9 June 1774 May it please your Excellency,1

Your Speech to both Houses of the General Assembly at the Opening of this Session has been read and considered with all due Attention in the House of Representatives.2

Your Excellency has therein signified to us that his Majesty has been pleased "to appoint you Governor and Captain-General of his Province of Massachusetts-Bay, and that your Commission has been read and published;" We congratulate your Excellency on your safe Arrival, and honour you in the most exalted Station in this Province; and confiding in your Excellency, that you will make the known Constitution and Charter of the Province the Rule of your Administration. We beg Leave to assure you that nothing on our Part shall be wanting that may contribute to render the same easy and happy to yourself, and to aid your Excellency in promoting the Prosperity of his Majesty's Government and the Welfare of our Constituents; and we thank your Excellency for the Assurances you are pleased to give of your Concurrence with us therein.

It gives us Pain to be informed by your Excellency, that "you have the King's particular Commands for holding the General Court at Salem, from the first Day of this Instant June, until his Majesty shall have signified his539royal Will and Pleasure for holding it again at Boston." We are intirely at a Loss for the Cause of this Command, as we cannot conceive any public Utility arising from it, and both we and our Constituents are now suffering the great Inconveniencies of it.

The Removal of the Assembly from the Court-House in Boston, its ancient and only convenient Seat, has very lately given great Discontent to the good People of this Province; and we cannot but think that Misrepresentations from Persons residing in this .Province have induced his Majesty's Ministers to advise his Majesty to lay your Excellency under an Injunction whereby the People are in this Instance deprived of the Benefit of that discretionary Power, which is vested in the Governor by the Charter, and has been exercised by former Governors, of determining in such Case for the Good of the Province: We confide however in your Excellency's Impartiality and Justice, that the true State of this Province, and the Character of his Majesty's Subjects in it, their Loyalty to their Sovereign, their Affection for the parent Country, as well as their invincible Attachment to their just Rights and Liberties, will be laid before his Majesty, and we hope that by this Means your Excellency will be the happy Instrument of removing the Displeasure of his Majesty, and restoring Harmony, which has too long bee interrupted by the Artifices of interested and designing Men.

Your Excellency has laid no particular Business before us, excepting the Supply of the Treasury for the Support of Government, for the ensuing Year; to which we shall give our immediate Attention, as also to any other Matters your Excellency may please to lay before us; and give that Dispatch to the public Business which the manifold and great Inconveniences of our present Situation will admit.

Printed in Journals of the House of Representatives, 50:264–265. There is a draft of this reply to Gov. Gage's speech of May 26, 1774 in the RTP Papers. It is chiefly in Samuel Adams's handwriting with some changes in RTP's hand which were incorporated into the published text.

1.

Gen. Thomas Gage (1721–1787) after much army service in America was appointed in 1774 the governor-in-chief and captain general of Massachusetts-Bay in succession to Thomas Hutchinson. Although appointed commander-in-chief in America in Aug. 1775, Gage was thought by Lord George Germain, the secretary of state for the colonies, "to be in a position of too great importance for his talents." He resigned his position and returned to England in Oct. 1775 leaving General William Howe (1720–1814) in command (DNB).

2.

The House Journals record on May 26: "His Excellency's Speech was read again. Ordered, That Mr. Speaker Thomas Cushing, Mr. Hancock, Mr. Pickering, Mr. Adams, Mr. Tyng, Mr. Paine, Mr.540 Phillips, Mr. Gorham, Col. Bowers, and Col. Warren, be a Committee to take the same into Consideration and report" (Journals of the House of Representatives, 50:253).

June 14–30, 1774

On Thursday last the following Address1 from the Justices of his Majesty's Court of General Sessions of the Peace and Inferior Court of Common Pleas for the County of Bristol, was presented to his Excellency THOMAS GAGE, Esq; Captain General and Governor in Chief in and over this Province.

May it please your EXCELLENCY, The Justices of his Majesty's Courts of General Sessions of the Peace and Inferior Court of common Pleas for the County of Bristol, beg leave to embrace this first Opportunity of presenting to your Excellency their dutiful Respects on your Appointment to the Chair of this Government, of congratulating you on your safe Arrival, and expressing their Loyalty to our most gracious Sovereign.

When we find a Gentleman possessed of such Abilities and amiable Qualifications appointed to the chief Command among us, it gives us Occasion to hope that your Excellency will remove such Calamities from this People as lay in your Power, and alleviate such as you cannot prevent.

It is our most sincere desire and hopes that your Excellency's Administration of this Government may redound to the Honor of the Crown, your own Reputation and the Prosperity of this People, that you may be a happy Instrument in the Hand of Providence of relieving us from the Distresses we now endure, and establishing the much desired Harmony between Great Britain and this Colony; and we assure your Excellency that nothing shall be wanting in our Department to produce these valuable Effects.

His EXCELLENCY's Answer

Gentlemen, I Beg you to receive my sincere Acknowledgments for your kind Address, on my Advancement to the Chair of this Government. Nothing is more to be lamented, than the unhappy Differences subsisting betwixt Great Britain and the Colony, and as it shall be my Study to effect a Reconciliation, and repair the Breach, so I am to hope, the People in general will give me their Assistance in it, and not make it wider by new Excesses and Provocations.

You are called upon as Magistrates, and I doubt not equally led by Inclination,541 as Duty, to keep Peace and good Order, and prevent the People being misled by the various Falsehoods daily spread abroad, to intimidate and deceive them.

Printed in The Massachusetts Gazette: and the Boston Weekly News-Letter, July 7, 1774.

1.

RTP and Col. George Leonard were among the committee appointed by the Bristol Co. court to write an address of welcome to Governor Gage. As RTP noted in his "Narrative of Proceedings of General Court 1774" [After April 20, 1795] (printed below), the address "by the desire of the Committee was drafted by Mr. Paine, on principles of political politeness & consistency as the State of Government then was."