The Virginia Gazette

YORK, December 20.

At a very numerous and respectable meeting of the first persons of consideration and property in this country, held here this day, the following petition and resolutions was agreed to:

To the Honourable the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament Assembled.

The petition of the Gentlemen, Clergy, and Freeholders of the county of York,

SHEWETH,

That this nation hath been engaged, for many years, in a most expensive and unfortunate war; that many of your valuable colonies, having actually declared themselves independent, have formed a strict confederacy with France and Spain, the dangerous and inveterate enemy of Great Britain: The consequence of those combined misfortunes hath been a large addition to the national debt, a heavy accumulation of taxes, a rapid decline of the trades, manufactures, and land rents of this kingdom.

Alarmed at the diminished resources and growing burthens of this country, and convinced that rigid frugality is now indispensably necessary, in every department of the state, your petitioners observe, with grief, that notwithstanding the calamitous and impoverished condition of the nation, much publick money has been improvidently squandered, and that individuals enjoy sinecure places, efficient places with exorbitant emoluments, and pensions unmerited by publick service, to a large and still increasing amount; whence the crown has acquired a great and unconstitutional influence, which, if not checked, may soon prove fatal to the liberties of this country.

Your petitioners conceiving that the true end of every legitimate government is not the emolument of any individual, but the welfare of the community; and considering, that by the constitution of this realm, the national purse is intrusted, in a peculiar manner, to the custody of this honourable house beg leave farther to represent, that, until effectual measures be taken to redress the oppressive grievances herein stated, the grant of any additional sum of publick money, beyond the produce of the present taxes, will be injurious to the rights and property of the people, and derogatory from the honour and dignity of Parliament.

Your petitioners, therefore, appealing to the justice of this honourable House, do most earnestly request, that before any new burthens are laid on this country, effectual measures may be taken by this House to enquire into and correct the gross abuses in the expenditure of publick money; to reduce all exorbitant emoluments; to rescind and abolish all sinecure places and unmerited pensions; and to appropriate the produce to the necessities of the state, in such manner as to the wisdom of Parliament shall seem meet.

And your petitioners shall ever pray, &c.

After which the following resolutions were proposed and unanimously agreed to, viz.

RESOLVED, that the petition now read to this meeting, addressed to the House of Commons, and requesting, that, before any new burthens be laid upon the country, effectual measures may be taken by that House to enquire into and correct the gross abuses in the expenditure of publick money; to reduce all exorbitant emoluments; to rescind and abolish all sinecure places and unmerited pensions; and to appropriate the produce to the necessities of the state, is approved of by this meeting.

Resolved, that a committee of sixty one Gentlemen be appointed to carry on the necessary correspondence for effectually promoting the object of the petition, and to prepare the plan of an association, on legal and constitutional ground, to support that laudable reform, and such other measures as may conduce to restore the freedom of Parliament, to be presented by the chairman of the committee to this meeting, held by adjournment, on the Tuesday in Easter week next ensuing.