215 | To Charles Townshend

    Castle Wm. May 29. 1763.

    Sr.

    I did myself the honor to write to you a Letter dated the 18th Inst.811 in which I begd leave to congratulate you on your being placed at the head of the Board of Trade & to make a tender of my especial Services. Since I have recieved the Letter from yr Lordships, wherein so favorable a notice of the papers I had submitted on the behalf of this Province, is taken,812 I have turned my thoughts on the very point on which yr Lordships consider the Question to depend: And I beg leave to submitt to you my Sentiments thereon, drawn up in a hasty manner at this place, to which I have retired to steal a leisure Day from the hurry of Boston, where the Assembly is now sitting.

    as I write at a distance from my books & should not have time to turn them over, if I was at Boston, You will excuse such inaccuracies & mistakes as shall occurr: & as I am engaged in the Service of truth only, you will show the like indulgence to the freedom which I have used. The greatest Apology I have to make is for presuming to inform You upon a subject so well known to you. But I dont pretend so much to offer any thing new as to collect detached matters & fix ’em to one point.

    There is one political Consideration which I have not taken notice of, as I think it ought not to interfere in this Question: I mean the great extension of the Sea Coast of the Massachusets. If this should be thought to deserve animadversion, it should be not influence the judicial determination of a matter of right, neither would the taking away this bit of land remedy the evil, if it is one. The proper way of treating this matter seems to be by agreement & by exchange of lands lying near Boston for those at a greater distance. I believe such a Convention is not only practicable but might be made agreeable & beneficial to the Province as well as advantageous to the King. I have turned this matter a good deal in my mind, altho’ I have never had occasion to write upon it. If this sh’d become a subject of your consideration I shall be ready to communicate my thoughts upon it: in the mean time I will collect & settle my ideas. For the present I will only say that it seems to me to be by no means advisable to make additions to Nova Scotia, that province is already full large for its powers, & should rather be obliged to confine its settlements within bounds than be encouraged to disperse them.

    Boston June 2.

    Since I have wrote the foregoing I have recieved an address from the Council & Assembly which is so full of a gratefull sensibility of his Majestys paternal Care of this Country, that I should have begged the favor of you to lay before his Mjesty these expressions of the gratitude & Duty of this his most loyal Province, if I did not apprehend that the general Court, before they rose, would immediately address his Majesty upon the happy Event which fills their hearts with so much Joy. Before I seal this letter, this will probably be determined.

    I am &c

    The Right Honble Chars Townshend Esq

    L, LbC BP, 3: 70-73.