Anonymous

His Excellency the Governor of the /
Cape of Good Hope /
May it please your Excellency to /
excuse the liberty of a Settler a lover of Peace and. /
Loyalty in addres+sing your Excellency about the comforts /
of us residing in Albany under your protection /
There is a man here amongst us who pos+ses+ses a /
Small degree of tallent which he abuses in a way I believe /
*** unusual in a New Colony. If any person has a /
offence with his Neighbour, he foments the difference and /
persuades the party to have recourse to Law and thereby gives /
a great deal of trouble to the Magistrates and gain to himself /
he charging them for his writing and not content with the /
trouble he occasions here he likes then to Memorialise /
Your Excellency and think causes much trouble to Your /
Excellency and a further increase of gain to himself for he /
charges so much per sheet which he by fine words increases /
to a great length as Your Excellency must well know /
as scarcly a Post leaves this Place without many of his /
Compositions being, forwarded as Your Excellency must have /
observed from the samenes+s of the writing and style it is /
not fair for he can by his Language give a plausibility /
even to an act of injustice /
May it please your Excellency to afford relief /
7+ I would most humbly suggest that you would be /
pleased publickly to make known that a petition in the /
petitioners own hand writing 7+ diction would be more acceptable /
than those dictated 7+ wrote by others /
I have the honor to be /
Your Excellency Most Hum Serv\t./