Sheweth

That your Memorialist from the Commencement of the present unhappy Rebellion, had openly Opposed every measure that tended to the Subversion of Order and Legal Government.

That your Memorialist maintained in Arms at his own Expence, upwards of Three hundred Men, by which means the Friends of Government were protected, 'till in January 1776 your Memorialist being overpowered by Superior Numbers, was under the disagreeable necessity of laying down his Arms.

That your Memorialist, upon receiving certain and undoubted Intelligence of a Design being formed to seize his Person, was under the necessity of flying precipitately from his place of Residence, abandoning all his Property, and betaking himself and a Party of One hundred and Seventy Men, mostly his Tenants, to the Woods, in order to make their way to Canada to seek the protection of Government, which after a very laborious and painfull March of nineteen days, the most part of the time destitute of Provisions, they at length effected.

That your Memorialist about the 16th of June 1776 arrived at La Prarie near Montreal, where he met his Excellency Sir Guy CARLETON, to whom he offered his Service.

That his Excellency was pleased to form the Party your Memorialist had brought with him, into a Battalion, and to appoint him Lieut. Colonel Commandant of the same, as will appear from his Excellencys Beating Order to your Memorialist of the 19th June 1776, hereto annexed, and his Excellencys report thereof to Lord George GERMAIN, Lord BARRINGTON and Lords of the Treasury, by Letter of the 8th July 1776 to which your Memorialist would beg leave to refer your Lordships.

Your Memorialist from the above State of Facts, humbly hopes that your Lordships will consider him as Intitled to the Customary Emoluments accruing from his Command, and that Your Lordships will be pleased to grant him an Order for the Off-Reckonings of his Battalion, since the formation of it, being raised at his own Expence, and now nearly completed, in like manner as has been granted to Brigadier MACLEAN, and other Corps under similar Circumstances.

And your Memorialist will Pray-

[Sir John JOHNSON]

Great Britain, Public Record Office, Treasury, Class I, Volume 547, folio 388.

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