Correspondence of Governor Sharpe. 505

know on this subject, & others I would consult if the time per-
mitted) that your Excellency will take into consideration the
great cruelty, Hardship, & Severity of the said Bill ; which
your Excellency may be the more inclined to do from a Con-
sideration of the Dangers & Perils & ill treatment which the
Clergy (at least the most part of them) meet with at present.
People who review the oppressions & Cruelties of the Star
Chamber & High Commission, would not unless extremely
prejudiced, think of establishing such a Commission in Mary-
land for tho whilst your Excellency presides, the Clergy may
expect the fairest & most impartial Proceeding, yet when I
consider those Persons that may be probably be joined with
you I cannot reflect upon it without Horror who will by their
violent tempers be carried where others corrupt & violent as
themselves have been carried before as it is alledged 16 Car.
1 C. 10 — of the Star Chamber — that they had exceeded the
bounds which the law had given them, in these words ; But
the said Judges have not kept themselves to the points limited
by the said Statute, but have undertaken to punish where no
Law doth warrant and to make Decrees for things having no
such authority; & to inflict heavier punishm^ts than by any Law
is warranted. And then Cap. II. enacts that the clause
authorizing the High Commission or such like Court shall
from henceforth be repealed, anulled, revoked annihilated &
made void for ever. So that a general Exception, according
to Fleta, will lie against the Jurisdiction of a court, which is
allowed to be made to those quibus deficit autoritas Judicandi.
M^r Hamersley's opinion in this matter will be clearly set forth
by the following postscript of a Letter dated 20 July 1767.
If a Commissary be wanting let it first move from the
Gentlemen of Distinction or the Province, & I am persuaded
his Ld^ship will not be backward in complying with their
advice & desires. And is not the Governor as Ordinary
invested with all necessary powers to regulate abuses? If
your Excellency be not by your Commission invested with a
power of correcting abuses in these matters, no act of Assembly
can confer it. It is, says a writer, an essential doctrine of the
church of Christ, that none can have any authority therein
but those who derive it from Christ mediately or immediately ;
those who receive it mediately must derive it from those
persons whom it has authoriz'd to convey it, & they must
receive it by regular Succession. So that in this view a
Bishop's Jurisdiction is the only one admissible.
I am &c. B. Allen