|
Correspondence of Governor Sharpe. 47
|
|
then received certain Advice of the Arrival of the Fleet from
Ireland at Hallifax & we entertain sanguine hopes that the
Fleets have e'er this joined. I am very apprehensive that
His Ldp will not be able to attempt Quebec this year but I
think he might without Difficulty make Himself Master of
Louisburg & if he be permitted & enabled to prosecute his
plan next Spring the Reduction of that place will be a great Step
towards the Conquest of Canada. I am exceedingly obliged
to you for Your kind offer to use Your Interest in my Favour
with Ld Hallifax & to endeavour to procure me the Governt
of N York in Case I should think that Governt a desirable
One, In this you continue to act the Generous part that you
have always done & I should think myself wanting in Grati-
tude if I failed to make you my grateful Acknowledgments
but as you say that you have been assured by those that know
best that it is not worth more than Sixteen hundred a year I
am at a loss whether to accept or decline the Offer. It has
been usually estimated in America at a much higher Value
but I suppose that as the Lands are almost all sold, the Profitts
must have been considerably lessened, with regard to the
people that a Govr has to deal with there they are much the
same I beleive as in the other Colonies, They have I know
shewn more Generosity & Spirit since these Disturbances
began than the people of Maryland for they have agreed to
support the Men that were required of them & they have
defrayed the Governor's Expence or made him a considerable
Present as often as he has gone to Albany or taken any
Iourney for His Majesty's or the Colony's Service, While I
have been obliged to spend upwards of £500 stg on such
Iourneys & have not been reimbursed a Shilling. Indeed our
Assembly is in this respect a hundred times worse than the
Pensilvanians for they have never declined paying any
Expence that their Governors or Commissioners have been at
in holding Treaties with Indians or journying to the Frontiers
tho such Expences have within these three years amounted to
many thousand pounds, Was It a time of peace, or would
our Assembly make a reasonable Allowance for my extra-
ordinary Expences on these Occasions, I would not complain,
tho I am obliged to pay so much to Mr Calvert out of my
Sallary which no Governor before 1751 ever did, but really
what with the Burthen of these Expences & other incidental
Charges which the late Ld Baltimore used to make an Allow-
ance for out of the Fines & Forfeitures but which I defray out
of my own purse, I really beleive I am as ill off as any Gov-
ernor on the Continent except those that are elective in some
of the New England Republican Governments. As His Ldp
has lately writ to me desiring I will by some means or other
|
Letter Bk. III
|
|
 |
