olutions adopted to deprive us of our rights our liberties and peaceable enjoyment of our possessions From the present hostile aspect and from bitter experience in the state of it is greatly feared lest the barbarous scenes acted in that will be reacted in this If goes unpunished others will be greatly encouraged to follow her murderous examples The afflictions of your memorialists have already been overwhelming too much for humanity to much for American citizens to endure without complaint We have groaned under the iron hand of tyranny and oppression these many years We have been robbed of our property to the amount <​of​> two millions of Dollars We have been hunted as wild beasts of the forest We have seen our aged fathers who fought in the Revolution and our innocent children alike slaughtered before our eyes by our persecutors We have seen the fair daughters of American citizens violated <​insulted and abused​> in the most inhuman manner and finally we have seen fifteen thousand souls men, woman and children driven by force of arms under during the severities of winter from their sacred homes and firesides to a land of strangers peniless & unprotected Under all these afflicting circumstances we imploringly stretch forth our hands towards the highest councils of our nation and humbly appeal to the illustrious Senators and Representatives of a great and free people for redress and protection Hear O hear the petitioning voice of many thousands of American citizens who now groan in exile on Columbia's free soil Hear O hear the weeping and bitter lamentations of widows and orphans whose husbands and fathers have been cruelly martyred in the land where the proud eagle exultingly floats Let it not be recorded in the archives of the nations that Columbia's exiles sought protection and redress at your hands but sought it in vain It is in your power to save us our wives and our children from a repetition of the blood-thirsty scenes of and greatly [p. 7]