Whereas a most unprovoked and wicked rebellion hath for some time past prevailed, and doth now exist within His Majesty's Province of North Carolina, and the inhabitants forgetting their Allegiance to their Sovereign, and denying the Authority of the Laws and Statutes of the realm, have in a succession of Crimes proceeded to the total subversion of all legal authority, usurping the powers of Government and erecting a tyranny in the hands of Congresses and Committees of various denominations, utterly unknown and repugnant to the Spirit of the British Constitution, and divors people, in avowed defiance to all legal authority are now actually in arms waging unnatural War against their King.
And Whereas all attempts to reclaim the infatuated and misguided multitude to a sense of their error have hitherto unhappily proved ineffectual, I have it in command to proceed forthwith against all such Men or bodies of Men in Arms, and against all such Congresses and Committees thus unlawfully established, as against open enemies of the State. But considering it as a duty inseparable from the principle of humanity first of all to forewarn
the Deluded People of the misories ever attendant upon Civil War, I do most earnestly entreat and exhort them as they tender their own happiness and that of their Posterity to appease the Vengeance of an injured and justly incensed Nation by a return to their duty to our common Sovereign, and to the blessings of a free Government as established by Law, Hereby offering in His Majesty's Name free Pardon to all such as shall lay down their Arms and submit to the Laws, excepting only from the benefit of such Pardon Cornelius Harnett and Robert Howes. And I do hereby require that the Provincial Congress and all Committees of Safety and other unlawful Associations be dissolved, and the Judges allowed to hold their Courts according to the Laws and Constitution of this Province; of which, all persons are required to take notice as they will answer the contrary at their utmost Peril.Given on board the Pallisser Transport in Cape Fear river in the Province of North Carolina this 5th day of May 1776, and in the Sinteenth Year of His Majesty's Reign.
Richd Reeve Secretary.
God Save The King.