Since 1720 William Burnet, a son of Bishop Burnet, had been governor of New York and New Jersey, whither he had gone to retrieve a fortune lost in stock speculations; and with a numerous family to support, he felt the necessity of it. The new king relieved him of some embarrassment, occasioned by a growing unpopularity in his government, by directing his transfer to the vacant chair of Massachusetts, signing his commission in March. He reached Boston July 13, and as he was escorted to the Bunch of Grapes tavern[259] the people marked his noticeable presence and his suave manners, and might have predicted a calmer sway from him than proved to be in store. He was flattered by his reception, and even ordered the publication of some eulogistic verses, which Mather Byles, the clerical wit of the time, addressed to him.[260] [Illustration: GEORGE II. From a print in Entick’s _Gen. Hist. of the late War_ (2d ed. 1765) vol. ii., frontispiece.] His instructions were of the sort that the province had got used to, though perhaps they hinted more pointedly of the danger which awaited the charter, if the salary question was not agreeably settled. Burnet’s speech opened the legislative war. The assembly answered it by voting him a larger allowance than was usual,—but still an allowance. The town of Boston had the speech read to it in town meeting, and voted _nemine contradicente_, as we read in the records,[261] in the assembly’s spirit. The House now asked to be prorogued. The governor refused, thinking the £1,000 a month which the sitting cost might bring them to terms. This failing, he resorted to manœuvres which even Chalmers censures. He removed the General Court to Salem, when, in a sort of grim irony, it recorded a resolve to legalize proceedings passed in an unaccustomed place, and consequently unconstitutional, as they claimed. The House now addressed a memorial to the king and refused the governor a copy of it, and, helped by Boston merchants to pay the cost, the representatives despatched Jonathan Belcher to coöperate with Francis Wilks, now the resident agent in London, in obtaining the king’s favorable attention to their plea. This appeal gave the governor a pretext for releasing the legislature for three months,—and perhaps the device of the House had that purpose.