To His Excellency Josiah Martin, Esq., His Majesty’s Captain-General, Governor and Commander in Chief in and over the Province of North Carolina:
The petition of us, the subscribers, humbly craveth that you, through your great goodness, may continue us under your favor and protection, as we find to our great grief that many of the Legislatives are against us, and some fears still remaining of our present unhappy situation; but as our hopes are still fixed in you, we again declare our firm resolution to stand to and abide by whatever your Excellency shall prescribe for us, and if we perish we perish, and your poor, destroyed petitioners, as in duty bound, shall ever pray.