|
|
Our Passing any of your Bills now on Our Table before We have
from you the Bill for Arms &ca
With very great Concern we perceive it hardly possible for us to
come to any Amicable and Friendly Agreement with your House
as it is our sincere Inclination to do let us make never so many
Concessions, new Demands are still made upon us, in Proportion to
the Readiness we show in Complying with your Desires of this your
present Message is a most flagrant and demonstrative Proof We
have been now Five Weeks Contending about this Bill that is the
|
U. H. J.
Calvert
Paper
No. 735
|
|
|
|
Subject of it which is agreed on all Hands necessary to be continued
in some Shape or other considering the dangerous Situation of Our
Affairs, your first Objection was to the Clause for the Continuance
of it to the next Session of Assembly which you declared was Con-
trary to the very Frame of Our Constitution, since by such a Clause
any temporary Law might be made perpetual by any one part of the
Legislature but to shew your Inclination in this time of an Actual
War with Spain and an impending one with France you offered us
the two Alternatives either of a longer time or a larger Sum.
We chose one, you then flew to the other, which you again offered
to us as your final Resolution, upon this to shew Our Desire to agree
with you We came once more into your Terms and in a Conference
setled the Heads of this Bill together with that for inlisting men
for his Majestys Service, but after all this now comes your Message
declaring your Resolution not to send up the Bill for Arms &c. for
Defence of the Province
But your self Conviction of what you ought to do in Consequence
of the Agreement by the Conferees of both Houses, has put you
under a necessity of offering at some Excuse for not sending to
Our House a Bill Conformable to what the Conferees agreed in
relation to the Fund for Defence of the Province and this Excuse
is founded on your too well grounded as you say Apprehensions of
Our Design to pass your Bills now in Our House with Durations to
a day certain only and not to the end of A Session as Usual, Be
pleased Gentlemen to permit us to Ask whether this House has ever
acquainted you with such a Design, Whether any Designs or
Actions ought to be imputed by one House to another in the Course
of Parliamentary Proceedings, before such designs or Actions are
avowed by either House but even suppose you had the best Grounds
imaginable for your Apprehensions can they justify you in keeping
back a Bill which was in all its parts Setled and Agreed to not only
by the Conferees but even by both Houses and is it not very extraor-
dinary that you not only foretell without an Information from Our
House what Our Resolutions will be on the second Reading of your
Bills, but you Act and Resolve in the same manner as you think you
would if We had already done what you apprehended Indeed Gentle-
men such Dispositions must destroy all Confidence between the sev-
|
p. 84
.
|
|
