things in the world the most necessary step to strengthen and establish this settlement and invite settlers to come and settle among us.
We cannot but express our most hearty sorrow that our good Lord Halifax has, at this critical juncture, resigned his place at the board. We are all to a man perfectly assured of that good Lord’s sincere attachment to the welfare of the colonies, and look upon him truly as the father of this colony. We are fully persuaded that he will use his utmost endeavors to remove from us our oppressor and the oppressor of all his good purposes ; a person unknown to him and recommended by persons on whom we relied and whom we are sure were not acquainted with his bad heart and mischievous intentions, one of whom is General Hopson, who has had sufficient reason to alter his opinion. The other is General Cornwallis, who is too much a friend to this people if he could be convinced of the ill-treatment and unjust oppression this tyrant Governor has been guilty of ever to countenance or support him.
These are all the friends Governor Lawrence has in England, for, on this side of the water, he has none, either of the inhabitants or gentlemen of the army who hold him in the utmost contempt, except those formerly mentioned to you, his agents in oppression. Perhaps you will be more surprised to hear how this governor who sometime ago was only a painter’s apprentice in London should have advanced himself to such heights. We are obliged to confess that he has a good address, a great deal of low cunning, is a most consummate flatterer, has words full of the warmest expressions of an upright intention to perform much good, though never intended, and with much art solicitously courts all strangers whom he thinks can be of any service to him. By these and such arts has he risen to be what he is, and, elated with the success, is outrageously bent upon the destruction of every one that does not concur in his measures.
We beg leave to make this remark which we desire you will read at the end of twelve months, that if he be not removed Nova Scotia will be lost to the Crown of Great Britain, and the rest of the colonies be endangered of sharing the same fate, which ought to be the utmost concern of every Englishman to prevent.
And, in order that you may in some measure understand the importance of this, he has prevailed with Lord Loudun to represent in England the necessity of placing this Colony under a military government, and of suspending the charters and laws of the other colonies, the consequence of which, we apprehend, would be a struggle in the colonies for liberty, and a consequence too fatal to name. And while the contentions subsist there, the French will penetrate in this Province : indeed they have no feasible conquest left them but this colony, and, if the others are deprived of their liberties, it is difficult to say what the effect will be, but the worst is to be feared.
We could say many things which nearly concern us about the affairs in this part of the world, but we are confident you will hear of them from better hands, for they must become public.
