To the Emperors Most Excellent Majesty. Most Gracious Sovereign, We your majestys faithful subjects of the Planet of Dantooine, and its towns of Garang, Khoonda and Sulem, in addition to the good folk of the Khoonda Plains and other outlying areas, in behalf of ourselves and the inhabitants of these areas who have deputed us to represent them as their voices to you, by this our humble petition, beg leave to lay our grievances before the throne.
A standing army has been kept in these colonies, ever since the conclusion of the late war, without the consent of our assemblies; and this army with a considerable naval armament has been employed to enforce the collection of taxes.
The Authority of Administrator Ray, and, under him, of the senior militiamen has in time of peace, been rendered supreme in all the civil governments in Dantooine.
The Administrator Ray of the SEICD, in time of peace, been appointed governor, Senator and head of the Militia, he has implemented wide ranging and unconstitutional changes to our planet, its government and its culture depriving us of our ancient rights and traditions on a highly loyal world.
The charges of usual offices have been greatly increased; and, new, expensive and oppressive offices have been multiplied.
The officers of the customs are empowered to break open and enter houses without the authority of any civil magistrate founded on legal information.
Humble and reasonable petitions from the representatives of the people have been fruitless.
The agents of the people have been discountenanced and officials of the SEICD have been instructed to prevent the payment of their salaries.
Assemblies have been repeatedly and injuriously dissolved.
Commerce has been burthened with many useless and oppressive restrictions.
By many acts of the SEICD made in the tenth year of your majesty's reign, duties are imposed on us, for the purpose of raising a revenue, and the powers of the militia are extended beyond their ancient limits, whereby our property is taken from us without our consent, the trial by jury in many civil cases is abolished, enormous forfeitures are incurred for slight offences, vexatious informers are exempted from paying damages, to which they are justly liable, and oppressive security is required from owners before they are allowed to defend their right.
From this destructive system of colony administration adopted since the conclusion of the last war, have flowed those distresses, dangers, fears and jealousies, that overwhelm your majesty's dutiful colonists with affliction; and we defy our most subtle and inveterate enemies, to trace the unhappy differences between the SEICD under Administrator Ray and the people of Dantooine, from an earlier period or from other causes than we have assigned.
Had they proceeded on our part from a restless levity of temper, unjust impulses of ambition, or artful suggestions of seditious persons, we should merit the opprobrious terms frequently bestowed upon us, by those we revere. But so far from promoting innovations, we have only opposed them; and can be charged with no offence, unless it be one, to receive injuries and be sensible of them.
Had our creator been pleased to give us existence in a land of slavery, the sense of our condition might have been mitigated by ignorance and habit. But thanks be to his adoreable goodness, we were born the heirs of freedom, and ever enjoyed our right under the auspices of your royal throne, to rescue and secure a pious and gallant and loyal Imperial World from the popery and despotism of a superstitious and inexorable tyrant.
Your majesty, we are confident, justly rejoices, that your title to the crown is thus founded on the title of your people to liberty; and therefore we doubt not, but your Imperial wisdom must approve the sensibility, that teaches your subjects anxiously to guard the blessings, they received from divine providence, and thereby to prove the performance of that compact, which elevated the illustrious house of Palpatine to the imperial dignity it now possesses.
The apprehension of being degraded into a state of servitude from the pre-eminent rank of Dantooine free-men, while our minds retain the strongest love of liberty, and clearly foresee the miseries preparing for us and our posterity, excites emotions in our breasts, which though we cannot describe, we should not wish to conceal. Feeling as men, and thinking as subjects, in the manner we do, silence would be disloyalty. By giving this faithful information, we do all in our power, to promote the great objects of your royal cares, the tranquility of your government, and the welfare of your people.
Duty to your majesty and regard for the preservation of ourselves and our posterity, the primary obligations of nature and society command us to entreat your Imperial attention; and as your majesty enjoys the signal distinction of reigning over freemen, we apprehend the language of freemen can not be displeasing. Your royal indignation, we hope, will rather fall on those designing and dangerous men, who daringly interposing themselves between your Imperial person and your faithful subjects, and for several years past incessantly employed to dissolve the bonds of society, by abusing your majesty's authority, misrepresenting your Dantooine subjects and prosecuting the most desperate and irritating projects of oppression, have at length compelled us, by the force of accumulated injuries too severe to be any longer tolerable, to disturb your majesty's repose by our complaints.
These sentiments are extorted from hearts, that much more willingly would bleed in your majesty's service. Yet so greatly have we been misrepresented, that a necessity has been alledged of taking our property from us without our consent "to defray the charge of the administration of justice, the support of civil government, and the defence protection and security of Dantooine."
Yielding to no unlawful Administration, in affectionate attachment to your majesty's person, family and government, we too dearly prize the privilege of expressing that attachment by those proofs, that are honourable to the prince who receives them, and to the people who give them, ever to resign it to any body of men in this galaxy.
Had we been permitted to enjoy in quiet the inheritance left us by our forefathers, we should at this time have been peaceably, cheerfully and usefully employed in recommending ourselves by every testimony of devotion to your majesty, and of veneration to the state, from which we derive our origin.
But though now exposed to unexpected and unnatural scenes of distress by a contention with that Administration, in whose parental guidance on all important affairs we have hitherto with filial reverence constantly trusted, and therefore can derive no instruction in our present unhappy and perplexing circumstances from any former experience, yet we doubt not, the purity of our intention and the integrity of our conduct will justify us at the grand tribunal, before which all mankind must submit to judgment.
We ask but for peace, liberty, and safety. We wish not a diminution of the prerogative, nor do we solicit the grant of any new right in our favour. Your Imperial authority over us and our connexion with the Galactic Empire, we shall always carefully and zealously endeavor to support and maintain.
Filled with sentiments of duty to your majesty, and of affection to our parent Empire, deeply impressed by our education and strongly confirmed by our reason, and anxious to evince the sincerity of these dispositions, we present this petition only to obtain redress of grievances and relief from fears and jealousies occasioned by the system of statutes and regulations adopted since the close of the late war,--trying persons in the Imperial Outpost Court for offences alledged to be committed in Garang--affecting the province of Garang, and altering the government and changing the name of the historical sovereign world of Dantooine; by the abolition of which system, the harmony between the Empire and Dantooine so necessary to the happiness of both and so ardently desired by the latter, and the usual intercourses will be immediately restored. In the magnanimity and justice of your majesty and senate we confide, for a redress of our other grievances, trusting, that when the causes of our apprehensions are removed, our future conduct will prove us not unworthy of the regard, we have been accustomed, in our happier days, to enjoy. For appealing to that being who searches thoroughly the hearts of his creatures, we solemnly profess, that our councils have been influenced by no other motive, than a dread of impending destruction.
Permit us then, most gracious Imperial sovereign, in the name of all your faithful people on Dantooine, with the utmost humility to implore you, for the honour of your throne; for your glory, which can be advanced only by rendering your subjects happy and keeping them united; for the interests of your family depending on an adherence to the principles that enthroned it; for the safety and welfare of your kingdoms and dominions threatened with almost unavoidable dangers and distresses; that your majesty, as the loving father of your whole people, connected by the same bands of law, loyalty, faith and blood, though dwelling in various areas, will not suffer the transcendant relation formed by these ties to be farther violated, in uncertain expectation of effects, that, if attained, never can compensate for the calamities, through which they must be gained.
We therefore most earnestly beseech your majesty, that your royal authority and interposition may be used for our relief; and that a gracious answer may be given to this petition.
That your majesty may enjoy every felicity through a long and glorious reign over loyal and happy subjects, and that your descendants may inherit your prosperity and dominions 'til time shall be no more, is and always will be our sincere and fervent prayer.
