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534 X, AMERICAN STATE TRIALS,

eomplaining is made treason! Here is a strange and fatal
dilemma on the subjects of the plantations. They must either
suffer their oppreasions, or be hanged for traitors if they eom-
plain. .
The act of assembly of this country can by no natural or
legal construction be extended to make the prisoner culpable.
It is plain by the whole purport of the act, that it has made
no new treason; it only recognizes the king and queen; and
enacts, that those who shall do any thing desructive to that
establishment, by force of arms or otherwise, shall be rebels
and traitors; which they would be without this act. If this
address and petition had been to the French king, the thing
had been of another nature. By the same construction, every
petty battery, or other little trespass, may be a treason.
The petition of Colonel Bayard and the other three is 2o far
from disowning the government, that it is a direct acknowl-
edging of the same. The direction of the petition is, to the
lieutenant governor and the council. The expression ‘‘that
they have advice that Lord Cornbury is to sueceed the Earl
of Bellamont’’ can with no justice or common sense be con-
strued to be a disowning and casting off of the government.”
I think it will hardly be affirmed, that the council succeeded
the Earl of Bellamont, and Captain Nanfan the council ; if so,
after the Earl of Bellamont, who was captain generalf We
had seven captains-general which is an absurdity, I suppose,
none Will allege. A familiar example will demonstrate the
weakness and falsity of this construction. If a captain of a
company be killed or absent, the lieutenant or next officer
has the full command of the company, as the captain had, or
could have; but I think no man will aay he sueceeds the cap-
tain, or that when another captain is appointed he succeeds
that lieutenant or other officer. So that I cannot think there
is any fact or crime alleged or proved against the prisoner,
to charge him with this high crime of treason, or indeed with
any other crime whatsoever.

? Some time after the Earl of Bellamont’s death, Captain Nanfan,
the lieutenant governor, was at Barbadoes,

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