To Commissioner <​Esqr. Master in ​> for the County of and State of : aforesaid:—

Whereas I Joseph Smith of the City of in the County & aforesaid <​of and State of ​>, being under arrest illegally and in the custody of by virtue of a proclamation made by late Governor of said do hereby apply to the Commissioner of <​Master in Chancery​> <​for​> said and pray that he may grant me a writ of — that I may be entitled to the privilege of showing to the court having jurisdiction of the case the insufficiency <​illegality​> of the proclamation and the utter groundlessness of the charge preferred in said proclamation which charges me with being accessary before the fact to an assault with intent to kill made by one on on the night of the sixth day of May A. D. 1842 in the State of and having fled from the Justice of said and taking refuge in the State of where as I shall be able to prove that I was not out of the State of nor in the State of for the last two years and that I was not accessary to the said assault on said , not knowing any thing about the intended assault nor any thing concerning it untill I was informed of it sometime after it had occured. the copy of the said proclamation doth hereby follow