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Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Letter from William Tryon to Benjamin Barons
Tryon, William, 1729-1788
February 17, 1766
Volume 07, Pages 166-167

[From Tryon's Letter Book.]
Letter from Governor Tryon to Benjamin Barons, Esq.

Brunswick 17th February 1766.

I have received your letter of the 4th Inst together with that of the 8th The dispute you mention between Mr Burgwin and Mr Hamilton I am an entire stranger to and therefore think it need not have been made a subject to trouble me with. In the nice situation of public affairs on this continent I esteem it highly necessary that his Majesty's instructions to his Governors, should be conveyed to them with all possible dispatch, and security, as also, that the Governors correspondence to his Majesty's several boards should have the same advantages: These advantages I am wholly deprived of in this province, I am therefore to seek them in another. This, Sir, is the reason I subscribed for a messenger to go once a fortnight from Wilmington to Charlestown to carry my dispatches and receive those I might be honoured with by his Majestys commands, till the General Post Office might be set on foot. If you will send off an express from Charles Town to Wilmington once a fortnight or three weeks,—certainly subscribe to it, in preference to the subscription opened at Wilmington, should your office fund not be sufficient to support that expence. I enclose you extract of my speech to the Assembly recommending their assistance for the establishment of a general post, together with the Attorney Generals motion and the Resolve of the House in consequence thereof. Three of the Commissioners, appointed to treat with the Post Master General or his deputy, live in Edenton, the other two live within forty miles of the said town, These gentlemen I presume are the proper persons for you to concert the necessary measures for establishing the General Post thro' this province.

As soon as I meet the General Assembly I shall lay before them, and recommend the estimate you sent me in your letter of the 4th

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Inst of the money requisite per annum to enable you to carry the Post thro' this colony: The Assembly stands appointed to meet the 22d of next April.

The distance you desire to be informed of from Suffolk to the northern boundary of this Province, I am told is twenty four or twenty five miles, I mean in the route from Cotton's ferry to Suffolk.

The request you made me to recommend to you proper persons for your officers in the route the Post is to take, is a task I must decline at present, as my long confinement has prevented my acquaintance with persons possessed of the qualifications you require

My letter to you of the 3d of January last, with this, contains I hope answers to every particular you required of me in your letters of the 11th of January last, and of the 4th and 8th Inst. Any further information or assistance you stand in need of for His Majesty's service as far as I am able, I shall be willing to procure you being ever ready to cooperate with any Crown Officer for the interest of his Majesty and the public; however deficient such officer may be in point of good manners and decency towards me. I must here to observe that the route I sent you in my letter of the 3rd of January; The expectations I expressed of seeing you in this province; The information Mr Surveyor General Randolph promised me to give you of the state of this province, to whom I referred you, with the consideration of the bad state of my health at that time, I thought would have been sufficient satisfaction for not then answering by letter every particular you desired; These reflections induce me to be of opinion your letter of the 4th inst was dictated with more warmth than judgment; and I doubt not, Sir, from the character I have received of you from my worthy friend lately at the head of your office, when you take a candid review of your letter you will join issue with me in sentiments

I am, Sir, &c