The New Hampshire Gazette And Historical Chronicle

B O S T O N, July 17:

Last Saturday Mr. Hancock, Col. Bowers, Major Hawley, Col. Buckminster, and Mr. Otis, a Committee of the Hon. House of Representatives, waited upon the GOVERNOR of this Province with their ANSWER to His Excellency's MESSAGES of the 6th and 12th Instant:

May it please your EXCELLENCY,

The House of Representatives have contemplated your several Messages of the 6th and 12th Instant, as fully as the Time to which you were pleased to limit them would admit. And as General Gage's Letter on this Subject dated 12th of May, of which we were favoured with an Extract only, must have been received before the Meeting of the General Assembly, we think it very extraordinary that your Excellency should suffer five or six Weeks to elapse before you thought proper to give us the least Intimation of this Matter. It is also surprising that as the Barrack Master General, Col. Robinson, was in Boston near a Month, the greater Part of which Time the General Assembly was sitting, we never before heard of this "Demand" which he had "the Honor to make" as he is pleased to express himself in his Letter to your Excellency of the 15th of June. It is wonderful indeed that this House should have no Notice of that Demand till the 6th Instant, and that a quickening Message should so soon follow. Between the Messages Lord's Day intervening, the House had adjourned as usual from Saturday to Monday. But it is truly astonishing that when the gracious Desires of Majesty itself, of Aids in Men and Money, in the late War, in which we freely bled with our Fellow Subjects and Brethren of Great-Britain, as well as America, and on other less arduous Occasions, have with Royal Clemency and great Condescension ever been intimated in the Form only of a Requisition, the Barrack Master General should hold so high and peremptory a Tone as the word Demand must necessarily imply. The Indignity thus offered to your Excellency's Commission would have been an Affair entirely between your Excellency and the Barrack Master General, had it not been communicated to us as an Appendix, nor accompanied your Message of the 6th Instant, the Subject of which we shall now more immediately consider.

The Publick Proceedings of this House we trust will sufficiently evince to the whole World and to all posterity the Idea, we entertain of the sudden Introduction of a Fleet and Army here; of the unparallelled Methods us'd to procure this Armament, and of the indefatigable Pains of your Excellency and a few interested Persons to keep up a standing Force, here by Sea and Land in a Time of profound Peace, under the mere Pretence, of the Necessity of such a Force to aid the Civil Authority. But were it a Time of War, and the Necessity of such a Force ever so great, of which it is admitted the King by Virtue of his undoubted Prerogative of marching his Armies, and directing his Fleets to any Part of his Realms or Dominions, is the sole Judge, yet Sir, it should be remembered that the very Nature of a free Constitution requires that those Fleets and those Armies should be supported only by the Aids voluntarily granted by the Commons. Thus till very lately they have been supported, not only in Great-Britain & Ireland, but in all the British Dominions.

May it please Your Excellency, We are now constrained to be very explicit upon the Funds proposed, and the Law alluded to, both in your Message of the 6th Instant, and in the Extract of General Gage's Letter before us. By Funds we presume is meant a Provision for the Reimbursement of such Expences as have been occasioned, or may accrue, in Consequence of quartering the Troops here; and by Law we presume is meant the Mutiny Act, so commonly call'd, which was pass'd in the 6th Year of the Reign of our most gracious Sovereign. By this Act it is declared the Officers and Soldiers quarter'd as therein more particularly expressed, shall from Time to Time be furnished and supplied by a Person or Persons to be authorized or appointed for that Purpose by the Governor and Council of each respective Province, or upon the Neglect or Refusal of such Governor and Council in any Province, then by two or more Justices of the Peace residing in or near the Place of quartering, with Fire, and other enumerated Articles; and that the respective Provinces shall repay such Person or Persons all such Sum or Sums of Money by him or them paid for the taking, hiring, and fitting up uninhabited Houses, and for furnishing the Officers and Soldiers therein, and in the Barracks, with Fire, and the other enumerated Articles; and such Sum or Sums are by said Act required to be raised in such Manner as the public Charges for the Provinces respectively are raised: And it is also further declared by the said Act, that the extraordinary Expences of Carriages shall be paid by the Province or Colony where the same shall arise.

From hence it is obvious that a Governor and Council have no more Right by this Act to draw any Money out of the Colony Treasury than the two Justices mentioned therein. The duty prescribed is entirely confined to the Appointment of a Person or Persons to furnish and supply the Articles in said Act mentioned. Such is the Unreasonableness and Severity of the Act, that it leaves to the Assemblies not the least Colour of a Privilege, but only the pitiful Power to raise the Sums in such Manner as the public Charges of the Provinces respectively are rais'd. Hence it is manifest how unwarrantably the Governor and Council have acted in the Payments they have order'd between the Dissolution of the last Year's Assembly and the convening of this, for Articles furnished his Majesty's 64th Regiment lately quartered in the Barracks at Castle-William: For it is known there was no Fund provided, consequently there could be no Appropriation made by the General Court for that Purpose.

We shall now, with your Excellency's Leave, take a nearer View of the Act of Parliament above mentioned. This whole Continent has for some Years past been distress'd with what are called Acts for imposing Taxes on the Colonies for the express Purpose of raising a Revenue, and that without their Consent in Person or by Representative. This Subject has been so fully handled by the several Assemblies, and in the Publications that have been made, that we shall be as brief as possible upon that Head; but we beg Leave to observe, that in Strictness all those Acts may be rather called Acts for raising a TRIBUTE in America for the further Purposes of Dissipation among Placemen and Pensioners. And if the present System of Measures should be much further pursued, it will soon be very difficult, if possible, to distinguish the Case of Widows and Orphans in America, plunder'd by infamous informers, from those who suffer'd under the Administration of the most oppressive of the Governors of the Roman Provinces, at a Period when that once proud and haughty Republic, after having subjugated the finest Kingdoms in the World and drawn all the Treasures of the East to imperial Rome, fell a Sacrifice to the unbounded Corruption and Venality of its Grandees.

But of all the new Regulations, the Stamp-Act not excepted, this under Consideration is the most excessively unreasonable. For in Effect, the yet free Representatives of the free Assemblies of North-America are called upon, to pay out of their own and their Constituents Money, such Sum or Sums as Persons, over whom they can have no Check or Controul may be pleased to expend! As Representatives we are deputed by the People, agreeable to the Royal Charter and the Laws of this Province. By that Charter and by the Nature of our Trust, we are empower'd but to grant such Aids, and to levy such Taxes for his Majesty's Service as are reasonable, of which if we are not free and independent Judges we can no longer be free Representatives, nor our Constituents free Subjects. If we are free Judges, we are at Liberty to follow the Dictates of our own Understanding regardless of the Mandates of others. It is impossible we should be free Judges, if we are but blindly to give as much of our own and our Constituents Money, as may be demanded by those we know not.

Your Excellency must therefore excuse us in this our express Declaration, That as we cannot, consistently with our own Honor, our Interest, much less with the Duty we owe our Constituents, we never shall make any Provision of Funds for the Purposes in your several Messages above mentioned.

Saturday last his Excellency Governor BERNARD was pleased to sign the Bills which were ready for his Assent, after which he made the following SPEECH to the House of Representatives, and Prorogued the General Assembly to the 10th of January next.

Gentlemen of the House of Representatives.

At the opening of this Session, I had in contemplation the expediency of passing the public Bills which were necessary to the Government with all due expedition, & particularly the Supply Bill, without which the whole Provincial Debt, by a Law then subsisting, would have been levied in one Year, which would have been a great Burthen upon the People. And I had resolved with myself to promote the expediting such necessary Bills, and to avoid and remove, as far as I could, all Difficulties which might obstruct the same.

But you, Gentlemen, had not the same Disposition: you not only put a Stop to all real Business with the most trifling Pretences for some Weeks together; but you endeavoured, by all Means you could, to oblige me, in the Course of my Duty, to put an abrupt End to the Session, before you would permit the necessary Business of the Province even to be brought before you.
In this, Gentlemen, you had some Success: you put me under the Difficulty of either not making proper Provision for the necessary Service of the Government, which could not be done without continuing the Session, or by a Continuation of it, showing a want of Regard to the Dignity of the Crown. The Assertions, Declarations & Resolutions, which you have from the Beginning of the Session to this Time continued to issue in direct Opposition to the Sense of the Sovereign Legislature, as it has been lately declared, and in Terms entirely inconsistent with the Idea of this Province being a Part of the British Empire, would have demanded of me an immediate Vindication of the Honour of the Crown, by putting an early End to this Session, if I had not been restrained by my Concern for the Exigencies of the State. And I must rely upon his Majesty's favourable Indulgence in accepting my Attention to the Necessities of the People, in Lieu of the Resentment which was due to the Misbehaviour of their Representatives.

To his Majesty, therefore, & if he pleases, to his Parliament, must be referred your Invasion of the Rights of the imperial Sovereignty. By your own Acts you will be judged: you need not be apprehensive of any Misrepresentations; as it is not in the Power of your Enemies, if you have any, to add to your Publications: they are plain and explicit, and need no Comment.

It is my Duty, and I shall do it with Regret, to transmit to the King true Copies of your Proceedings: and, that his Majesty may have an Opportunity to signify his Pleasure thereon before you meet again, I think it necessary to prorogue this General Court immediately to the usual Time of its meeting for the Winter Session.

Council-Chamber,

FRA. BERNARD.

July 15, 1769.