32 | To John Pownall

    Boston Mar 2. 1761

    Dr Sr

    I am obliged to break into the business that I am engaged in for your board188 to represent to you an affair, that is thought to require immediate dispatch & will take up but little of my time.

    You know with what reluctance my predecessors have bore with the Naval Office having been in the last instance granted from England, which had ever before been in the Governors gift.189 This is not much to be wondered at, when it is considered, that this Office was the principal part of the Governors ^little^ patronage & worth all the rest. For my own part I with my 10 children want as much of these little helps as any of my predecessors have ever done: but I had determined when there should be an occasion to make a decent remonstrance on the Subject, & after that, acquiesce in what should be orderd, in good humour.

    But the death of the late King has brought forward this business sooner than was expected. Mr Pemberton190 thinking it necessary to renew his commission, has been desirous to have the Governors good will in his future proceedings. This produced a mutual explanation, which ended in Mr Pembertons making the proposals mentioned in the enclosed Memorial, which I readily accepted: and We are now to endeavour to get our scheme put in execution. I hope it will appear to be a fair one; Mr Pemberton proposing to get a colleague to assist him when he shall begin to want one; & I only desiring that my son may be provided with an employment for which he is have a payment. If any thing should happen to prevent my Son entering upon this business at the time proposed he shall give up the office: but in such case I must own that I shall hope to be allowed to substitute my second son John who is but 16 months younger in the place of the elder. Mr Pemberton is a hearty hale man between 60 & 70, that may well expect promise himself above 10 years more & may reasonably expect 20.

    The kind & disintrested regard which you have allways exprest of me & the good effects of it which I now feel, induce me readily to trouble you upon this occasion to lay the enclosed Memorial before my Lord Halifax, & enforce it with such Arguments as your judgement & your friendship together shall dictate. I have made it as short as I can consistently with its being explicit. I shall give my Lord Halifax no further trouble upon this occasion than to inform him, that I have transmitted to you this Memorial to be laid before him at a proper time & apologise for it. I write also to Lord Barrington upon this subject.191 Mr Pemberton writes to Mr Stone, whom he has allways had leave to trouble since he received his last appointment. Mr Pemberton declares appointing a Sollicitor for this business, being encouraged by me to hope you will undertake that trouble; of which he depends upon your giving him leave to express his gratitude

    I hope by next week to finish my dispatches relating to the troublesome affair Mr Barrons has engaged me in. If it was all ready now, I should not care to put it on board the Vessel that is to carry this. I have not yet heard of the arrival of the packet boat &c. I am

    P.S.

    To obviate any apparent inconsistency in the sevral accounts of our agreement, It may be proper to add that the proposal to join my Son in the commission came from me; that the terms on which he should be admitted came from Mr Pemberton: That both proposals being readily agreed to, there were Very few words used.

    J Pownall Esqr

    AL, LbC BP, 1: 299-301.