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<p n="4281">Continued Thursday 18th. April 1776.</p>
<p n="4282"> <note type="authorial" place="margin">Apprentices Petition</note>
<lb></lb>
disadvantage and Injury of your Petrs. such Attendances being often the<lb></lb>
consequence of disappointments in their Business (wherein punctuality is the<lb></lb>
most valuable property in a Trademan) as they very often at those Fires by<lb></lb>
Uppering and other Imprudence under themselves totally incapable of<lb></lb>
Service for some time after. That on Saturday Evening last about 16 of your<lb></lb>
Petrs. Apprentices (without the Consent of any person whomsoever) broke open<lb></lb>
the Door where the Engine is Kept and went to a fire in <rs type="placeName" id="BBBRMG20208_geo2427">Long acre</rs>
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having<lb></lb>
first Abused some of Your Petrs. at the above and preceeding Fires 3 or 4 are<lb></lb>
rendered incapable of any kind of Business and are now under the Care of the <rs type="occupation" id="BBBRMG20208_occ7815">Surgeon</rs>
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&<lb></lb>
<rs type="occupation" id="BBBRMG20208_occ7816">Apothecary</rs>
<interp inst="BBBRMG20208_occ7816" type="occupation" value="Apothecary"></interp>
. That your Petnr. Appr. are often sent to Preson for their<lb></lb>
Misdemeanours and at the Expiration of their Apprenticeships are discharged<lb></lb>
without making your Petitioners any Satisfaction for the time they so lost by<lb></lb>
such Imprisonments Etc. Your Petrs. therefore Humble pray That your<lb></lb>
Worships will take the premises into Consideration & Act therein as your<lb></lb>
Worships shall seem meet & Your petrs. will ever Pary etc." The Humble Petr.<lb></lb>
of the Senr. Boys of the sd. Hospital That your Petrs. shod. think themselves<lb></lb>
greatly wanting in that dutiful respect they Owe to your as their Guardians &<lb></lb>
Supports (while receving the Charity of this Foundation if they did not in<lb></lb>
some repect Apoloize for an Act they have been guilty of lately in respect to the<lb></lb>
Engine being frociblly taken to Assist Messr. Fletcher & Co. during the Fire in<lb></lb>
<rs type="placeName" id="BBBRMG20208_geo2428">Long Acre</rs>
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<interp inst="BBBRMG20208_geo2428" type="type" value="undefined"></interp>
and which they have no doubt will be made & agravated as a<lb></lb>
Subject of Complaint agt. them to Inquire them in your good Opinion The<lb></lb>
Engine of this Hospital has been for so many Years famed for a<lb></lb>
remarkable good one that there is hardly an Instance of a Fire happening<lb></lb>
at any reasonable distance but there are Numbers of People who run down<lb></lb>
to give the Alarm and we have always chearfully Attened such desirous<lb></lb>
of doing al the Service to the unhappy suffers which withjn our ablities<lb></lb>
understanding it was your pleasure we should do so the we never understood<lb></lb>
it was left to any one of the Beadles Option whether we were to go out or<lb></lb>
otherwise but imagined that the Fire Appearing dangerous and it being<lb></lb>
impossible to recollect in such hurry Whether any Governor lived near or<lb></lb>
whether they had any properly thereabouts we never thought we could get to it<lb></lb>
a minute too soon That your Petr. have met with numberless delay to where<lb></lb>
their going out often and to such a degree that we have been rendered almost<lb></lb>
useless when we have arrived through Inferior Engines blocking up the Average<lb></lb>
to such Fires and in the last Instance were kept in suspence a considerable time<lb></lb>
the Beadles hesitating whether the Engine should go out or not going down<lb></lb>
to Black fires Bridge to see & doubling whether it was near enough thought it<lb></lb>
appeared conspicuously Clear it was It was this Delay and the Fore<lb></lb>
fircely burning in our View which precipated us to Commit an Act which<lb></lb>
we Solemnly declare declare in doing we had no thought of offending you but upon a</p>
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