Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1856 edition. Excerpt: ... council As they see cause; and being so constitute, may, with consent of the said council, make and enact such rules, ordinances, and constitutions, and imIose such taxes as they think fit and needful for the good of the establishment, improvement, and support of the said colony; providing alway, that they lay no further duties or impositions of trade than what is after stated." One of the councillors, writing at this time to the directors at home, says, "We found the inconvenience of calling a parliament, and of telling the inhabitants that they were freemen so soon. They had not the true notion of liberty. The thoughts of it made them insolent, and ruined command. You know that it's expressly in the 'Encouragements, ' that they are to serve for three years, and at the three years' end to have a division of land." It was the opinion of this director, that no parliament should have been called till at least the three years of servitude had expired. Even then, from the characters of the settlers, who had not been selected with that care which an experiment of such vast consequence demanded, there might have existed causes for delaying the escape. Among the better class, there were too many young men of birth. These were inexperienced and wholly unfit for exercising authority, and equally ill adapted for submitting to it. Among the lower class were many who had been opposed to the Revolution, and who had resorted to the colony purely from dissatisfaction with the government at home. These, instead of submitting with patience to the privations and labour necessary in that state of society in which they were now placed, would gladly have laid aside the mattock and the axe, and have employed themselves in plundering incursions upon the Indians...
