374 Assembly Proceedings, Sept. 28-Dec. 16, 1757.

L. H. J.
Liber No. 49
Dec. 15

I do not pretend to say, that Mr. Llewellin was ever known by the
Title of The Governor's Secretary, nor would it perhaps have been
known a Hundred Years hence, that Mr. Ridout went at this Time
by that Appellation, if you had not thought proper to issue a War-
rant for him, and, without making any previous Application to me,
given Orders for his being brought to Answer, at the Bar of your
House, to any Questions that you should think fit to ask him.

p. 213

Whether it is necessary that I should have a Secretary or not, I
may I think be supposed the best Judge; and the impartial World will
perhaps be surprized at Your making that a Question, since I did
not ask any Thing of You for his Support. There are, I am satisfied,
many Persons in this Province that have received great Benefit from
my having One, and that will acknowledge he has served them without
the least View of Advantage to himself; but if he should, on similar
Occasions hereafter, choose to take a Quantum Meruit for his
Trouble, you will not, I suppose, concern Yourselves about it, since
he is not an Officer of the Government. If you had asked me, whether
he had a Commission or not, instead of spending Time to examine
the Provincial Records, I should, without Hesitation, have satisfied
your Curiosity; and tho' you do not ask me, whether he has under-
went the Qualification necessary to distinguish him to be a Loyal
Subject, or not, I think proper to inform you, that he underwent such
a Qualification as the Laws direct, before he accompanied me to this
Province; and, I persuade myself, you will not imagine that his
Principles have been since Debauched, by living in my Family.

As I would willingly avoid all Enquiries into your Rights and
Privileges, I have not taken any Notice of your Claim of an unlimited
Power, to call one of any other Gentleman's Family before you,
but have only denied your Right, to call before you any of mine. The
Power of Protecting those that reside in my House, while they offend
not the Laws, is a Right that I can neither part with, nor suffer to be
disputed; and I will venture to pronounce, that none of my Prede-
cessors, when they granted the Prayer of a new Speaker, by assuring
him " that the Members of the Lower House of Assembly should be

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free from Restraint, in their own Persons, and in their Attendants,
during the Session," designed thereby to invest him with a Power
of stripping them of their Attendants, whenever he should think
proper.

But to have done with this Controversy, which I am sure I have
been obliged to engage in much against my Inclination, I shall con-
clude with declaring, that although I should look upon myself as
Guilty of a Breach of Trust, were I to suffer the Rights and Privileges
that are incident to my Station as Supreme Magistrate, to be
trampled on; yet, I shall ever think myself bound to support the
Dignity of your House, as the Third Branch of our Legislature, and