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Britain can gain Nothing by the Imposition of Duties and Taxes on her Colonies: For if she does at present, and if it will always be in her Power to draw all their Riches to herself by a Regulation of their Trade, it will be to no Purpose to attempt to get more.1

1 October 31, 1764, Mauduit desired the General Court to appoint an agent in his place, as his health prevented his further service. January 24, 1765, Richard Jackson was chosen, and it was determined that no power of attorney given to an agent should run for more than three years from the date of his choice, and that within that period the agent should be removable at the pleasure of the Court. Mauduit received notice of the new appointment April 9, and turned over to Jackson all papers and records of the agency before May 1, thus closing his service. The General Court passed his accounts in which he had filled in no sum for salary. After allowing him the usual commissions on money expended, it voted him a salary of one hundred pounds a year during the time he had been agent. This called from him the letter printed infra, p. 180, from Mass. Arch., XXII. 449.

"You will probably receive by this ship a commission for the agency of this province, with instructions in a letter from the Secretary, but lest she should be sailed before they are prepared I thought it would not be amiss to acquaint you that yesterday being the time appointed by the Council and House of Representatives for the choice of an agent, the many other candidates being laid aside the controversy lay between you and the late agent's brother, for whom there were 44 votes, 66 for you, and 2 for me from a foolish attachment of 2 members, altho' I had in the most public manner declared I could not accept, and had desired every friend I had to vote for Mr. Jackson. You would otherwise have counted 68. There would have been a general vote if a blind bigotry had not influenced some who suppose none but a dissenter from the established church fit for any post, and fear of prejudicing us in our controversy with Connecticut had not influenced others. Some perhaps would have stood from a disaffection to the Governor, he having zealously promoted your interest.

"I hope you will not refuse to accept. I can give you no assurance of a return adequate to your services, but I know you have friends who will endeavor it. I assure you I feel more pleasure in our carrying this point, than I did when the Court gave me their vote, for I think they have done themselves honor, and I know you can do them service." Hutchinson to Jackson, January 25, 1765. Mass. Arch., xxvI. 128.

"Before the Court met the Secretary had received letters from Mr. Mauduit with a resignation of his powers of agency, his health not admitting of his attendance on any of the public boards. The Governor proposed to Mr. Gotte and to me our engaging for Mr. Jackson. We both told him our prior obligations were for Mr. Bollan. He replied that he was perfectly willing we should use our interest to Mr. Bollan, that he knew it would be agreeable to Mr. Jackson. I knew Mr. Jackson had wrote the Governor that he thought no person so fit for an agent as you. For several days after the session began pains were taken to engage the members in your favor, but it appeared very evidently that a majority could not be engaged. The party which was resolutely bent for Israel

JASPER MAUDUIT TO THE SPEAKER

LONDON, 4th Septr., 1765

SIR, The Resolutions of the General Court of the 18th June are now before me. I read them with astonishment, and with a degree of Indignation, which I hope does not exceed the occasion. What have I done? or wherein have I been deficient in my duty to the Province, to deserve so publick an affront, as the Voting me a Salary of a hundred a year? Wherein have I failed in my respect to the General Court, that they should choose to offer it? Wherein have I discover'd such a meanness as to give reason for them to think that I wou'd accept it. If the General Court had ask'd it as a favour, that I wou'd serve the Province for nothing; or had desired my assistance in any of your pub

Mauduit it was feared would prevail, let who would be set up against him, and either your friends must strike in for Mr. Jackson or Mr. Mauduit would be chose, and altho' it is a reflection upon the country and a proof of their ingratitude as well as wrong judgment, yet I am fully satisfied if those who are most firmly attached to you in the Court had not been the means of dividing the opposition to Mauduit, there would have been the utmost danger of his coming in.

"You know very well the inconstancy of such assemblies and that their minds and votes are changed by small circumstances. The Governor I am satisfied would not have discouraged any of your friends from voting for you, but it was generally supposed that Mr. Jackson was his peculiar friend. This circumstance secured many for him who would not have been for you; and besides after it was agreed and determined that he should be opposed to Mauduit, the Governor exerted himself with more zeal than he would have done for anybody else and more than I ever knew him use on any other occasion, and if he had not, I think the other side would have prevailed." Hutchinson to Bollan, March 4, 1765. Mass. Arch., xxvi. 130.

Jackson wrote to Secretary Oliver, June 13, 1765: "I have in a former Letter acquainted you with my Intention to deserve the Confidence the Province have done me the honour to place in me, as far as lies in my Power. I am sensible this extends but a little way, but I shall endeavour to supply its Defects by my Diligence and Sincerity. The Passionate Desire I truly have to serve all the American Colonys is the only Quality I can pretend to, as a Recommendation, and that Quality will always make me at any time see with great pleasure the Appointment of an able Successor. I repeat again the sense I have of the Honour the Confidence of your Province does me." Mass. Arch., LVI. 449.

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lick charities, I might have given 'em a hundred Pound: but I little expected to see such a sum proposed to me as a Salary. I am sorry your divisions and mutual Quarrels, which both parties among you know that I have always discouraged, should have put a Majority of the Court so far out of the possession of their better judgment. But how much soever they may mistake the debt due from them, I am not to be wanting in what is due to myself and my own character.

When I first took the charge of your affairs I found your Accounts in confusion. Your Bills drawn on your former Agent remaining unpaid, and running at Interest. I had to compute that Interest and to wrangle off any undue demands. If any mistake or loss had been made, I must have been answerable for them.

The General Court knows that Mr. Bollan's accounts are before me: I might have expected they wou'd have seen, that I charge a lower Commission than what I am intitled to; less than other Provinces readily allow, and less than your own Agent charged before me. Did I in return for this moderation deserve to be contemptuously put upon a Level with a common Clerk?

They might without doubt have trusted the Province's Money with a person mean enough to accept of such a Vote, who might have paid their Bills for them, or might have gone off with the Money. But if they choose to have responsible people, they must be content to make the proper allowance.

The Commission due upon money sollicited and Bills paid, stands independent of the Salary of Office. And I gain'd you three times the amount of that Commission, by recovering a good part of one desperate debt only, which appears by your Letters to have been in a manner given

up: If the General Court wou'd have listen'd to my advice my Brother might have got for you the whole Ten thousand.

Have I often confined myself in Town during the hottest part of the Summer, at other times been at the expense of expresses to Bath and Tunbridge, which I never charged to the account; Have we come posting out of Distant Counties at an hour's warning, in order to attend the Summons of the Treasury upon your business, and shall any one offer me a hundred a year for this?

The General Court may recollect that at the time of their choosing me their Agent, I knew nothing of their design. The appointment therefore was not of my seeking, but their own. I have served them with Fidelity and with attention, and, by my Brother's assistance, with a Success greater than they had the least hope of. The Province has in no year saved less than a Thousand, this year will probably reap two thousand Pounds Benefit from one single Act of Parliament, which he by himself plann'd, sollicited, and carried through both Houses, without putting the General Court to the Expence of a single Shilling: and even without their knowing any thing of the matter. A common Sollicitor's Bill, if he had employ'd one, wou'd have come to a hundred Pounds. In return for this the General Court voted him their barren thanks; and now offer me a Salary which is not equal to porterage and coach-hire.

But I will not reproach them with either of our Services. They have from time to time voted their publick Thanks, and thereby put it out of their power to deny them. I shall ever wish to retain the good Opinion of the Province, and be ready to do them any good office; but the General Court must set a much higher value upon their

thanks than I do, if they expect that they shou'd pass for a payment. Ever since I undertook the office, I have put myself to a standing expence of more than Three hundred a year in Clerks and other necessary requisites to their Service. Can the allowance of one hundred repay this? or does the General Court think their empty Compliments are equivalent for the other two? I was unavoidably obliged to keep another Carriage and pair of Horses upon the Province's Account: for I did not think it reasonable to confine my family at home, while I was waiting whole days together at the public offices to do their business.

I know too much of public assemblies to expect Gratitude from party: But I am sorry that your little dissentions should be continually standing in the way of the general Interest. Will it give dignity to the Character of any succeeding Agent, or add weight to his Sollicitations, to let it be seen in your Votes that he is a man whom you think capable of receiving a Salary not greater than the Gains of some of our Porters? Does the General Court hope to raise him in the Esteem of the several Boards here, by their thus publickly debasing him in their own. It were better for them surely to abate a little of the pompous title they give their Agent, and not let him stand as representative of the Province at the Court of Great Britain, before they sink him into Contempt by publickly voting him the Salary of a private Steward.

For myself, after having for every year of the Agency given and voted more than a hundred pounds to your publick charities, I will not accept of a Vote which in the terms of it appears to me to carry Insult added to Ingratitude.

If the General Court thinks fit to allow the Five Hundred pounds a year, as I shall charge in my Acco't directed

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