34 | To Lord Barrington

    Boston Mar 3. 1761

    My Lord

    As I am well assured that all my honest endeavours to provide for my children will have your Lordships approbation, & assistance too, when it shall be advisable, I need make no Apology for the enclosed. It is the Copy of a memorial which I have sent to Mr Pownall to be laid before my Lord Halifax: at the same time I wrote to my Lord to desire his favorable acceptance of it. And I now am to desire your Lordships kind interposition on behalf of my request, which is sufficiently explained in the memorial.

    I think, I have before informed your Lordship, that I considered the opportunities I should have of placing out my Sons among the chief advantages arising from my removal to Boston. This Government the worst supported, considering its importance & trouble, of any in the Kings gift, in its certain income does not exceed New Jersey by more than £300,193 which is not much more than the difference of the expence of living at one & the other. The opportunities of placing out my Sons now I survey them, I find but few: the Naval Office is much the best & is an handsome provision for a person that executes it himself.

    Your Lordship will recollect that I’ve before intimated my desire to have my eldest son settled in business in England: and I do not now mean to determine against it. But it must be observed that this appointment is to be partly reversionary: and We may have 5 years before We shall be obliged to determine. If in that time, He should have an opportunity of engaging in better business, he may quit this office to my second son, who will then be of full age & well qualified for the office. The latter I am now going to put to a Merchant in this town, having given him as much school learning as the Way of live [life] he is designed for will require194

    As my two eldest Sons are so much further advanced in life than the rest of my children, It is much my desire to see them well settled in life. For then I shall have provided natural guardians for the rest of my children, in case I should be called away. For this reason I shall in general, prefer such means for their advancement as are capable of the quickest Maturity. The subject of my present request will fully answer that purpose for one of them. I am

    Lord Barrington.

    AL, LbC BP, 1: 302-303.