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Mr. Speaker and Gentlemen of the Assembly.

I thank you for the Supply granted to His Majesty—An Aid upon this Critical Situation of Affairs and poverty of this province as great as cou'd be expected to be raised in him to cooperate with the other regular and Provincial Troops. But it wou'd have given me double pleasure if you had framed your Aid Bill so as I cou'd have passed it without departing from His Majesty's Instructions and encroaching upon his Prerogative, which you have attempted to do by this Bill; but since the Majority of the Council have passed the Bill, and have since in Council advised me to pass it, and have ventured to encroach upon his Majesty's just Prerogative, and given up their own rights—and since you in answer to my Message have disclaimed any right of adding such Clauses to the Aid Bills, as may in the least encroach upon his Majesty's negative voice, by putting the Crown under a Dilemma of giving up so far it's prerogative, or losing the necessary Supply—and as the Clause, added is only temporary, and I had agreed to have passed it in a separate Bill, yet upon so critical an Emergency and earnest Requisition from his Majesty to raise a considerable Number of Men, which by losing no Time may be able to join and cooperate with his Majesty's forces, and may be the Means of securing the Possession of all French America, and the future peace and Safety of His Majesty's American Dominions. I have for these Considerations ventured so far to depart from His Majesty's Instructions as to pass this Aid Bill—an in order to procure the good End proposed by it, hope that each of you upon your Return home will promote the speedy raising of the Troops, and prevent as much as possible the Concealment of Deserters, and every Attempt to frustrate the important End proposed by the Bill.

Speech of Govr. Dobbs—
to the Assembly of No. Carolina,
Enclosed in the Govr's of 24th. April 1761.