An Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of the Colonies of South Carolina and Georgia, Volume 1Hewatt, Alexander
History
An Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of the Colonies of South Carolina and Georgia, Volume 1
Hewatt, Alexander
Georgia -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775; South Carolina -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775
"I do require and demand of you, therefore, and expect you will answer me
in plain and positive terms, whether you own the authority of the Lords
Proprietors as Lords of this province, and having authority to administer
or authorise others to administer the government thereof; saving the
allegiance of them and the people to his most sacred majesty King George?
Or, whether you absolutely renounce all obedience to them, and those
commissioned and authorised by them? Or, whether you admit their general
power, and only dispute that particular branch of their authority, in
constituting a council after the manner they have now done? If you deny
their general power and authority in this province, and say, that their
Lordships have forfeited their charter, as Mr. Berrisford asserted, and
you all acquiesced in; then I demand of you, that you signify wherein the
Lords have forfeited their charter, and what particular branch thereof
they have broken: and I demand of you, that supposing (not granting) they
have made a forfeiture of their charter, by what power do you presume to
renounce their authority, and to model a government out of your own
heads, before such time as that, by a court having lawful jurisdiction of
the same, it shall be adjudged that the Lords have made a forfeiture of
their charter, and that the powers granted them are null and void? If the
King is of opinion, that any corporation or society have made a
forfeiture of the rights and powers granted by their charter, although
his majesty may have the advice of his Attorney and Solicitor-general,
and his Judges and Council learned in the law, that such a forfeiture has
been made, (and this he may more reasonably depend on than any advice or
assurance you can have); yet, notwithstanding this, and his supreme
authority as King, he never dispossessed the persons of the powers
granted them, before a _quo warranto_ or some other process had been
brought, and judgment obtained against the same. And if the King doth not
assume such a power, by what authority do you assume it?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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