To the King's most Excellent Majesty
The humble Address of the Inhabitants of Bermuda —
Most gracious Sovereign
Permit Your loyal and affectionate, though distressed, Subjects of Bermuda, to approach your sacred Person; with the deepest Humility to unfold the Calamities we have long labored under; and in some Measure to deprecate the Consequences of those fatal misrepresentations, we have too much Reason to apprehend have been attempted to enflame the Mind of your Majesty against us.
The Honorable your Majesty's Council and our Representatives in General Assembly-presented a dutiful and loyal Address to your Majesty in June last, lamenting the present unhappy Commotions in America; shewing the Necessity of our depending, from Situation, on that Continent for the Means of Subsistence; and that the sudden Resolution of the Americans to shut up their Ports at an earlier Day than was at first apprehended, had reduced us to the sad alternative of either submitting to the Distresses of Famine, or appealing to their Humanity for Relief. This Transaction (tho' it might have been, by our Enemies, represented as irregular and deviating from that strict Attachment which every loyal Subject should, at this Time of American Defection, have evidenced to the World) that benevolent Disposition, which has marked the Conduct of your Majesty towards your liege Subjects in every Quarter of your extensive Empire, will naturally lead your Majesty to construe in the most favorable Light; to attribute to Necessity; not to a Principle of Disaffection, from which the Minds of your faithful Subjects of Bermuda have ever been truly abhorrent —
The British Parliament having deemed it expedient to prohib.it all Intercourse with the Colonies of America so long as they shall continue themselves withdrawn from their Allegiance, and to subject all Property taken in the Attempt to Confiscation; tho' ever desirous of expressing the strictest Conformity to the Laws of the Empire, we were by sad necessity constrained to move in some apparent Contradiction thereto, or to involve Thousands of your Majesty's loyal and affectionate Subjects in Distress that would ever give Pain to the Benignity of your Majesty's Mind ー The Loss of our Property; taken on the high Seas, we have patiently, and without murmuring, submitted to: but the cruel and rigid Measures further exerted in the Execution of the present restraining Act, by pursuing with Tenders and armed Boats our little Vessels employed in the Importation of Provision to our Poors, and snatching from the very Mouths of our half starved Inhabitants the very Means of Subsistence; the Detention of the Masters and Passengers of such Vessels contrary to the express Words of the Law; the frequent Insults and Outrages committed on the Liberty and Property of our Inhabitants not heretofore practised in this, or any other, Part of your Majety's Dominions, induced the honorable the Council and Assembly of these Islands, again, in their legislative Capacity, to enter on a dutiful Representation to your Majesty. of these our Distresses; and at the same Time to solicit such intermediate Relief from the Right honorable Lord Howe, one of your Majesty's Commissioners for restoring Peace to the Colonies, as his Lordship might be invested with Power to grant: But the regular Manner of Proceeding has been by his Excellency, our Governor, interrupted by a sudden Prorogation of the General Assembly. Thus circumstanced, no other Mode of obtaining Redress was left to our distressed Inhabitants but in their own Name to implore the royal Interposition; and to promote the intended Application to Lord Howe ー To effect which we have been appointed by our different Parishes and instructed for the Purpose.
Deign then, Most gracious Sovereign, tq attend to the accumulated Distresses of your loyal Subjects of Bermuda ー Suffer not your Mind to be impressed with an unfavorable Opinion of our Attachment to your royal Person and Government ー But, if Representations have been made to your Majesty to blacken the Caracter of our Inhabitants, We humbly implore your Majesty will be pleased to order some early legal Enquiry to be made into our Conduct ー We shall, then, be happy in evincing to the World and your Majesty the Truth of our Allegiance, by exposing the Malice of our Enemies. And until we shall be proved unworthy your Majesty's Protection and the inestimable Blessings of the British Constitution, Most gracious Sovereign, suffer not your faithful Subjects of Bermuda to be, in Contradiction thereto, not only insulted in their Persons and Property, but deprived. of the very Means of Subsistence.
That the Reign of your Majesty may be ever happy and glorious; the inestimable Blessings of Peace again restored to your Majesty's extensive Empire, and the British Scepter be swayed by the Descendants of your illustrious House to the latest Posterity is sincerely and devoutly prayed by
May it please Your Majesty
Your Majesty's Most loyal Most dutiful and affectionate Subjects
[Signed by twenty-two names and endorsed] R 12th June 1777
By Mr John Noble Taylor.
