Page:A Declaration of the People's Natural Right to a Share in the Legislature (1775) (IA declarationofpeo00shar).djvu/94



P,S, I am entirely unacquainted, I profess, with the nature of the Crown Charters or Grants to the several American Proprietors; and therefore (left these should contain any condition or acknowledgement, on the part of the landholders, which may seem to militate against the foregoing observations) I must beg leave to add, that the legislature hath agreed and laid down, as a rule, that all the ancient arbitrary and military Tenures of land, and even “Socage in capite of the King, and the consequents of the fame, have been much more burthensome, grievous, and prejudicial, to the Kingdom, than they have been beneficial to the King” (see preamble to the Act of 12th of Charles II. chap. 24, for taking away the Court of Wards and Liveries and Tenures in capite, and by Knights Service and Purveyance, &c.); and for this just reason, founded on "former