[158] Minot. Belknap.
[159] Minot. Belknap. Belsham. Russel.
[160] Letter of general Abercrombie.
[161] Minot. Belknap.
[162] Letter of colonel Bradstreet.
[163] MSS.
[164] Minot. Belknap. Belsham. Russel. Entic.
[165] Minot. Belknap. Belsham. Russel. New York Gazette.
[166] Belsham.
[167] These accounts must be exaggerated. According to the letter of general Townshend, the force engaged on the Plains of Abraham amounted to three thousand five hundred men; and not more than fifteen hundred are stated to have been detached under Bougainville.
[168] Belsham.
[169] Belsham. Russel.
[170] Belsham.
[171] Belsham.
[172] Belsham. Russel.
[173] Townshend's letter.
[174] Townshend's letter. Belsham. Russel. Gazette.
[175] Russel.
[176] Minot. Belknap. Belsham. Russel.
[177] History of South Carolina and Georgia.
[178] After the expulsion of the French from Canada, a considerable degree of ill humour was manifested in Massachusetts with respect to the manner in which the laws of trade were executed. A question was agitated in court, in which the colony took a very deep interest. A custom house officer applied for what was termed "a writ of assistance," which was an authority to search any house for dutiable articles suspected to be concealed in it. The right to grant special warrants was not contested; but this grant of a general warrant was deemed contrary to the principles of liberty, and an engine of oppression equally useless and vexatious, which would enable every petty officer of the customs to gratify his resentments by harassing the most respectable men in the province. The ill temper excited on this occasion was shown by a reduction of the salaries of the judges; but no diminution of attachment to the mother country appears to have been produced by it.
[179] Belsham.
[180] Belsham. Minot.
[181] Minot.
[182] 100,000l. sterling.
[183] Mr. Pitt was not in the house; and Mr. Ingersoll, in his letter, states that Alderman Beckford joined General Conway. Mr. Belsham, therefore, who makes this statement, was probably mistaken.
[184] See note No. III, at the end of the volume.
[185] Prior documents. Virginia Gazette.
[186] Minot.
[187] See note No. IV, at the end of the volume.
[188] Minot. Prior documents.
[189] Minot.
[190] Minot. Prior documents. Belsham.
[191] Minot.
[192] Belsham.
[193] Prior documents.
[194] See note No. V, at the end of the volume.
[195] Minot.
[196] Prior documents.
[197] In this letter the house of Burgesses express their opinion of the mutiny act in the following terms: "The act suspending the legislative power of New York, they consider as still more alarming to the colonies, though it has that single province in view. If parliament can compel them to furnish a single article to the troops sent over, they may, by the same rule, oblige them to furnish clothes, arms, and every other necessary, even the pay of the officers and soldiers; a doctrine replete with every mischief, and utterly subversive of all that's dear and valuable; for what advantage can the people of the colonies derive from choosing their own representatives, if those representatives, when chosen, be not permitted to exercise their own judgments, be under a necessity (on pain of being deprived of their legislative authority) of enforcing the mandates of a British parliament."
[198] Prior documents.
[199] Prior documents.