Address of the House to the Governour

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A Message from his Excellency, by Mr˙ Deputy Secretary Pettit:

MR˙ SPEAKER: His Excellency is in the Council Chamber, ready to receive the Address of the House.

Whereupon, Mr˙ Speaker left the chair, and, with the House, went to wait upon the Governour; and being returned, Mr˙ Speaker resumed the chair, and reported, that the House had waited on the Governour, and delivered their Address, in these words:

To His Excellency WILLIAM FRANKLIN, Esq˙, Captain-General, Governour, and Commander-in-Chief, in and over His Majesty' s Colony of NOVA-CAESAREA, or NEW-JERSEY, and Territories thereon depending, in AMERICA, Chancellor and Vice-Admiral in the same, &c.

The humble Address of the Representatives of the said Colony, in General Assembly convened.

May it please your Excellency:

We, His Majesty' s loyal and dutiful subjects, the Representatives of the Colony of New-Jersey, in General Assembly convened, have considered your Excellency' s speech at the opening of the present session.

We sincerely lament the unhappy situation of publick affairs; and we regret that, though we have presented a dutiful petition to His Majesty, yet we have little prospect of his favourable interposition for the removal of those grievances under which we suffer, in common with his other American subjects.

There is nothing we desire with greater anxiety than a reconciliation with our Parent State, on constitutional principles. But if the resolution of the House of Commons, of the 20th of February, could, without departing from the duty we owe to our constituents, have been accepted, or made the basis of a negotiation which would probably have led to any plan of accommodation, we have been and still are greatly mistaken.

We are surprised to hear that any persons could have advised your Excellency to have sought an asylum on board of one of His Majesty' s ships. We cannot imagine that your Excellency could have had any just reason to fear any insult or improper treatment from the people of the Colony; and if your retreat would necessarily be attributed to either the effect or well-grounded apprehensions of violence, and be productive of mischiefs to the inhabitants, however such advisers may deserve to be esteemed your "best friends," we cannot suppose them to be really so to the Colony.

Your Excellency' s safety, or that of any of the officers of Government, we apprehend to be in no danger. We place our own safety in that protection which the laws of our Country and the executive powers of the Government afford to all the King' s subjects. It is the only asylum which we have to fly to; and we make no doubt but that it will be, as it hitherto hath been, found fully equal to the purpose both of securing your Excellency and others. And we hope to find that the officers of Government will conduct themselves so prudently as not to invite any ill usage, and that they will not make any supposed "infatuation, or disorder" of the times, a pretence to leave the Province, and thereby endeavour to subject the inhabitants to any calamities.

We know of no sentiments of independency that are, by men of any consequence, openly avowed; nor do we approve of any essays tending to encourage such a measure. We have already expressed our detestation of such opinions, and we have so frequently and fully declared our sentiments on this subject, and in particular in our petition to the King at the last session of Assembly, that we should have thought ourselves, as at present we really deserve to be, exempt from all suspicion of this nature.

We have already resolved to support His Majesty' s

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By order of the House:

CORTLAND SKINNER, Speaker.