Your assuming the government of Massachusetts Bay makes it unnecessary for me to make any apology for addressing you in this public manner, further than by acquainting you that it is to represent to you the distresses of some of those people who from a sense of their duty to the king and a reverence for his laws have behaved quietly and peaceably. And for which reason they have been deprived of their liberty, abused in their persons, and suffered such barbarous cruelties, insults, and indignities besides the loss of their property by the hands of lawless mobs and riots as would have been disgraceful even for savages to have committed. The courts of justice being shut up in most parts of the province and the justices of those courts compelled by armed force, headed by some who are members of your Congress to refrain from doing their duties, at present it is rendered impracticable for those sufferers to obtain redress unless it be by your interposition or the aid of military force, which will be applied for in case this application fails. A particular enumeration of all the instances referred to is apprehended unnecessary, as many of your members are personally knowing to them and for the information of any of you who may pretend ignorance of them, the following instances are here mentioned. In August last, a mob in Berkshire forced the justices of the court of Common Pleas from their seats and shut up the courthouse. They also drove David Ingersoll from his house and damaged the same and he was obliged to leave his estate, after which his enclosures were laid waste.