Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 5, 2025
This was entitled "a petition of several gentlemen, freeholders, and other inhabitants of the county of Gloucester, in behalf of themselves, and all other, the freeholders of the said county," setting forth, in substance, "That the petitioners being informed that a bill was depending in this house, for the encouragement and increase of seamen, and for the better and speedier manning his majesty's fleet, containing several clauses which, should the bill pass into a law, would, as the petitioners apprehend, impose hardships upon the people too heavy to be borne, and create discontents in the minds of his majesty's subjects; would subvert all the rights and privileges of a Briton; and overturn Magna Charta itself, the basis on which they are built; and, by these means, destroy that very liberty, for the preservation of which the present royal family was established upon the throne of Britain; for which reasons, such a law could never be obeyed, or much blood would be shed in consequence of it."
It will be observed that while the act of 1670 said that "none but freeholders and housekeepers" could vote, this act of 1705 did not specifically legislate against voting by a mulatto or a free Negro, and that some such privilege was exercised for a while appears from the definite provision in 1723 that "no free Negro, mulatto, or Indian, whatsoever, shall hereafter have any vote at the election of burgesses, or any other election whatsoever."
I received the thanks of many of the freeholders privately; but the poor sycophants did not dare to shew their, approbation publicly. How many of them are there who, when they read this, will recollect the circumstance with shame, and feel a pang of remorse that they did not stand forward at the time to obey the dictates of their conscience.
One result was, that, while slaves were often made coloni, that is, tillers or tenants, sharing with the owner the profits of tillage, and thus had their condition improved, many freeholders sank to the same grade, which was a kind of serfdom.
Adams immediately caused to be printed and published an address to the freeholders of Smyth's district; the nature and spirit of which reply will be shown by the following extracts: "Friends and Fellow-Citizens: By these titles I presume to address you, though personally known to few of you, because my character has been arraigned before you by your representative in Congress, in a printed handbill, soliciting your suffrages for reëlection, who seems to have considered his first claim to the continuance of your favor to consist in the bitterness with which he could censure me.
I ken fu' weel whom I am obliged to Sir Thomas Kittlecourt as good as tell'd me he would sit in my skirts if he had not my interest at the last election; and because I chose to go with my own blood and third cousin, the Laird of Balruddery, they keepit me off the roll of freeholders; and now there comes a new nomination of justices, and I am left out!
On the other hand, the old franchise of the 40s. freeholders was more widely diffused since the value of money had been greatly depreciated. Still, the influence of the great county families was almost supreme, and they were firmly entrenched in the nomination boroughs, where there was scarcely a pretence of free election.
"If your ancestors and your ancient house be all that you can bring in your defence, you may go the same road as he," said one of the devils, "because we can scarcely remember one ancient house, of which some oppressor, murderer, or strong thief did not lay the foundation, and which he did not transmit to people as froward as himself, or to lazy drones, or drunken swine, to maintain whose extravagant magnificence, the vassals and the tenantry must be squeezed to death, whilst every handsome colt or pretty cow in the neighbourhood must be parted with for the pleasure of the mistress, and every lass or married woman, may consider herself fortunate, if she escape the pleasure of the master; the freeholders, meanwhile, being either obliged to follow him like fawning hounds, rob themselves for his benefit, and sell their patrimonies at his pleasure, or be subject to frowns and hatred, and be dragged into every disagreeable and vexatious employment during their lives.
He replied that, "in case of a demand for William Anderson, he should require the case to be tried in their British court; and if twelve freeholders should testify that he had been a man of integrity since his arrival in their dominion, it should clear him." This information, however, I did not reveal to our Southern lawyer.
The provincial legislature, denominated a Parliament was to consist of the proprietors, in the absence of any one of whom, his place was to be supplied by a deputy appointed by himself; of the nobility; and of the representatives of the freeholders, who were elected by districts. These discordant materials were to compose a single body which could initiate nothing.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking