The House of Representatives after Enquiry of the Secretary cannot be made certain whether you have yet given your Assent to two Bills which were laid before your Excellency early in this Session: The one for granting the Sum of five hundred and Six pounds for your Services when Lieutenant Governor and Commander in Chiefe; and the other for granting the usual Sum of Thirteen hundred Pounds to enable your Excellency, as Governor, to carry on the Affairs of this Province.
And as your Excellency was not pleasd to give your Assent to another Bill passd in the last Session of this Assembly, for granting the Sum of three hundred & twenty five pounds for your Services, when in the Chair, as Lieutenant Governor, the House are apprehensive that you are under some Restraint; and they cannot account for it upon any other Principle, but your having Provision for your Support, in some new and unprecedented manner. If the Apprehensions of the House are not groundless, they are sollicitous to be made certain of it, before an End is put to the present Session;2 and think it their Duty to pray your Excellency to inform them, whether any provision is made for your Support, as Governor of this Province, independent of his Majestys Commons in it.
1 On April 24, Adams moved that the House send a message to the Governor asking whether provision had been made for his support independently of the legislature. The motion was carried, and Adams was named as the first member of the committee to prepare such a message. On April 25, he was named as the first of a committee to present the message to the Governor. 2 The General Court was dissolved on April 26.
ARTICLE SIGNED "CANDIDUS."
[Boston Gazette, June 10, 1771.]
Messieurs EDES & GILL,
BENEVOLUS, in Mr. Draper's Gazette seems to have no doubts in his mind, but that "a general air of satisfaction arising from the accounts given in the last Monday's papers of the present state of our publick affairs will shew itself universally thro' the province." I have no inclination to disturb the sweet repose of this placid gentleman; but I must confess I see no cause for such a general air of satisfaction from those accounts, and I will venture to add, that there is no appearance of it in this town - Does Benevolus think it possible for the good people of this province to be satisfied, when they are told by the Governor, as appears by the last Monday's papers, that he is restrained from holding the court in its antient, usual and most convenient place without his Majesty's express leave? Does not the charter say that the Governor shall have the power of acting in this matter "as he shall judge necessary"?
Is it not of great importance to the welfare of the province that the Governor should be vested with such a power, and that he should exercise it without restraint? While he is, or thinks himself fetter'd, by an absolute instruction to hold the assembly out of the town of Boston, to the inconvenience of the members. and the injury of the people, as the present House of Representatives express it, can he be said to have the free exercise of all the powers vested in him by the charter, which is our social compact? Will it yield such a general satisfaction to the people as Benevolus expects, to see their Governor thus embarrass'd in his administration, and to hear him expressly declaring, that he must ask leave, and be determin'd by the judgment of another in the matter in which it is his indispensible duty to act with freedom, and by the determination of his own judgment. - Is not this power devolv'd upon him by the constitution of the province for the good of the people? Is it not a beneficiary grant, and therefore a right of the people? And if instructions may controul him in the exercise of one charter right, may they not controul in the exercise of any or every one? And yet Benevolus would fain have it thought that there is a general satisfaction in the town of Boston arising from this account, and doubts not but it will run thro' the province. Does not the present House of Representatives in their Remonstrance to the Governor against the holding the assembly at Cambridge, instead of "departing from the principles" as Benevolus would insinuate, adopt the remonstrances of the two houses of the last year as founded upon just principles? Do they not tell his Excellency that the holding the assembly at Cambridge "was consider'd as a GRIEVANCE by the people in general in the province; and that while it is continued it will have a tendency to prevent a restoration of that harmony, between the several branches of the general assembly, which is so earnestly to be desired by all good men"? And is it so pleasant a story to be told to the people of the province, that the Governor either cannot, or will not, remove a Grievance of so fatal a tendency, though expressly vested by the charter with the power of doing it if he pleases, without asking leave to do it? How then can Benevolus possibly entertain the least hopes that a general air of satisfaction will run thro' the province? Is not this Instruction a novelty? Was ever a Governor before thus restrain'd? And is it not a mortifying circumstance that a gentleman from whom the clergy of the province, (I mean the goodly number of SEVENTEEN out of near four hundred in the province, full seven eighths of whom never heard that an address was intended) have express'd the most sanguine expectations as being born and educated among us, and who we are told accepted the government with great reluctance, should submit to be shackled with an instruction so grievous to the people while it is obey'd: And if HE is as resolv'd as any other Governor would be, to make Instructions the rule of his governing, and give them the force of laws in this province, as he certainly appears to be, what "distinguishing mark of favor" is it, or what satisfaction can it afford the people in general, that "a native of the province is appointed to preside over it"? - Surely Benevolus must either be totally inadvertent to the accounts of the state of our publick affairs as given to us in the last Mondays papers, or he must have altogether confided in the accounts of a confused writer in the Evening-Post, who in the old stile of the hackney'd writers in Bernard's administration, tells us that FACTION is now at an end; and with an awkward air of gravity insinuates, that the people, after having nobly struggled for their freedom, are, under the benign influence of the present administration, "returning to their right senses ". A firm and manly opposition to the attempts that have been made, and are still making, to enslave and ruin this continent, has always been branded by writers of this stamp, with the name of a FACTION. Governor Bernard used to tell his Lordship, that it was an "expiring faction"; with as little reason it is now said to have given up the ghost: Gladly would some, even of the Clergy, persuade this people to be at ease; and for the sake of peace under the administration of "a son of the province", to acquiesce in unconstitutional revenue acts, arbitrary ministerial mandates, and absolute despotic independent governors, &c. &c. But the time is not yet come; and I am satisfied that, notwithstanding the address of a few who took the opportunity to carry it through, while only the small number of twenty-four were present, there is in that venerable order a great majority, who will not go up to the house of Rimmon, or bow the knee to Baal.