enforcing them seems to be conducted with equal art on this side of the water at present, to that with which the original design of introducing them was conducted on the other side, when that agent wrote. They may soon therefore be regarded as fixed laws in the colonies, even without the sanction or intervention of parliament Principiis obsta, is a maxim worth regarding in politics as well as morals, and it is more especially to be observed, when those who are the most assiduous in their endeavours to alter the civil Constitution, are not less so in persuading us to go to sleep and dream that we are in a state of perfect security. - What benefit is it to us to have a governor residing in the province, invested with certain powers of judging -, and acting according to his own judgment, for the good of the people, if he submit to be made a man of wire, & for the sake of preserving the emolument of a governor, with the name only, is turned this way or that, as the minister directs, without any judgment of his own? And of what use can a legislative be to us, without the free exercise of the powers of legislation? Liable to be thrown out of existence for not acting in conformity to the will of another? Can there be any material difference between such a legislative and none at all? The original constitution of this province, the charter, required the convening of a new general assembly in May: The public exigencies might have required it sooner: But governor Bernard was determined in neither of these cases to convene an assembly, if he could but vouch the positive orders of the minister, who had no right or legal authority at all to interpose in the matter. "The using of force upon the people without authority, and contrary to the trust reposed in him that does so, is a state of war with the people;" This is the judgment of one of the greatest men that ever wrote. "If the executive power, being possessed of the power of the commonwealth, shall make use of that force to hinder the meeting and acting of the legislative, when the original constitution or the public exigencies shall require it, the people have a right to reinstate their legislative in the exercise of their power: For having erected a legislative, with an intent they should exercise the power of making laws, either at certain set times or when there is need of it, if they are hindered by any force from what is so necessary to the society, and wherein the safety and preservation of the people consists, they have a right to remove it by force." From this instance of the dissolution of the assembly of this province, as well as that of the suspension of the legislative of New York, for refusing to execute an act of parliament, requiring them to give and grant away their own and their constituents money for the support of a standing army, posterity will form a judgment of the temper of the British administration at that time: Whether a different disposition has