xvi Introduction.

gested that if the Lower House would include in it the clergy and the officers
and lawyers, they would cheerfully pass it. The bill came down on the morn-
ing of October 28. That afternoon the Lower House took into consideration
these proposed changes and rejected them, unanimously. Then they adjourned
until November 10, "to consult their Constituents on the present distressed
Circumstances of the Province."

This adjournment was not the result of a long plan. It was unexpected,
even to the House itself. Just before they voted to adjourn, they passed for
engrossing a bill that had just come down from the Upper House, quite as if
they' expected to send the engrossed bill back as they usually did. Nor did
the Upper House think the session would end so quickly. On the morning of
October 29, the day after the adjournment, Philip Thomas Lee appeared and
took his seat and then the house adjourned until 4 o'clock. But by four nVWV
the Governor had prorogued the Assembly until November 16, and the session
was ended. Because it passed no laws, it was properly not a session but a
convention of Assembly.

When the Governor heard, as he did the day it happened, that the Lower
House had thought fit to adjourn themselves he was horrified, but he was
also honestly bewildered. He sent to their clerk for the votes and proceedings,
and next morning called the Council to meet him and advise him. The Council
was the Upper House in a different capacity. He told them not only about
the unprecedented adjournment but also about the dismissal of Mr. Jonathan
Hagar, and asked them what they thought he ought to do. The conduct of
the Lower House "was so extraordinary and extravagant, and he really was
at a loss" how to preserve the dignity of Government and at the same time to
give the House an opportunity to join in the lawmaking process. Should he
dissolve them, the necessary election delay would carry the session so far into
the winter that attendance would be difficult. Should he prorogue them, he
"doubted whether a prorogation would be sufficiently expressive of the resent-
ment of the two other branches of the Legislature to this very extraordinary
behaviour of the Lower House." He asked the Council to consider not only
the adjournment but also the dismissal of Mr. Hagar, and he said he would be
guided by their opinion. Like him, they were aghast at the "unconstitutional
and violent conduct" of the other house, and would have preferred a dissolu-
tion, but in the interest of expediency, they counselled a prorogation for 15 or
16 days (Appendix II). Thereupon the Governor issued a proclamation pro-
roguing the General Assembly until November 16 next. The Lower House
adjournment was to have ended November tenth.

The convention of Assembly that ended so soon and so unexpectedly had
been held in the Council chamber and in the house "prepared by Mr. Joshua
Frazier for the Use of the Publick." The great session of November 16 con-
vened in the same places, and opened in the traditional way. In the light of
the Governor's horror at the intemperate behaviour of the Lower House in
adjourning without leave or consultation, it is not surprising that his only
recommendation to them now was that they attend to the things he had laid
before them on the opening in October.