appoint particular Officers in England, only for the dispatch of business belonging to the Plantations. For often persons that come from America on purpose either to complain or to support their own just rights, are at a loss how or where to apply; this uncertainty does not only fatigue the Ministers, but frequently terminates in the destruction of the party, by his being referred from Office to Office, until both his money and patience be quite worn out. Such things in time may cool people's affections, and give them too mean an opinion of the justice of their MotherCountry, which ought carefully to be prevented; for where there is liberty, the inhabitants will certainly expect right, and still have an eye towards obtaining it one way or other.
"It may be considered, therefore, how far it would be serviceable to put all the Crown's civil Officers in the Plantations, of what kind soever, under the direction of the Board of Trade, from whom they might receive their several deputations and appointments, and unto whom they ought to be accountable both for their receipts and management; and if a particular Secretary was appointed for the Plantation affairs only, or if the first Lord Commissioner of that Board was permitted to have daily access to the King in order to receive His Majesty's commands in all business relating to the Plantations, the subject's application would be reduced into so narrow a compass, and the Board of Trade would be always so perfectly acquainted with the King's pleasure, that great dispatch might be given even to distant matters, without taking up too much of the Ministry's time and interfering, perhaps, with other more important business."[1]
Under the influence of similar feelings Shelburne made his acceptance of the Board conditional on having equal access to the King with the Secretary of State. "I have been happy," he wrote to Bute, "to accommodate in every particular, as well in the first instance as to Secretary of State, and its being mentioned to the other Ministers, or the second idea of an opening being kept for Lord Egre-
- ↑ Lansdowne House MSS.
