WE His Majesties most Loyal and dutiful Subjects, the Representatives of the Province of the Massachusetts-Bay in New-England, doe most humbly crave leave to present to Your Excellency, our most Sincere and Hearty Congratulations for Your safe Arrival within this part of Your Government. And at the same time, in Your Il­lustrious Presence, to render our acknowledgements to Almighty GOD for the many instances of His special Providence and Benignity, both to Your Excellency and this People manifested, from Your designation unto Your Accession to this Province.

We cannot but admire the manifest footsteps of a Gracious Providence in determining the Royal Heart of His Sacred Majesty, to choose and appoint Your Lordship to be Governour in Chief of this Province; and its no less a wonder, that Your Excellency, a Person of so Noble a Virtue, and standing so near the fountain of Honour, and fair for greater preferments, should entertain the thoughts of moving to so remote a Province: We will believe and say, because Almighty GOD, and our Great KING WILLIAM, Loved this People, Your Excellency is made their GOVERNOUR.

[Page 2]We must next Express our sence of the Divine Goodness to Your Excellency, that preserved You in a tedious and difficult Voyage upon an Element not the most friendly to the firmest Constitutions, and in a season not only rarely free from dangers, but unusually severe and hazzardous; but above all, we are obliged to remark the propitiousness of Heaven, in securing Your Excellencies Person and Your Noble Family from the Contagion that ha's made the Island You put in at, the Grave of an Unaccountable number of Brave and Generous English men.

And since that; We have had fresh causes of adoring the Almighties continued Goodness in the preserving Your Excellency, during Your abode in that Unhappily divided part of Your Government, which You so lately left: and in blessing Your Lordship with that Wisdom, and Conduct that is become Conspicuous, by Your leaving our Neigh­bours less unhappy, because more Composed than of late they have been.

We cannot look upon these passages of the Divine Providence to­wards Your Excellency, but with the deepest Gratitude and Acknow­ledgments, because they are so many Pledges, and create in us such Vigo­rous hopes, of our abiding happiness under Your Lordships Influence and Conduct thus reserved to us, by such and so many Peculiar In­stances of the favour and care of Heaven.

Give us leave, SIR, only to assure Your Excellency, That We (and we now Address Your Excellency as the Representative Body of this Province) in our several Stations, as we are in right and Gratitude bound, shall express our Loyalty to His Sacred Majesty in all Dutifulness and Obedience to Your Excellency, the Image and Character of our Great and most Gracious Sovereign.

And now with the United Devotion of this Province, We hum­bly Implore the same Almighty Providence still to continue Your Pro­tector: and may Your Lordships Health be restored and perfectly Confirmed, Your Government here sure, steady and lasting, Your happiness continue and Increase, until it be perfected in the Eternal Kingdom.