that contradictory orders were given by the different officers upon the same points, and more frequently in affairs of difficulty and delicacy no orders were given at all, the responsibility of both officers being set aside by each having it in his power to throw the blame upon the other.
The confusion and embarrassment arising to the King's affairs, and the prejudice and perplexity to those of individuals, who knew not which office to apply to, and were frequently referred from one to another without finding redress in either, gave rise to the Order in Council of the 11th March, 1752, which after vesting in the Board of Trade the patronage of offices, directs that, for the future, Governors shall correspond only with that Board upon all affairs relative to their governments, except in cases of such nature and importance as might require His Majesty's more immediate direction by one of his Secretaries of State, and except also upon all occasions whereon they might receive His Majesty's commands through the Secretary of State, in which cases they were to correspond with the Secretary of State only.
The intentions of these exceptions are well known. The supposed cases were, first, a correspondence which might pass between a Secretary of State and the Governor of any foreign colony upon points which might become subjects of discussion between the different States at home; and, secondly, a state of war, in which all directions must necessarily be given by the Secretary of State.
As the words of the Order were general, and the cases alluded to not expressed, the communication of this Order to the Board of Trade was accompanied with a letter from the Secretary of State to the Board and the copy of one from him to the Governors explanatory of these exceptions, which letters clearly mark out the intention, and confine the construction to the two cases above mentioned, as will fully appear from the annexed copies of the letters themselves and the Order.
The case of war, principally excepted in the Order that restrains the correspondence to the Board of Trade, existing very soon after it was issued, and almost every material transaction of Government in the plantations, both executive or legislative, having reference more or less to this state, the chief correspondence with respect to those colonies which were immediately in the property and possession of the Crown, necessarily passed into the Secretary of State's Office; and with respect to those which were acquired by the success of our arms, they being held necessarily under military government as possessions the fate of which depended upon the issue of the war, they were necessarily and
