Page:American History Told by Contemporaries, v2.djvu/195

No. 59] influenced by the humours and passions of the people ; for if they be not, there will be neither justice nor equity in any of the courts of law, nor any efficient execution of the laws and orders of government in the magistracy : according, therefore, to the constitution of Great Britain, the crown has the appointment and payment of the several executive and judicial officers, and the legislature settles a permanent and fixed appointment for the support of government and civil list in general : The crown therefore has, à fortiori, a right to require of the colonies, to whom, by its commission or charter, it gives the power of government, such permanent support, appropriated to the offices, not the officers of government, that they may not depend upon the temporary and arbitrary will of the legislature.

The crown does, by its instructions to its governors, order them to require of the legislature a permanent support. This order of the crown is generally, if not universally rejected, by the legislatures of the colonies. The assemblies quote the precedents of the British constitu tion, and found all the rights and privileges which they claim on the principles thereof. They allow the truth and fitness of this principle in the British constitution, where the executive power of the crown is immediately administred by the King's Majesty ; yet say, under the circumstances in which they find themselves, that there is no other measure left to them to prevent the misapplications of public money, than by an annual voting and appropriation of the salaries of the governor and other civil officers, issuing from monies lodged in the hands of a provincial treasurer appointed by the assemblies : For in these subordinate governments, remote from his Majesty's immediate influence, administred oftentimes by necessitous and rapacious governors who have no natural, altho they have a political connection with the country, experience has shewn that such governors have misapplied the monies raised for the support of government, so that the civil officers have been left unpaid, even after having been provided for by the assembly. The point then of this very important question comes to this issue, whether the inconveniencies arising, and experienced by some instances of misapplications of appropriations (for which however there are in the King's courts of law, due and sufficient remedies against the offender) are a sufficient reason and ground for establishing a measure so directly contrary to the British constitution : and whether the inconveniencies to be traced in the history of the colonies, through the votes and journals of their legislatures, in which the support of governors,