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Cool Thoughts on the Present Situation of Our Public Affairs - 11

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formation, or Acquaintance with the State of other Colonies, before and after such Changes had been made in their Government. Carolina and the Jerseys, were formerly Proprietary Governments, but now immediately under the Crown; and their Cases had many Circumstances familiar to ours.---Of the first we are told,

“There was a natural Infirmity in the Policy of their Charter, which was the Source of many of the Misfortunes of the Colony, without any Imputation on the noble Families concern’d. For the Grantees, [the Proprietors] being eight in Number, and not incorporated, and no Provision being made to conclude the whole Number by the Voices of the Majority, there could not be timely Measures always agreed on, which were proper or necessary for the good Government of the Plantation. In the mean Time the Inhabitants grew unruly and quarreled about Religion and Politicks; and while there was a mere Anarchy among them, they were expos’d to the Attacks and Insults of their Spanish and Indian Neighbours, whom they had imprudently provok’d and injur’d;-----and as if they had conspir’d against the Growth of the Colony, they repealed their Laws for Liberty of Conscience, though the Majority of the People were Dissenters, and had resorted thither under the publick Faith for a compleat Indulgence, which they considered as Part of their Magna Charta.---Within these four Years an End was put to their Sorrows; for about that Time, the Lords Proprietors and the Planters, (who had long

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  1. Cool Thoughts on the Present Situation of Our Public Affairs - 11