"May it please your Excellency,
"We, his Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of Upper Canada in Provincial Parliament assembled, beg leave to congratulate your Excellency on your arrival in this Province, and to express the unfeigned satisfaction it affords us in as much as it is an additional proof of the high interest your Excellency takes in the general welfare of this colony.
"We should be wanting to the sovereign, under whose paternal care we have so long lived, to our country and to ourselves, were we to neglect to offer to your Excellency at this time, the sentiments of gratitude with which we feel inspired for the marks of your attention manifested in providing clothing for a considerable portion of the loyal and brave militia of this Province, as well as for the active and vigorous exertions which have been made, and are now making for strengthening our marine force upon the Lakes, which will enable us to secure and preserve that superiority upon that favourite element to which Great Britain is indebted for her prosperity and glory; and on which our safety so materially depends.
"Emerging from a state of infancy, the inhabitants of this province have been enabled, by the aid afforded them by your Excellency in his Majesty's regular forces, to defeat the designs of the enemy; although his numbers have been in every instance so superior.
"To suppose your Excellency will not continue to extend every assistance to us in this emergency, would be the height of incredulity, after the testimony we have already witnessed of your vigilance and affectionate solicitude for our preservation. It would be superfluous, therefore, to suggest how much we stand in need of the fostering hand of our mother country—to be directed by the wisdom of your Excellency, in order that we may maintain the laws and constitution so dear to us, and which it is our sincere hope we may transmit unimpaired to our posterity.
"We hesitate not to say, that the energy your Excellency may exercise towards the attainment of this great end, will be zealously seconded by the people of this Province, and that their efforts under the influence of an omnipotent power, and the devotion of your Excellency's military skill, will be eventually successful.
"Allan M'Lean,
Speaker."
Address from the Inhabitants of York to Sir George Prevost.
"May it please your Excellency,