Note 32 — Chapter III · SPANISH GOVERNMENT OF THE NEW WORLD.

This neglect was continued almost to the close. The Duke of Newcastle, who had charge of the colonies during Sir Robert Walpole’s administration, neglected his duties so entirely that he ceased even to read the letters which came to him from America. “It would not be credited what reams of paper, representations, memorials, petitions from that quarter of the world lay mouldering and unopened in his office.”