that this Matter might be duly considerd by the Town, and such
Measures taken as the Necessity and Importance thereof required.
Whereupon the Selectmen issued a Warrant for calling a Meeting
accordingly. All which was strictly agreable to the Laws of this
Province, and the Practice of this and other Towns from the
earliest times.

By an Act of this Province made in the fourth year of William &
Mary it is enacted, that "when and so often as there shall be
Occasion of a Town Meeting for any Business of publick
Concernment to the Town there to be done, the Constable or
Constables of such Town, by Order of the Selectmen or major Part
of them, or of the Town Clerk by their Order in each respective
Town within this Province shall warn a Meeting of such Town" &c.2
And by another Act made in the 2 Geo. I. it is enacted that "When
and so often as ten or more of the Freeholders of any Town shall
signify under their hands to the Selectmen their desire to have
any Matter or thing inserted into a Warrant for calling a Town
Meeting, the Selectmen are hereby required to insert the same in
the next Warrant they shall issue for the Calling a Town
Meeting."3

But were there no such Laws of the Province or should our Enemies
pervert these & other Laws made for the same Purpose, from their
plain and obvious Intent and Meaning, still there is the great
and perpetual Law of Self preservation to which every natural
Person or corporate Body hath an inherent Right to recur. This
being the Law of the Creator, no human Law can be of force
against it: And indeed it is an Absurdity to suppose that any
such Law could be made by Common Consent, which alone gives