under no Obligation to hold the General Court at Cambridge, let your
Instructions be conceivd in Terms ever so peremptory, in as much as it
is inconvenient and injurious to the province.--As to your Commission,
it is certain, that no Clause containd in that, inconsistent with the
Charter can be binding: To suppose, that when a Grant is made by
Charter in favor of the people, Instructions shall supercede that
Grant, and oblige the Governor to act repugnant to it, vacating the
Charter at once, by the Breath of a Minister of State. Your Honor
thinks you may safely say, "there is not one of us, who if he was in
your Station, would venture to depart from the Instructions ." As you
had not the least Shadow of Evidence to warrant this, we are sure you
could not say it with Safety: And we leave it with your Honor to
determine, how far it is reconcileable with Delicacy to suggest it. In
what particulars the holding the General Court at Cambridge is
injurious to us and the Province, has already been declared by the
House, and must be too obvious to escape your Honors Observation. Yet
you are pleasd to tell us, that "the Inconveniences can easily be
removd, or are so inconsiderable that a very small publick Benefit
will outweigh them"--That they are not inconsiderable, every Days
Experience convinces us; nor are our Constituents insensible of them:
But how they can be easily removd, we cannot conceive, unless by
removing the Court to Boston. Can the publick Offices & Records, to
which we are under the Necessity of recurring, almost every Hour, with
any Safety or Convenience to the publick be removd to Cambridge? Will
our Constituents consent to be at the Expence of erecting a proper
House at Cambridge, for accommodating the General Court, especially
when they have no Assurance that the next Freak of a capricious
Minister will not remove the Court to some other place? Is it possible
to have that Communication with our Constituents, or to be benefited
by the Reasonings of the people without Doors here, as at Boston? We