August 30th 1720.
To their Excells the Lords Justices
May it please your Excellys
Having in obedience to your Excellencies order in Council laid before your Excellencies the 16th Instant the draught of a Commission for such Person as his Majesty shall think fit to appoint his Governor of Carolina, we now take leave to lay before you the Draught of Instructions for the said Governor together with the usual Instructions relating to the Acts of Trade and Navigation.
And as your Excellencies were pleased to direct us to offer you our opinion concerning the proper measures necessary to be taken at this Juncture for ye Defence and security of the said Province, we have carefully examined into the present condition thereof, and altho' we are at this time preparing a Representation to be laid before your Excellencies concerning the state of all the British Colonies on the continent of America to which we shall hereafter subjoin our thoughts concerning the Islands likewise, yet as this is a work which must naturally require much consideration, we thought we should not mispend your Excellencies time, if we so far anticipated our General Report as to lay hold of this occasion to give you our opinion concerning certain matters relating to Carolina and Nova Scotia the two Frontiers of the British Empire in America to the North and to the South, which being both of them at this time in the utmost disorder do naturally demand your Excellencies more immediate care and protection, reserving to ourselves nevertheless an opportunity of giving your Excell: our thoughts more at large concerning those two Provinces in the General Representation which we shall with all convenient speed have the honour to lay before you.
In our letter to your Excell: of the 16th Instant which accompanied the Draught of a Commission for his Majesty's Governor of Carolina, We observed to your Excellencies that Carolina was at present divided into two different Provinces, and that it might in our Opinion be for his
Majtys service to appoint a Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina subject to such orders as he should from time to time receive from the Governor of South Carolina as his superior officer, and this we take the liberty now to repeat as a matter wherein no time should be lost; and your Excellencies will be pleased to observe, that in the Draught of the Instructions herewith sent your Excell: there is a Reference to the Commission and Instructions for the said Lieut: Governor of North Carolina.But considering the great disorder, this province at present labours under, that the People are unsettled, that they have lately shaken off the Proprietors Government, as incapable of affording them protection, that the Inhabitants are exposed to incursions of the Barbarous Indians, to the encroachments of their european neighbours and that the whole Province was lately in danger of being massacred by their own slaves, who are two numerous in proportion to the white men there; We do conceive it to be absolutely necessary for the preservation of this Colony that his Majesty should forthwith send four batalions of Foot thither at least, together with a considerable number of great guns, and proportionable quantity of warlike stores for the several Forts proposed by us to be built there, wherein we humbly conceive no time should be lost.
What we have further to propose to your Excell: upon this occasion is that two great seals should forthwith be prepaired to be used in the two Provinces of South and North Carolina and Commissions for trying of Pirates in both the said Provinces.
Whitehall
August 30th 1720.