Page:Letter from L. J. Papineau and J. Neilson, Esqs., Addressed to His Majesty's Under Secretary of State on the Subject of the Proposed Union of the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada.djvu/72

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of Kent, in the Western District and Province of Upper Canada ===

To the Honourable the House of Commons, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled.

The Petition of the Inhabitants of the County of Kent, in the Western District and Province of Upper Canada.

Humbly Sheweth,

That your Petitioners have been informed that a Bill was introduced into your Honourable House during the late Sessions of the Imperial Parliament, which had for its objects the Union of the Legislatures of the two Provinces of Canada, and that it is again to be brought before your Honourable House at the ensuing Sessions.

That your Petitioners are fully sensible of, and truly grateful for the happiness and privileges they have enjoyed for a period of thirty years, under the just and liberal Constitution granted them in the Thirty-first year of the reign of his late most gracious Majesty King George the Third, of blessed memory.

That your Petitioners, therefore, view with equal alarm and anxiety the proposed Union of the Canadas, as by such a measure they have much to lose but nothing to gain.

That your Petitioners have reviewed with the utmost satisfaction, the Bill passed on the Fifth day of August last, in the Imperial Parliament, for regulating the trade between the Lower and Upper Provinces of Canada, and for other purposes relating to the said Provinces, as in the opinion of your Petitioners, the said Bill does fully and effectually redress all the grievances your Petitioners found cause to complain of in their intercourse with Lower Canada.

May it therefore please your Honours, that the said Bill may not pass into a law.

And your Petitioners will ever pray.

Chatham, the 6th day of January, 1823.