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Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Letter from George Micklejohn to Daniel Burton
Micklejohn, George, d. 1811
September 14, 1767
Volume 07, Pages 519-520

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[N. C. Letter Book S. P. G.]
Letter from Mr Micklejohn to the Secretary.

Orange County North Carolina,
St. Matthew's Parish
Hillsborough September 14th 1767.

To the Reverend Daniel Burton Greeting.

The benefits of a just and good government to those who are so happy as to be under it like Health to Vigorous Bodies or fruitful seasons in temperate climes are such common and familiar blessings that they are either seldom valued or relished as they ought to be.

Few of us consider how much we are indebted to Government itself because few of us do or can represent to ourselves in lively colors how wretched the condition of mankind would and must be without it how to that we owe, not only the safety of our persons and the property of our possessions but our Improvement in the several arts and advantages of Civil life and in all knowledge both human and divine. When virtue holds the reins of Government it dispenses blessings without number and without measure and spreads its Influence on all around and beneath it.

We have a Governor who rules a willing People with the Indulgent Tenderness of a common parent who desires rather to be beloved, than feared by them and takes the truest care towards securing their utmost Love by shewing in every step of his conduct that he entirely loved them who hath no interest, can have no interest separate from theirs, and upon whom malice itself can never fasten a suspicion of his pursuing any measure which aims rather at his own advantage than the common good of England.

The law is as much a rule to Him as to the least of those who obey him, the first measure not only of his governing power but even of his will to govern and he makes no other use of that power with which the laws have invested him than to give life and force to them.

It is well known that Tiberius, Claudius, Nero, Caligula were not only bad princes and Governors but bad men infamous for their lust cruelty and other vices.

But how different is our case whose eyes behold a Governor who desires to bear the weight of Government as well by his virtue as

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by his Birth who in that public and exalted station preserves all the innocence and sanctity of life—Who is superior to all the Temptations which a great power suggests and which nothing but as great goodness overcomes and to whom therefore; His Inferior seems to be almost as much obliged for the shining pattern of unaffected piety, which he sets them as for all the other blessings of his prosperous Government.

In fine he is by his inclination as well as by his office, the defender and friend, the Patron and nursing father of the Church established amongst us—he is a Religious Frequenter of its Worship and a steady adherent to its Interest and is prepared in the Times of greatest danger and distress to suffer with and for it.

Yours &c
G. M.