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Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Letter from Richard Caswell to the Johnston County Justices of the Peace
Caswell, Richard, 1729-1789
February 22, 1778
Volume 13, Pages 54-55

GOV. CASWELL TO WILLIAM BRYAN & OTHERS ESQRS JUSTICES OF JOHNSTON COUNTY.
[From Executive Letter Book.]

Dobbs 22d Febry 1778.

Gentlemen:

Enclosed is a Dedimus for such Gentlemen as were added by the General Assembly last session to the Commission of the peace for your County. It would have been sent sooner, but I flattered myself with the pleasure of being at Smithfield to-morrow, where I had summoned the Council to attend, but matters of importance to the State required my calling a meeting of that Board to a shorter day. They met and the business I had to lay before them was finished last week at New Bern from whence I am just returned, and not well in health to set out immediately on another journey. I must therefore decline the pleasure of seeing you this Term, but promise myself it will not be long first.

Capt. Needham Bryan before he left the last Assembly signified to me his intention of offering himself as a Candidate for the Entry taker's office in your County, and requesting I would procure

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him a bound Book to make the Entries in, and as I know his abilities and the esteem he is generally held in the County, I have no doubt of his being appointed to that office, and will render him any service therein in my power as well on account of the People in General as his own in particular, to that end, I have sent him a Book, which I think will answer the purpose exceedingly well. I have ruled one side just to show the manner I would recommend to have the Entries made. Tho' at the same time I think it would be necessary to have the rough Entries taken down first on a kind of waste Book which ought to be copied fair into this. I hope I shall not be understood to mean any more by what I have now wrote than merely to serve a people I respect as having been long an intimate acquaintance with many of them and to whom I confess myself a friend.

I am Gentlemen, with great respect your ob. Servt.
R. CASWELL.
William Bryan & others Esqrs. Justices, Johnston County.