745 | From the Earl of Hillsborough

    (No. 24.)

    Whitehall February 20th: 1769.

    Sir,

    Inclosed I send you a copy of an Address to the King from the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in Parliament assembled, presented to His Majesty the 13th, instant, together with His Majesty’s most gracious Answer thereto;1 and, in pursuance of this Address, the King has thought fit to direct me to signify to you His Majesty’s Commands, that you do take the most effectual Methods for procuring the fullest information that can be obtained, touching all Treasons or misprisions of Treason2 committed within your Government since the 30th, Day of December 1767, and transmit the same to me, together with the Names of the Persons who were most active in the Commission of such Offences.3

    I have it further in command from His Majesty to transmit to you the inclosed Resolutions of both Houses of Parliament, upon a consideration of the Papers ordered by His Majesty to be laid before them, relative to the public proceedings in His Majesty’s Province of Massachuset’s Bay in the Course of the last year; and His Majesty trusts that these Resolutions and this Address will have the Effect to induce a due obedience to the Constitutional Authority of Parliament.

    Your Dispatches Ns 34, 35, & 36,4 have been received and laid before the King; and His Majesty’s Servants have now under their consideration what further Measures it may be adviseable to recommend to His Majesty, in consequence of those public transactions in the Province of Massachuset’s Bay, of which intelligence has been received since the above-mentioned proceedings in Parliament. I am with great Esteem & Regard Sir

    Your Most Humble & Obedient Servant

    Hillsborough

    Governor Bernard.

    LS, RC     BP, 12: 57-60.

    Left marginalia: there are virgules at the start of the first and second paragraph indicating the enclosures. Endorsed: (No. 24) Earl of Hillsborough d Feb 20 1769 r Ap 20. Docket by Thomas Bernard: Inclosg the Address of Both House concerning America — Variants: CO 5/758, ff 36-37 (LS, AC); CO 5/765, ff 55-57 (L, LbC). Enclosures not found (for which see HLJ, 32: 201, 209-210).