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Show 106 Acrs RELATING Part If: only, that they might not forfeit the rights they could otherwife have exercifed here, that they might not be punilhed as fugiv tives, nor their children difinherited as aliens. Sect. II, To THE COLONIES. 107 merit to a majority of the adventurers, yet what did the fettlers gain by this? The electors rcfided in England, and the couneil fate in England. The Americans, I believe, would hardly Their lands 'tis true are granted in free contend for fuch a government as this. and common foccage, and comprelled, by force of a fiflion, within a {mall dif'trié'c of the mother country. \Vhat right refults from this .P Make the molt of it, no other They would think themfelves fafer, I-am than that of voting in the election of reprefentatives for that difiric‘t. The king indeed promifes that he will lay no impol'ts, for a certain limited pe- riod; and accepts a flipulated {um inlieu of all impof'ts thereafter. But what exemptions did the fettlers gain by this E The power ofimpofing taxes on them was {till vetted in a council efiablifhed at L072- a'an; that is, in an elcétive ariflocracy. By the firft charter this council was to be appointed by the king, and though the le- cond charter gave the power of appointment perfuaded, in the hands of a Britilh parliament, than in thofe of an ariflocratical council f0 elected. The provilions of thefe charters were calculated for an exclufive trading company. Colonization was confidered only as {uhfervient to commerce: the rights of the colonift would have been buried under the weight of mercantile iriterefl. But in truth thefe companies fublil}~ no longer. The lands which were granted to them, have, either by the authority of fucceeding kings, or by the acts of their own council, been parcelled out to other adventurers. A clutter of governments have arifen, and if the prefent claims of the Americans are to be fupported by 6 char- " autumn |