May it Please your Excellency

We the Subscribers, Inhabitants of the Town of Yarmouth, beg leave at this critical and alarming time to address ourselves to your Excellency, We want to Express to you the opinion we have of our Situation at present: and hope to be inform'd in what manner we may live and enjoy our Possessions. We do all of us profess to be true Friends & Loyal Subjects to George our King, We were almost all of us born in New England, we have Fathers, Brothers & Sisters in that Country, divided betwixt natural affection to our nearest relations, and good Faith and Friendship to our King and Country, we want to know, if we may be permitted at this time to live in a peaceable State, as we look on that to be the only situation in which we with our Wives and Children, can be in any tolerable degree safe, your Excellency cannot be unacquainted how easy a thing it is for those people, if they once suppose us their Enemies, to burn and destroy all before them in this Quarter: We are in no Capac[it]y to defend ourselves. Few in number, and those few Scatterd up and down the Woods. Arms we are but poorly Accoutred with, Ammunition we have none, an alarming instance of our Weakness happend last Week. two Arm'd Vessels Mounting eight Guns each, and one hundred & twenty Men, came into our Harbour about Ten OClock in the Morning, having been inform'd before they came here, that it was the day our light Infantry Company was to be Muster'd, they repair'd on Shore, went to the house where the Officers were, took them all off, they offer'd no abuse to any one else, and say they will offer none provided we do nothing against them, but in Case we take up Arms against them, threaten us highly; ² As our situation is thus unhappy, we must beg of your Excellency not to be call'd to Action in this matter. if that cannot be granted we have nothing to do, but retire from our habitations either to Halifax or to New England. We beg of your Excellency not to conclude, as we desire to be Neuter, that we are in any measure disaffected to our King or his Government, For we do assure your Excellency we never have done, neither have we any disposition to do any thing whatever, by way of Aiding or Assisting the Americans in their Opposition to Great Britain. It is self preservation and that only, which drives us at this time to make our Request.

(Copy) [Endorsed] (Signd) by eighty two Inhabitants