sale appears to have been a manuscript of this text.]

Commonwealth of Massachusetts [Seal]

BY HIS HONOR SAMUEL ADAMS, ESQ , LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR AND COMMANDER IN
CHIEF OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS

A PROCLAMATION FOR A DAY OF PUBLIC FASTING, HUMILIATION, AND PRAYER.

IT having been the invariable practice from time to time when our pious
and renowned ancestors took possession of this land, at the approaching
season of the year, to set apart a day publickly to acknowledge an
entire dependence on the Father of all Mercies for every needful
blessing, and to express sorrow and repenntace for the manifold
transgressions of His Holy Laws: And the Practice being highly becoming
all people, especially those who profess the Christian Religion:

I HAVE thought fit, by, and with the advice of the Council to appoint
THURSDAY, the Seventeenth day of APRIL next, to be observed throughout
this Commonwealth, as a day of PUBLIC FASTING, HUMILIATION and PRAYER;
earnestly exhorting the Ministers of Religion to assemble with their
respective Congregations on the same day--that deeply lamenting our
ingratitude to our Heavenly Father, to whom we are under all possible
obligations, and our many deviations from those right and safe Paths,
into which, as our Supreme Governor, HE hath plainly directed us, we
may with one heart and voice humbly implore His gracious and free
pardon, thro' JESUS CHRIST, supplicating His Divine aid that we may
become a reformed and happy people. At the same time humbly beseeching
HIM, mercifully to regard our lives and health, so that no infectious
and mortal distemper may prevail amongst us: To favour our land with