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Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Letter from Thomas Gage to Josiah Martin
Gage, Thomas, 1721-1787
April 1775
Volume 09, Page 1220

[Reprinted from American Archives. Vol. 2. Page 317.]
Letter from General Gage to Governor Martin.

Boston, April, 1775.

Sir,

Your letter of the 16th of March, I have had the pleasure to receive, and am glad to hear that many of the people in your Province are beginning to find they have been misled, and that they seem inclined to disengage themselves from the arbitrary power of the Continental Congress, and of their Committees. I wish that I could say as much for the people of this Province, who are more cool than they were, but their leaders, by their arts and artifices, still keep up that seditious and licentious spirit, that has led them on all occasions to oppose Government, and even to acts of rebellion. The late accounts from England have embarrassed their Councils much. They have applied to the New England Governments, and doubtless will to those at the Southward, to assist them, but I hope the madness of the latter is wearing off, and that they will get no encouragement from thence.

This Province has sometime been, and now is, in the new-fangled Legislature, termed a Provincial Congress, who seemed to have taken the Government into their hands. What they intend to do I cannot pretend to say, but they are much puzzled how to act. Fear in some, and a want of inclination in others, will be a great bar to their coming to extremities, though their leaders use every measure to bring them into the field.

I have the honor to be &c.,
THOMAS GAGE.