To the King's most Excellent Majesty in Council
The Humble Petition of Daniel Hanmer, late Chief Justice of North Carolina Sheweth,
That your Majesty's Petitioner contrary to all Law and Justice, has been so barbarously and inhumanly persecuted, and outrageously prosecuted by William Smith Esqre the present Chief Justice of North Carolina, as the like proceedings were never known in the Dominions belonging to the Crown of Great Britain, or the like heard of in the most dissolute and uncivilized Governments, by which proceedings, your Majestys Petitioner has been ruined in his fortune, and his health destroyed.
The particular instances of the many violences, persecutions, punishments, injurious, malicious, unjust, violent, and unlawful Proceedings of the said William Smith against the Petitioner being too numerous to be contained in a Petition, are herewith deposited in the Council Office.
Your Royal Majesty's most humble and injured Petitioner submissively supplicates, that by an Order of Council the before named William Smith Esqre Chief Justice of North Carolina now in London, be obliged to put in his answer to the facts alledged against him, and when that is obeyed, another order of Council be sent to some Members of your Majesty's Council in North Carolina to examine witnesses, and take Depositions, to prove the truth of your Petitioner's complaints, and the sufficiency or insufficiency of the Answer and Defence of the said Smith.