The Inhabitants being met, and for the Purpose aforesaid, the Points determind, his Excellency says, "were such as the Law gives the Inhabitants of Towns in their CORPORATE Capacity no Power to act upon." It would be a sufficient Justification of the Town to say, that no Law FORBIDS the Inhabitants of Towns in their corporate Capacity to determine such Points as were then determined. And if there was no positive legal Restraint upon their Conduct, it was doing them an essential injury, to represent it to the World as ILLEGAL. Where the Law makes no special Provision for the common Safety, the People have a Right to consult their own Preservation; and the necessary Means to withstand a most dangerous attack of arbitrary Power.4 At such a time, it is but a pitiful Objection to their thus doing, that the Law has not expressly given them a Power to act upon such Points. This is the very language of Tyranny: And when such Objections are offerd, to prevent the Peoples meeting together in a Time of publick Danger, it affords of it self just Grounds of Jealousy that a Plan is laid for their Slavery. The Town enterd upon an Inquiry into the Grounds of a Report, in which the common Safety was very greatly interested. They made their Application to the Governor, a fellow Citizen as well as the first Magistrate of the Province; but they were informd by his Excellency, that "it was by no means proper for him" "to acquaint them whether he had or had not receivd any Advices relating to the publick Affairs of the Government of the Province." Their next Determination was, to petition the Governor, that the General Assembly might be allowd to meet at the time to which it them stood prorogud: But his Excellency refused to grant this Request, lest it should be "encouraging the Inhabitants of other Towns to assemble" "to consider of the Necessity or Expediency of a Session of the General Assembly." Hitherto the Town had determind upon no Point but only that of petitioning the Governor. And will his Excellency or any one else affirm, that the Inhabitants of this or any other Town, have not a Right in their corporate Capacity to petition for a Session of the General Assembly, merely because the Law of this Province, that authorizes Towns to assemble, does not expressly make that the Business of a Town Meeting? It is the Declaration of the Bill of Rights, founded in5 Reason, that it is the Right of the Subjects to petition the King: But it is apparent in his Excellencys Answer, that the Inhabitants of this Town were in Effect, denied, in one Instance at least, the Right of petitioning his Majestys Representative. Which was the more grievous to them, because the Prayer of their Petition was nothing more, than that the General Assembly might have the Opportunity of enquiring of the Governor into the Grounds of the Report of an intollerable Grievance, which his Excellency had before strongly intimated to them, it was not in his Power to