To His Excellency Josiah Martin, Esquire, Captain General, Governor, &ca,

Sir,

Your Excellency having required that I should assign the reasons which induced me to recommend to you, to ratify the Bill for establishing Superior Courts, passed this session thro' both Houses of Assembly.

The distressful situation of this Province &c. [What follows is the same as in previous enclosure down to words “Instructions that I have seen.”]

I trust that my avowed loyalty to my gracious Sovereign and His illustrious House, the zeal I have constantly manifested for the support of Government, even to exposing my life more than once in its defence, and my constant application for above twenty two years in discharge of the important trust reposed in me by the Crown, are sufficient justifications of the purity of my intentions.