lawful for the protector of negroes to purchase the freedom of any negro who shall appear to him to excel in any mechanical art, or other knowledge or practice deemed liberal, and the value shall be settled by a jury.

negroes

punished.

40. And be it enacted, that the protector Free of negroes shall be and is authorized and how to be required to act as a magistrate for the coercion of all idle, disobedient, or disorderly free negroes, and he shall by office prosecute them for the offences of idleness, drunkenness, quarrelling, gaming, or vagrancy, in the supreme court, or cause them to be prosecuted before one justice of peace, as the case may require.

41. And be it enacted, that, if any free of the same. negro hath been twice convicted for any of the said misdemeanors, and is judged by the said protector of negroes, calling to his assistance two justices of the peace, to be incorrigibly idle, dissolute, and vi cious, it shall be lawful, by the order of the said protector and two justices of peace, to sell the said free negro into slavery: the purchase-money to be paid to the person so remanded into servitude, or kept in hand by the protector and governor for the benefit of his family.

Governor to transmit an

receive and

nual reports.

42. And be it enacted, that the governor in each colony shall be assistant to the execution of this act, and shall receive the reports of the protector, and such other accounts as he shall judge material, relative thereto, and shall transmit the same annually to one of his Majesty's principal secretaries of state.

LETTER

TO

THE CHAIRMAN OF THE BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

MEETING,

HELD AT AYLESBURY, APRIL 13, 1780,

ON THE SUBJECT OF

PARLIAMENTARY REFORM.

NOTE.

THE meeting of the freeholders of the County of Bucking ham, which occasioned the following Letter, was called for the purpose of taking into consideration a petition to Parliament for shortening the duration of Parliaments, and for a more equal representation of the people in the House of Commons.

LETTER.

SIR, -Having heard yesterday, by mere accident,

that there is an intention of laying before the county meeting new matter, which is not contained in our petition, and the consideration of which had been deferred to a fitter time by a majority of our committee in London, permit me to take this method of submitting to you my reasons for thinking, with our committee, that nothing ought to be hastily determined upon the subject.

Our petition arose naturally from distresses which we felt; and the requests which we made were in effect nothing more than that such things should be done in Parliament as it was evidently the duty of Parliament to do. But the affair which will be proposed to you by a person of rank and ability is an alteration in the constitution of Parliament itself. It is impossible for you to have a subject before you of more importance, and that requires a more cool and more mature consideration, both on its own account, and for the credit of our sobriety of mind, who are to, resolve upon it.

The county will in some way or other be called upon to declare it your opinion, that the House of Commons is not sufficiently numerous, and that the elections are not sufficiently frequent, that an hundred new knights of the shire ought to be added, and that we are to have a new election once in three

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