TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.
MOST GRACIOUS SOVEREIGN,
We your majesty's loyal subjects, the representatives of your ancient colony of Massachusett's Bay, in general court legally assembled, by virtue of your majesty's writ under the hand and seal of the governor, beg leave to lay this our humble petition before your majesty.
Nothing but the sense of duty we owe to our sovereign, and the obligation we are under to consult the peace and safety of the province, could induce us to remonstrate to your majesty [concerning] the mal-conduct of persons, who have heretofore had the confidence and esteem of this people; and whom your majesty has been pleased, from the purest motives of rendering your subjects happy, to advance to the highest places of trust and authority in the province.
Your majesty's humble petitioners, with the deepest concern and anxiety, have seen the discords and animosities which have too long subsisted between your subjects of the parent-state and those of the American colonies. And we have trembled with apprehensions, that the consequences, naturally arising therefrom, would at length prove fatal to both countries.
Permit us humbly to suggest to your majesty, that your subjects here have been inclined to believe, that the grievances which they have suffered, and still continue to suffer, have been occasioned by your majesty's ministers and principal servants being, unfortunately for us, misinformed in certain facts of very interesting importance to us. It is for this reason that former assemblies have, from time to time, prepared a true state of facts to be laid before your majesty; but their humble remonstrances and petitions, it is presumed, have by some means been prevented from reaching your royal hand.
Your majesty's petitioners have very lately had before them certain papers, from which they humbly conceive, it is most reasonable to suppose, that there has been long a conspiracy of evil men in this province, who have contemplated measures and formed a plan to advance themselves to power, and raise their own fortunes, by means destructive of the charter of the province, at the expence of the quiet of the nation, and to the annihilating of the rights and liberties of the American colonies.
And we do with all due submission to your majesty beg leave particularly to complain of the conduct of his excellency Thomas Hutchinson, Esq. governor, and the honourable Andrew Oliver, Esq. lieutenant-governor of this your majesty's province, as having a natural and efficacious tendency to interrupt and alienate the affections of your majesty, our rightful sovereign, from this your loyal province; to destroy that harmony and good-will between Great Britain and this colony, which every honest subject should strive to establish; to excite the resentment of the British administration against this province; to defeat the endeavours of our agents and friends to serve us by a fair representation of our state of facts; to prevent our humble and repeated petitions from reaching the ear of your majesty, or having their desired effect. And finally, that the said Thomas Hutchinson and Andrew Oliver have been among the chief instruments in introducing a fleet and army into this province, to establish and perpetuate their plans, whereby they have been not only greatly instrumental [in] disturbing the peace and harmony of the government, and causing unnatural and hateful discords and animosities between the several parts of your majesty's extensive dominions; but are justly chargeable with all that corruption of morals, and all that confusion, misery, and bloodshed, which have been the natural effects of posting an army in a populous town.
Wherefore we most humbly pray, that your majesty would be pleased to remove from their posts in this government the said Thomas Hutchinson, Esquire, and Andrew Oliver, Esquire; who have, by their above-mentioned conduct, and otherwise, rendered themselves justly obnoxious to your loving subjects, and entirely lost their confidence; and place such good and faithful men in their stead, as your majesty in your wisdom shall think fit.
In the name and by order of the house of
representatives,