Note 2 — A “SCRUB-POETICAL” ANSWER TO A GOVERNOR

The official reply to the governor’s message expresses this shrewd inference in prose thus: “But we hope Great Brittaine & the other Powers of Europe may mediate and divert the War with which we are alarm’d & conclude it in a happy and lasting Peace, and this we believe in as much as your Excelly doth not mention in your Speech that the advice you recd in the last ships was from the ministry of Great Brittaine who this House apprehends would have sent forward their Directions had they conceived any immediate Danger of a War.”