An Address to the Rev. Dr. Alison - 18
BUT to proceed in manifesting the Weakness of the Foundation upon which you attempt to erect your Power: "The Charter, you say, allows to every County four Members at least to represent them," and that the Frontiers "desire this Privilege." Here you discover the Folly of Divines when they undertake to expound Temporal Laws. In the Year 1701, the Province and Territories were united in Legislation; they consisted of six Counties, three in each: The Proprietor and People finding the Original Frame of Government defective, agreed on a new Charter; the whole Number of Representatives was settled at Twenty-four, i. e. four for each County. And therefore the Charter, in erecting and proportioning the Legislative Authority of the Counties then laid out; declares, in §. 2. "That there shall be an Assembly yearly chosen by the Freemen thereof, to consist of four Persons out of each County;" making in the Whole the Number intended.—But as there was then a Probability, from some Differences subsisting between the Members of the three Counties of the Province, and those of the three Counties of the Territories, that they would separate in Legislation, in the subsequent Part of the Charter a Power is given to them for that Purpose: And, in case they should separate, it was further declared, that the Inhabitants of each of the three Counties of this Province should not have less than 8 Members to represent them in Assembly, without the least Direction for the future Regulation of the Conduct of the Government, in forming new Counties.
