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Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Letter from William Legge, Earl of Dartmouth to Josiah Martin
Dartmouth, William Legge, Earl of, 1731 - 1801
October 05, 1774
Volume 09, Page 1077

[B. P. R. O. Am. & W. Ind.: No. Carolina. Vol. 221.]
Letter from the Earl of Dartmouth to Governor Martin.

Whitehall, October 5th 1774.

Sir,

I have received and laid before the King your very important Dispatch of 13th July No. 25, and have by His Majesty's command, transmitted it to the Board of Trade with those Acts of the Legislature to which it relates.

Whether you have acted consistent with your Duty to the King in giving your assent to the Acts for establishing Inferior Courts of Common Pleas and Courts of Oyer and Terminer and general gaol delivery will in a great measure depend upon the merit or demerit of those Laws when they come to be examined by the Board of Trade. In general they are stated by you and appear to me to be of so extraordinary a nature that your assent to them is scarcely to be justified under any exigency.

You may be assured Sir, however that the reasons you assign for so extraordinary a step will be considered with the greatest candour and with every indulgence due to a servant of the Crown who has endeavoured with equal firmness and fidelity to support the Constitution and to withstand the many unwarrantable encroachments of a violent and dangerous Faction.

I am &c.,
DARTMOUTH.