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Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Memorandum from the Board of Trade of Great Britain to George III, King of Great Britain concerning an act by the North Carolina General Assembly concerning a post office
Great Britain. Board of Trade
April 13, 1772
Volume 09, Pages 282-283

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[B. P. R: O. B T.: No. Carolina. Vol. 24.]

To the King's most Excellent Majesty

May it please your Majesty,

We have under our consideration an Act passed in your Majesty's Province of North Carolina in Janry 1771, intituled, “An Act to encourage & support the Establishment of a Post Office in this Province.”

This Act directs, that every owner or keeper of a Public Ferry within the above mentioned Province shall without fee or reward give immediate dispatch to any Post-rider or Mail-bearer in preference to any other passenger, who may be there and about to cross the Ferry; and that for so doing every Ferryman shall be allowed double the sum allowed by law for the like service in other instances, to be paid by the Treasurer of the District. It likewise provides that in case of the mails being stopped and delayed by any accident, the person nearest resident to the place where such accident may happen, shall upon Application made for that purpose, convey the Mail to the next Stage, on delivery whereof he shall be intituled to receive, from the acting Post-master General of the Province or his Deputy, one shilling for every mile he may have carried the said mail.

The last mentioned Clause appearing to us to be proper for the consideration of Your Majesty's Post Master General as affecting the Authority and Revenues of that Office we accordingly transmitted to him a Copy of the above Act for his sentiments and Opinion thereupon, that we might thereby be enabled to take such Steps as should appear proper in respect to that branch of your Majesty's Service under his direction; in consequence whereof we have received a Letter from your Majesty's Post Master-General, containing his observations on the said Act of Assembly and submitting whether it would be proper, in a case so circumstanced, to advise your Majesty to give your consent to this Act. We therefore humbly beg leave hereunto to annex a Copy of the said Letter and in conformity to the opinion therein delivered, humbly propose to your Majesty to signify your Royal disallowance of this Act, but as the encouragement held forth in the first and second Clauses, may appeal in aid of the particular provision contained in the Post Office Act of the

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9th of Queen Anne, respecting the free passing of Ferries, and as the whole seems calculated for the general purposes of Expedition and security in the conveyance of the Mails, we would submit to your Majesty, whether it may not be adviseable that your Majesty's Governor should be instructed to recommend to the Assembly to pass another Act for the above general uses free from the objection stated by your Majesty's Post-master General in his Letter hereunto annexed. Which is most humbly submitted.

HILLSBOROUGH
SOAME JENYNS
ED: ELIOT
W. JOLLIFFE.

Whitehall April 13, 1772.