657 | To the Earl of Hillsborough

    No 13

    Boston July 18 1768

    My Lord

    I have now an opportunity of sending your Lordship a printed Copy of the Letter of the House to your Lordship;1 the dispute concerning publishing it having only delayed it for a week. As It is professedly intended for the people more than for your Lordship, so it is accompanied with comments much more calculated to prepare the people to resent the disallowance of their pretensions than to induce your Lordship to endeavour to procure an allowance of them.

    I never saw this Letter untill it was in print: I find nothing in it that requires my Answer. I am abused upon a supposition of my having misrepresented them in the business of the circular letter; I have looked over my letters upon this subject, & find nothing in them which is not admitted in the letter to your Lordship. I never said that there was a thinner house when the Circular Letter passed than when it was rejected. I said that the Way was proposed for this second vote by tampering with & influencing particulars:2 this was as Notorious as that there was a house. There was another reason for this contradictory Vote, which I did not assign, that altho the Number of the House was the same yet it consisted of ^many^ different persons; which as the Number was less than two thirds of the whole & there was a fourtnight intervening between the two Votes, may be easily conceived. The highest charge agst them, the eracing the Journals of the House to serve this purpose, they admit: this surely is a Very unjustifiable proceeding.

    The general charge against me for misrepresenting them is false, & has not been supported by any one instance. It has been my misfortune to be Governor of this Province during a time when the most favorable representation of the proceedings of the Assemblies & the doings of the people must occasion his Majesty’s displeasure. Before this time I scarce ever met the Assembly without receiving from them testimonials of their approbation of my Conduct. For these 3 years past It has been impossible to reconcile the Duty of the Governor with pleasing the people: and ^it^ would have been so, if a Man of greater ability, than I pretend to, had been in my place. Nothing less than a general Sacrifice of the rights of the Sovreign state can make a Governor popular in this Place at this Time.

    I shall continue writing to your Lordship untill I have communicated all I think necessary for your Lordships information: When that will be, God knows. My Ideas are become too numerous & extensive for writing & are fitter for a conference than a Series of Letters. My Letter, as intended, upon the Subject of calling another Assembly will be lengthy Comprehensive & important; but it does not require haste as yet.3 The Newspapers which I inclose contain a Variety of Sedition & Calumny, besides that which this Letter dispenses.

    I am, with great respect, My Lord, Your Lordships most obedient and most humble Servant

    Fra Bernard

    The right honble The Earl of Hillsborough.

    ALS, RC     CO 5/757, ff 330-331.

    Minor emendations not shown. Endorsed: Boston July 18th. 1768. Governor Bernard. (No. 13) R 26. August. A.37. Enclosures: a copy of the Boston Gazette, 18 Jul. 1768, CO 5/757, ff 332-333, containing a copy of Thomas Cushing (for the House of Representatives) to the earl of Hillsborough, 30 Jun. 1768 (not found, but see Appendix 9); Boston Evening-Post, 18 Jul. 1768, CO 5/757, ff 334-325. Variants of letter in CO 5/767, ff 46-48 (L, RLbC) and BP, 7: 11-12 (L, LbC). Copies of the letter were laid before both houses of Parliament on 28 Nov. 1768. HLL: American Colonies Box 3. Hillsborough acknowledged receipt with No. 679.