128 Assembly Proceedings, March 17-April 21, 1762.

L. H. J.
Liber No. 52
April 15

Right, not only of proposing, but also of preparing and sending down
Money Bills, for the Concurrence of this House (tho' you are
pleased to say, Bills of that Sort were commonly drawn by a Com-
mittee of both Houses) a Right, which the House of Lords in our
Mother Country, independent as they are, have rarely, if ever,
asserted to be in them, or attempted to exercise, or if they have,
the Assertions have ever been positively denied, and the Attempt
to exercise the Right, carefully frustrated by the House of Com-
mons, being looked upon by them, as an Invasion of the Rights
and Privileges inherent in them only: The like Rights and Privileges,
we do insist, are constitutionally inherent in us, as the Representatives
in Assembly of free British Subjects, and we hope we shall be
allowed to exercise them without Controul, unless it can be shewn

p. 49

(which we cannot conceive) that our dependent State, upon our
Mother Country (of which we are duly sensible, and in whose
wise Determination we shall always chearfully acquiesce) necessarily
deprives us of any Part of them. As we have not at present Time
to look fully into the Matter, we will for Argument's Sake, suppose
some of the old Journals may shew, some few instances of what you
assert in Relation to the Modes of Proceeding, for bringing about
the Passage of Bills for raising Money for the Uses you mention;
but we cannot by any Means allow, that a few Instances in the
Times of the Infancy of the Province, should operate against a Right
so essential to the Preservation of the Liberties and Properties of our
Constituents. Those you mention, are not the only sad Instances of
the Inattention of our Predecessors, in affording, and the Vigilance
and Activity of the Government in laying hold of, Opportunities
to encroach upon their Rights and Liberties. The Multiplicity of
them afford a melancholy Retrospect, and call loudly upon us, to be
as circumspect as possible, in order to guard against the like for the
future. To an Inadvertency of the like Sort, little short of Infatua-
tion, do your Honours owe your Existence as an Upper House; an
Inadvertency which has brought upon us, all the Evils naturally
flowing from the Introduction of a dependent Branch of Legislature
into our Constitution; Evils, which the People of this Province most
sensibly Feel, and which we fear their latest Posterity will have
Cause to Lament.
It would seem, from the Terms of your Message, that your
Honours represent the whole Sum of Money to be raised by our
Bill, as applied to the Purpose only, of Levying, Paying, and Cloath-
ing, Four Hundred Men, over and above the Eighty-four Recruits,
required as our Quota, for compleating the regular Regiments on
the Continent: How disingenuous is this Insinuation? Your Hon-
ours must have observed, that not much more than one Third of
the Sum proposed to be raised by the Bill, is to be applied to those
Purposes; and that the Rest is appropriated to the Discharge of