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Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Letter from William Tryon to George Montagu-Dunk, Earl of Halifax
Tryon, William, 1729-1788
October 15, 1764
Volume 06, Pages 1053-1054

[From Governor Tryon's Letter Book.]
Letter from Governor Tryon

Brunswick 15th October 1764.

My Lord, [Earl of Halifax]

I take the opportunity by a Merchantman sailing for England this morning to acquaint your Lordship of my arrival in Cape Fear River, on Wednesday the 10th Inst; the 11th I waited on Governor Dobbs and informed him of the honor His Majesty had confered on me; the intelligence of my appointment he said had reached him two months before my arrival and that upon receipt of his leave of absence in July last, he had wrote to his friend Lord Egremont, to request a Sloop of War to carry him home; this gave me an opportunity to ask him when he proposed to take his departure for England he told me he should stay till next Spring, to the middle of April, or beginning of May; this I own was a thunderbolt to me, and I hope will be an apology for me to your Lordship for the earnestness with which I expressed my apprehensions to your Lordship and Mr. Sedgwick of this Event. The Governor goes to meet the Assembly at Wilmington the 23d Inst where I shall attend to be inducted into an Office which is likely to be burdensome to me this winter, for want of employ. Among my lesser disappointments is the want of a house, as the Governor has declined letting me his villa till his departure, tho' the Assembly will detain him at Wilmington till December. This has obliged me to keep my baggage still on board; after the Assembly is up I propose making a considerable tour through the Province; at present I can form no judgment of its fertility, having seen nothing but wood, water and sand; though from the conversation I have already had with the Inhabitants, I am confirmed in Governor Ellis' report that there are great seeds of prosperity in the Province. I must beg leave to observe to your Lordship, tho I came into this Province not with mercenary motives, yet I entered it, without any idea of impoverishing my private fortune, which the expences of my equipment, passage and present household establishment, consistent only with the character

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I expected sooner to have acted in must necessarily occasion, unless I meet with your Lordships generous interposition with his Majesty It will be a twelve month between my appointment to this Province and the taking the administration of it; however still resting my confidence in your Lordship's protection, I shall do my endeavour to inform myself, of the state and peculiar interests of this Province as well as during the Governor's continuance here, as after his departure.

The old gentleman has been so polite in his offers to accomodate my family, till I can fix elsewhere; I mean to behave to him with the respect that is due to his character, age, and infirmities

I am my Lord, with real gratitude and respect &ca