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pleaſed to require, and command, the reſpective Governors of his Colonies, and Plantations, in America, punctually and effectively to obſerve his Majeſty's royal Inſtructions[1]." And what were the Inſtructions, to which the Commons allude? Theſe very Inſtructions; not to give aſſent to certain laws, without a clauſe were inſerted in ſuch Act, declaring, that the ſame ſhall not take effect, until the ſaid Act ſhall be approved by his Majeſty.
The meaſure not liable to objection.To what objection then can a meaſure all at once become liable, to which his Majeſty's predeceſſors were adviſed, after the matureſt deliberation, by their Privy Council; which they have been ſo repeatedly intreated never to abandon, never to relax, by the great Council of the empire?
The deſcription of the laws given in this Article expreſſes only the opinion of the Congreſs.The Congreſs, I ſuppoſe, did not imagine, that any force or poignancy was added to the charge, by characteriſing the laws, ſubject to the clauſe of ſuſpenſion, by the titles of, "Laws wholeſome and neceſſary to the public good;" "of immediate and preſſing importance"—For what do theſe epithets prove?—Their own opinion of theſe laws—That, and nothing elſe. And who could entertain a moment's doubt of their opinion of them? No doubt the laws, which, from a regard to the common intereſts of the whole empire, were made ſubject to the ſuſpending clauſe, would appear very wholeſome and neceſſary; of immediate and impreſſing importance, to the particular aſſemblies who paſſed them. And that for the very ſame reaſons that to him, whoſe duty it is to watch over the intereſts of all his ſubjects, they might appear unſalutary and deſtructive of the public good.
Anſwer to the ſecond charge, viz. neglect of laws paſſed with the clauſe of ſuſpenſion.And this will ſuggeſt an unanſwerable reply to the ſecond charge alleged in the article before us—- ↑ See Comm. Journ. vol. xxiii, p. 528.
