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My Lords,

The Duplicate of your Letter of the 22nd December together with

the duplicate of His Majesty's order in Council for repealing the Superior and Inferior Court Bills & Orphan Bill I received not until yesterday by Captain Heron, the originals having never come to hand, tho' I understand from him they were sent by a Man of War which arrived safe to this Continent what the reasons can be of the Delays and Miscarriages of the Public Dispatches I can't find out, whether by Design or Carelessness in the Post office in having all their Letters exposed to any to take up where Post Houses are not continued, and the Post Masters were appointed take no Oath nor do I believe give any security to be faithful to their Trust, but many of my Northern Dispatches have been 3 or 4 months on the road from New York and sometimes near 12 months. I have also received your Lordships Letter of the 17th of February about the Agents Bill and about a fortnight ago I received your Letter of the 8th of April inclosing His Majesty's Order in Council of the 11th of March 1762 repealing the Bill for the Currituck Navigation, the altering the days of holding New Bern Superior Court, and that of admitting Copies of Wills to be given in Evidence. I am greatly concerned at having incurred His Majesty's displeasure in having passed the Superior and Inferior Court Bills, and hope I shall never give occasion for the like reprimand for the future, but in alleviation of my fault if your Lordships will consider that in the great ferment in the Province and Assembly occasioned by the management of Lord Granville's Agents and the unprecedented attack against me by Child the late Attorney General and Jones the present Attorney in passing severe resolutions upon false facts against me without any petition or Committee of Enquiry because I peromptorily refused to pass those Bills, and that my reason of propounding those questions to Child as Attorney General was not with any intention to concurr with him in Opinion but only to show your Lordships how far he was embarked againt the Crown instead of supporting it, and that after getting his Answers to the Queries I rejected the Superior Court Bill in the first Session, and in case I had at the same time rejected the Inferior Court Bill, the Colony would have been in distress by having no Courts of Justice until His Majesty's pleasure could be known and the Province then thrown into a ferment by Child's schemes, I thought it more prudent to pass it, and have it repealed by His Majesty than have the Colony without any Courts of Justice and when I had made a short Prorogation to try to get them to come to make some alteration in the Superior Court Bill, I thought it better to pass it for two years only, than to put the Province into a greater ferment at so critical a juncture, and therefore hope you will believe it was an Error in Judgment without any Intention of infringing His Majesty's Prerogative, which I shall always support or of disobeying his Instructions.

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