ed themselves into permanent
parties. One of the principal instructions which the three members of
the Council sent immediately from England, namely, General Clavering,
Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis, carried out with them was, to "_cause
the strictest inquiry to be made into all oppressions and abuses_,"
among which _the practice of receiving presents from the natives_, at
that time generally charged upon men in power, was principally aimed at.

Presents to any considerable value were justly reputed by the
legislature, not as marks of attention and respect, but as bribes or
extortions, for which either the beneficial and gratuitous duties of
government were sold, or they were the price paid for acts of
partiality, or, finally, they were sums of money extorted from the
givers by the terrors of power. Against the system of presents,
therefore, the new commission was in general opinion particularly
pointed. In the commencement of reformation, at a period when a
rapacious conquest had overpowered and succeeded to a corrupt
government, an act of indemnity might have been thought advisable;
perhaps a new account ought to have been opened; all retrospect ought to
have been forbidden, at least to certain periods. If this had not been
thought advisable, none in the higher departments of a suspected and
decried government ought to have been kept in their posts, until an
examination had rendered their proceedings clear, or until length of
time had obliterated, by an even course of irreproachable conduct, the
errors which so naturally grow out of a new power. But the policy
adopted was different: it was to begin with _examples_. The cry against
the abuses was strong and vehement throughout the whole nation, and the
practice of presents was represented to be as general as it was
mischievous. In such a case, indeed in any case, it seemed not to be a
measure the most provident, without a great deal of previous inquiry, to
place two persons, who from their situation must be the most exposed to
such imputations, in the commission which was to inquire into their own
conduct,--much less to place one of them at the head of that commission,
and with a casting vote in case of an equality. The persons who could
not be liable to that charge were, indeed, three to two; but any
accidental difference of opinion, the death of any one of them or his
occasional absence or sickness, threw the whole power into the hands of
the other two, who were Mr