“First, they are the council of the tribe, and as such to govern the
musters of the same according to the foregoing orders, having cognizance
of what has passed in the congregation or elections made in the parishes
or the hundreds, with power to punish any undue practices, or variation
from their respective rules and orders, under an appeal to the
Parliament. A marriage legitimately is to be pronounced by the parochial
congregation, the muster of the hundred, or the phylarch. And if a
tribe have a desire (which they are to express at the muster by their
captains, every troop by his own) to petition the Parliament the
phylarch, as the council, shall frame the petition in the pavilion, and
propose it by clauses to the ballot of the whole tribe; and the clauses
that shall be affirmed by the ballot of the tribe, and signed by the
hands of the six magistrates of the prime magnitude, shall be received
and esteemed by the Parliament as the petition of the tribe, and no
other.
“Secondly, the phylarch has power to call to their assistance what
other troops of the tribe they please (he they elders or youth, whose
discipline will be hereafter directed), and with these to receive the
judges itinerant in their circuits, whom the magistrates of the phylarch
shall assist upon the bench, and the juries elsewhere in their proper
functions according to the more ancient laws and customs of this nation.
“Thirdly, the phylarch shall hold the court called the quartersessions
according to the ancient custom, and therein shall also hear causes in
order to the protection of liberty of conscience, by such rules as are
or shall hereafter be appointed by the Parliament.
“Fourthly, all commissions issued into the tribes by the Parliament,
or by the chancery, are to be directed to the phylarch, or some of that
troop, and executed by the same respectively.
“Fifthly, in the case of levies of money the Parliament shall tax
the phylarchs, the phylarchs shall tax the hundreds, the hundreds the
parishes, and the parishes shall levy it upon themselves. The parishes
having levied the tax-money accordingly, shall return it to the officers
of the hundreds, the hundred to the phylarchs, and the phylarchs to the
Exchequer. But if a man has ten children living, he shall pay no taxes;
if he has five living, he shall pay but half taxes; if he has been
married three years, or be above twenty-five years of age, and has no
child or children lawfully begotten, he shall pay double taxes. And
if there happen to grow any dispute upon these or such other orders as
shall or may hereto be added hereafter, the phylarchs shall judge the
tribes, and the Parliament shall judge the phylarchs. For the rest, if
any man shall go about to introduce the right or power of debate into
any popular council or congregation of this nation, the phylarch or any
magistrate of the hundred, or of the tribe, shall cause him presently to
be sent in custody to the Council of War.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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