Page:A History and Defence of Magna Charta.djvu/44

xxxviii “ ſame diſcretion has been extended by the ſame evil counſellors to your majeſty’s dominions in America, and has produced to our ſuffering fellow ſubjects in that part of the world, grievances and apprehenſions ſimilar to thoſe of which we complain at home.


 * “Moſt Gracious Sovereign,

“ are the grievances and apprehenſions which have long diſcontented and diſturbed the greateſt and beſt part of your majeſty’s loyal ſubjects. Unwilling, however, to interrupt your royal repoſe, though ready to lay down our lives and fortunes for your majeſty’s ſervice, and for the conſtitution as by law eſtabliſhed, we have waited patiently, expecting a conſtitutional remedy by the means of our own repreſentatives: but our legal and free choice having been repeatedly rejected, and the right of election now finally taken from us by the unprecedented ſeating of a candidate who was never choſen by the county, and who, even to become a candidate, was obliged, fraudulently, to vacate his ſeat in parliament, under the pretence of an inſignificant Place, invited thereto by the prior declaration of a miniſter, that whoever oppoſed our choice, though but with four votes, ſhould be declared member for the county. We ſee ourſelves, even by this laſt act,