tke menaces of `faction and the unnatural assaults uf

[ 500 ]
tke menaces of 'faction and the unnatural assaults
uf domestic treason.
[Here follow the Signatures.]
[Presented by the Duke of Northumberland.']
To the KING'S Most Excellent Majesty.
SIRE,
WE, your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Nobility, Clergy, and Gentry of the
County of Worcester, humbly approach your royal
presence with the expression of our most dutiful
regard.
Without intending either approbation or disapprobation of your Majesty's Ministers we beg
to assure your Majesty of our devoted zeal and attachment to your Royal Person and to the Constitution as by law established, and of our determination to defend both against all machinations and
attacks whatsover.
[Here follow the Signatures.]
[Presented by Lord Fuley.~\
To the KING'S Most Excellent Majesty.
WE, the undersigned Noblemen, Magistrates,
Clergy, and others, Freeholders of the County of
Berks, humbly entreat permission to approach your
-Majesty wilh professions ot unabated loyalty to
your Majesty's Person, and unshaken attachment
to the C«nstitution of the country, which we feel
ourselves imperatively called upon to renew at the
present crisis.
We have witnessed with sorrow the unwearied
activity of the turbulent and factious, in seizing
every opportunity of alienating the affections of
the people from the constituted authorities, of
creating a general spirit of insubordination ant! disloyalty, and of exciting hatred and contempt towards
all which is dignified in rank and venerable in
character.
We deeply regret that one of the inestimable privileges of our Constitution, the liberty of the press,
has been abused by designing men, and made a
powerful instrument of evil, undaunted in its calumnies and unrestrained in its virulence; a part of
the public press notoriously aims at the subversion
of our civil and religious establishments, and disseminates its pages of sedition and blasphemy with
a boldness of which former times afford us no
example.
We trust, however, that the same Pivine Providence, which has hitherto graciously preserved us
from our foreign enemies, will now protect us from
domestic convulsions. And we crave permission to
assure your Majesty, that the Sovereign will always
find us among his most zealous and faithful supporters in the exercise of his just and constitutional
rights 3 and that we will neither be deterred by
clamour, nor appalled by violence, from the discharge of our duties as loyal subjects, as Englishmen, and as Christians.
[Here follow the Signatures.]
[Presented by the Earl of Craven, accompanied by
Sir Nathaniel Dukinfield, Sir Moris Ximene, and
Captain Garth.]
To the ICINGS Most Excellent Majesty;.*'
WE, the undersigned Noblemen, Gentlemen,.
Clergy, and Freeholders of the County of Cambridge and Isle of Ely, beg leave to express to your
Majesty our renewed sentiments of unalterable attachment to your Majesty's Person, and devotedness to the principles of that glorious Constitution,
upon a steady and undaunted adherence to which,,
we are firmly convinced, must depend the continuance of those blessings which we, under Divine
Providence, have so long enjoyed.
We repel with indignation the charge so often and
so injuriously made, of gratuitously extolling our own
loyalty at the expence of our fellow-subjects ; and
in this spirit we should not perhaps even now have
thought ourselves called upon to make this public
declaration of it, did we not perceive incessant endeavours to give some shape and consistency to
opinions which, however they may be disguised,
have for their object such changes in the existing
institutions of the country as would, we believe,
materially endanger that venerable fabric of our
Constitution which as it has been bequeathed to us
by our ancestors in all its strength and splendour^
so are we anxious to transmit it unimpaired to our
latest posterity.
Honest difference of opinion on great political
questions, we who stand forward as the champions
of our liberties cannot be supposed to condemn ;
it is only when we see such controversy used as »
pretext for weakening in the minds of your Majesty's subjects, those principles of loyalty for which
they have been so eminently distinguished, that we
think it our bounden duty to come forward ; and
whilst we rescue ourselves from the galling imputation of silently acquiescing in the means thus
insiduously used, to open, as far as in us lies, the
eyes of our fellow-subjects to the dangers which;
they are, we conceive, inadvertently preparing for
themselves and their country.
We fervently hope that the time is not far distant when your Majesty may enjoy the satisfaction
of receiving from a free, happy, and united people,
the respectful homage ot unshaken loyalty.
[Here follow the Signatures.]
[Presented by the Duke of Rutland and Earl
Delawarr.']
To the KING'S Most Excellent Majesty,
WE, your Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects,
Inhabitant-Householders of the Parish of Saint
Mary-le-bone, in the County of Middlesex, at thiseventful period, when every artifice is used to excitediscontent^and seduce your Majesty's subjects from
their duty, humbly beg leave to approach your
Majesty with a sincere and solemn assurance of our
attachment to your Majesty's Person, and the Constitution as by law established. Sensible as we all
are of the advantage of living under the safeguard
of a Constitution better calculated for the promotion of public prosperity and individual happiness
than that of any other nation upon earth, and
anxious as we also are to transmit this inestimable
blessing to our posterity, we see with mingled sorrow and indignation the daily increasing boldnessof a blasphemous and seditious press, and are appre-