674 | To the Earl of Hillsborough

    No 21

    Boston Sep 10 1768

    My Lord

    By your Lordship’s Letter No 151 I have directions concerning the dispatching my Letters to your Lordships Office. I have allready pursued the Method prescribed by your Lordship: I very seldom send any letters by the packet; for, as it is managed, it is a Very inconvenient carriage of letters from hence to your Lordship’s office. It would be often be of great use in returning immediate Answers to letters arrived by the packet. But We are deprived of this benefit, by the returning packet being ordered away before Letters in answer to those received at Boston can reach New York: And this Hurry never gains more than a week, sometimes not more than 4 days time; but it wholly deprives Boston of the use of the returning packet.

    But the Service suffers still more by the delay of the packets from England; of which We have now 2 extraordinary instances. The May packet did not arrive at Boston till at the end of 14 weeks from London; the June packet is not arrived yet & is now in its 14th Week.2 This is indeed extraordinary: but the usual time of Letters passing by the packet from London to Boston is 10 weeks which allowing for the land carriage exceeds the usual time of the passage of Merchant ships; & in regard to Boston a Conveyance by a Merchant’s Ship saves the land carriage.

    I cannot therefore but think that as the Expedition of a Letter is often of great consequence to the use of it, It would be of great service to send duplicates of all such letters as require expedition by Merchant men ready to sail, inclosing the letters with a list of them to the post master of the intended port & taking a receipt of the Master of the Ship for the packet. I have a good deal conversed & thought of the inconveniences arising from the present Management of the packet ^boats^ & shall probably trouble your Lordship with my ^further^ thoughts upon it.

    I am, with great respect, My Lord, Your Lordship’s most obedient & most humble Servant

    Fra. Bernard

    The right honorable the Earl of Hillsborough

    ALS, RC     CO5/757, ff 396-397.

    Endorsed: Boston Septr. 10th. 1768. Govr Bernard (No 21) R 2 Novr. A.47. Variants: CO 5/767, ff 85-87 (L, RLbC) and BP, 7: 35-36 (AL, LbC). Hillsborough acknowledged receipt with No. 712.3