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Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Letter from William Tryon to Wills Hill, Marquis of Downshire
Tryon, William, 1729-1788
January 01, 1770
Volume 08, Pages 168-169

[From Tryon's Letter Book.]
Letter from Governor Tryon to the Earl of Hillsborough.

Brunswick the 1st January 1770.

I am to acknowledge the honor of your Lordship's duplicate No 27 received the twenty eighth of November last. The original and duplicate of 26 and original of 27 are not yet come to hand.

I entirely subscribe to your Lordship's reasonings with respect to the necessity of the Colonies providing for their own security by keeping their fortifications in repair and making the necessary provisions

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for ammunition for his Majesty's service and the defence of the province; but was mortified to find by their address that the argument on which they founded their refusal was the reason why they ought to have granted an aid for that service. I understand a great objection to a Tonnage Bill proceeds from an unwillingness to tax vessels owned in the country. By his Majesty's instruction No 32 a most equitable rule, I am directed not to give my assent to any law wherein the inhabitants of North Carolina are put on a more advantageous footing than those of Great Britain &c. This prevents my passing a Bill, making a distinction, and probably the acquisition of a partial Tonnage Bill.

The country continues in extreme want of a larger medium of trade. When his Majesty shall think fit to grant the Assembly's petition for a new emission of Currency it may be thought expedient that a stipulation be made in the grant that the paper currency now in circulation big with mischiefs from its counterfeits should cease to be a legal tender within a limited time after the emission of the new, and be bought up by the treasurers with the new currency in order to be destroyed.