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Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Letter from Wills Hill, Marquis of Downshire to William Tryon
Downshire, Wills Hill, Marquis of, 1718-1793
January 18, 1770
Volume 08, Pages 170-171

[B. P. R. O. America & West Indies. Vol. 217.]
Letter from Earl Hillsborough to Governor Tryon

Whitehall January 18th 1770.

Sir,

Your Dispatch of the 22d of November No 39, containing an account of what passed on the meeting of the General Assembly of North Carolina on the 23d of October, and of your having dissolved them in consequence of the very extraordinary proceedings of the lower House, was received yesterday and immediately laid before the King.

It has given His Majesty great concern that His Colony of North Carolina whose Conduct has hitherto been so decent & moderate, and distinguished by its respect for the supreme Legislature of the British Empire, should have been induced by the ill example of its

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neighbours to adopt and concur in Measures and Resolves so unbecoming and unwarrantable.

There are many Circumstances which give but too just Ground to apprehend that these Violences do not arise merely out of the force of example, but are the effect of a false, and, I am justified by a discovery made in one of the Departments in which I serve, in saying, treacherous Misrepresentations, and Letters of Encouragement from this side of the Water.

These wicked and factious designs will however I hope soon cease to have their effect, and that it will not be long before the Colonies see more clearly how severely their Interests are prejudiced by suffering their conduct to be influenced by such artifices.

With this hope it is that His Majesty at the same time that he thinks the Dissolution of the Assembly was a Measure which their own Intemperate Behaviour rendered unavoidable, does intend that it shall not operate to interrupt such necessary business of the Colony as depends upon the full exercise of Legislative Powers, and therefore I am commanded to signify to you His Royal Pleasure that you should as soon as it may be necessary and convenient issue Writs for a new Election of Representatives to meet at such time as you shall with the advice of the Council think most proper, at which time you will be cautious of saying more to them in your Speech than will be necessary to express your Resolution to concur in all such Measures as may best promote His Majesty's service and the Interests and happiness of his People under your Government.

Inclosed I send you the King's Gracious Speech to His Parliament at the opening of the Session on the 9th Instant together with the Address of both Houses and His Majesty's Gracious answers thereto.

The King having thought fit to take the Great Seal out of the hands of Lord Camden it was yesterday delivered to Mr Charles Yorke, and it is His Majesty's intention that he should be immediately called to the House of Lords.

I am &ca
HILLSBOROUGH.