Page:Journal of the First Congress of the American Colonies (1765).djvu/39

 The petition to the house of commons being engrossed, was read and compared, and is as follows, viz:

To the honorable the Knights, Citizens and Burgess es, qf Great Britain, in parlfkzment assembled,

The petition of his majesty's dutiliil, loyal subjects, the Freeholders and other Inhabitants of the colonies of Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, New-York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania., the government of the counties of New Castle, Kent and Sussex, upon Delaware, and province of Maryland, in America.

Most humbly sheweth, i V

That the several late acts of parliament, imposing divers duties and taxes on the colonies, and laying the trade and commerce under very bur then some restrictions; but above all, the act for granting and applying certain stamp duties in America, have filled them with the deepest concern and surprise, and they humbly conceive the execution of them will be attended with' consequences very injurious to the commercial interests of Great Britain and her colonies, and must terminate in the eventual ruin of the latter. Your petitioners, therefore, most ardently im.plore the attention of the honorable house to the united and dutiful 'representation of their circumstances, and to their earnest supplications for relief from their regulations, that have already involved this continent in anxiety, confiision and distress. We most sincerely recognise our allegiance to the crown, and acknowledge all due subordination to the parliament of Great Britain, and shall always retain the most grateful sense of their ance and approbation; it is from and under the English constitution we derive all our civil and religious rights