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That in addition to all the foregoing grievances, your Petitioners beg to state your Honorable House, that the Lands land other Property of the Corporation were granted to theirs as Trustees, merely for the awe and benefit of the Town, and the Incorporation of the Inhabitants at large : but, although the Revenues of the Properties so granted, now and for many Years past, have yielded and Income of, from One Thousand, to Fifteen Hundred Pounds a Year, yet little or no benefit has accrued to the said Town therefrom : and the only way in which said Revenues are expended, which your Petitioners can learn, is, in a division of same, amongst such of themselves, Members of the Common Council, as hold Offices, payable with Salaries : all access to the Books, Accounts, or Records of the Corporation, having been not only denied to, but every matter relating thereto, studiously kept secret from the Inhabitant at large.
That your Petitioners respectfully implore your Honorable House to restore to them their Rights, as Freemen and Inhabitants of a Free Town, and to declare, that those Rights which their Charter gave to them, should no longer be usurped by such unconstitutional and illegal monopoly, contrary to their Charter and Laws of the Land, and which has transferred those Privileges and Rights, (purchased by their Ancestors, and exercised by them and their predecessors in this Town,) to a single Family, the head of which is a Peer of the Realm, and ought, thereby, to abstain from all the interference of Elections of Members to serve in Parliament, for said Town.
May it therefore please your Honorable House,
to take the case of your Petitioners into consideration,
and to take measures, or direct such measures to be
taken, as will not only restore to your Petitioners their
just Rights, but prevent such a monopoly in future,
as that above complained of : or to give to your Petitioners
such other relief in the Premises as to your Honorable
House shall seem meet.
AND YOUR PETITIONERS SHALL PRAY.