384 Appendix.

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Md.Hist.Soc.

to determine any Points which may affect their Interests, without
giving them every Opportunity, which the Principles of our Consti-
tution may warrant, of being heard in their own Defence.

The late Lord Chancellor, in the Introduction to his Decree be-
tween the Proprietors of Maryland and Pennsylvania, declared that
the Cause, in Point of Importance, was fitter for the Decision of a
Roman Senate, than of a single Judge; and yet this was a Cause
respecting only the private Interests of two Individuals. If Authority
so respectable can be relied upon, with what Face can it be con-
tended that a Cause, involving the most invaluable Privileges of a
whole Colony of His Majesty's faithful and loyal Subjects, is to
be decided by the Opinion of a private Council; And how much
greater is the Absurdity, when it is asserted, that the Lower House
ought to yield an implicit Obedience to such an Opinion, procured at
the Instance and partial Representation of the Proprietor, of whom,
in Point of sound Policy, we ought ever to be jealous.
I have heard it frequently objected to the Lower House, that they
exhibited a Proof of the greatest Obstinacy, in shewing so little
Regard to the Opinion of the Attorney General; and yet I think
it demonstrable, that they could not have been guilty of a greater
Breach of Trust, or established a Precedent more destructive to the

p. 25

Peoples Liberties, had they suffered it to have any influence on their
Conduct. It has, on all Occasions, been sounded in our Ears, as the
Opinion of His Majesty's Attorney General, as if his Rank was
to inforce our Obedience, though it cannot be regarded in any other
Light than the Advice of a private Lawyer. The People of Mary-
land are His Majesty's Subjects. It is the Spirit of their present
Representatives to suffer no Invasion of their Rights, by giving
any Countenance to unconstitutional Jurisdictions. They have too
high a Sense of the Duty they owe to their Constituents, to permit
their most essential Privileges to be controuled or abridged, by any
extrajudicial Power whatever. To His Majesty, as their common
Father, they desire most ardently to appeal, and will most dutifully
submit. This Point they have, for many Years, endeavoured to
compass, but have always miscarried. As it is certainly the Right of
His Majesty to be informed most fully in every Case which He is
to decide, and of the People to lay their Complaints freely before
Him, how strange is it that the Guardians of the Prerogatives of the
Crown, and the Liberties of the People, should have been the con-
stant Instruments of defeating so salutary a Measure? And how in-
consistent must their Conduct appear, in violating so hastily this
new -assumed Duplicity of Character? — Having then, I hope, to the
Satisfaction of every considerate Reader, proved, that the Attorney
General's Opinion ought not, in this Case, to have any Weight in
the Scale of the Upper House, which reduces the Merits of the two

p. 26

Houses to an Equilibrium; I will now endeavour to throw some