to be administered in such forms as the charter prescribes. As a
corporation, they make laws for themselves; but as a corporation,
subsisting by a grant from higher authority, to the control of that
authority they continue subject.

As men are placed at a greater distance from the supreme council of the
kingdom, they must be intrusted with ampler liberty of regulating their
conduct by their own wisdom. As they are more secluded from easy
recourse to national judicature, they must be more extensively
commissioned to pass judgment on each other.

For this reason our more important and opulent colonies see the
appearance, and feel the effect, of a regular legislature, which, in
some places, has acted so long with unquestioned authority, that it has
forgotten whence that authority was originally derived.

To their charters the colonies owe, like other corporations, their
political existence. The solemnities of legislation, the administration
of justice, the security of property, are all bestowed upon them by the
royal grant. Without their charter, there would be no power among them,
by which any law could be made, or duties enjoined; any debt recovered,
or criminal punished.

A charter is a grant of certain powers or privileges, given to a part of
the community for the advantage of the whole, and is, therefore, liable,
by its nature, to change or to revocation. Every act of government aims
at publick good. A charter, which experience has shown to be detrimental
to the nation, is to be repealed; because general prosperity must always
be preferred to particular interest. If a charter be used to evil
purposes, it is forfeited, as the weapon is taken away which is
injuriously employed.

The charter, therefore, by which provincial governments are constituted,
may be always legally, and, where it is either inconvenient in its
nature, or misapplied in its use, may be equitably repealed; by such
repeal the whole fabrick of subordination is immediately destroyed, and
the constitution sunk at once into a chaos; the society is dissolved
into a tumult of individuals, without authority to command, or
obligation to obey, without any punishment of wrongs, but by personal
resentment, or any protection of right, but by the hand of the
possessor.

A colony is to the mother-country, as a member to the body, deriving its
action and its strength from the general principle of vitality;
receiving from the body, and communicating to it, al