assistance for their preservation.—They who are ne.-
ceffary to the support of government, are the government ; —,
and if we cannot preserve America without foreign aid, Ame
rica belongs to foreigners, and not to England.
It has been the usual course of a rebellious people to call in
the arms of Grangers to diftraft their country. This worst
part of rebellion has not yet appeared in America. Let this
thing right in their conduct atone for some wrong ones;
and let your Majesty's clemency permit itfelf to operate in
favor of a people whole petitions have not yet appeared before
[Num. 189.