by melancholy gradation and oppressive treatment from Richard
Henderson, Esq., J.P., his landlord, to a state of painful struggle and
poverty. That the said Richard Henderson, Esq., his unworthy landlord,
having been offered a still higher rent, from a miserable disciple,
named Darby Skinadre, among others, unfeelingly availed himself of
Dalton's _res augusta_--and under play of his privileges as a landlord,
levied an execution upon his property, auctioned him out, and expelled
him from the farm; thus turning a respectable man and his family,
hopeless and houseless, beggars upon the world, to endure misery
and destitution. That the said Mr. Cornelius Dalton, now plain Corny
Dalton--for vile poverty humilifies even the name--or rather his
respectable family, among whom, _facile princeps_, for piety and
unshaken trust in her Redeemer, stands his truly unparalleled wife, are
lying in a damp wet cabin within about two hundred perches of his
former residence, groaning with the agonies of hunger, destitution,
dereliction, and disease, in such a state of complicated and multiform
misery as rarely falls to the lot of human eyes to witness. That the
burthen and onus of this petition is, to humbly supplicate that Mr.
Cornelius Dalton, or rather his afflicted and respectable family, may
be reinstated in their farm as aforesaid, or if not, that Richard
Henderson, J.P., may be compelled to swallow such a titillating emetic
from the head landlord as shall compel him to eructate to this oppressed
and plundered man all the money he expended in making improvements,
which remain to augment the value of the farm, but which, at the same
time, were the means of ruining himself and his most respectable family:
for, as the bard says, '_sio vos non vobis_,' &c, &c. Of the remainder
of this appropriate quotation, your honor cannot be incognizant, or
any man who has had the advantage of being college-bred, as every true
gentleman or '_homo factus ad unguem_' must have, otherwise he fails to
come under this category.--And your petitioner will ever pray."

"Are you the Mr. Eugenius McGrane," asked the agent, "who drew up this
extraordinary document?"

"No, your honor; I'm only merely a friend of the Daltons, although a
stranger in the neighborhood."

"But what means have Dalton or his family, granting that he escapes
from this charge of murder that's against him, of stocking or working so
large a farm? I am aware myself that the contents of this