KING.
Reading edition
Sir,
Amidst the congratulations and praises of a free, a joyful, and now united people, people, who are ambitious to express their duty and their wishes in their various classes; I think myself happy to have Your Majesty's most gracious permission to approach You, and, after the manner of the people whose character I have assumed, to bring an humble offering in my hand.
As some part of my subject led me to consider the advantages of our excellent constitution in comparison of others; my thoughts were naturally turned to Your Majesty, as its warmest friend and most powerful protector: and as the whole is intended, to recommend the practice of virtue, as the means of happiness; to whom could I address it with so much propriety, as to a Prince, who illustrates and enforces the precepts of the moralist by his life.
I am,
May it please Your
Majesty
,
Your
Majesty's
Most faithful, most obliged,
And most obedient
Subject and Servant,
John Hawkesworth.