managed by a few cunning persons among tliem that lead the rest as tliey please, who are for the generality a laborious and honest but a headstrong ignorant people.

SECRETARY CLARKE TO M^' WALPOLE.

N. York Nov. 27th, 1722.

Sir

I find myself obliged to give you the trouble of this to prevent the malice of my enemies who bearing w^^ impatience their ill succes hitlierto are now with new hopes about to attack me from another quarter: I will be as short as possible.

Brigadier Hunter wanting Certificates from the palatins themselves to prove that he had subsisted them pursuant to ye Queens orders & his acco'^ sent me a draft of a certificate giving me liberty w**iall to alter it if I saw occasion and wrote to several others of liis friends here to consult w"i me and to be assisting in the affair, I considered his draft as thurroughly as I could shewed the Gov'^ & some others those parts w^h I tliought most liable to objections & discoursing upon the capricious humours of those people I proposed some alterations in tlie draft of ye Certificate to make it go down the better, and a paragraph at the end to still their fears of entering thereby into an additional obligation to repay the King the money expended for their Subsistance how idlesoever this would have been were they reasonable men it was then thought pertinent enough, I s;iewed the Brigadeer's friends who vouchsafed to talk w*'^ me the alterations I liad made and receiving their approbation I gave it to one of them w'h my earnest request to proceed w"' the utmost laution and temper he took it and went to albany wth the Gov^" round about w^h place most of the palatins live, and wliere tjiey were to wait on his Ex^y to inform him what progres they liad made in the purchase of Some lands in the Indian Country by his leave but no sooner were these Gentlemen got together but they rejected what I had done declaring that unles y^ palatins Signed tlie Certificate Sent by the Brigadier w^ut alterations