ies of those whom he might have easily
conciliated and made friends. The Assembly answered him in an indignant
and sarcastic tone, and charged him with having exceeded the authority
given in Secretary Conway's letter; concluding in the following words:

"If this _recommendation_, which your Excellency terms a _requisition_,
be founded on so much justice and humanity that it cannot be
controverted--if the _authority_ with which it is introduced should
preclude all disputation about complying with it, we should be glad to
know what freedom we have in the case?

"In answer to the questions which your Excellency has proposed with
seeming emotion, we beg leave to declare, that we will not suffer
ourselves to be in the least influenced by party animosities or domestic
feuds, let them exist where they may; that if we can possibly prevent
it, this fine country shall never be ruined by any person; that it shall
be through no default of ours should this people be deprived of the
great and manifest advantages which the favour and indulgence of our
most gracious Sovereign and his Parliament are even now providing for
them. On the contrary, that it shall ever be our highest ambition, as it
is our duty, so to demean ourselves in public and in private life as
shall most clearly demonstrate our loyalty and gratitude to the best of
kings, and thereby recommend his people to further gracious marks of the
royal clemency and favour.

"With regard to the rest of your Excellency's speech, we are constrained
to observe, that the general air and style of it savours more of an act
of grace and pardon than of a parliamentary address to the two Houses of
Assembly; and we most sincerely wish your Excellency had been pleased to
reserve it, _if needful_, for a proclamation."

It was thus that fresh seed of animosity and hostility was sown between
Governor Barnard and the Massachusetts Assembly, and sown by the
Governor himself, and the growth of which he further promoted by
refusing to confirm the choice of Mr. Hancock, whom the Assembly had
elected as their Speaker, and refused to sanction six of their
twenty-eight nominations to the Council, because they had not nominated
the four judges of the Supreme Court and the Crown officers. Hence the
animosity of their reply to his speech above quoted. But as the Governor
had, by the Charter, a veto on the election of Speaker and Councillors,
the Legislature submitted without a murmur.

But in the cou