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Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Letter from Martin Howard to William Legge, Earl of Dartmouth
Howard, Martin, ca. 1730-1781
April 15, 1775
Volume 09, Pages 1221-1222

[B. P. R. O. Am. & W. Ind.: No. Carolina. Vol. 222.]
Letter from Chief Justice Howard to the Earl of Dartmouth.

New Bern, North Carolina, April 15th, 1775.

My Lord,

I had the honor to receive your Lordships favour of the 4th May last and I have hitherto delayed to answer it waiting for the meeting of the Assembly to see whether they would make any provision for me as Chief Justice of this Province in which case any further application to your Lordship upon that subject might have been needful. But I am now to acquaint your Lordship that all my hopes from the Assembly are at an End, their very extravagant conduct at their last meeting having obliged his Excellency Governor Martin to dissolve them; I therefore again humbly presume

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to solicit your Lordship's kind Intercession with his Majesty in my behalf hoping, that, as every Chief Justice upon the Continent of America (if I am not misinformed) is provided for by the Crown except myself, I shall experience the like gracious Indulgence especially as I trust I am not behind any of them in zeal for the Honour and Dignity of his Majesty and his Government, A Zeal which I have upon all occasions openly testified and for which I have become not a little obnoxious to the Popular Party here.

I will trouble your Lordship no longer than to inform you that it is now near a year since the small salary allowed me by the Assembly has ceased, and as my private fortune is by no means sufficient to support my Family my situation is attended with peculiar hardship.

I have the honor to be &c
M. HOWARD.