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Show 322 I ACTS RELATING Part III. Seé‘t. II. TO THE COLONIES. 323 governor of Mafiachufet's Bay to procure, verfion the more wanton, becaufe com- and tranfmit, the fullefi information touch- litted by thofe very perfons, to whom, if ing all treafons, or mifprifions of treafons, committed fince the thirteenth of Decem- a law for the purpofe had been advifcable, it belonged to make one: " Durum eI't tor- ber 1767, in order that his majefty might iITue a fpecial commiflion fer trying the " quere leges, ad hoc ut torqueant homi- {aid Offences wit/tin this realm, purfuant to. men, let the laws at leaft efcape untor- the fiatute of Henry VIII 9*. tured.--Yet more :--Confider the pream- " nes *1" Whatever is to be done to the This proceeding has been the fubjeét of ble of the act, and nothing will appear much cenfure ; nor is it to be wondered at. {0 monfirous as this application of it. The treafons‘fpoken of in the preamble, the treaibns confequently which, and which alone it was the defign of the ac}: to put in a The objeélions againf'c it are plaufible: thus at lealtl am bound to believe, who once was fwayed by them. A more atten- tive conlideration has obliged me to alter my opinion. courfe of trial, are " treafons " committed " out of the king's dominions." To ap- The fiatute, it has been faid, was made ply this to the cafe of treafons committed before any colonies exified; it could not therefore have the cafe of the colonies in in Mafiachufet's Bay, What is it but to declare that Madachufet's Bay is not within contemplation. To refort to it therefore the king's dominions? This is going far- as a warrant for trying men for treafons, ther in favour of American pretentious, alledged to have been committed in the co- than even the mof't fanguine American ever lonies, is a perverfion of the law; a per9* Lord Bacon, Dc Augm. feient. lib. viii. c. * 35 Henry VIII. c. 2. xxxii.. p. 108. Com. Journ. vol. 3. Aphor. xiii. Anno 1);?‘5. verfion 'Y 2 dreamt |