Informed this Board that yesterday he received A message from the house of Representatives by Isaac Sharp and Josiah Ogden acquainting his Excellency that the house desired to know when he would be waited upon with an address

Ordered that the Clarke of the Councill do acquaint the house of representatives that his Excellency is now Ready in Councill to receive there address

The Speaker with the following Representatives attending

The Speaker desired leave for the Clarke of the Assembly to Read the said address

Then the Clarke of the Assembly read the Said address in these words

To his Excellency William Burnet Esq' Captain Generall and Governour in Chief in and Over his majesties province of New Jersey New Yorke and Territories depending thereon in America & vice admirall of the Same &

The Humble address of the General Assembly of the province of New Jersey

Sir

We are not Sensible that this house in Generall or any members in particular have gone into any practice dangerous to the Publick or derogatory to his majesties prerogative

Neither can we Give your Excellency a Greater proof of the Sincerity of our Intentions to Comply with the particulars mentioned in your Excellencys Speeches then by the steps we have taken for the preservation of the Sinking Creditt of the province

And by the Expeditious and unanimous resolves we have made towards Support of Government both before and since the prorogation which is agreeable to the practices of former

Assemblies for which Brigadier Hunter told this house that they deserved the thanks of the King and Country And not only So but gave us A Good Character in Great Brittain and it is the opinion of this house we still deserve the same Neither is this house Sensible that in any case wee have Deserved or incurred the Severity of the law

Your Refusing to receive an address from the house of Representatives is such a difficulty that noe General assembly of this province Ever laboured under before Nor do we know of Any Occasion this house hath Given your Excellency to Suspect heats and Animosities amongst us, unless Enquireing into the Quallifycation of Our Members be interpreted as Such which wee Esteem Our undoubted priviledge

Your Excellency adjourning and prorogueing this house from Day to Day for twenty days together must of Necessity be an unnecessary charge to the Country in Generall or to the members in particular If this be the way to make the Sessions Short and Easy this house are Strangers to your Methods of Government

Your Excellencys intermedling with the busyness of the house we take to be a manifest breach of Our priviledges and directing the Speaker to Acquaint the house that unless Support of Government was Settled for five years Your Excellency would pass noe bill which we presume is without Example

In your Excellencys Second Speech you tell us that Every member of this house is to be Sworn before the Governour and that the practise has been always So since the Government Come under the more imediate administration of the Crown, Notwithstanding your Assertion we prove the contrary by Several presidents

Wee presume your Excellency would not have Suffered matters to run this length had not you been imposed upon by Designing men who aim att nothing less than to make your Excellency uneasy and the people unhappy under your administration

In the Lord Cornburys Administration which is said to be the worst that ever New Jersey knew his Lordship did not interpose with the house Inquiring into the Quallifycation of their members Tho' after the house had judged three members quallifyed he delayed to Swear or attest them Severall months which was declared by an other Assembly to be A notorious violation of the liberty of the people

The house was sensible of some difficulties the people laboured under before the meeting of this Assembly but these above mentioned fall more imediatly under our Consideration

As it is our duty it has been our Endeavour and Ever shall be our practise to doe our utmost in Serving our King & Country which we Cannot faithfully doe If wee doe not use our diligence to lay before your Excellency the nature of the difficultys we now labour under

Wee conclude by Assuring your Excellency it is not the Effects of unbecoming heats or unwilling to do our duty in Our Station but a Just Sence of the Great trust reposed in us and that we have noe other views but to maintain the prerogative of the King and preserve the liberty of the people By order of the house

JOHN KINSEY Speaker

Some of the members of this house being of the people called Quakers do heartyly Agree with the matter & Substance in this address but make Some Exception to the Stile Then His Excellency made the following Speech

Gentlemen

I can with great Sincerity Assure you of my thanks to you for this address because it is So Ample a justifycation of all my proceedings Tho' I am Sorry for your own Sakes that you have made your Conduct so publick before you have considered it more fully

When I had seen your Resolves of fryday last were to be the materials of this address, I wrote to the Speaker Direct

ing him to Communicate my letter to the house on purpose that you might have all the Assistance & information I could Give you and Since you Seem to have made so little use of itt in Your address I think itt proper to repeat it to you now because I take itt [to] Contain a full Answer to the greatest part of itt the letter was as follows

Here take in the letter which is minuted the 1st of Aprill last 1

Your address being Entered in your minutes before it was presented I had an opportunity of being better prepared to Answer it at this time which I will now doe to all that I do not Conceive to be fully Answered in the letter which I have read to you and indeed your putting Severall things in your address which were not in your Resolves tho' your last Declares that the address was to be pursuant to them gives me noe Small reason to Suspect that you thought them fully answered by my letter because you were unwilling to own so much You have mixed up your Resolves with Several other matters, that the whole may Seem to say Something new which has not been answered this Suspicion was increased by finding you had not Entered my letter on your Journals tho I told the Speaker I Designed itt for for your use this looks as If you were affraid a full answer to your Resolves Should appear on your own books

but that I may change this Subject for one more Agreeable I confess that any Steps to retrive the Creditt of the Collony are commendable And I hope Yours will Effectually accomplish itt and that you will goe to the bottom of any Embeazlement of the publick money if such there has been I would lett Slip noe opportunity of praiseing you when ever you [have] Given itt me: I wish you had Given me some of another kind but If you mistake your way and are lost in a Wilderness, I will not be wanting in my Endeavours to lead you out of itt. You tell me that. I refused to receive your address, this I know nothing off I remember indeed that I told you that I would Send for you when I was ready to receive itt

1Ante, pp. 159 et seqq.

and the hopes I had that you would make Some proper additions to it induced me to delay it for [a] few day's, till for Some reasons, which I am not bound to Give you I thought fitt to adjourn and afterwards prorogue you before your address was presented, Is this refuseing to receive your address which I am told my lord Cornbury once flattly did of which your own Journals can Informe you tho' I shall never reckon his conduct a Sufficient precedent to me

If you had well considered the prerogative of the crown or the practise of Brittish parliaments whose powers and priviledges far Exceed those of Assemblys in the Collonies you would have found that adjourning prorogueing and dissolving parliaments, are powers the crowne may Exercise without Giveing reasons and att any time tho' it should prove in the middle of A Debate those powers are fully lodged with me in relation to you and I happened to make use of them when it seems you were inquiring into the Quallifycation of A member The handle you make use of heare is taken from a favour of mine in owning what Induced me in Some measure to adjourn you and If you had been disposed to Judge impartially you must have thought that nothing could be kinder than to give you time (or Interpose as you chuse to call it) when I heard that you were upon a matter wherein the law was not then fully known to you and when that was thought to be law which was really not so And where is now the parallell between this and the Instance you have Given of my lord Cornburys proceeding. Butt what need have I to Argue Against your words when your actions do that for me

You are very fond of the word priviledges but Should be Carefull not to Strain them beyond their Strength least they suffer by itt what you Enjoy of that kind is owing to the Goodness of the Crown and I neither have nor shall invade them and know of noe breach but of your own meaking upon Since [Sense] and Good manners. Who is to intermedle as you Civilly word itt with the busyness of the house, who is to tell you what he Expects for the Kings Service, and who