Letter from Governour Sir James Wright to the Earl of Dartmouth

v1:731

In mine of July 25th, No˙ 23, and August 13th, No˙ 24, I acquainted your Lordship that I should give you a full account of the conduct and proceedings of the Liberty people here, as soon as I knew for certain what they did or meant to do; and I mentioned that some papers were preparing by which I believed it would appear that these resolutions were not the voice of the people, but unfairly and insolently made by a junto of a very few only, but which papers are not yet completed. Every thing, my Lord, was done that could be thought of to frustrate their attempt, but this did not totally prevent it.

I have been informed of another summons and meeting to be in St˙ John' s Parish, on the 30th instant; and, my Lord, as long as these kind of summonses and meetings are suffered, a private man take upon him to summons a whole Province, to consult upon and redress publick grievances, I apprehend there will be nothing but cabals and combinations, and the peace of the Province, and minds of the people, continually heated, disturbed, and distracted. And the Proclamation I issued against them is termed arbitrary and oppressive, and an attempt to debar them of their natural and lawful rights and privileges. In short, my Lord, if these calls and meetings are considered as illegal and improper, it will require the interposition of higher authority to remedy the evil, for the Executive powers of Government in the Colonies are too weak to rectify such abuses, and prosecutions would only be laughed at, and no grand jury would find a bill of indictment, and the persons ordering and carrying them on probably insulted and abused.