Details
[MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY]. OLIVER, THOMAS, Speaker of the Council and Assembly of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Document signed ("Thomas Oliver Speaker"), entitled "A Memorial of the State of the Province of Massachusetts...with Reference to the War," [Boston], 20 October 1708. 2 1/2 pages, large folio, 385 x 250mm. (15 x 9 3/4 in.). Fine.
TROUBLES IN MASSACHUSETTS WITH THE FRENCH AND INDIANS, 1708
An ornately calligraphic petition requesting Queen Anne to aid her Massachusetts colonists in quelling the hostile Native Americans and their French allies and supporters: "...It's nothing short of Twenty years, That [the]...Subjects of this Province, have been wasting under the Calamity of a Distressing and Expensive War...We have been Sharers in Common...to a Great Degree in Losses, both of men and Estate...But we have no prospect of the End of these Troubles...whilst we can Act only Defensively, and have to Do with the Enemy's and Rebels within our very Bowells, who like Beasts of prey peck their Liveing...and are such Monsters that their Barbarity's and Cruelty's are horrendous to humane Nature, and they are Animated & Encouraged to such Barbarity's by the French...If your Majesty Shall be Graciously pleas'd, during the Continuance of the present War by your Royal Armes to Reduce that Country, and take it by force out of French hands...so that the French King find himselfe under a Necessity of Sueing for Peace, And a Treaty be thereupon Negotiated...that place may have a Consideration in the Treaty, to be restored to your...Obedience and Settled by...British Subjects..."
TROUBLES IN MASSACHUSETTS WITH THE FRENCH AND INDIANS, 1708
An ornately calligraphic petition requesting Queen Anne to aid her Massachusetts colonists in quelling the hostile Native Americans and their French allies and supporters: "...It's nothing short of Twenty years, That [the]...Subjects of this Province, have been wasting under the Calamity of a Distressing and Expensive War...We have been Sharers in Common...to a Great Degree in Losses, both of men and Estate...But we have no prospect of the End of these Troubles...whilst we can Act only Defensively, and have to Do with the Enemy's and Rebels within our very Bowells, who like Beasts of prey peck their Liveing...and are such Monsters that their Barbarity's and Cruelty's are horrendous to humane Nature, and they are Animated & Encouraged to such Barbarity's by the French...If your Majesty Shall be Graciously pleas'd, during the Continuance of the present War by your Royal Armes to Reduce that Country, and take it by force out of French hands...so that the French King find himselfe under a Necessity of Sueing for Peace, And a Treaty be thereupon Negotiated...that place may have a Consideration in the Treaty, to be restored to your...Obedience and Settled by...British Subjects..."