Meffage to the GOVERNOR.

May it pleafe your excellency,

The committee from a number of towns in this province how convened at Faneuil-hall, having received from your excellency a meffage, containing a remonftrance against our thus meeting, and an admonition to break up and feparate ourfelves inftantly, and before we do any bufinefs, have taken the fame into our ferious and attentive confideration; and we affure yourexcellency, that though according to the best of our abilities, we have confidered the matters that are hinted by your excelfency as the foundation of your meffage, yet we are not able to collect fufficient information therefrom to place our prefent meeting and proceedings in the fame light in which they feem to lie in your excellency's mind. We do affure your excellency moit freely, that neither the views of our conftituents in fending us, nor the defign of any of us. in this meeting, was to do, propofe, or confent to any thing oppugnant to, or inconfiftent with, the regular execution of government in this his majesty's province; and that though the letters from the select men of Bofton, to the refpective towns from which they came, might first give rife to our being chofen and fent; yet that neither the faid letter from the felect men of Boston, nor any votes of the faid town accompanying the fame, were confidered by our refpective towns in the choofing, nor by us in our affembling, as the foundation and warrant of our convening. But may it pleafe your excellency, being affured, that our conftituents as well as ourfelves, have the moft loyal and affectionate attachment, to the perfon and government of our rightful fovereign king GEORGE the third, we beg leave to explain to your excellency the real caufe and intention of our thus convening.

Your excellency cannot be unacquainted with the many difficulties under which his majesty's fubjects on the whole continent of America apprehend themselves to labour, and of the uneafinefs which the fubjects in this province have repeatedly expreffed on the fame account. The minds of the people who have fent us, are greatly difturbed that the humble and dutiful petition of their reprefentatives for the removal of thofe difficulties has not been permitted to reach the royal ear; and they are greatly agitated with the expectation of a ftanding army being pofted among us, and of the full exertion of a military government; .alarmed with these apprehenfions, and deprived of a house of reprefentatives, their attention is too much taken off from their daily occupations; their moral and

induftry

Induftry are in danger of being, damaged, and their peaceable behaviour difturbed for want of fuch perfons as they can confide in, to advise them in thefe matters, and to make application for their redress.

Your excellency. will further naturally conceive that those of his majefty's fubjects who live remote from Bofton, the center of their intelligence, and whofe occupations do not admit of much knowledge of public affairs, are fubjected to many mifreprefentations of their public concerns, and those generally of a moft aggravated kind; nor is it in the power of the moft knowing perfons amongft us to wipe off the pernicious effects of fuch rumours, without the appearance of a public enquiry.

Induced by these motives, and others of the fame kind, our conftituents thought it no ways inconfiftent with good order and regular government, to fend committee-men to meet with fuch committees as might be sent from the feveral towns in the province, to confer upon thefe matters, and to learn the cer tainty of thofe rumours prevailing amongst us, and to confult and advise as far as comes legally within their power on fuch measures as would have the greatest tendency to preferve the peace and good order among his majefty's fubjects, and to promote their due fubmiffion; and at the fame time to confult the most regular and dutiful manner of laying our grievances before our most gracious fovereign, and obtaining a redress of the fame. This we affure your excellency is the only cause and intention of our thus convening; and we are forry it fhould be viewed by your excellency in that obnoxious light.

Your Excellency may be affured, that had our conftituènts conceived, or did their committee thus convened, conceive this proceeding to be illegal, they had never fent us, nor fhould we pretend to continue our convention: but as your Excellency in the message with which you have been pleased to favour us, has not been fo explicit in pointing out the criminality of our prefent proceeding as we could have wifhed, but has left us to our own judgment and understanding, to fearch it out, we would with all duty to your excellency, as the representative of our rightful fovereign, requeft of your. Excellency to point out to us wherein the criminality of our proceedings confifts, being affured we cautiously mean to avoid every thing that has the least appearance of ufurpation of government, in any of its branches, or any of the rights of his majesty's fovereignty, or that is in the leaft incentive of rebellion, or even a mental difaffection to the government by law established and exercifed. VOL. III.

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Your

Your Excellency will be pleased, in your well known knowledge of human nature, and the delicacy of British privileges, to be fparing of your frowns on our present proceeding, we being at prefent inclined to think, till better informed, that if criminality be imputed to us, it will be applied only to our doings, and not to the profeffed manner and defign of our meeting; but if your excellency has a different. apprehenfion of the matter, we intreat an explanation of the fame, and affure your Excellency we shall deliberately attend to it. Nothing could give us more uneafinefs than a fuggeftion that our proceedings are criminal; not fo much from. a fear of personal punishment, as from a fixed averfion we have to any thing inconfiftent with the dignity of our fovereign, and the happiness of his extended dominion; and we flatter ourselves that when the real defign of this convention is underftocd, it will prove an argument to evince the entire loyalty of his majefty's fubjects in this province, and their difpofition to peace and good order.

In the name and behalf of the committee of a number of towns in this province, convened in Bofton, September 24, 1768.

THO. CUSHING, Chairman.. Governor Bernard declined, receiving the above meffage in the following words:

Gentlemen,

"You must excufe me from receiving a meffage from that "affembly which is called a committee of convention; for "that would be to admit it to be a legal affembly, which I can by no means allow."

Council-Chamber, Bofton, Sept. 26. This Morning the Council met and agreed to the following Answer to Governor Bernard's Propofal for the Accommodation of the Troops, in confequence of Letters received by his Excellency from General Gage:

HE board have taken into their further confideration Gen. Gage's Letter, and the extract from lord Hillsborough's letter communicated by his Excellency on the 19th. inftant, relative to the reception and accommodation of the troops in the faid letter and extract mentioned, and have also confidered his excellency's propofal of the 22d inft. relating to. the manufactory-houfe, in Bofton, that they would authorize him to take measures for fitting up the faid building for the reception of fo many of the faid troops as it will conveniently accommodate. They have also attentively confidered the act of parliament, providing among other things for the quar

tering

tering and billeting the faid troops, and they find that the civil officers in the faid act mentioned, and no others, are thereby empowered and "required to quarter and billet the officers and foldiers in his majefty's fervice in the barracks provided in the colonies; and if there fhall not be sufficient room in the faid barracks for officers and foldiers, then and in fuch cafe only to quarter and billet the refidue" of them in fuch manner as in the faid act is further and very particularly directed. Now it appears by this paragraph of the faid act, that in any colony where there are barracks, the faid officers and foldiers in his majesty's service shall be quartered and billetted in fuch barracks, and in no other place, unless there fhall not be fufficient room in the barracks. With respect to this colony, the government of it in the beginning of the late war by their order caufed barracks to be built at CastleWilliam, for the very purpose of accommodating his majefty's troops whenever it fhould be neceffary for them to come hither; under which order the governor and council are authorized to provide quarters in the faid barracks for such troops; and those barracks are fufficient te accommodate about 1000 men, which number it is faid the two regiments ordered from Halifax will not exceed: Thofe regiments therefore which are the first expected, the faid act of parliament requires to be quartered in the said barracks.

Gen. Gage however in his letter aforefaid mentions that one of the faid regiments is ordered for the present to CastleWilliam, the other to the town of Boston: but it will be no disrespect to the General to fay that no order whatever coming from a lefs authority than his majesty and parliament, can fuperfede an act of parliament. And it is plain the general had no intention that the faid order should, as he concludes his letter by defiring the governor to fee that the faid troops are provided with quarters on their arrival in 'this government as by law directed. The faid act alfo provides,

that if any military officer fhall take upon himself to quarter foldiers in any of his majesty's dominions in America, otherwife than as limited and allowed by this act, or shall use or offer any menace or compulfion," &c. he fhall be, " ipf facto cafhiered, and be utterly difabled to have or to hold any military employment in his majefty's fervice." His Excellency therefore as the board apprehend, must clearly fee by examining the said act that it is not in the power of the board to provide quarters for the faid regiments as deftined, till the. barracks at Caftle-William and the inns, livery-ftables and other houses, mentioned in the faid act, fhall be full; (in which and no other cafe, and upon no other account it shal B b b 2

and

and may be lawful for the governor and council" to take the measures they are directed to by the faid act for the reception of his majefty's forces) nor of confequence to authorize his Excellency to take meafures for fitting up the manufactoryhoufe agreeable to his propofal.

The quartering of troops in the body of the town, before the barracks are full, is not only contrary to the act of parliament, but would be inconfiftent with the peace of the town, whose peace and welfare, as alfo the peace and welfare of the province in general, it is the duty, intereft and inclination of the board to promote, and which in every way confiftent with law they will endeavour to promote to the utmost of their ability.

As the board on the 19th. inflant, when the letters above mentioned were firft communicated to them, advised that his Excellency give proper orders for the accommodation of one of the Halifax regiments in the barracks at Caftle-William, fo they now further advife that his Excellency give like orders for the accommodation of the other Halifax regiment in the faid barracks.

With regard to the two regiments ordered from Ireland to Bofton, the board doubt not that provifion will be made for their accommodation agreeable to the act aforefaid.

That the board might be better able to give their advice in regard to the regiments ordered hither, they thought it neceflary that the whole of lord Hillsborough's letter fo far as it related to the faid regiments, and to the occafion and defign of their coming, fhould be communicated to them, and they accordingly defired his Excellency to communicate it. But though his Excellency was pleafed to tell them he fhould very probably lay the whole of it before the board in fuch parcels and at fuch times as he thought proper, yet as they apprehend the propriety of their own conduct in a great measure depends on the communication of the whole of it together, they again requeft his Excellency to favour them with it.

With regard to the occafion of the faid regiments being ordered to Bofton, his Excellency on being asked, informed the board that he apprehended the Halifax regiments were ordered hither in confequence of the riots in March last, and the two Irish regiments in confequence of that of the 10th. of June laft. On which the board are obliged to obferve that they are fully perfuaded his majefty's minifters could never have judged it either neceflary or expedient to go into fuch extraordinary measures as thofe of fending troops hither, unlefs in the reprefentations made from hence by fome illminded perfons, the faid riots had been greatly magnified and exaggerated.

With