And we do hereby further Impower and require you Our said Commissioners to take into your care all Records, Grants and Papers remaining in the Plantation Office or thereunto belonging.

And likewise to inform your selves of the present condition of Our respective Plantations, as well with regard to the Administration of the Government and Justice in those places, as in relation to the Commerce thereof; And also to inquire into the Limits of Soyle and Product of Our severall Plantations and how the same may be improved, and of the best means for easing and securing Our Colonies there, and how the same may be rendred most usefull and beneficiall to our said Kingdom of England.

And we do hereby further impower and require you Our said Commissioners, more particularly and in a principal manner to inform yourselves what Navall Stores may be furnished from Our Plantations, and in what Quantities, and by what methods Our Royall purpose of having our Kingdom supplied with Navall Stores from thence may be made practicable and promoted; And also to inquire into and inform your selves of the best and most proper methods of settling and improving in Our Plantations, such other Staples and other Mau[n]ufactures as Our subjects of England are now obliged to fetch and supply themselves withall from other Princes and States; And also what Staples and Manufactures may be best encouraged there, and what Trades are taken up and exercised there, which are or may prove prejudiciall to England, by furnishing themselves or other Our Colonies with what has been usually supplied from England; And to finde out proper means of diverting them from such Trades, and whatsoever else may turne to the hurt of Our Kingdom of England.

And to examin and looke into the usuall Instructions given to the Governors of Our Plantations, and to see if any thing may be added, omitted or changed therein to advantage; To take an Account yearly by way of Journal of the Administration of Our Governors there, and to draw out what is proper to be observed and represented unto Us; And as often as occasion shall require to consider of proper persons to be Governors or Deputy Governors, or to be of Our Councill or of Our Council at Law, or Secretarys, in Our respective Plantations, in order to present their Names to Us in Councill.

And we do hereby further Authorize and impower you Our said Commissioners, to examin into and weigh such Acts of the Assemblies of the Plantations respectively as shall from time to time be sent or

transmitted hither for Our Approbation; And to set down and represent as aforesaid the Usefulness or Mischeif thereof to Our Crown, and to Our said Kingdom of England, or to the Plantations themselves, in case the same should be established for Lawes there; And also to consider what matters may be recommended as fitt to be passed in the Assemblys there, To heare complaints of Oppressions and maleadministrations, in Our Plantations, in order to represent as aforesaid what you in your Discretions shall thinke proper; And also to require an Account of all Monies given for Publick uses by the Assemblies in Our Plantations, and how the same are and have been expended or laid out.

E. B. O'Callaghan, editor, Documents relative to the Colonial History of the State of New-York (Albany, 1854), IV, 145-148 passim.

47. "Englishmen Hate an Arbitrary Power"

(1710)

BY JOHN WISE

Wise was one of the foremost prose writers of the colonial period, and minister at Ipswich.-Bibliography: Tyler, American Literature, II, 104-116; Palfrey, New England, III, 525-527; Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, VI, ch. i; J. A. Doyle, English in America, Puritan Colonies, II, 378; Channing and Hart, Guide, § 130.

E

`NGLISHMEN hate an arbitrary power (politically considered) as they hate the devil.

For that they have through immemorial ages been the owners of very fair infranchizements and liberties, that the sense, favor or high esteem of them are (as it were) extraduce, transmitted with the elemental materials of their essence from generation to generation, and so ingenate and mixed with their frame, that no artifice, craft or force used can root it out. Naturam expellas furca licet usque recurrit. And though many of their incautelous princes have endeavored to null all their charter rights and immunities, and agrandize themselves in the servile state of the subjects, by setting up their own seperate will, for the great standard of government over the nations, yet they have all along paid dear for their attempts, both in the ruin of the nation, and in interrupting the increase of their own grandeur, and their foreign settlements and conquests.

Had the late reigns, before the accession of the great William and Mary, to the throne of England, but taken the measures of them, and her present majesty, in depressing vice, and advancing the union. and wealth, and encouraging the prowice and bravery of the nation, they might by this time have been capable to have given laws to any monarch on earth; but spending their time in the pursuit of an absolute monarchy (contrary to the temper of the nation, and the ancient constitution of the government) through all the meanders of state craft : It has apparently kept back the glory, and dampt all the most noble affairs of the nation. And when under the midwifry of Machiavilan art, and cunning of a daring prince, this MONSTER, tyranny, and arbitrary government, was at last just born, upon the holding up of a finger! or upon the least signal given, ON the whole nation goes upon this HYDRA.

The very name of an arbitrary government is ready to put an Englishman's blood into a fermentation; but when it really comes, and shakes its whip over their ears, and tells them it is their master, it makes them stark mad; and being of a memical genius, and inclined to follow the court mode, they turn arbitrary too.

That some writers, who have observed the governments and humors of nations, thus distinguish the English:

The emperor (say they) is the king of kings, the king of Spain is the king of men, the king of France the king of asses, and the king of England the king of devils; for that the English nation can never be bridled, and rid by an arbitrary prince. Neither can any chains put on by dispotic and arbitrary measures hold these legions. . . . to conclude this plea, I find not amongst all the catalogues of heroes or worthy things in the English empire, peers to these undertakers; therefore we must needs range them with the arbitrary princes of the earth, (such as the great Czar or Ottoman monarch) who have no other rule to govern by, but their own will. . . .

John Wise, The Churches Quarrel Espoused (Boston, 1772), No. ii, 147– 148.

Dummer was a minister in New England, but later entered into English politics. He was agent of Massachusetts in England from 1710 to 1721. This is the most famous statement of the rights of the colonies in this period. - Bibliography: Tyler, American Literature, II, 116-120; Palfrey, New England, IV, 277-580 passim; J. A. Doyle, English in America, Puritan Colonies, II, 371-372; Channing and Hart, Guide, § 130.- For previous discussions of charters, see Contemporaries, I, Nos. 67, 105 109, 114, 116, 135.

ΤΗ

The 2d Charge in the Bill

against the Charter Governments, that they have exercis'd arbi

trary Power, answer'd.

HE other Charge in the Bill is, That they have exercis'd arbitrary Power. If this be aim'd at the Proprietary Governments, which however I don't accuse, I have nothing to say, but am sure that the Charter Governments stand clear of it. The Thing speaks loudly for itself. For in the Governments, where there are Charters, and those Charters entire, all Officers Civil and Military are elected by the People, and that annually; than which Constitution nothing under Heaven can be a stronger Barrier against arbitrary Rule. For should it be allow'd, that the People, corrupted or deceiv'd, might instead of wise Magistrates chuse Tyrants and Oppressors to Lord over them one Year; yet it can't be imagin'd, that after they have felt the Smart of it, they will do so the next. Nor can there be a greater Obligation on the Rulers themselves to administer Justice, than that their Election depends on it the next Year. Hence the frequent Choice of Magistrates has bin ever a main Pillar, upon which all who have aim'd at Freedom in their Schemes of Government, have depended.

AS the Reason is incontestable, so the Fact is apparent, that these Governments, far from retrenching the Liberty of the Subject, have improv'd it in some important Articles, which the Circumstances of Things in Great Britain perhaps don't require, or won't easily admit.

To instance in a few; There has bin from the beginning an Office erected by Law in every County, where all Conveyances of Land are enter'd at large, after the Grantors have first acknowledg'd them before a Justice of Peace; by which means much Fraud is prevented, no Person being able to sell his Estate twice, or take up more Money upon it than it's worth. Provision has likewise bin made for the Security of the Life and Property of the Subject in the Matter of Juries, who are

not return'd by the Sherriff of the County, but are chosen by the Inhabitants of the Town a convenient Time before the sitting of the Courts. And this Election is under the most exact Regulation, in Order to prevent Corruption, so far as Humane Prudence can do it. It must be noted, that Sherriffs in the Plantations are comparatively but little Officers, and therefore not to be trusted as here, where they are Men of ample Fortunes. And yet even here such flagrant Corruptions have bin found in returning Juries by Sherriffs, that the House of Commons thought it necessary in their last Session to amend the Law in this Point, and pass'd a Bill for choosing them by Ballot.

REDRESS in their Courts of Law is easy, quick, and cheap. All Processes are in English, and no special Pleadings or Demurrers are admitted, but the general Issue is always given, and special Matters brought in Evidence; which saves Time and Expence; and in this Case a Man is not liable to lose his Estate for a Defect in Form, nor is the Merit of the Cause made to depend on the Niceties of Clerkship. By a Law of the Country no Writ may be abated for a circumstantial Error, such as a slight Mis-nomer or any Informality. And by another Law, it is enacted, that every Attorney taking out a Writ from the Clerk's Office, shall indorse his Sirname upon it, and be liable to pay to the adverse Party his Costs and Charges in Case of Non-Prosecution or Discontinuance, or that the Plaintiff be Non-suit, or Judgment pass against him. And it is provided in the same Act, That if the Plaintiff shall suffer a Nonsuit by the Attorney's mis-laying the Action, he shall be oblig'd to draw a new Writ without a Fee, in case the Party shall see fit to revive the Suit. I can't but think that every Body, except Gentlemen of the long Robe and the Attornies, will think this a wholesome Law, and well calculated for the Benefit of the Subject. For the quicker Dispatch of Causes, Declarations are made Parts of the Writ, in which the Case is fully and particularly set forth. If it be matter of Account, the Account is annex'd to the Writ, and Copies of both left with the Defendant; which being done Fourteen Days before the Sitting of the Court, he is oblig'd to plead directly, and the Issue is then try'd. Whereas by the Practice of the Court of King's Bench, Three or Four Months Time is often lost after the Writ is serv'd, before the Cause can be brought to Issue.

NOR are the People of New-England oppress'd with the infinite Delays and Expence that attend the Proceedings in Chancery, where both Parties are often ruin'd by the Charge and Length of the Suit. But as