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Show Acrs RELATING 18 Part I. a governor and council ; then a governor, council, and allembly. Sefl. I. TO THE COLONIES. 19 In Gibraltar and Minor-ca the king not only prefcribed the firf't form of go- Nor was this power oftheking over con- vernment, quered, or acquired countries, either (lifputed by the nation, or relinquilhed by the The reader will ealily perceive, that the cafe of New England, in this inflanee, was, in many refpeéls, different from that, either ofa conquered or crown even after the Revolution. new fettled country. Here were no enemies to yield At the time of the Revolution the char- themfelves on certain conditions; no aliens, no {uh- ter of the New Englanders flood vacated by a judgment of the court of king's bench. jeéts to expofe themfelves to expenees and hazards They petitioned king William for the renewal of it: whilft the petition was yet under confideration, the king enquired " whether, Without breach of law, /zc " might appoint a governor over New " England?" To which the lord chief juflz'ce, and other lords of the council, anfwered, " That (whatever might be the " men}: of the caule) inelinuch as the char- " ter off-Jew England l'tood vacated by a " iudgment againfi; them, it was in the " king's power to put them under what " form of government lze thought belt for " them?" I n *5 See Neale's Hif'tory of New-England, Vol. ii. The p- 476- on a promife of certainprivileges.---'I‘hey were {ub- jeéts who (it'the fentence againf't them was jul't) had violated their part of a compaét :--and were therefore to receive from the fovereign power, {och con-ditions as it was his pleafure to allow them. Yet even 12m: the interference of parliament was not propoted; but it was {aid to be in the king's power to put them under what form of government he thought bell: for them. It is probable, that governnor Barnard had this tranfac'tion in View, when, in the preface to his letters, he regrets it " as an un" fortunate omiflion of policy, that at the Revolu" tion the conflitution of the government ofAmerica " was not fetrled by parliament; and the rights oé‘ " the imperial ftate over them acknowledged, with " fuch regulations and limitations, as the {everal " natures of them, upon conflitutional principlrs " and good policy, fltouldrequire."--~And no doubt, the prefent only excepted, there never was a moment where the parliament could have taken on itfelfthc power of regulating the forms of government in the different colonies, on fuch unexcrpzionable grounds. (I 2 The |