Page images
PDF
EPUB

of Rights, made in the first year of the reign of King William and Queen Mary, and perhaps a few other statutes that are fingularly beneficial and favourable to the liberty of the fubject, and then by confirming, in general terms, the rest of the laws of England, both criminal and civil, excepting the penal laws against the exercise of the Popish religion, which fhould be declared to be (what they have always been understood to be,) utterly null and void with respect to that province; and excepting, alfo, the laws relating to the tenures of land, the manner of conveying it, and the laws of dower and inheritance, at leaft with refpect to the children. of marriages already contracted, or which fhall be contracted before a given future day, and declaring, that upon thefe fubjects the former French laws of the province should

be in force.

But the laws of England, which difqualify Papifts from holding places of truft and profit, ought ftill to be continued in the province, though the penal laws fhould be abolished; the former laws being not laws of perfecution, but of felf-defence. Yet the King might, if he pleafed, extend his bounty to thofe people who figned the French petition, and to fuch other perfons of the Roman-Catholick religion, as he thought fit, by granting them penfions.

Alfo, it would be proper to abolish the feigneurial Jurifdictions in Canada, for the fatisfaction of the great body of the freeholders of the province. If this cannot be done confiftently with justice, and the terms of the capitulation granted by Sir Jeffery Amherst, in September, 1760,without giving the feigniors a pecuniary compenfation for the lofs of these jurifdictions, (though I incline to think it might,) fuch pecuniary compenfations ought to be given them. The expence of a week's extraordinaries to the army at Boston would be more than fufficient to make these compenfations in a large and ample manner.

THIRDLY.

THIRDLY.-Having thus afcertained the laws of the province of Quebeck, it would be proper to provide for the convenient administration of juftice in it, either by adopting the plan fet-forth above, in pages 343, 359, or fome other that shall be thought fitter for the purpose.

FOURTHLY.-To provide a competent legislature for the province of Quebeck. The beft legislature that could be provided for it would, as I believe, be á Proteftant Affembly chofen by the freeholders of the country, whether Proteftants or Roman-Catholicks. The next beft, I fhould be inclined to think, would be a Legislative Council, confifting of Proteftants only, (fuch as is proposed in the draught of an Act of Parliament, contained in the Account of the Proceedings of the British and other Proteftant inhabitants of the province of Quebeck in North-America in order to obtain a boufe of Affembly in that province, lately published and fold by B. White in Fleet-Street,) to be established for only feven years; in which all the members thould be made independent of the Governor, fo as to be neither removeable nor fufpendible by him upon any occafion whatfoever, though they might be removed by the King, by his order in his Privy Council. They should be thirty-one in number, or perhaps more; and fhould all fign the ordinances for which they gave their votes, and should be paid forty fhillings each, every time they attended the meetings of the Council, in order to induce them to attend in confiderable numbers; as the Juftices of the Peace in England are intitled to a pecuniary allowance for attending the Quarter-Seffions of the Peace, and the Directors of the Eaft-India Company, for attending the meetings upon the affairs of the Company, and the members of the Houfe of Commons are intitled to wages from their conftituents. attending Parliament, though now they forbear demanding them. But they should receive no general falaries from the Crown, not depending upon their attendances; as fuch a

practice

practice can tend to nothing but to make them dependent on the Crown, and contemptible in the eyes of the people. Next to fuch a legislative Council, confifting of Proteftants only, a general Assembly of the people, confifting of Proteftants and Papifts indifcriminately, feems the most proper legislature for the province. And to the establishment of fuch an Affembly but few objections can now be made; fince the English fettlers in the province, on the one hand, have declared that they are willing to acquiefce in the establishment of fuch an Affembly; and the King and ParJiament, on the other hand, (by paffing the Quebeck-Act, and permitting Roman-Catholicks to hold all forts of offices, feats in the legislative council of the province, judicial offices, and even military commiffions,) have declared that they confider the old opinion, "that Roman Catholicks were not fit perfons to be invefted with authority under the British Government," as ill-grounded with refpect to the province of Quebeck. For certainly, if there is any hardship in excluding Papifts from holding places of truft and profit in the province, there is a fill greater hardship in excluding them from being chofen members of an Affembly of the province.

FIFTHLY.-To repeal the Bofton-charter Act; and to pass a refolution in both Houfes of Parliament, that for the future, no charter of any American colony fhall be takenaway, or altered in any point, by the British Parliament, without, either on the one hand, a Petition for that purpose, to the two Houfes of Parliament, or to the King's Majefty, from the Affembly of fuch colony, whofe charter is proposed to be either taken away or altered, or, on the other hand, a fuit at law, by a writ of Scire facias, to repeal the faid charter, regularly carried-on in the Court of Chancery in England, upon a charge of fome abufe of the powers of the said charter, by the people of fuch colony, or of fome other misdemeanour committed by them, which may

he

be a legal ground of forfeiture of the fame, and a judgement of forfeiture pronounced in confequence of such fuit after a full hearing of the fame, and also a re-hearing in Parliament of the charges in the said fuit, and of the proofs brought in fupport of them, and of the arguments which may be alledged both for and against the faid colonies by Counfel, and an approbation and confirmation of fuch judgement of forfeiture by both Houses of Parliament in confequence of the faid re-hearing of the whole matter.

Such a refolution of the two Houses of Parliament would give the Americans a strong moral affurance that the privileges granted them by their charters would not be lightly and wantonly altered for the future upon the hafty fuggeftions of men little acquainted with their history and condition, and whofe notions of Government are very different from their own.

SIXTHLY.-To repeal the trial-act, for trying Officers or Soldiers, who fhall be indicted for murder in the Maffachufet's bay, in others of the American provinces, or in England. This Act, I am perfuaded, was intended only for the purposes of juftice, and to procure a fair trial to the officers and foldiers who fhould happen to be indicted for actions done by them in the courfe of their duty as affiftants to the civil magiftrate in the execution of the laws, and not to screen them from punishment when they were really guilty of murder, or had occafioned the death of his Majefty's fubjects in that province without fuch juft and lawful caufe. And I am further perfuaded that, in fact, it would not fcreen them from punishment, when the charge was fupported by proper teftimony; but that the Juries that fhould try these indictments, whether in England or in America, would readily convict fuch officers. and foldiers of murder, if they were really guilty of it, and proved to be fo by fufficient evidence. But the diffi

culty

culty of procuring the witneffes to the facts to come across the Atlantick ocean to give evidence concerning them, is fo great that it may almoft be confidered as unfurmountable; and consequently this method of trying those offences may be reckoned to be impracticable, notwithstanding the fpirit of justice and impartiality by which the Juries would probably be governed. And for this reason the Act ought to be repealed. However, as this Act is only a temporary one, and will expire of itself in two years, it is a matter of much less confequence than the Quebeck Act and the Act for altering the charter of the Maffachufet's bay. Those are the Acts which have brought-on this civil war, and which, I apprehend, must be totally repealed before peace can be restored.

SEVENTHLY.-To pass a refolution of both Houses of Parliament, that, for the future, no tax or duty of any kind fhall be impofed by authority of the Parliament of Great-Britain, upon his Majefty's fubjects refiding in thofe provinces of North-America, in which affemblies of the people are established, until the faid provinces shall have been permitted to fend reprefentatives to the British Parliament: excepting only fuch taxes or duties upon goods exported out of, and imported into, the faid provinces as shall be thought neceffary for the regulation of the trade of the faid provinces; and that, when such taxes, or duties, fhall be laid by the British Parliament on any of the faid provinces, the whole amount of the same shall be difpofed-of by the Affemblies of the provinces in which they fhall be collected, refpectively.

EIGHTHLY. That all the quit-rents, and other royal dues, collected in the provinces of America, fhall be appropriated to the maintenance of the civil governments in the fame, and fhall be employed in the payment of the falaries of the Governors, and Judges, and Sheriffs, or

Provost

« PreviousContinue »