GOVERNOR TALCOTT TO GOVERNOR COSBY* OF NEW YORK. Sir: May it please Your Excellency: Give me leave to embrace this first opportunity to congratulate your safe arrival to your Gov'ment in New York. Wish your Gov'ment there may be long and happy, that you may always have the Divine conduct and guidance in all the great and waity affairs for the good of that people, that you may always have the favor of our King, and the great Council of the Nation; that you may have such appointed to be your Councillors as may be wise and faithful men, always with you seeking the weal of that people; that the people under your Gov'ment may be peaceable; that all orders and degrees of persons therein may cheerfully contribute in whatsoever they may to make your Excellency happy and easy in your administrations; that you may have peace with your Neighbouring Gov'ments, and especially with this of Connecticut, which is the sincere desire, and shall be the constant indeavor of, Sir, Your Excellency's unknown, though Y' Most humble, most obedient Servant, J. TALCOTT. HARTFORD, Septemb' the 2, 1732. To COL. COSBY, Esq., Gov'., &c. GOVERNOR BELCHER OF MASSACHUSETTS TO GOVERNOR TALCOTT. Honoble S: I am favour'd with yours of 22: Sept. Pthe Bearer, Mr. and was glad to hear of your Honour's Health. * William Cosby, Governor of New York, born about 1695; after serving as a colonel in the army, and holding the office of Governor of Minorca and the Leeward Islands, he was appointed Governor of New York Jan. 12, 1731-2; sailed from England in May following, arrived in New York Aug. 1, 1732; he died in New York City, March 10, 1735-6.-Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography, I. 751. Documents Relating to the Colonial History of New York, V. 930, 935 ; VI. 42. New York Assembly Journal, I. 633. Althô many ships are lately arriv'd from England, yet I have no letters from White Hall, but from Mr. Secry Popple, of the nature you mention, nor have I heard of any for yourself. M'. Edwards, who you say has the care of your Packets, is an honest, careful man, and will send them forward. I believe in my last I told you my fears of the Parliament's making some hard laws upon the Northern Colonies, and I suppose you have seen one called the Hat-Act,* made this last Session, which I think is very severe. I wish this Province mayn't go on to provoke to harder things. I take notice you have had none from your Agent for a long time: there are ships daily expected from London, and one belonging to Mr. Wilks, by which you will doubtless hear; he has not in any letters to me, this summer, mention'd any thing respecting your Colony. I am heartily sorry they still labour under their Difficulty about Intestate Estates, and I can't help being still fully of opinion that nothing will effectually relieve you but a short Act of Parliament, and which, I think, was what the Lords of Trade pointed out in their Report. And althô they tackt the matter of a new Charter to it, yet, with great deference to their Lordships, there was nothing of that in the question, nor do I believe the King will impose any new Form of Government upon you, unless you had made a Forfeiture of the present. I therefore think it wou'd be wise in your Colony to order your Agent to pursue the matter in Parliament, without any more loss of time, and I verily believe he * An Act to prevent the exportation of hats out of any of his Majesty's Colonies, or Plantations, in America, and to restrain the number of apprentices taken by the hat-makers, in the said Colonies, or Plantations, and for the better encouragement of making hats in Great Britain. It was enacted that after the 29th of September, 1732, no hats or felts whatsoever, dyed or undyed, finished or unfinished, shall be transported out of any of the British Plantations to any other of the British Plantations; hats or felts might obtain a quieting Act with much safety. In this I had my Lord Chancellor King's Opinion, (when at London,) and M'. Dummer, and I thought it the best and most certain method, and had not your Orders forbid, so that we cou'd not proceed at the first of the Parliament's Sitting, I shou'd undoubtedly have brought such an Act with me. But if some Crafty People among you are able and more ready to hurt than help you, that I take to be your present misfor tune. The Colony shall always be sure of every good office in my power, they will please to command. I respectfully Salute yourself and Mad Talcott, as, S', Your Honour's Friend and most obedient Servant, BOSTON, Oct. 3: 1732. GOVR. TALCOTT. BOARD OF TRADE TO THE GOVERNOR OF CONNECTICUT. WHITEHALL, Oct 4, 1732. Sir: My Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations command me to acknowledge the receipt of your Letter to them of the 4th of November last, inclosing a Volume of the Connecticut Laws, for which I am to return you their Thanks; But their Lordships observing by your Letter that that some of these Laws have been alter'd since they were Printed, it will be so transported to be forfeited, with a penalty also of £500; severe penalties were laid on any who may assist in such transportation, and on any officers of customs who may permit any entries of such hats or felts. It was also enacted that none should make such hats or felts but those who had served an apprenticeship of seven years, at least; nor should any feltmakers have more than two apprentices at one time. And it was further enacted that any one who should employ in the said art of hat or felt making, any black or negro, should forfeit the sum of £5 for every month wherein such person shall so offend.-5 Geo. II. Cap. 22. See also Bishop's History of American Manufactures, I. 342. impossible for them to make any Judgement of those you have sent, without seeing those also by which they were altered. I am therefore to desire you will transmit Copies thereof, either Printed or Written; and also that you will continue from time to time to Transmit Transcripts of such Laws as shall be pass'd for the future. My Lords likewise desire an Annual Return to the Queries sent you, that they may be enabled to make the proper Representations to His Majesty, upon the State of your Government. I am, Sir, Your most humble Servant, Mr TALCOT, Gov of Connecticut. ALURED POPPLE. TO FRANCIS WILKS. DRAFT BY DEPUTY-GOVERNOR Mr Wilks. S': Pursuant to an Order of the Lords of the Board of Trade, I have inclosd to you an Account of the Laws made, Manufactures set up, and Trade carried on in this Colony, that they may be satisfied how they affect the Trade, Manufactures, and Navigation of the Kingdom, which I trust will be without exception, and desire you would deliver it to Mr Pople, their Lordshipps' Clark. We are inform'd by the publick Prints from Boston, that the Parliament in their last Sessions, did, in passing an Act for the more easy recovering Debts in the plantations, Ordain, that Estates of Inheritance should be chargeable with Debts, as well and in the same manner as Chattels, thô they have not directed to any certain Measures for the transferring the Title from the Debtor, or his Heirs, to any other person. Whereupon we conclude that we shall be blameless in reassuming our former Rules, in putting the Administrator, or some other meet person, in the room and stead of the deceasd Debtor, to alienate his lands, for the payment of his just Debts. And we are perswaded that all the Descents which have been cast, since the Repealing of our intestate law, shall be govern'd by the law of natural Equity, and not by the Comon law of England, which according to the opinion of M' Attorney, and Mr Solicitor, lately given to y' Lordshipps, does not extend to the Plantations, without the Act of their Assemblyes, and when they have Enacted any Principle of the Comon law into a law, that it receives its authority from their own Act, about which matters I should be glad to be advisd from you; in the mean while I am perswaded that a Declarative Act of this Assembly, that the law of natural Equity ought to take place in our Administrations, untill a time which we shall limit, for the comencing of a rule so agreeable to the Rules of the comon law, as shall be without Exception, in the most strict Construction, will settle us all in peace. And althô we have little Expectation of any additional Priviledges to what is granted in our Charter, or that where the Expressions admitt of a Construction, that it will be made in our favour, where the Interest or Inclination of the Nation stands in Competition, yet I think all are of the mind humbly to insist upon whatsoever is plain and express, and all that runns may read. THE GOVERNOR AND COMPANY TO THE BOARD OF TRADE. DRAFT BY DEPUTY-GOVERNOR LAW. May it please Your Lordshipps: By a Letter from Mr Popple of the 16th of June last, Notice is given to the Gov and Company of Connecticutt, that his Maj" has been pleas'd, upon the Address of the House |