The election of counsellors was carried the last year as might have been expected from such an house. The officers of the crown and the judges of the superior court were excluded. And I hear that it is the design of some who expect to be returned members of the house this year to make sure work at the ensuing election of counsellors, by excluding, if they can, the gentlemen of the council (who by charter remain such ’till others are chosen in their room) from any share in the choice, tho’ they have always had their voice in it hitherto from the first arrival of the charter. If the house do this, they will have it in their power to model the council as they please, and throw all the powers of government into the hands of the people, unless the governor should again exert his negative as he did the last year. You have doubtless seen some of the curious messages from the late house to the governor, and can’t but have observed with how little decency they have attacked both the governor and the lieutenant governor. They have also in effect forced the council to declare themselves parties in the quarrel they had against the latter in a matter of mere indifference. In their message to the governor of the 31st of January they have explicitly charged the lieutenant governor (a gentleman to whom they are more indebted than to any one man in the government) with “ambition and lust of power”, merely for paying a compliment to the governor agreeable to ancient usage, by attending him to court and being present in the council-chamber when he made his speech at the opening of the session; at which time they go on to say, “none but the general court and their servants are intended to be present”, still holding out to the people the servants of the crown as objects of insignificance, ranking the secretary with their door-keeper, as servants of the assembly; for the secretary with his clerks and the door-keeper are the only persons present with the assembly on these occasions.