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Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Letter from Francis Nicholson to the Privy Council of England Committee for Trade and Foreign Plantations [Extract]
Nicholson, Francis, 1655-1728
June 10, 1691
Volume 01, Page 371

[B. P. R. O. America and W. Ind: No. 637—Extract.]
COLL. NICHOLSON TO LDS OF THE COm̄ITTEE 10 JUNE 1691.

James Citty in Virginia June ye 10th 1691.

May itt please yr Lordps

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If ye Petitions of ye Councill & Burgesses & of ye Burgesses alone (wch I transmitt to yor Lordps) will not be granted I most humbly offer yt they may be kept in hopes & have noe absolute deniall, soe long as New England, Pensylvania, Maryland & ye two Carolinas are unsettled (wch I suppose will ever bee till their Matys shall be graciously pleased to send Govrs into those Colonies) for they may be fatall examples by encourageing ye Mob & now they harbour our Servts Debtors & Slaves. I hear yt at South Carolina one Mr Southwell who was banished about eighteen months agoe by ye Mob out of North Carolina now heads them there, soe yt they are in great disorder Pennsylvania being in ye hands of ye Quakers & few or noe Militia to defend that Country if attacqued by an Enemy, itt may bee a retreating place for them & if they bee of William Penn's pernicious principles they may hold Correspondence with ye French and Indians by land & wth the first at sea For in all these parts they correspond very much one wth another but I have putt out a Proclamac̄on about them & all ye loose Governmts too.

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Yor Lordps most obedient humble Servant
FR. NICHOLSON.