Soon after the arrival of the charter, viz, in 1692, your Excellency's history informs us,8 "the first act" of this Legislative, was a sort of Magna Charta, asserting and setting forth their general privileges, and this clause was among the rest; "no aid, tax, tallage, assessment, custom, loan, benevolence, or imposition whatever, shall be laid, assessed, imposed, or levied on any of their Majesty's subjects, or their estates, on any pretence whatever, but by the act and consent of the Governor, Council, and Representatives of the people assembled in General Court." And though this act was disallowed, it serves to show the sense which the General Assembly, contemporary with the granting the charter, had of their sole and exclusive right to legislate for the colony. The history says, "the other parts of the act were copied from Magna Charta;" by which, we may conclude that the Assembly then construed the words, "not repugnant to the laws," to mean, conformable to the fundamental principles of the English constitution. And it is observable, that the Lords of Privy Council, so lately as in the reign of Queen Anne, when several laws enacted by the General Assembly were laid before her Majesty for her allowance, interpreted the words in this charter, "not repugnant to the laws of England," by the words, "as nearly as conveniently may be agreeable to the laws and statutes of England." And her Majesty was pleased to disallow those acts, not because they were repugnant to any law or statute of England, made expressly to refer to the colony, but because divers persons, by virtue thereof, were punished, without being tried by their peers in the ordinary "courts of law," and "by the ordinary rules and known methods of justice," contrary to the express terms of Magna Charta, which was a statute in force at the time of granting the charter, and declaratory of the rights and liberties of the subjects within the realm.