Pleasure thereupon; unless you take care in the passing of such Bill or Bills, that a Clause or Clauses be inserted therein, suspending and deferring the Execution thereof untill Our Royal WILL and PLEASURE shall be known thereupon.

G. R.

Indorsed, "Virginia. Additional Instructions. Rec May 2 1772."

Representation of the Comm" for Trade & Plantations, to His Majesty, dated July 29th 1768, as far as it relates to a Law passed in the Colony of Virginia in 1767, intituled, An Act to compell Ships importing Convicts or indented Servants, infected with the Goal fever or Small Pox, to perform Quarantine.

By this Act the Master of every Vessel importing Convicts or indented Servants is prohibited from allowing any such to quit the Vessel before Entry at the Naval Office, and Oath by him made that none of the said persons have been infected with the Goal fever or small pox at any time within fifty days last past, upon refusal of which Oath, or if it shall appear to such Naval Officer that the said vessel ought to make Quarantine, certain rules and directions in that case given are to be carried into execution; upon a due consideration of this Law (in the course of which we have been attended both by the Agent on the part of the Province, and the Contractor for the Transportation of Convicts, and heard what each had respectively had to offer) we are humbly of opinion that this Law, however unexceptionable in point of principle, does nevertheless contain certain regulations and restrictions of an improper

nature. In particular, the vague and arbitrary powers given to the Naval Officer, the hardships of imposing an Oath to be taken on circumstances, which, in their nature, must be so uncertain and indeterminate, and the severity of the fines, pains, and penalties inflicted on the nonobservance of the provisions contained in this Act, are, in our opinion, liable to great objection, when in addition hereunto, we submit to your Majesty the further consideration how far this Law, by subjecting Masters of British vessels to the above disabilities and restraints may be said to counteract the Spirit of the Act of Parliament for the Transportation of Convicts, we humbly conceive that your Majesty, upon these reasons and suggestions, will think it expedient to signify your Royal Disallowance of this Act.

Indorsed, "Representation to the King, on Three Acts passed in April, 1772."

GOVERNOR EDEN TO LORD DARTMOUTH.

ANNAPOLIS, 29 January 1773

MY LORD,

I am to acknowledge the honour of your Lordships letter of the 4th of November 1772 - No. 1.

The intimation with which your lordship has favoured me of his Majestys most gracious approbation of my conduct gives me the utmost satisfaction and I sincerely wish. that the measures pursued by the lower House of Assembly had been less intemperate and offensive. In popular

Assemblies particular men generally govern the rest and their proceedings take their colour from the temper and views of a few leaders. The moderate and diffident are

carried with the stream, and their silence and acquiescence, by swelling the apparent majority, indicate an approbation of violences they really condemn. This was too much our case in the October Sessions, as well as in the Sessions next before it.

I shall, particularly as your lordship has expressed your opinion of the utility of it, take the earliest opportunity to transmit from time to time, whilst I shall continue in my present station, the acts and proceedings of the legislature of Maryland. In the year 1773, as is observed in my Message to the lower House, p. 85, Lord Baltimore by proclamation settled the fees of Officers. On that occasion the lower House entered a resolve in their proceedings, similar to that your lordship has taken notice of, p. 20. It seems probable that in the year 1733, the lower House had no view beyond the subject before them, viz, the regulation of Officers fees by proclamation, but, whether the lower House in their repetition of this Resolve in October Session 1771, had or not any further views, I cannot certainly inform your lordship. But, the design of their message was I apprehend to represent this regulation of fees and the restriction laid upon the Officers by my proclamation, as an effective tax, and of the general reasoning of it to prove not only that a tax cannot be constitutionally raised without the assent of the peoples representatives but also the peculiar privilege claimed by the lower House in the article of taxation. This claim of privilege is further explained by the messages between the two Houses, p. 53, 56, and was one of the reasons that induced me to recite in my message, p. 86, the opinion of Lord Camden when he was the Kings Attorney General. That both Houses of Assembly in Maryland would with their utmost exertion endeavour to maintain their position, that the people of Maryland are not constitutionally liable to any tax laid without their assent, I have no doubt, and believe the same principle and idea to be generally prevalent in the other Colonies.

The Resolves of the different American Assemblies on the affair of the Stamp Act and the proceedings of the Congress (as it was called) at New York seem to be clear proofs of their disposition and strong attachment to this principle: But yet, my lord, the notion that the regulation of fees and the laying of a tax are the same thing has not been carried so far as to beget an opinion that the fees established for the support of the officers of the Customs appointed by the Crown are not due: For these fees are paid in Maryland without hesitation, and though the regulation of fees by my proclamation has been violently exclaimed against, your lordship perceives nothing has been said with respect to the fees claimed and received by his Majestys officers of the Customs.

I should be extremely sorry if the explanation I am to give your lordship of the motive for passing the Act Ch. 1. should not prove satisfactory; For, I can venture to assure your lordship that this Act was not intended to contravene the Statute in any degree, and that the people in whose favour it was passed have the merit of being most useful subjects. In consequence of the encouragement given by Statute a great number of German Emigrants have settled in North America, particularly in Pennsylvania and the frontier County of Maryland. They are generally an industrious laborious people. Many of them have acquired a considerable share of property. Their improvement of a Wilderness into well stocked plantations, the example and beneficent Effects of their extraordinary industry have raised in no small degree a spirit of emulation among the other inhabitants. That they are a most useful people and merit the public regard is acknowledged by all who are acquainted with them.

It happened that one Mr. Hagar, a German who had been naturalized according to the Statute was elected one of the Burgesses to serve in Assembly for the frontier County. When the Assembly met, it became a question

whether he was eligible or not, and it was determined in the Negative by a Majority of one only, as your lordship will observe on having recourse to the transmitted copy of the votes and proceedings, p. 9. 10.

It was understood that the limitation or proviso in the 13th of George 24 Ch. 7 had been omitted by the general purview of the act Mr. Hagar would have been Eligible, and that the limitation or proviso, "that no person who should become a natural born subject of this Kingdom by virtue of this Act shall be of the privy council or a member of either house of Parliament or capable of taking having or enjoying any office or place of trust within the Kingdom of Great Britain or Ireland, Civil or Military, or of having accepting or taking any grant from the Crown of any lands tenements or hereditaments within the Kingdoms of Great Britain or Ireland." I say, my lord, that this limitation or proviso did not Extend to disqualify Mr. Hagar to be a member of the Maryland Assembly: But, an Act of Assembly having provided that no person disabled by the laws of England from sitting in Parliament should be elected to serve in Assembly, the question arose on the proviso in the Statute and the reference of the Act of Assembly to the laws of England conjunctly; and though a majority of the lower House of Assembly thought Mr. Hagar on this question to be ineligible, yet the Act Ch. 1. unanimously passed for the very purpose, that a person in his situation might in future be chosen a Member of Assembly; and your lordship will perceive on turning to p. 53, 54 that Mr. Hagar was re-elected. Such my lord was my motive for passing the Act Ch. 1, And permit me to assure your lordship, if I had Entertained any Suspicion that this Act impugned in any degree the Statute, I would have dissented to it on that very ground.

In Pennsylvania foreigners naturalized may be chosen members of the Assembly, and there is reason to apprehend that if they should not have (since the point has been