"That themselves, and the several manufacturers depending on them, such as hair-manufacturers, ribbon-weavers, cawl-makers, &c. do amount to such a number, that they fear they should not be credited if they were to give a modest estimate of it; for they conceive the thousands thus employed are little if at all inferior to what can be boasted by any one manufactory in your Majesty's dominions:
"That out of this number of your Majesty's most loyal and dutiful subjects, there is a multitude already actually
reduced to the want of the common necessaries of life; and that the whole body must seek subsistence in some different employ, at the risque of perishing miserably by a failure in the attempt, unless some means can be speedily found to support their falling trade, fatally wounded by the present mode of fashion which so generally prevails, of men in almost all stations wearing their own hair:
"That this mode, pernicious enough in itself to their trade, is rendered excessively more so by swarms of French hair-dressers already in these Cities, and daily increasing, who by artifice more than merit, as your Petitioners humbly presume, and by that facility with which your Majesty's British subjects are too much inclined to prefer French skill and taste in every article of dress (by which the most considerable manufactories in these kingdoms, as well as those of your Petitioners, do greatly suffer), find means to get employment, to the privation of that pittance to your Majesty's natural subjects which the fashion itself would still leave in their power to obtain:
"That, by the present fashion, your Petitioners are compelled to a breach of the command of God and man, and a course of disobedience to your Majesty's proclamation, wisely intended for the benefit of all your Majesty's subjects; for the Lord's day, designed for their instruction and confirmation in the principles of virtue and piety, is to such of your
Petitioners as can yet find employment, the day, of all others, on which they are most hurried and confused; and a refusal to comply with any order from their employers on that day amounts to a resolution of starving at once. This is a hardship of so peculiar a nature, that your Petitioners humbly conceive no considerable body of your Majesty's subjects labour under it in any manner proportionally as they do. May they be permitted to say, that they tremble for themselves and their children, lest by this unavoidable absence from the sacred duties of that day, and the misemployment of it entirely to worldly pursuits, they become as those that knew not God, while their fellow-subjects are happy in the inestimable privilege of attending and discharging their religious duties, and imbibing continually the precepts that teach to bear a conscience void of offence, to fear God, and honour the King?
"Pressed by the weight of these sufferings; feeling their trade failing under them; sensible of the impending ruin of the several manufactories dependent on them, beholding great and daily increasing numbers of their journeymen in a starving and despairing condition; beholding also the subjects of France feeding on the only fragments they might hope to subsist on; and urged by every consideration interesting to human nature; your Petitioners have at last
ventured on an application to the only earthly power able to save them from the torrent which is bearing them down to destruction. Their hearts prompt them to believe, that to know and to relieve the distresses of your subjects, is the same thing with your Majesty; in which sentiment they are fully confirmed by many Royal Acts since the commencement of your reign, and by none more than that which rescued the poor from the scourge of the oppressors, by reducing the price of provisions. Your Petitioners feel this effect of Royal paternal care, and gratefully bless the protecting hand.
"Your Petitioners therefore, with submissive hope and dutiful resignation, leave to your Majesty's consideration the merits of their Petition; and whether your Majesty's gracious condescension, by example and countenance, is not the only means whereby unimagined numbers can possibly be saved from the deepest misery; humbly praying such commiseration and relief in their present deplorable situation as to your Majesty shall seem meet. And they shall ever pray, &c.
"The above Petition was presented to his Majesty on Monday last; to which he was most graciously pleased to return the following answer: 'That he held nothing dearer to his heart