Chowan County, NC – Thomas Barker - Petition

Copyright. All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm

This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by
Rosie H. Guthrie

Petition from Thomas Barker concerning the confiscation of his property
Barker, Thomas, 1713-1789
Volume 22, Pages 892-893
THOMAS BARKER TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.

To the Honorable the General Assembly of the State of North Carolina 
now sitting at Halifax:

The humble petition of Thomas Barker, of Edenton, in the same State, 
sheweth:

That your petitioner, when in England, was employed by the Assembly 
of North Carolina in soliciting an instruction of the public boards 
relative to the passing an attachment law.

That before the above negotiation was concluded news had got to London 
of the battle of Lexington, and soon after that the restraining bill 
was passed, by which the intercourse that had subsisted between Britain 
and America was destroyed, so that there was no getting to America but 
by risking a passage by way of France, in which attempt many have been 
taken prisoners and carried back to England, or to have gone by some 
town in America garrisoned by British troops, where the commanding 
officer might have refused a passport.

That under those difficulties your petitioner remained in England till 
he found that the Commissioners appointed in England to negotiate with 
the Congress were on the point of setting off for America without any 
parliamentary powers to acknowledge the independence of the States. He 
then thought it proper to repair to the Kingdom of France, then in 
alliance with America, and hoped to have got a passage in a frigate to 
America; but, finding no such opportunity, he embarked in a small vessel 
at Nantes on the 8th day of July last, arrived at Edenton the 18th of 
August and took the oath of allegiance appointed by law. He has always 
been impressed with the warmest wishes in favor of so just a cause as 
that of the United States of America, and prays to be relieved from the 
penalties, etc., of the act for confiscating the estates of absentees, 
etc., and he shall ever pray.

T. BARKER.