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| Aug. 21. |
Letter from the Board to Col. Nicholson signed. Draught
of another letter to be writ him by the Secretary approved. Their Lordships further considered the Acts of Massachusets Bay mentioned yesterday. [Board of Trade. Journal, 13. pp. 156–158; and 97. Nos. 143–145.] |
| Aug. 21. |
728. Council of Trade and Plantations to Governor Nicholson. We have received your letter of June 10th. We congratulate the success you have had in your late enterprise against the pirates. We hope all difficulties that might arise about the conduct of the Governors of any of His Majesty's Plantations towards pirates will hereafter be in great measure removed by an Act passed here the last session of Parliament for the more effectual suppression of piracy, and the Commissions which are now preparing to be sent thither in pursuance of the said Act; not doubting but the same will also be very effectual towards the suppression of piracy as contended. What you write concerning Navigation Bonds, which we take to be much (what) the same case in Virginia as in Maryland, is proper for the consideration of the Commissioners of the Customs and by them to be laid before the Treasury, from whom all directions in matters relating to His Majesty's Revenue must come. There are many other things in your letter which belong to the care of the Admiralty, and others to other offices, concerning which you have not observed the advice we gave you Jan. 4th., and have thereby left us doubtful whether it were necessary for us to communicate the copies of what we receive from you unto them, or what else might be fit for us to do therein. Which inconvenience we therefore again entreat you for the future to prevent. The care you promise in advancing His Majesty's Revenue, and the hopes you express of being able in a year or two to build a house for His Majesty's Governor are very acceptable things. We are glad also to observe that you were taking care about the Revisal of the Laws, according to our explanation, Jan. 4th, and hope we shall ere long receive them so revised, that we may be enabled to consider them in order and offer our opinion thereupon to his Majesty, which we cannot now do upon these last received for want of a perfect and authenticated collection of the whole. We desire you therefore to make what dispatch you can therein. We have found an inconvenience from some of His Majesty's Plantations in having private Acts fastened together under the same seal with those that are of a public nature, the one proving sometimes an obstruction to the dispatch of the other; and we therefore desire you, whensoever any such private Acts come to be past in Virginia, to take care that they be sent, each of them under a separate seal, and that the persons concerned therein be advised to write to some of their friends here to solicite their dispatch with the Attorney or Solicitor General, and to furnish those friends with all memorials necessary to enable them to give information in any doubts or enquiries that may be made thereupon. Tho' Mr. Penn have given us a particular account of his having applied himself to the reformation of the irregularities which have been in that Province, it is very acceptable to us to receive the confirmation thereof from you and to understand your readiness
to correspond with him, as with the Earl of Bellomont and Col. Blakiston in anything for His Majesty's service, and whensoever it shall happen that you can all of you meet together to consult of the mutual welfare of your respective Governments, we cannot but hope some good effect from it. Having lately received a letter from Mr. John Moore, desiring that some salary may be appointed for his service as Advocate in the Admiraly Court of Pennsylvania, in which place he says you had put him, we desire you to let him know what we writ you, Jan. 4, viz., that when any salaries are settled upon the like officers in other places we shall be ready to propose that the same be done for him, but that the consideration of that matter belonging more properly to the Lords of the Treasury or Admiralty, we do not at present think it fit for us to move anything in it. Upon what you write of the difficulty to get a quorum of Counsellors to meet together, and about Col. Lee's desiring to be discharged from attending upon that service, we have offered to the Lords Justices our opinion that he may be discharged accordingly, and that Mr. Lewis Burwell may be constituted as member of His Majesty's Council in Virginia in his stead. We have ordered our Secretary to write to you upon some other heads of less moment. Signed, Ph. Meadows, Jon. Pollexfen, Abr. Hill, Geo. Stepney, M. Prior. [Board of Trade. Virginia, 38. pp. 23–26.] |
| Aug. 21. |
729. William Popple to Governor Nicholson. There are some few things which the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations judge useful to be observed in your correspondence with them. It is convenient for their office that all papers they receive from the Plantations may be writ in such a form that they may hereafter be bound up together in bookes, and therefore, as they are very well pleased with the transcript you have sent them of some late Acts of Assembly, and of your Journals in the form of Rul'd Paper which was sent you from hence, they desire that your letters more especially be writ also in the same manner, either upon large or small paper as you think fit. Whenever you transmit any papers to them together with your letters (which must be always done as occasion requires), they desire you to send therewith a separate list of those papers, and not to make your whole letters as it were one continued index of them. When you have several subjects to write upon, they offer it to your consideration whether it would not be more convenient, both for you and for them, to divide those matters into two or three letters, than to mix all together in one. For in that manner you may more easily enlarge upon anything as you find needful, and they would also be inabled to understand your letters as they are read to them, without the trouble of stopping so oft and seeking into those papers for the meaning of what you hint at. The Naval Officers' Accounts that you have sent them are very confused. They ought to be fairly writ, upon paper so rul'd that they may be stitched or bound up together, and conveniently opened and read without tearing, which can hardly be done with these, which are writ upon so many single papers and joined together very loosely at the heads. The mixing of ships cleared outwards
in the same list with ships entered inwards renders it very difficult to distinguish, as is requisite, between the one and the other, and it is therefore absolutely necessary that those lists be kept separate and accordingly transmitted. The same parcels of goods entered inwards or outwards should not be twice entered and promiscuously mixed with other parcels in two different accounts; as Mr. Hill has done in his two accounts Nov. 16, 1699–April 17, 1700. All accounts should express the hogsheads and quantity of tobacco shipt off; which is omitted by Mr. Allerton, who only mentions that such and such ships were laden off with tobacco, but expresses not what quantity each ship carried. The number of hogsheads, and the pounds of tobacco in bulk, laden in each ship, should in all accounts be entered exactly, and the figures so placed that the totals may be added up, which addition ought also to be made and set down by the respective officers themselves, or the person who copies out their accounts. [Board of Trade. Virginia, 38. pp. 27–29.] |
Aug. 22.
Whitehall. |
730. Mr. Yard to the Council of Trade and Plantations. Enclosing the petition of Daniel Smith and other papers for their Lordships to consider and report to the Lords Justices. Signed, R. Yard. Endorsed, Recd. Read 23rd Aug. 1700. Enclosed, |
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730. i. Petition of Daniel Smith, a native and inhabitant of Bermuda. Petitioner in Dec. 1698 was committed to prison in Bermuda by Governor Day under pretence of piracy. The Governor several times sent to petitioner to let him know that, if he would give him 100l., he should be discharged, but if not, he should be sent in irons to England and be hanged, as does more fully appear by the deposition, now before the Lords of the Council of Trade, of William Brice, then Deputy Marshall. Petitioner not complying, he was kept in irons till Dec. 1699, when he was bailed at the Assizes and was acquitted at the Quarter Sessions, Jan. 18, 1699 (1700), before Gilbert Nelson, Judge, and other Justices of the Peace. Notwithstanding, upon April 22, 1700, petitioner was again apprehended and committed to gaol by a warrant from the said Gilbert Nelson, and there kept in irons till July 13, when he was by the said Governor sent a prisoner on board the Marygold for England. Prays for a speedy hearing and relief. Signed, Daniell Smith. 1 p. |
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730. ii. Copy of warrant for the imprisonment of Daniel Smith, Dec. 22, 1698. Signed, Sam11. Day. Slip. |
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730. iii. Copy of warrant for imprisonment of Daniel Smith, April 22, 1700. Signed, Gilb'. Nelson. Slip. |
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730. iv. (1) Copy of Daniel Smith's petition to Gilbert Nelson, Chief Justice of the Assizes, St. George's, for a speedy trial. |
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730. iv. (2) Copy of memorandum of petitioner's admission to bail to the next Quarter Sessions, Dec. 8, 1699. 1 p. |
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730. v. Governor Day's warrant to Capt. Leonard White
to take on board the Marigold the prisoner Daniel Smith for England. Signed, Sam. Day. 1 p. Fragment of Seal. [Board of Trade. Bermuda, 4. Nos. 39, 39, i.–iv.; and (Letter and first enclosure only), 30. pp. 45–47.] |
| Aug. 22. |
731. Minutes of Council of the Massachusetts Bay. Instructions for Major James Converse, for erecting a trading house and fortification at Cascobay, read and approved. Advised that for the encouragement of a Minister to go Eastward on His Majesty's service, to have his residence at one of the Garrisons there as Chaplain and for instructing the Indians in the true Christian Religion, he be allowed 20s. a week. [Board of Trade. Massachusetts Bay, 2. p. 11.] |
| Aug. 22. |
732. Journal of Council of Trade and Plantations. Mr. Solicitor General's reports upon some Acts of the Massachusetts Bay, one upon those of an Assembly held Nov. 15, 1698 and another upon those of an Act of Assembly, May 13, 1699, read. The Acts were taken into consideration, and their Lordships made some progress in the perusal thereof. |
| Aug. 23. |
Letter from the Board to Mr. Penn in answer to his of Feb. 27th and April 28th, signed. |
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Letter from Mr. Yard, Aug. 22nd, read. Ordered that Mr. Randolph be desired to attend the Board on Monday. |
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The Solicitor General's report upon the Acts of the Massachusets Bay, past at an Assembly May 31st, 1699, read. Their Lordships then went through with the consideration of the said Acts, and gave some directions towards preparing a representation to lay the same, as also those mentioned in the Minutes of the 20th, 21st, and 22nd inst., before their Excellencies the Lords Justices. [Board of Trade. Journal, 13. pp. 159, 160; and 97. Nos. 146, 147.] |
Aug. 23.
Whitehall. |
733. Mr. Secretary Vernon to Lieutenant Governor Day. Your father having petitioned His Majesty in Council to recall you from the Government of Bermudas, that you might have a speedy opportunity in person to justify before His Majesty your behaviour in that Government, His Majesty has been pleased to grant his request, and I am commanded to signify to you His Majesty's revocation, in order to your return hither to give an account of your proceedings in that Government accordingly. Signed, Ja. Vernon. Copy. ¾ p. Endorsed, Recd. Read Aug. 28, 1700. Enclosed, |
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733. i. Copy of Order of King in Council, recalling the Governor of Bermudas, May 21, 1700. Signed, John Povey. Endorsed as preceding. 1½ pp. [Board of Trade. Bermuda, 4. Nos. 40, 40.i.; and 30. pp. 55–57.] |
Aug. 23.
Whitehall. |
734. Council of Trade and Plantations to Mr. Penn. We have received yours of February 27 and April 28, and others from Col. Quary, wherein he does you the justice to acknowledge the
reformation you have made since your arrival, by displacing officers who have been complained against for irregular conduct, by seizing pirates and endeavouring in general to suppress and discountenance all illegal and undue practices. We observe what great improvements you say have been made both in the country and the city, and so long as such improvements do not arise from any unlawful courses, or means that interfere with His Majesty's service and the interest of England, nor tend to the injury of other Plantations, we shall always rejoice to hear of their further encrease. We advise you to have those considerations always in your eye, and do not doubt but whatever discontent such conduct may raise in the minds of some of the inhabitants, the better sort will be sensible of the necessity of it; and as we shall never be backward in giving what encouragement lies in our power to all industrious and fair improvements both there and elsewhere, so we hope you will also in your own private concerns receive more stable advantages by that conduct than by any different method. |
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As to what you write relating to the pirates and their effects that have been sent to England, we suppose you have followed the orders which were sent you, and we have communicated what you intimate about some of the inhabitants of Lewis, who had been aboard Kidd, and about their dealings with him or his crew, to Mr. Secretary Vernon, that you may receive such further directions thereupon as shall be thought necessary. |
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But for the future we hope all difficulties that might arise about your conduct in such occasions will be removed by a late Act of Parliament for the more effectual suppression of piracy, and the Commissions that are now passing in pursuance thereof, which will be sent to the respective Plantations so soon as they are ready. |
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The two Acts of your General Assembly, that you have now transmitted, we have sent to Mr. Solicitor General for his opinion upon them in point of law; but since you desire us to defer the laying of those you formerly left with us before His Majesty, until the whole body of the Laws of the Province be transmitted from the next Assembly, we do not at present proceed to represent our opinion upon any of them. We do not yet hear anything of the nomination of a Lieutenant Governor for Pennsylvania, which you say you have ordered to be offered to us. Your desire that a clause may be inserted in some Acts of Parliament to enable the Quakers to register their ships without oaths, and the explanation you desire about the bounds of the Admiralty Jurisdiction, we have recommended to Mr. Lawton, who has let us know that you had appointed him to take some care about your affairs, as the most proper person to look after those matters. So we bid you heartily farewell, Your very loving friends, Ph. Meadows, John Pollexfen, Abr. Hill, Geo. Stepney, Math. Prior. [Board of Trade. Proprieties, 26. pp. 311–314.] |
