INTRODUCTION. 
53 
which term was prolonged three years by his successor. These grievances justly 
irritated the people, and are recorded in the declaration of independence among 
the wrongs suffered at the hands of the king of Great Britain. 
The general assembly of 1737, truly represented the spirit which then per¬ 
vaded the people ; and its proceedings are regarded as constituting an important 
era in the history of American legislation. In their address to the governor, 
they affirmed that none ought to represent the people but such as were freely and 
fairly chosen by them; that elections ought to be frequent; that experience had 
shown the danger of trusting the same men too long with power; and that pro¬ 
per checks and balances were necessary for the preservation of the liberty and 
happiness of any country. The assembly distinctly informed the representative 
of the crown, that they would not raise sums unfit to be raised, nor put what 
they should raise into the power of the governor to misapply, if they could pre¬ 
vent it; that they would not at any one time make provision for the support of 
government for a period longer than a year, nor would they even for that period, 
until such laws should be passed as were necessary to the safety of the inhabitants 
of the colony. They asserted the importance of having an agent at the court of 
Great Britain, appointed and paid by the house, independently of the governor. 
They firmly remonstrated against the continuance of the court of chancery, as 
then constituted, declaring that the governors in maintaining that court, without 
the consent of the assembly, had treated that body with unreasonable neglect 
and contempt, and affirmed that some of the governors were wholly unfit for the 
duties of chancellor or of any other station, though buoyed up and bloated with 
flatteries by the instruments of their misrule and oppression. The house now 
first adopted the important principle of recording the votes of members. They 
passed a bill to appoint an agent to the court of Great Britain, which was lost by 
non-concurrence, as to its principal features, by the council; demanded from 
that body satisfaction, for the insult it had offered by transmitting messages by the 
clerk, instead of a committee, limited supplies granted to the period of one year, 
and inhibited the treasurer from paying any part of the funds collected, until 
