This document, written and signed by John White, town clerk, and addressed to the justices of the quorum for Bristol County, performs two functions. First, it informs the justices that, in accordance with an act passed by the Massachusetts General Court, the citizens of Mansfield have chosen Elijah Dean to "procure Evidence against any person" suspected of loyalist sentiments; second, it reports that the selectmen of Mansfield have identified Zepheniah Hodges as "a person suspected to be Inimical to, and whose Residence is of Dangerous Consequences to this or some of the United States."