1772 Petition for Law & Order

1772 "We the subscribers hereof, Inhabitants of the town and Parish of Ballymoney, in the County of Antrim, have for some time past with anxiety and indignation considered the unhappy tendency of the Spirit of Riot and Opposition to Law, that has of late so much prevailed in our neighbourhood, and that has been productive in many places of the most horrid murders, robberies, burning of houses, destroying of cattle, extorting unlawful oaths, bringing over the timorous and unwary by threats to be of that Party, and other wicked and atrocious crimes too tedious as well as too shocking to enumerate...Dated at Ballymoney, 20th March 1772." As reported in the Belfast News Letter, (311 names)