Met according to adjournment.

The Committee appointed to prepare an Answer to his Excellency’s Message of this day, reported, that they had prepared one; which was read, and is as follows, viz:

May it please your Excellency:

In answer to your Excellency’s Message of this day, wherein you desire that this House would rescind their vote of the 13th of last month, respecting their dismission of the three members for the County of Grafton, who were called by the King’s writ only, without an act of Government for that purpose; we are sorry to find that your Excellency should intimate that our dismissing said members was depriving the electors of their privileges, as we did not apprehend that any one person in the English Empire could have had such an idea; and trust that the good people of the County of Grafton will not think that we have deprived them of any part of their rights or privileges, by our dismissing the said members; as it is very notorious that this and former Houses of Assembly have long wished that this Province might be more generally represented in a constitutional way, and have long endeavoured that an act of Government might be passed enabling the Governour to issue writs to such Towns to send members as might be provided for in said act, (as is the case in the other Governments on this Continent,) but have not been able to have such an act established, for what reasons your Excellency may know better than we do. As the Council are appointed for this Province by the Crown, we think it not only a cruel, but an arbitrary stretch of prerogative, for your Excellency to issue writs to such Towns as you think proper, to send Representatives without the concurrence of the other branches of the Legislature therein; for by that means the Representatives, as well as the Council, would in effect be chosen by the Crown. We cannot think that such an attempt was, ever made in any other Government within the English Dominions. Upon the whole, this House have determined unanimously, as they look upon it as their undoubted right and privilege to regulate themselves, not to rescind their said vote.

We would also inform your Excellency that we have been expecting that you would order the Treasurer’s accounts to be laid before the House, agreeable to your promise, that we might be thereby enabled to proceed in the ordinary business of the Government; but are sorry to find that your Excellency has ordered the Treasurer not to lay them before the House, as he informs us. We hope that you will direct that we may be furnished therewith as soon as possible, as you must be sensible that it is not only very expensive, but very disagreeable to us to be from our respective places of abode at this season of the year.

Which report of the Committee being considered,

Voted, That it be presented to his Excellency in answer to his Message to the House of this day.

Monday, July 17, 1775.

Some of the Members met, according to adjournment.

The Deputy Secretary, by his Excellency’s direction, adjourned the General Assembly till to-morrow ten o’clock.

Tuesday, July 18, 1775.

Some of the Members being met, the Deputy Secretary brought down the following Message from his Excellency, viz:

Mr. Speaker and

Gentlemen of the House of Representatives:

In reply to your answer to my Message of yesterday, concerning your vote for excluding the three members returned for three Towns in the County of Grafton, by virtue of the King’s writ, I would observe, that in the early state of New-Hampshire, when the Massachusetts-Bay exercised jurisdiction over the inhabitants, a commission was issued by King Charles the Second, appointing a President and Council to govern the Province, according to the methods and regulations specified in the said commission. This laid the foundation of the Constitution by which the Province hath since been governed; and the people, by their acceptance and acquiescence in the frame of Government then given them, bound themselves to maintain the same.

Among other things, the President and Council were authorized to issue writs for calling a General Assembly. It hath ever since been the invariable practice, as circumstances made it reasonable to extend representation in the Province, to call the members by the King’s writ; it is a part of the Constitution first established by the aforesaid commission, and ever since preserved unaltered; and you all came by your seats in the House in the same constitutional way; and the laws of the Province rest upon this foundation. It is true that some contention was heretofore made by a former House, on this point, but after a long and fruitless controversy, the House thought it advisable at length to proceed to business with the new members in the established course.

Since my administration, three new members have been called from three Towns in the County of Cheshire, and they took their seats without interruption. Upon petitions to the Governour and Council from the inhabitants of the County of Grafton, it seemed equally reasonable to extend to them the same privilege, expressly given by President Cutt’s commission, and secured by constant usage since, which was done in the usual form with advice of Council. It does not now appear, either by a general view of this practice, or any particular instance, that it hath not been exercised for the advantage of the people; and as there is no reason at present to apprehend danger from the influence of the Crown, the argument you make use of to support or justify your refusal of the new members, has, in itself, in reality, very little weight, more especially as provision is established by law for regulating the election of Assembly-men, and their qualifications.

In short, a Constitution has been given to this Province, which the people have accepted, and lived happily and prospered under, and I apprehend their interest will be much better Consulted by adhering to that Constitution, than by any innovations or attempts to alter or subvert it, especially in a point of inherent right and prerogative of His Majesty, which cannot be suffered to be violated or infringed.

The Treasurer’s accounts are prepared, and I should have ordered them to be laid before the House, but my duty calls upon me to take care that no members, constitutionally returned to the Assembly, should be excluded from their privilege of acting freely in all matters of business that may come before the General Assembly. No inconvenience can as yet be occasioned by these accounts, as a sufficient number of members to make a House did not attend till yesterday, and then (as I understand) but a very thin House.

I am sorry to observe, that it appears to me from the determination not to rescind the vote for excluding the three members for Plymouth, Lyme, and Orford, that the House did not meet with a disposition to proceed upon the affairs of the Province. In hopes, however, that this business may acquire a more favourable consideration in a fuller House of Assembly, on a future day, I think it my duty to adjourn the General Assembly, and it is hereby adjourned accordingly, to Tuesday, the 28th of September next, at ten o’clock in the morning, then to meet at the State-House in Portsmouth.

J. W ENTWORTH.

Fort William and Mary, New-Hampshire, July 15, 1775.

London, July 18, 1775.

Yesterday se’nnight arrived at Whitehaven, the Molly, Captain Mitchinson, in twenty-six days from Norfolk, in Virginia. She was not suffered to land her cargo in Norfolk. The Committee was called and expresses sent to Alexandria, where a Congress was sitting. The Captain was seized, and with much difficulty and solicitation escaped tar and feathers. One of the merchants who resides at Norfolk, requested that the vessel might proceed with her cargo to Quebeck, which was refused; nor would the Committee suffer it to be transhipped into another vessel belonging to the company, then loading for Whitehaven; nor allow the Molly to take in the tobacco which was prepared for her, but compelled the merchant to send the cargo back in the same bottom, without diminution or addition, to be landed at Whitehaven; for the performance of which they obliged him to give a bond of three thousand Pounds.