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lesser Sum as the Exigence of our Case may require, for one, two,
or three years, with an Assurance of renewing it, and enlarging or
lessening the Sum if there should be occasion, or your Insisting on
three pence only for nine years, or for three and to the end of A
Session, bespeaks the greatest Care of this part of his Majestys Do-
minions, or the most Impartial views towards the Safety of the
province at a time of Impending Danger. And whether Our readi-
ness to raise a supply for the Encouragement of Freemen to Inlist
in his Majestys Service abroad, or your Entire refusal of it, unless
at the same time you could obtain the before mentioned Bill for
Arms &c with your beloved termination of nine years or a Session of
Assembly, Argues the greatest Zeal for the Success of the British
Arms
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U. H. J.
Calvert
Paper
No. 735
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We pass by your Charge of having Implicitely Asserted the Bill
for Arms &c to have no relation to his Majestys Service, and shall
lett the Messages speak for themselves, with this short Observation,
that it is hardly possible to write or say any thing, but what by such
strained constructions may be Wrested into what the Authors never
Intended, and we wish something of the kind may not be Imputed to
Your Honours in this and some other of our debates.
You might have spared the Trouble of giving the long detail of
Statutes to shew there are Duties in Great Britain laid for a number
of years and to the end of a Session, it is sufficient for our purpose
that, that Duty which is the most Essential for the Safety and De-
fence and Support of the Government and without which it could
not Subsist, is, and we presume has been ever since Britain cou'd
call themselves a free People, given from year to year only. They
have always looked on annual Sessions of Parliament to be neces-
sary, and we, (whatsoever may be your Honours Sentiments) have
the same way of thinking about our Assemblies; And therefore in
our present Situation, when his Lordship takes the money for Support
of Government under Colour of a perpetual Law, and settles Officers
Fees by Ordinance or proclamation, What has the People left them
but this one Bill to procure them frequent Assemblies? Our Duty
requires us to act with a View as well to Our Posterity as Our-
selves, and allowing his present Lordships his Governors and Minis-
ters Dispositions to be as good and Candid as you shall please to
call them, Yet can any of them answer for their Successors? and
should ever the Province be so unhappy as to be ruled by a Proprie-
tary or Governor who should Aim at Arbitrary Power and Oppress
the People, what remedy could they have when no means are left
them of procuring Assemblies? how could Aggrievances be In-
quired into, oppressions and Extortions suppressed, new Laws made,
or old ones revived ? Would not such a proprietary or Governor as
he had nothing to ask of an Assembly, keep the People always
without one, these things, affect your Honours, who have large
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p. 54
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