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Sioussat's The English Statutes in Maryland, 1903
Volume 195, Page 28   View pdf image (33K)
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28 The English Statutes in Maryland. [492
was a conquered Province; but, as we might suppose, the
English inhabitants of the island denied that they represented
the conqueror. The military seizure of the island and its
cession by Spain did, however, introduce this additional
complication into the whole of Jamaica's constitutional his-
tory. Moreover, Jamaica was a Crown colony, and had no
charier. The instructions and proclamations of Cromwell
and of Charles II. were liberal, however. In the time of the
latter, especially after the period of military rule had reached
a conclusion, the progress of the colony towards a constitu-
tional development like that of the other American colonies
was constant. But.in 1678, upon objections by the lords of
the Committee for Trade, the royal government rejected some
of the Jamaican laws, and went so far as to urge that the laws
for the island must be made in England, then sent to Jamaica
for passage by the Assembly, after the manner of Irish legisla-
tion under Poyning's Law.
This reactionary attempt or the Crown to compel the civilian
was opposed and rejected by the Jamaican Assembly. Then
ensued a long wrangle, which left it in great doubt what laws
were in force and what not. A temporary agreement as to
the practical difficulties was reached in 1684. But the claim
of the colonists to the English laws—not only to those passed
before the settlement, but to some, like the Habeas Corpus
Act. passed after it—was denied by the King in Council and
by the courts.
The Jamaica Assembly went farther than that of Mary-
land, in that they entangled with this controversy the ques-
tion of levying the public money, and refused to pass a law
to grant a perpetual revenue until the Crown would fully
admit the rights they demanded. This the Crown for a long
time refused to do; but at last, in 1728, the Assembly
" Settled a permanent revenue, not burthensome to them-
selves. ... In return for this they obtained the royal confir-
mation of their most favourite and necessary Acts of Assembly, and
the following declaration expressed in the 3ist clause of this revenue
Act.
" And also all such laws and statutes of England as have been

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Sioussat's The English Statutes in Maryland, 1903
Volume 195, Page 28   View pdf image (33K)
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