Inclosed I send you the King's gracious speech to His Parliament, at the session on the 9,h inst: together with the addresses of both Houses, and His Majty'* gracious answer 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 Yorke1 and it is His Maj'''' intention, that he should be immediately called up to the house of Lords. I am ettc. Hillsborough. Representation on the New-York Act for emitting Bills of Credit. [New-York Entries, LXVIII., p. 42.) To the King's Most Excellent Majesty. May it please your Majesty The Lords of the Committee of your Majestys most honb,e Privy Council for Plantation Affairs having by their Order of the 10th of Nov: last directed us to report to them Our opinion upon a Bill passed in May 1769 by the Council and House of Representatives of your Majesty's Council of New York for emitting £120,000 in paper notes of Credit upon loan, to which Bill your Majesty's late Governor had refused his assent without having first received your Majesty's directions for that purpose. We did on the 20 of Decr make our report thereupon submitting it to their Lordships to give such advice to your Majesty on this subject as they should think fit, and in the mean time, and until your Majesty's pleasure could be known the Lieut' Govr was acquainted with the several steps which had been taken on this occasion & with the difficulties which arose in point of law upon those Clauses of the Bill by which the paper notes to be cancelled were made a legal Tender in the Treasury and loan office of that Colony It is Our duty however to observe to your Majesty that notwithstanding their intimation given to the Lieut' Gov' a new Bill in no material points differing from that now before your Majesty has been proposed in the Assembly of this Colony & having passed that house and been concured in by the Council Your Majestys said Lieut' Govr did think fit by their advice 'Hon. CHARLES YORKE, 2d son of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, was born on the 80th December, 1722. At the fire which destroyed Lincoln's Inn, in 1762, he not only very narrowly escaped with his life, but the whole of his library of books, manuscripts and papers were entirely destroyed, including the valuable State papers of his great uncle, Lord Somers, which had then lately come into the possession of the Hardwicke family, and bad been deposited in Mr. Yorke's chambers. He represented Ryegate in Parliament, and was made Solicitor-General in November, 1756, and Attorney-General in 1761. He resigned the latter office in November, 1763, on which occasion "he burst out into tears," and returned to the outer bar and a stuff gown. In 1764, a patent of precedence over the Solicitor-General was conferred on him. He was reappointed Attorney-General in 1765, but held the office only a year. He was made Lord Chancellor on the 17th January, 1770, and created a peer by the title of Baron Morden and had been gazetted on the 18th, but dying on the 20th of the same month, in the 48th year of his age, before his patent had passed the great seal, it did not take effect, and was never afterwards completed. He had been for many years a friend of Warburton, and corresponded with him at the age of twenty, on the subject of some of his profoundest works. Grenville Papers; Chatham Correspondence. — ED. to give his assent to it on the 5 day of January last and therefore it becomes necessary for us to lose no time in humbly laying this Act which was received at Our Office yesterday before Your Majesty, to the end that if Your Majesty shall be pleased to signify your disallowance of it, either upon the ground of the doubts in point of law which occurred to the former Bill, or upon a consideration of so irregular a proceeding as that of entering upon a proposition of this nature & passing it into an Act pending the consideration of it before Your Majesty in Council there may be no delay in having Your Majestys Pleasure thereupon signified to the Colony, so as to reach it before that part of the Act which authorizes the emission of the Bills can take effect that is to say on the last Tuesday in June. How far the Lieut Gov' is justified in the conduct he has thought fit to pursue on this occasion must be submitted to your Majesty upon the reason assigned by him in his letter to one of your Majestys principal Secretaries of State & to this Board extracts of which are hereunto annexed, but it is Our further duty to observe that the Instruction of July 1766, on the ground of which he says the Council advise him to this step does expressly forbid any law of this nature to be passed without a Clause suspending its execution until your Majestys [pleasure] could be known. Whitehall Feb: 8. 1770. Which is most humbly submitted HILLSBOROUGH Wm FITZHERbert N° 12 My Lord. Sir William Johnson to the Earl of Hillsborough. [Plantations General (S. P. O.) CCLVI.] Johnson Hall. 10. Febr* 1770. In my last of the 26. Aug: (N° 11) I gave your Lordp an account of my journey thro' the Country of the Six Nations to Seneca with my proceeding at several Conferences with the Indians, and acquainted you, that Deputies were arrived from the Cherokees ettc: to request a meeting with the Six Nations and Canada Confederacy at Onondaga, which has since taken place agreable to their desire, the result of which I waited for, as judging it might be necessary for His Majty's information. At this Congress the Cherokees spoke on twenty Belts to the Six Nations ettc. to renew and strengthen the late Treaty of Peace entered into between them, and earnestly to request that in consequence thereof the Six Nations ettc, should unite their arms with them in order to attack several of the Southern & Western Nations who had acted as Enemys to both; after some time spent in deliberation, the Six Nations returned for answer, that before they could come to any resolution agreable to their former engagements, they must first confer with me on the subject, to which end they would take care of their Belts & Caluments and send Deputys to me to desire a general Congress in my presence, and accordingly their Deputys have since come here with some of the Cherokees, earnestly requesting on the part of the whole, that I would as speedily as possible assemble the two Confederacys, and after hearing what they had to say, give them my advice and opinion on the subject. To support their request, they observed that we were as much interested as themselves in the matter having suffered repeated insults from these people, as they instanced in Mr Croghan's being attacked, several of his party killed and himself made prisoner by them on his way to the Ilinois, & in their attacks upon our Traders on Ohio; in short, I observed that they were much inclined to unite and attack those people, which gave me the more concern, because I knew, that when Indians were resolved on War, if they could be diverted from their favourite pursuit, they would be apt to turn their arms the other way, perhaps against ourselves; besides I was sensible of the great expence, that must attend such a Congress, altho' of their own proposing, and that what could be spared out of the fund allowed for the Department, could not defray the charge of so large and unexpected a Congress. In this scituation, I consulted Gen1 Gage who is of opinion, that as any sum can be spared out of the annual allowance will be inadequate to the expence that may attend it, I should first obtain His Maj'y'* orders for that purpose, but as the Indian Deputys are very pressing and that it will not be in my power to have an answer within sufficient time to satisfy their importunity, whilst on the other hand I cannot refuse their request without occasioning a general discontent amongst them, I have resolved to treat with some of the Chiefs only with all the Economy I possibly can consistent with the public safety, trusting that His Maj" will be graciously pleased to consider the peculiarity of the occasion, and not suffer me to be a looser, thro' the necessary discharge of my duty. It is a disagreable circumstance that we must either agree to permit these people to cut each others throats, or risque their discharging their fury on our Traders and defenceless frontiers, for certain I am from the disposition they are in, and from the conduct of the back settlers, the latter may prove the case; but however disagreable the alternative is, common policy and our own safety requires it, and under such circumstances, I shall endeavour to govern myself in the manner that appears best calculated for the general security of all His Majty's subjects here. The scituation of affairs since I had last the honor of addressing your Lord on these subjects has not varied materially, altho' the severity of the season, and the embassy from the Cherokees keep them at present quiet, yet the motives for their discontent still subsists, and the lawless conduct of the Frontier inhabitants is the same whenever an opportunity offers, so that the event depends upon circumstances, that are as hard to foresee as to prevent, and as there is no prospect of any immediate remedy to be applied for these disorders, and the licentiousness of many of our own people, my endeavours must be directed to prevent their operations on the minds of the Indians, till a more favourable period, when the orders of Govern' will be treated with more respect, and the people brought to a better sense of their duty. I have the honor to be with the most perfect esteem and respect. My Lord, Your Lord's most obedient and most devoted humble servant N° 37. Sir, was Earl of Hillsborough to Lieutenant-Governor Colden. [New-York Papers (9. P. O.) CLXII.] . Whitehall. 17. February 1770. Your dispatches numbered 6, 7 and 8. have been received and laid before the King. At the same time, that the King saw with satisfaction the commendable disposition of the Assembly to make provision for the Troops, the giving part of the money for this purpose out of a Fund that was to arise from the establishment of a paper currency, the Bill for which depending at the privy Council Board, was a circumstance that could not escape His Maj'*'* observation, & which your letter N° 6. did not enable me to explain; for it was impossible for me to suppose that, under the restriction laid upon you, by His Majty's instructs of July 1766, and informed as you was, that the Bill which passed the Council and Assembly in May 1769. was under His Majty'1 consideration, you could have taken upon you, without further directions, to have given your assent to another Bill for the same purpose, without a clause suspending it's execution, until His Majy'* pleasure could be known; and I am yet at a loss to guess, at the reasons which induced the Members of the Council to advise you to a step so contrary to your duty and to your Instructs. Your conduct on this occasion has justly incurred His Majesty's displeasure, which I am commanded to signify to you; and to observe to you that altho' the King considers the preserving the Colony in tranquility as a very desirable and commendable object, yet His Maj'* can never approve of any Gov's seeking the attainment of it at the expence of his Instructions. The merit, however, of your former services, and what you say in respect to the time fixed by the Act for its operation, which you state as an excuse for your conduct, prevail with His Maj" to forbear any further remarks of his displeasure, trusting that you will not for the future suffer yourself to be withdrawn from your duty by any motive whatever. It is necessary I should acquaint you, that the Bill transmitted by Sir Henry Moore had received the fullest consideration at the Council Board, before your letter to me N° 8. and that to the Lords of Trade inclosing the Act assented to by you, were received, and that the Lords of the Council had, as you will see by the inclosed order, advised His Majesty to reject it. The ground for this advice was, that those clauses by which the Bills of credit are made payable at the Treasury and Loan Office, were contrary to the Act of Parliament, which restrains paper Bills of Credit from being issued as a legal tender in payment of any debts, dues or demands whatsoever; and therefore this objection does in its nature shew in the strongest light, not only the impropriety of your having assented to this Act, but the risque to which you personally stand exposed by the terms of the Act of Parliament in consequence of having given your assent. Under the circumstances of the disallowance of the former Bill for the reason above mentioned, no time was to be lost in laying before His Maj' the Act transmitted by you to the Lords of Trade, and His Maj'* having in consequence thereof been pleased to disallow the said Act, inclosed you will receive the order in Council for that purpose, which you will cause to be promulged with all possible dispatch. But such is the paternal attention of His Majlr to the wishes of his subjects, in New York, and His Royal disposition to concur in this object of them, that notwithstanding the steady opinion of all His Majty'* servants that it is against the true interest of the Colony to have a paper currency attended with any degree of legal tender, yet I have reason to believe, the Parliament will be moved to pass an Act to enable the Legislature of New York to carry into execution the Bill they appear to be so desirous of. The request of Lieut' Crukshanks1 and others, expressed in the petition inclosed in your letter No 7. appears to be founded in Justice & Equity, and I have His Majy's commands to refer the said Petition (together with a copy of your letter) to the Lords Commiss" for Trade and Plantations, and I shall not fail to recommend to their LordPPs to take the whole of what regards the Settlement of the Country of the West of Connecticut River into their consideration, so soon as other matters of great importance, now before them, will admit of it. In consequence of the death of Mr Yorke a few days after he received the great seal, His Majty has thought fit to commit the custody of it for the present to Commiss"; and the Duke of Grafton having been permitted by His Majesty to retire from the Treasury Board, Lord North is become in consequence thereof, first Commissioner of that Board. I am ettc. HILLSBOROUGH. N° 9. Lieutenant-Governor Colden to the Earl of Hillsborough. [New-York Papers (S. P. O.) CLXII.] New York. 21. Febry 1770. I have the honor of your commands No 35. of the 9th of December, with His Majty's additional Instruct" to me, which shall be punctually obeyed. I know not how the objection made to the Bill for emitting £120000 in Bills of Credit, can be removed, for unless the Bills be received in the Loan Office and Treasury, they cannot be paid in or sunk, nor can the Interest be applied to the use for which it is designed. The making of them, a tender is carefully avoided; nor can they be a Tender in any sense, by this Act, in any contract whatsoever, the Loan Office and Treasury only excepted; but tho' those Offices are obliged to take them in, no person is obliged to receive them from either the one or the other. Nor can they be a Tender of any duty, quitrent or Fine. - By the preceeding packet I transmitted to your Lord", the Bill under the seal of the Province, with my reasons for giving my assent to it, which I hope will be satisfactory; it is a consideration of some importance to the Govern' that as the Interest money cannot be applied, without the consent of the Gov' the supply for the Troops quartered in this Place, may for the future be secured, which has at all times met with opposition in the Assembly, and has been difficultly obtained. The Session of Assembly ended the 27th of January, to general satisfaction, notwithstanding the assiduous endeavours of a party in opposition to Government to embarass affairs. A great number of Bills were passed at that Time, for continuing or receiving former Bills, and on 'Lieutenant JOHN CRUICKSHANKS obtained a commission as Ensign in the 47th Foot 1 March, 1760, and served at the siege of Quebec; he became a lieutenant previous to 1763, when he went on half pay. In 1767 he obtained a grant of 2000 acres of land on Battenkill, in the present county of Bennington, Vermont. His name is dropped in the Army List of 1771. — Ed. |