The Virginia Gazette

BOSTON, June 8

Copy of a letter from a Gentleman of undoubted veracity in London to his friend in this city, dated April 11.

"I am glad to find, by your letter of the 21st of December, that your General Court has at length had the grace to make a just compensation to the sufferers in the late riots. They did not do it too soon, for about the time of the arrival of the news a disposition was rising here to make a strict inquiry why it was so long delayed.

What you mention of your divisions has proved a great misfortune for both countries, for I cannot but consider their interest as the same, and think that no one can injure the one without hurting the other. We are now beginning to see our error, and are uniting here in one opinion with regard to supporting the honour of the Crown and the authority of the Legislature. The open disobedience of the Assembly of New York to the act for quartering the soldiers has raised a spirit in Parliament which I have not seen before. All now agree that Government would be no more, if it suffered any of its subjects to dispute its supreme authority. The Lord Chancellor, some time ago, said that that colony was in a state of delinquency; and every member of the Administration, in both Houses, hath, in the strongest terms, declared that they would go as far as any men in maintenance of the King's rights. The First Lord of the Treasury, and the Secretary of State, intimated in the House of Lords last week that Lord Chatham, with the assistance of the Lord Chancellor and Lord President, &c. is preparing a bill for this purpose, and a plan for carrying it into execution: The ready obedience of Pennsylvania was mentioned to their honour, and a just distinction seems intended to be made between the different provinces, according to their different behaviour. I am sorry to find that your Assembly has been brought to imitate that of New York. Those men surely must have very little regard to the interest of the province who have been using every art to mislead an honest well meaning people, for their own factious purposes.

Not that you have any ground of fear from the measures now taking. All passions, prejudice, and resentment, have been most fully disclaimed; and the persons who are to form and execute the plan are the very men whom your people have been taught to think your best friends, and are raising statues to. Far from injustice, therefore, you have nothing to expect but what shall be dictated by sentiments of the utmost consideration and good will. I know that Mr. Grenville, whose estimation and authority in Parliament is rising every day, has not the least resentment against the colonies, and am persuaded that the plan would be formed by him with full as much moderation; but the strong prejudices which are now prevailing in your country in favour of Lord Chatham make it more desirable that this business should be entered on by him and Lord Camden than any one else.

I have attended the House of Lords the three days on which the American affairs have been mentioned there. Much was said yesterday about your tacking an act of indemnity to that for the compensation. Acts of grace can originate only in the Crown. Lord Shelburne was amazed that his letter could have given the least countenance to the passing of it, but Lord Mansfield excused the Governor. The Council will certainly declare that part void; but that need give no alarm, because something equivalent will be done here. The intended bill is to begin in the House of Commons. The attention of that House has for some time been engaged in the East India business; but they have resolved, on the 30th instant, immediately after the recess, to take the American papers into consideration.

Lord Mansfield yesterday, in the House of Lords, made one of the finest speeches I ever heard, upon the wickedness and folly of your incendiaries; who, against the conviction of their own minds, are endeavouring to raise jealousies, and alienate the affections of his Majesty's subjects in America from his government here; and upon the fatal tendency of such a separation between them, if it could be effected; as that must necessarily produce dissensions among yourselves, and wars between the several provinces, for want of a common arbiter, and at last end in a state of subjection to some foreign Power, who would draw the bonds of subjection much tighter than they ever were before. All that he said carried conviction to his hearers, from the arguments he used, and the nature of things themselves. I hope that those reasonings will never come to be verified by experiment."

The above is a genuine letter, wrote by a Gentleman who never was in America.