763 | To Lord Barrington

    Private

    Boston April 12 1769

    My Lord

    Your Lordship has foreseen the Necessity of my being removed from hence: it is become very apparent; for we have just now learned that any one who will pay for them may have Copies of the ^Letters^ & Papers laid before the Parliament. There are just now arrived 6 of my Letters & 1 of General Gage’s attested by the Clerk of the Papers;1 & Mr Bollan who has sent them hither promises the rest as soon as they can be copied. The Councellors to whom they were sent immediately met, & ordered these Papers to be printed; but the Publication of them is deferred untill Observations can be finished to accompany them, which a Gentleman has been hard at Work upon & will have completed in a Day or two.2 They are then to be sent about the Province in order to inflame the People against the Election in May next, which they will effectually do. In the Mean time they have been read by the whole Town at the Printers.3

    This puts an End to all my Hopes of doing any good here & necessarily turns all my future Views out of this Province. For it is impossible for a Governor who has been engaged in such Contests as I have been, & has ^as well^ by special Orders as by his own Sense of His Duty, given free & full Information of the Proceedings of the factious Party, to think of staying in the Province, after his most confidential Letters are put in the Hands of the Faction and printed & dispersed among the People. For tho the Letters may be very justifiable with indifferent & impartial Persons, yet it cannot be expected that they will be treated with any Degree of Candour by those ^whom^ they affect.

    I have thought proper to give your Lordship this Account that you may see ^that^ the Question of providing for me elsewhere is determined. I have before signified my Thoughts of going to England after I have held the next Session: but it is now made a Question whether I shall be able to hold the next Session at All or not; Some of the Council having insinuated that I shall not. However I shall make the Trial; & shall do every thing I can to defeat the Intention of the Councellors & to weather this fresh Storm. As soon as these Papers are published I will write to your Lordship again.

    I am &c

    The Rt Honble The Lord Visct Barrington.

    L, LbC     BP, 7: 278-279.

    In handwriting of Thomas Bernard.