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Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Letter from William Legge, Earl of Dartmouth to Josiah Martin
Dartmouth, William Legge, Earl of, 1731 - 1801
June 10, 1773
Volume 09, Pages 664-665

[B. P. R. O. Am. & W. Ind.: No. Carolina. No. 220.]
Earl of Dartmouth to Governor Martin.

Whitehall, June 10th 1773.

Sir,

I have received your Letters of the 26th of February and 12th of March Nos 3 & 4, and have laid them before the King.

As I have very much at heart the Welfare and Prosperity of the Colony of North Carolina, and wish that the public business may be carried on with harmony and Union, I cannot see, but with regret and concern, His Majesty's Governor reduced to the necessity of adopting so disagreeable a measure as that of the Dissolution of the Assembly.

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The necessity and Propriety of that step are however apparent, and your firmness in the Execution of your Duty is approved by the King.

I am not sufficiently apprized of the state of the Case of the Assembly's claim in respect to the number of Members necessary to constitute a House to give a conclusive opinion upon it, in general it appears to me extravagant and absurd. I will however examine further into it, but in the mean time as the King's Instructions have fixed the Quorum it is my Duty to exhort you to continue firm and steadfast in that obedience thereto which is so essential to the support of His Majesty's Right, trusting that the New Assembly will have met in a temper, and with Sentiments very different from those of their Predecessors, and that I shall soon hear that Peace and Harmony are restored, and the public business has been carried on with Unanimity and Dispatch.

I am etc,
DARTMOUTH.