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Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Letter from the Board of Trade of Great Britain to Gabriel Johnston
Great Britain. Board of Trade
November 11, 1736
Volume 04, Pages 200-202

[B. P. R. O. North Carolina. B. T. Vol. 21. P. 244.]

Sir,

Since our letter to you of the 5th of March last we have received one from you of the 5th December 1735 and the Acts therewith sent relating

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among things to small duties imposed in North Carolina on liquors imported and on shipping called by the name of powder money but as this letter was not received till the 10th of May last it was of no service to us in the report which we had made to Parliament some months before and for which we had wrote to you on the 17th of June 1735 for an account of duties & impositions &c.

With regard to the Acts of the Province passed during the time that the Charter subsisted you tell us that except six of them none were ever ratified as the Charter directs and that therefore whenever you found any of them which encroached upon the Kings prerogative or the Revenue you took advantage of this defect and would not allow them to be laws As you have not mentioned to us in what particular these Acts were not ratified according to the direction of the Charter We are at a loss to know what you mean by the objection you raise But if your objection is the same as that raised by Mr Smith Chief Justice in your Province in a Memorial he presented to us while he was in England and of which we send you a copy all that we can say to you at present is that his Memorial lies before the Attorney and Solicitor General for their opinion concerning the validity of those laws and when we shall receive their Report we will take them into our consideration and you shall hear further from us upon this head.

In our letter to you of the 12th Sept 1735 We desired you would send us a full description of the Boundary Line between South Carolina and your Province and a draught thereof signed by the Commissrs or an authentic copy thereof under the seal but as we have not yet received it we must desire you will not fail sending the same by the first opportunity and that for the future you will be more punctual in sending to us such papers as we particularly write to you for.

We are glad to find you have made so great a progress in the recovery of His Maj. Quit Rents in arrear.

Upon the subject of the seal of the late Lords Proprietors which you imagined might yet remain in the Province and in that case be of bad consequence should it be privately affixed to those Quires of Blank Patents which you apprehend remain in the custody of some persons in your Province subscribed with the names of the Proprietors Council but not sealed We have talked with Capt. Burrington the late Governor of North Carolina who has assured us that on his arrival there he took the Proprietors seal into his custody and kept it till His Maj. Seal was sent over to him from hence upon the receipt of which he had transmitted that belonging to the late Proprietors to his Grace the Duke of Newcastle in order to

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its being defaced by His Majesty in Council. And so we bid you heartily farewell and are

Your very loving friends, &c.,
FITZ-WALTER
AR. CROFT,
T. PELHAM
R. PLUMER

Whitehall November 11th 1736
[To Governor Gabriel Johnston.]