PREFACE.

The most important business of the session of Sept.-Oct., 1704, was
the thorough revision of the laws, and enactment of what was nearly a
complete code. The Governor and Assembly were on the most har-
monious terms; interchanges of polite speeches and professions of
esteem were frequent, and halcyon weather prevailed. That the urbane
Seymour had, however, when he chose to use it, a rough side to his
tongue, is shown by his objurgation of two Catholic priests, who had
been guilty of the enormity of saying mass in a chapel. The Gov-
ernor's bark was apparently worse than his bite, for we find him signing
a bill suspending the prosecution of priests who should celebrate mass
in private houses.

One thing that gave the Assembly much uneasiness was a rumor
from England that agents from New York were urging a scheme to
bring all the colonies under that government. It is hardly conceivable
that the Privy Council would have entertained such a proposal; but the
mere possibility of it was alarming. Both Houses joined in a memorial
to the Queen ; but the Upper House pointed out that if any effective
countermining was proposed, a sum of money must be provided for
necessary expenses ; and to this the Lower House demurred. An inge-
nious expedient was then proposed. In 1702 the Assembly had voted
a fund to assist New York in her defensive measures against the French
and Indians. New York, though notified that this fund was at her
disposal, had never asked for it—an abstention, in the eyes of the
Assembly, so unnatural and inexplicable, that it must be connected with
some dark design. However, there the money was, and it was now
proposed that it should be sent to England to be used in baffling New
York's machinations.

The sessions of 1705 and 1706 present little that calls for remark.
The conspiracy of Richard Clark and his accomplices, and the burning