APPENDIX.] OF JAMAICA. 315 



there is a clause that makes it felony for any person to conceal hh own 

 goods, left in his own pos^ei^ion, after execution levied by that law, so 

 that a man may tvj hanged for being poor, which, though inconvenient, 

 was never till then accounted capital j with others too long to be re- 

 peated. 



And whereas their lordships are pleased to say that there is nothing im- 

 perfect or defective in these bills transmitted hither j yet we humbly con- 

 ceive, that no notice being taken in this body of lavs how or in what 

 nature we are to mnke use of the laws of England, either as they have 

 reference to the preservation of his majesty's preroganve or the subjects* 

 rights, we ought not in reason to consent to these bills ; for nothing ap- 

 pearing to the contrary, the governor is left, ad libitum, to use or refuse 

 as few or as many as he pleases, and such as suit with his occasions ; tlie.e 

 being no directions in them how to proceed according to the laws of En- 

 gland, either in causes criminal or testamentary, and in many other cases 

 which concern the quiet of the subject, both n life and estate. 



We conceive also, that, whatsoever is said to the contra, y by their 

 lordships in answer to the distance of places, this very last experiment is 

 sufficiently convincing of the truth of that allegation ; since it is a year 

 sir.ce this model came over and was debated, and before their lordships 

 report cams back, notwithstanding one of the advices went home by an 

 express. And, 



Whereas their lordships say, \ve cannot be subject to more accidents 

 than his majesty's kingdom of Ireland $ to that we object, tint advice and 

 answers thence may be had in ten or fourteen days, and that kingdom is 

 already settled, our plantation but beginning. But further we cannot 

 imagine that the Irish model of government was, in principle, ever in* 

 tended for Englishmen : besides, their lordships cannot but know, that 

 that model wa introduced amongst them by a law made by themselves in 

 Ireland, and so consequently bound th.-m, wh ch, be:n^ now generally 

 known to ail those who remove thither, they have no cau>e to repine at, that 

 being their choice to live under it or *tay from it, and was m de for the pre- 

 servation of the English against the Irish faction. As there is not the s:-me 

 cause, so there is not the same reason, for imposing the s imc on u?, unless 

 we did it ourselves, who are all his majesty's natur.il born subjects of his 

 kingdom of England j which is the reason the p.irliamenr ^ive, in all their 

 acts concerning the plantation^, for obliging us by them to what, and 

 with whom, and in wh it manner, we may trade, and impose a tax on us 

 hsre in case of trade from one colony to another ' } and it is but equity 



