Continued Thursday 18th. April 1776.

Apprentices Petition

disadvantage and Injury of your Petrs. such Attendances being often the
consequence of disappointments in their Business (wherein punctuality is the
most valuable property in a Trademan) as they very often at those Fires by
Uppering and other Imprudence under themselves totally incapable of
Service for some time after. That on Saturday Evening last about 16 of your
Petrs. Apprentices (without the Consent of any person whomsoever) broke open
the Door where the Engine is Kept and went to a fire in Long acre having
first Abused some of Your Petrs. at the above and preceeding Fires 3 or 4 are
rendered incapable of any kind of Business and are now under the Care of the Surgeon &
Apothecary . That your Petnr. Appr. are often sent to Preson for their
Misdemeanours and at the Expiration of their Apprenticeships are discharged
without making your Petitioners any Satisfaction for the time they so lost by
such Imprisonments Etc. Your Petrs. therefore Humble pray That your
Worships will take the premises into Consideration & Act therein as your
Worships shall seem meet & Your petrs. will ever Pary etc." The Humble Petr.
of the Senr. Boys of the sd. Hospital That your Petrs. shod. think themselves
greatly wanting in that dutiful respect they Owe to your as their Guardians &
Supports (while receving the Charity of this Foundation if they did not in
some repect Apoloize for an Act they have been guilty of lately in respect to the
Engine being frociblly taken to Assist Messr. Fletcher & Co. during the Fire in
Long Acre and which they have no doubt will be made & agravated as a
Subject of Complaint agt. them to Inquire them in your good Opinion The
Engine of this Hospital has been for so many Years famed for a
remarkable good one that there is hardly an Instance of a Fire happening
at any reasonable distance but there are Numbers of People who run down
to give the Alarm and we have always chearfully Attened such desirous
of doing al the Service to the unhappy suffers which withjn our ablities
understanding it was your pleasure we should do so the we never understood
it was left to any one of the Beadles Option whether we were to go out or
otherwise but imagined that the Fire Appearing dangerous and it being
impossible to recollect in such hurry Whether any Governor lived near or
whether they had any properly thereabouts we never thought we could get to it
a minute too soon That your Petr. have met with numberless delay to where
their going out often and to such a degree that we have been rendered almost
useless when we have arrived through Inferior Engines blocking up the Average
to such Fires and in the last Instance were kept in suspence a considerable time
the Beadles hesitating whether the Engine should go out or not going down
to Black fires Bridge to see & doubling whether it was near enough thought it
appeared conspicuously Clear it was It was this Delay and the Fore
fircely burning in our View which precipated us to Commit an Act which
we Solemnly declare declare in doing we had no thought of offending you but upon a