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Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Letter from some North Carolina Presbyterian ministers to William Tryon
McAden, Hugh, ca. 1730-1781; Creswell, James; Pattillo, Henry, 1726-1801; Caldwell, David, 1725-1824
August 23, 1768
Volume 07, Pages 813-814

Letter from the Presbyterian Ministers to Governor Tryon

To His Excellency William Tryon Esqre Captain General & Commander in Chief in and over the Province of North Carolina

Sir,

We the Subscribers His Majesty's ever dutiful and loyal Subjects Presbyterian Ministers in this Province, beg leave to approach your Excellency with cordial professions of unshaken duty and loyalty to His Majesty's sacred Person and Government and to testify our duty and ready submission to the Laws of this Province and to your Excellency's Administration. With these sentiments glowing in our breasts, we cannot but express our abhorrence of the present turbulent and disorderly spirit that shows itself in some parts of this Province, and we beg leave to assure your Excellency that we will exert our utmost abilities, to prevent the infection spreading among the People of our charge, and among the whole Presbyterian Body in this Province as far as our influence will extend.

We humbly hope your Excellency has found but a very small proportion of the People of our Denomination, among the present Insurgents, and we assure you Sir, if any such there are, they have departed from the invariable Principles of their Profession, which some bred in this Wilderness, for want of proper Instruction, may be supposed ignorant of.

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Fully sensible of the happiness of our situation in point of Religious Liberty, we shall not fail at all times to inculcate and proclaim the glorious and catholic doctrines of Faith, Piety, Virtue and Loyalty so as best to promote the glory of our Divine Master, the best Interests of mankind, the Honor of His Majesty's Government, and the ease and comfort of your Excellency's Administration.

We congratulate our Country Sir, that while your Excellency steadily refuses to grant anything on compulsion to the demands of unreasonable men, you have at the same time made the cause of the poor so much your own, as to ensure to them the redress of any grievances they may labour under, in the way prescribed by the Laws of their Country.

That Heaven may bless your Excellency, the other branches of this Legislature, and the whole body of this Province, that all parties of Christians, may unite as one man to strengthen your hands at this Season That you may weather the Storm with dignity to yourself and Government, and compassion to the deluded, and unwary, and be long continued among us a Pattern, and Patron of Virtue, and Piety, Steadiness and Condescension is the sincere Prayer of

Your Excellency's most Obedient and most humble Servants
HUGH McCADDON
JAMES CRESWELL
HENRY PATILLO
DAVd CALDWELL.

Hawfields 23rd August 1768.