These presents witness, that we the subscribers, reposing a special trust and confidence in each other’s friendship, do hereby severally promise, and unanimously agree together, as follows: … That if it shall please God to permit fire to break out in Newport … that we will then be aiding and assisting to each other … In witness whereof, we have hereunto set our hands, this twenty-sixth day of September, Anno Dom. 1752. In the Twenty-sixth Year of the Reign of Our Sovereign Lord George, the Second, King of Great-Britain, &c.