Again I presume upon troubling your lordships with as short an account as may be written of what has very lately pass’d in the G. assembly of Rhode Island colony, in reference to their granting of a compensation to the sufferers from the riot of Newport 1765, as resolved on in the British parliament and very graciously recommended from his Majesty to the governor and company of that colony by his principal secretary of state.

Tired out and greatly mortified with a long course of frequent fruitless and a very expensive attendance upon the G. assembly, I had resolved above a year ago to solicit them no more: but at the intercession of my fellow sufferer Mr. Howard chief justice of North Carolina, I was again prevailed upon to go to Newport in September last, where and when the assembly then met and I had sufficient influence to engage the speaker of the house of deputies to move several times for reading a petition of Mr. Howard’s, with an estimate of his loss solemnly sworn to and authenticated by a notary publick with every necessary prescribed form. The speaker also urged upon the house because of my attending from another colony upon that account only, but the deputies would neither consent to hear Mr. Howard’s petition nor receive his estimate.

Immediately after this refusal a message was sent from the upper house of magistrates requesting the lower house to enter now upon the riot of Newport by immediately impowering the high sheriff to impannel a jury of inquisition to assertain and repair the loss of Dr. Moffatt, Mr. Howard and Mr. Johnson, but the house of deputies could not listen nor agree to any part of this proposal from the upper house.

About the middle of last I wrote a most respectful letter to the governor of Rhode Island and inclosed to his honor the estimate of my loss in the Newport riot sworn to before and attested by a magistrate here requesting the favor of the governor to lay the same before the ensuing assembly. The governor writes on the seventh of this month “that at the last session of assembly he presented my estimate and read my letter in a great committee of both houses of assembly but could not prevail to have it consider’d then;” and adds “that he will endeavour to bring it in again next February.”

Under the strongest impressions of assurance the G. Assembly of Rhode Island never will recompence the suffered in the riot of Newport, may I again presume to implore your lordships interposition and influence to obtain a recompence for the sufferers in Rhode Island from some more effectual and certain channel than that of depending any longer upon the duty or justice of the G. Assembly in that colony. And my lords may I yet farther presume in writing to your lordships to add that by endeavouring to restore in some measure what I lost in that riot I am now sadly sensible that I have not overvalued the same in my estimate, as also that if I am not compensated by the interest, generosity and equity of your lordships, I can never expect to be possess’d of half the value I then lost, as the office of a comptroler here I now hold, had but a very inconsiderable salary with small perquisites. I am, My lords, &c. &c.