In Council. .

The Petition and complaint of Benjamin Hough one of his Majestys Justices of the Peace for the County of Charlotte, in behalf of himself, other Officers of Justice, and many of the Inhabitants of the said County ; and particularly of the Townsbip of Durham and Soscialborough.

Most Humbly Sheweth That your Petitioners, to their inexpressible Grief, find ¢hemselves again reduced to the Necessity of imploring the Compassionate attention of Government to the

876 CONTROVERSY RESPECTING THE

Calamities which they Suffer, and the ruin with which they are threatened by the Bennington Rioters.

The measures heretofore adopted by his Excellency Governor Tryon in Council, the Resolves of the General Assembly, and the Act of Legislature' passed at the last Sessions for restoring: Peace and order, and Protecting your Petitioners in their lives' aud Properties ; instead of producing this Salutary Effects, have only served to increase the Rage and Malice of those dissolute People and to expose your Petitioners to fresh Insults, and, if: possible, to Greater Danger ; and so feeble and intimidated is the Civil Authority, ina part of the Country remote from the metropolis, and overrun with Fugitives from the other Provinces, that far from being able to punish offenders and check their licencious proceedings, the Magistrates, at one of these Riotous Assemblies held in April last, have been publickly voted Enemies to their Country, only for accepting their Commissions under the authority of this Government; and your Petitioner Benjamin Hough was formally Served with a Copy of that vote, signed by the Clerk of the meeting. In consequence of this outrageous resolution two of the Magistrates have been insulted with every abuse, attacked in their Persons and properties, and hunted after and pursued with open menaces that they should be taken and secured either Dead or alive: while some of the chief of the Rioters have barbarously directed their abettors to put them to death privately !_ In circumstances So Perilous, no longer depending upon their own Houses, nor the most Cautious and inoffensive.