While these dissensions were going on in Antigua between the governor on the one side, and the members of the assembly and the principal inhabitants on the other, Mr. Nevin and Mr. Cary were using their best endeavours to get a favourable answer to their complaints from the home government. At length, after many delays, Mr. Nevin returned to Antigua, bringing with him the queen’s letter, directing that witnesses should be examined to prove the several articles of impeachment sent home against the governor, as well as his excellency’s answers to the same. “The depositions and answers were sworn before Edward Byam, Esq., one of the council, and Nathaniel Crump, Esq., speaker of the house of assembly, and were ordered to be sealed with the broad seal of the island, and forwarded immediately to England.” The governor, however, refusing to seal the affidavits of the complainants, upon the plea that his own answers were not ready, from the delays of the justices before whom they were sworn, his opponents were obliged to use another seal, and then despatch them, under the care of Mr. Nevin, to England. During the year 1709, Queen Anne recalled Colonel Parke from his government, to the great joy of the Antiguans. To this command the infatuated man, however, would pay no attention; and, exasperated by the triumphant looks of his accusers, which they could not, or would not, conceal, he proceeded to measures which could be only deemed those of a maddened despot. The year 1710 was ushered in with no better feeling between the governor and the members of the legislature. One of their first causes of complaint alleged against his excellency arose from the following circumstance:— It had ever been the privilege of the house of assembly to choose their own “clerk;” but during this despotic administration, the governor overlooked this, and wished to appoint to that office a friend of his own—a Mr. Hinton.[40] This encroachment upon the assembly’s privileges gave rise to a great deal of ill feeling, and many acrimonious messages passed between his excellency and the members of that body. The following paragraph, copied from one of the governor’s speeches, alludes to this subject:— “If you still persist that it is your undoubted privilege to choose your ‘clerk,’ and will do no business until that be yielded to you, you certainly will have the ‘Lords’ Committee’ opinion. It is an undutiful attempt upon her majesty’s prerogative; and I do assure you, gentlemen, if the queen does not appoint any other before I go, I will leave you time enough to raise money during this crop to pay off all the public debt!”[41] This unhandsome taunt of the governor’s was deeply felt, and resented by the “house,” who, in reply to it, remarks—