119
and of weak and wicked Ministers, that deadly weapon, which constructive treason had furnished them with, and which had drawn the blood of the best and honestest men in the kingdom ; and that the King of Great Britain, hath no right by his proclamation, to subject his people to imprisonment, pains, and penalties.
That if the said General Gage conceives he is empowered to act in this manner, as the Commander in Chief of his Majesty’s forces in America, this odious, and illegal proclamation must. be considered as a plain and full declaration, that this despouck Vice- roy will be bound by no law, nor regard the constitutional rights of his Majesty’s subjects, whenever they interfere with the plan he has formed for oppressing the good people of the Massachusetts Bay ; and, therefore, that the executing, or attempting to execute, such proclamation, will justify resistance and reprisal.
[Note E.]
Monticello, November 1, 1778. Dear Sir,
I have got through the bill ‘ for proportioning crimes and punish- ments in cases heretofore capital,’ and now enclose it to you with a request that you will be so good, as scrupulously to examine and correct it, that it may be presented to our committee, with as few defects as possible. In its style, I have aimed at accuracy, brevity, and simplicity, preserving, however, the very words of the esta- blished Jaw, wherever their meaning had been sanctioned by judi- cial decisions, or rendered technical by usage. The same matter, if couched in the modern statutory language, with all its tautolo- gies, redundancies and circumlocutions, would have spread itself over many pages, and been unintelligible to those whom it most concerns. Indeed, I wished to exhibit a sample of reformation in the barbarous style, into which modern statutes have degenerated from their antient simplicity. And I must pray you to be as watch- ful over what I have not said, as what is said; for the omissions of this bill have all their positive meaning. I have thought it better to drop, in silence, the laws we mean to discontinue, and let them be swept away by the general negative words of this, than to detail them in clauses of express repeal. By the side of the text I have written the notes I made, as I went along, for the benefit of my own memory. ‘They may serve to draw your attention to ques- tions, to which the expressions or the omissions of the text may give rise. The extracts from the Anglo-Saxon laws, the sources
