143 Draft of an Address from Several Students to Governor Dudley

    [February 1704/05]

    To his Excellency Joseph Dudley Esq. Captain General and Governour in Chief of the Province of Massachusets Bay, and New Hampshire in N.E.

    The humble address of several students belonging to Harvard Colledge in Cambridge

    We having understood that the Vice president and Fellows of the Colledge in an Address to your Excellency have signified to you, that the Colledge now languisheth under an unhappy defect of a setled government in it which bodes its dissolution unless some speedy and effectual course be taken for the obtaining its establishment, which under God depends on the propitious countenance of her Majesty, and that this Affair was layd before his Late Majesty King William of glorious memory by the General Assembly of this Province, and was depending at his decease, We likewise being very sensible that the welfare of this Society depends very much on such a charter settlement as may be sutable to our circumstances, have thought it our duty, humbly to Address your Excellency praying you to improve your interest which we know is great, in procuring for us such a Royal charter from her Most Excellent Majesty Queen Ann our gracious sovereign, as our General Assembly did in the time of King William sollicit for, but without effect by reason of the unexpected death of that great prince. If it shall please God to prosper your Excellency in this undertaking, not only we, but all posterity will have cause to honour your Memory. We are

    Your Excellencys most humble and

    obedient Servants.

    College Papers, i. 37 (No. 82). This is in Increase Mather’s hand; a fair copy is in College Papers, i. 37 (No. 84); it is dated March, 1704/05. For a slightly different petition, in the same hand as the fair copy just noted, see No. 145. See Morison, Seventeenth Century, ii. 549, n. 2.