52 Assembly Proceedings Sept. 5-Oct. 3, 1704.

Original
Journal.

pension deprivation or Deposition and your Petitioners shall
forever pray &c.
Whereupon the said M^r Tho^s Cockshutt M^r Joseph Cole-
batch & M^r Henry Hall being called in his Ex^cy was pleased
to say to them.

Gentlemen Your inconsiderate Petition to my Self and her
Ma^ties honbte Council is a birth so untimely rash and mon-
strous that nothing but the ill digested Conceptions of your
hot Brains could have begotten, let me tell you that Zeal in
good men who are sure they are in the right is always Com-
mendable but when it is otherwise to such men it becomes like
the Chariot of the Sun lashed by the unskilful as well as un-
fortunate Phaeton and is equally dangerous to themselves as
well as others and such a Zeal it is plain has infatuated you in
charging my Self and this honble Board with a Crime you
Express not less than Sacrilegious in that I should oppress or
derogate from the Authority of this Church in whose orthodox
Faith and Principles I have been ever Educated and have al-
ways professed

Gentlemen I Believe my Care and Protection of the
Church since my Arrival in this Province have meritted better
Returns from every of its Members than the ill usage you have
treated me with in petitioning the House of Delegates as if
there were a Necessity for a Barrier between the Rights of
the Church and my Self and calling my Authority in Question
But why should I mention or wonder at this part of your
Folly when your Extravagance has Soared beyond the utmost
Zenith. If my Self and her Majest^ies honble Council had Ex-
ceeded our Authority in M^r Holts suspension it would have
become you first of all to have been certainly assured thereof
and then it would not only have been mannerly but religiously
Just in you with modesty (which is a Virtue I perceive you are
unacquainted with) to have represented to me wherein you
had presumed to have taken upon you so publickly to reprove
your Elders and Superiours, for be assured while I have the
honour to command herein this Province her Majesty Ever
shall be Supreme Head and Governour of the Church here
therefore repair to your Several Parish Charges and for the
future have a Care How you Engage in such like Extrava-
gancy least you give me occasion to use you as Contemners
of Authority and Disturbers of her Majest^ies peace After which
they withdrew.
M^r Robert Tyler brings from the House the Bill declaring
it to be felony to scratch out the mark of Tob^o or alter the
Quality after received insisted on by the House without