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or more of the Council for the Upper House, and Mr. John Hatch,
Mr. Walter Beane, Mr. John Modley, Mr. William Brough, Mr.
Robert Robins, Mr. Francis Poesay, Mr. Philip Land, Mr. Fran-
cis Brooke, Mr. Thomas Matthews, Mr. Thomas Sturman, Mr.
George Manners, Burgesses for St. Mary's County; Captain Robert
Vaughan, Commander and Burgess for the Isle of Kent; Mr. George
Paddington, and Mr. James Cox, Burgesses for the Part of the
Province now called Providence, or any five or more of them for
the Lower House, together with the Clerk for the Time being, who
shall, from Time to Time, assemble themselves at the Time and
Place to be by the Governor (or whomsoever of the Council he shall,
by Hand-writing under his Hand, depute for that Purpose) from
Time to Time appointed, during this present Assembly, shall have
the full Power of, and be two Houses of Assembly, to all Intents and
Purposes; and all Bills that shall be passed by the said two Houses,
or the major Part of both of them, and enacted or ordained by
the Governor, shall be the Laws of the Province, after Publication
thereof, under the Hand of the Governor, and the Great Seal of the
said Province, as fully, to all Effects in Law, as if they were advised
and assented unto by all the Freemen of the Province personally." —
The Constitution of the several Branches was brought about at the
pressing Instances of the Peoples Proxies, or Representatives, not
with a View to check and restrain themselves, but more probably to
get rid of that Check and Restraint which they might possibly be
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under in the Presence of the Governor and his Council, or to remove
the Confusion which must have arisen from a Mixture of such
heterogeneous Parts in the same Body, whose clashing Views and
Interests must at Times have produced very tempestuous Proceed-
ings, if we may form any Judgment of those Times from the
present. The general Reason given in the Act for the Separation is,
for the more convenient Dispatch of Business, but not one Word
can I find about checking and restraining; and indeed it is so wild a
Conceit, that any Body of Men should think themselves invested
with too much Power, and for that Reason erect another Body to
check and restrain them, as I believe never entered into the Heads
of any Sett of Mortals, but of the subtile Authors of this most
accomplished Performance.
I have now finished my Remarks upon the most striking Passages
in this Message, and must appeal to the Public, whether they are not
of such a Nature as to call upon, nay even to sollicit, some Friend of
the Province to oppose their mischievous Influence. If the Gentle-
men of the Upper House had not been guilty of so many gross
Misrepresentations of the Conduct of the Lower House, or had
given them a fair Opportunity of vindicating it, in a regular Course
of Parliamentary Proceeding, the Interposition of a private Hand
had been perhaps officious, and liable to the Charge of Presumption.
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p. 62
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