re taken. These and
numerous other cases which I could enumerate, cannot admit of a
doubt but that such a regulation must tend greatly to the
preservation of the liberty of the subject, the property of all
classes of the inhabitants, and the general interest and security
of the colony at large.

I should also strongly advise, that nine or ten of the
principal officers of government should be authorized to act in
the capacity of council, to whom the governor could resort, in
all periods of difficulty and delicacy, for advice how to shape
his conduct, by which means he would not, in any future instance,
be left wholly dependent upon his own judgment. The good effects
of this arrangement must soon be evident, since the issuing of an
order of council could not fail to carry with it much additional
weight to that which would be attached to an act of the governor
alone, and would tend to the speedy suppression of any appearance
of insubordination, and discourage those who should incline so to
act as to originate a spirit of dissatisfaction in the
settlement. To a want of this council, it may not be too much to
attribute the present unsettled state of the colony, and the
maturation of a faction which has perverted the streams of
justice, and which has impeded the growth of opulence throughout
the settlement, merely to enrich a select party at the expense of
the general welfare, and consequently to spread vice and ruin
through a land, whose prosperity has never become their care,
although it was a solemn pledge of their leaders to support and
cherish it to the very utmost of their ability.

In addition to this council composed of the chief officers of
the government, I consider it essentially requisite that a
barrister should be appointed as a counsellor to the governor, at
all times when his excellency is referred to in matter of
doubtful disputation, which must oftentimes occur in the colony,
and which frequently reduces him to an unpleasant dilemma. Aided
by a legal adviser, however, his judgment must be strengthened,
and his decision would be more weighty, without creating in his
breast those uneasy sensations which must arise under different
circumstances. In the present conformation of the government, the
governor has no legal adviser to have recourse to when an appeal
is made to his decision, which is not rarely the case, except the
judge advocate, and this officer having previously given his
opinion in the court be