give you every day fresh marks of their resentment. They despise the miserable governor you have sent them[1], because he is the creature of Lord Bute; nor is it from any natural confusion in their ideas, that they are so ready to confound the original of a king, with the disgraceful representation of him.
The distance of the colonies would make it impossible for them to take an active concern in your affairs, if they were as well affected to your government, as they once pretended to be to your person. They were ready enough to distinguish between you and your ministers. They complained of an act of the legislature, but traced the origin of it no higher than to the servants of the crown: they pleased themselves with the hope that their Sovereign, if not favourable to their cause, at least was impartial. The decisive, personal part you took against them, has effectually banished that first distinctiom from their minds[2]. They consider you as
- ↑ Viscount Townshend, sent over on the plan of being resident Governor. The history of his ridiculous administration shall not be lost to the public.
- ↑ In the King's speech of November 8th, 1768, it was declared, "That the spirit of faction had broken out a fresh in some of the colonies, and, in one of them, proceeded to acts of violence and resistance to the execution of the laws; that Boston was in a state of disobedience to all laws and government, and had proceeded to measures subversive of the constitution, and attended with circumstances that manifested a disposition to throw off their dependence on Great Britain."
