mericans, and no less a person then General Conway leaned
decidedly to the negative, and compared the case to that of French
officers who were employed in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. Just
after the battle of Bunker Hill, the duke of Richmond declared in
parliament that he "did not think that the Americans were in rebellion,
but that they were resisting acts of the most unexampled cruelty and
oppression." The Corporation of London, in 1775, drew up an address
strongly approving of the resistance of the Americans, and similar
addresses were expressed by other towns. A great meeting in London, and
also the guild of merchants in Dublin, returned thanks to lord Effingham
for his recent conduct. When Montgomery fell at the head of the American
troops before Quebec, he was eulogized in the British parliament.

The merchants of Bristol, September 27, 1775, held a meeting and passed
resolutions deprecating the war, and calling upon the king to put a stop
to it. The Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Livery of London, September 29th,
issued an address to the Electors of Great Britain, against carrying on
the war. A meeting of the merchants and traders of London was held
October 5th, and moved an address to the king "relative to the unhappy
dispute between Great Britain and her American Colonies," and that he
should "cause hostilities to cease." The principal citizens,
manufacturers and traders of the city of Coventry, October 10th,
addressed the sovereign beseeching him "to stop the effusion of blood,
to recommend to your Parliament to consider, with all due attention, the
petition from America lately offered to be presented to the throne." The
mayor and burgesses of Nottingham, October 20th, petitioned the king in
which they declared that "the first object of our desires and wishes is
the return of peace and cordial union with our American
fellow-subjects," and humbly requested him to "suspend those
hostilities, which, we fear, can have no other than a fatal issue." This
was followed by an address of the inhabitants of the same city, in which
the king was asked to "stay the hand of war, and recall into the bosom
of peace and grateful subjection your American subjects, by a
restoration of those measures which long experience has shown to be
productive of the greatest advantages to this late united and
flourishing Empire." The petition of the free burgesses, traders and
inhabitants of Newcastle-upon-Tyne declared that "in the present