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XX. Whenever you receive information of any quantity of goods run, and of the place where they are lodged, if you are apprehensive of any opposition, or that any attempt will be made to rescue the goods after seizure, you are in such cases to take with you the neighbouring officers, and other sufficient assistance, in order to secure the goods and guard them to the warehouse; and if any military forces are quartered in your parts, you are likewise, when necessary, to apply to the Commanding Officer for their aid. . . . And in case you are obstructed or abused in your duty, you are to mention the same with the names of the offenders if known, acquainting your Collector and Comptroller therewith, that proper measures may be used to punish the offenders.

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XXI. [In case of successful smuggling, obtain all possible information.]

XXII. . . . If the Informer desires to be concealed, you need not mention his name, and you are at the same time to send or deliver an account in writing to the register of seizures, and you are not, on any pretence, to treat upon any proposal for a composition. or otherwise stop or delay proceeding against any offender, . . . without first obtaining our approbation..

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XXIII. It being enacted by the Act of the 10 and II Wm. III, c. 10, s. 19, that no wool, woolfells, shortlings, mortlings, woolflocks, bay or woollen yarn, cloth bays, sarge kersies, says, frizes, druggets, cloth serges, shalloons, or any other drapery stuffs, or woollen manufactures whatsoever, made or mixt with wool or woolflocks, being of the product or manufacture of any of the British Plantations in America, shall be laden on board any ship or vessel in any place or parts within any of the said British Plantations, upon any pretence whatsoever; . . . [or] loaden upon any horse, cart, or carriage, to the intent and purpose to be . conveyed out of the said British Plantations, . under forfeiture of the goods, with the ship, vessel, boat or other bottom whatin sections xii-xiv and xix, and the papers mentioned in x, were then required not only for vessels in foreign trade, but for coasting craft. In addition, every coasting vessel had to enter and clear at a royal custom house, which might be fifty miles distant from the place where it wished to load lumber or fish. These regulations were somewhat ameliorated as to coasting craft, but the bonds were still being required of them in 1773. See D. D. Wallace, Life of Henry Laurens, chapters xii, xiii, and Proceedings Am. Antiquarian Society for April 1922.

soever employed therein, and the penalty of five hundred pounds to every offender for every offence, and forty pounds to every master, mariner, waggoner, porter, carrier or boatman concerned therein. You are to take care and use your best endeavours to carry the said Act into execution.

. XXIV. The exporting and transporting of hatts and felts dyed or undyed, finished or unfinished, out of any British Colony or Plantation in America being pro

hibited, under the forfeiture of the goods, 5 Geo. II, c. 22. and the like penalties upon the persons concerned therein as is provided for woollen manufactures, you are to take care and use your best endeavours to prevent . . . the same.

XXV. You shall not [engage in] . . . trade as a merchant for yourself, or as a factor, . . . nor keep a victualing house, or house of public entertainment.

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XXVI. ... Observing that by 4 Geo. III, c. 15, s. 38, every officer of the customs who shall receive any bribe, will for each and every offence forfeit five hundred pounds, and be rendered incapable of serving the Crown in any office or employment, civil or military. .

XXX. [An appendix of twenty pages follows, with digest of Acts of Parliament, special instructions for the coasting trade, &c.] [28 February 1769

Custom-house,
Boston.

WM. BURCH,
HEN. HULTON,
J. TEMPLE.

CHAS. PAXTON.]1

THE REGULATOR MOVEMENT IN NORTH CAROLINA. PETITION OF A FRONTIER COUNTY 2 9 October 1769

MR. SPEAKER AND GENTLEMEN OF THE Assembly:

The Petition of the Inhabitants of Anson County, being part of the Remonstrance of the Province of North Carolina,

HUMBLY SHEWETH, That the Province in general labour under general grievances, and the western part thereof under particular ones; which we not only see but very sensibly feel, 1 In manuscript on the copy used for text. 2 Printed from the State Archives in Colonial Records of North

being crouch'd beneath our sufferings: and, notwithstanding our sacred priviledges, have too long yielded ourselves slaves to remorseless oppression. Permit us to conceive it to be our inviolable right to make known our grievances, and to petition for redress; as appears in the Bill of Rights pass'd in the reign of King Charles the first, as well as the Act of Settlement of the Crown of the Revolution. We therefore beg leave to lay before you a specimen thereof, that your compassionate endeavours may tend to the relief of your injured constituents, whose distressed condition calls aloud for aid. The alarming cries of the oppressed possibly may reach your ears; but without your zeal how shall they ascend the throne. How relentless is the breast without sympathy, the heart that cannot bleed on a view of our calamity; to see tenderness removed, cruelty stepping in; and all our liberties and priviledges invaded and abridg'd by (as it were) domesticks who are conscious of their guilt and void of remorse. O how daring! how relentless! whilst impending judgments loudly threaten and gaze upon them, with every emblem of merited destruction.

A few of the many grievances are as follows, viz.,

1. That the poor inhabitants in general are much oppress'd by reason of disproportionate taxes, and those of the western counties in particular; as they are generally in mean circum

stances.

2. That no method is prescribed by law for the payment of the taxes of the western counties in produce (in lieu of a currency) as is in other counties within this province; to the peoples great oppression.

3. That lawyers, clerks, and other pentioners, in place of being obsequious servants for the country's use, are become a nuisance, as the business of the people is often transacted without the least degree of fairness, the intention of the law evaded, exorbitant fees extorted, and the sufferers left to mourn under their oppressions.

4. That an attorney should have it in his power, either for the sake of ease or interest or to gratify their malevolence and spite, to commence suits to what courts he pleases, howCarolina (Raleigh: Josephus Daniels, 1890), viii. 75–80. Cf., in same volume, petitions of Orange and Rowan counties, pp. 81, 231, and account of breaking up the session of the County Court at Hillsborough, P. 241.

ever inconvenient it may be to the defendant: is a very great oppression.

5. That all unlawful fees taken on indictment, where the defendant is acquitted by his country (however customary it may be) is an oppression.

6. That lawyers, clerks, and others extorting more fees than is intended by law is also an oppression.

7. That the violation of the King's instructions to his delegates, their artfulness in concealing the same from him; and the great injury the people thereby sustains: is a manifest oppression.

And for remedy whereof, we take the freedom to recommend the following mode of redress, not doubting audience and acceptance; which will not only tend to our relief, but command prayers as a duty from your humble petitioners.

1. That at all elections each suffrage be given by ticket | and ballot.

2. That the mode of taxation be altered, and each person, to pay in proportion to the profits arising from his estate. 3. That no future tax be laid in money, untill a currency,

is made.

4. That there may be established a Western as well as, a Northern and Southern District, and a Treasurer for the

same.

5. That when a currency is made it may be let out by a loan office on land security,1 and not to be call'd in by a tax. 6. That all debts above 40s. and under £10 be tried and determined without lawyers, by a jury of six freeholders impanneled by a Justice, and that their verdict be enter'd by the said Justice, and be a final judgment.

7. That the Chief Justice have no perquisites, but a sallary only.

8. That clerks be restricted in respect to fees, costs, and other things within the course of their office.

1 This demand for cheap money has been a typical device of frontier. debtor communities in the United States from the early eighteenth century to the present. It was tried in Massachusetts in 1739, and in Rhode Island in 1786, with disastrous results; the refusal of the Massachusetts Legislature to grant it in 1786 precipitated Shays's Rebellion; a clause was inserted in the Constitution (Art. I, s. x, § 1) to prevent it. The Greenback party and the free silver movement had fundamentally the same idea as basis; and the radical agrarian movement of 1923 is making the same demand.

9. That lawyers be effectually barr'd from exacting and / extorting fees.

10. That all doubts may be removed in respect to the payment of fees and costs on indictments where the defendant is not found guilty by the jury, and therefore acquitted.

II. That the Assembly make known by remonstrance to the King, the conduct of the cruel and oppressive Receiver of the Quit Rents, for omitting the customary easie and effectual method of collecting by distress, and pursuing the expensive mode of commencing suits in the most distant courts.

12. That the Assembly in like manner make known that the Governor and Council do frequently grant lands to as many as they think proper without regard to head rights,1 notwithstanding the contrariety of His Majesties instructions; by which means immense sums has been collected, and numerous patents granted, for much of the most fertile lands in this Province, that is yet uninhabited and uncultivated, environed by great numbers of poor people who are necessitated to toil in the cultivation of bad lands whereon they hardly can subsist, who are thereby deprived of His Majesties liberality and bounty: nor is there the least regard paid to the cultivation clause in said patent mentioned, as many of the said Council as well as their friends and favorites enjoy large quantities of lands under the above-mentioned circumstances.

13. That the Assembly communicates in like manner the violation of His Majesties instructions respecting the Land Office by the Governor and Council, and of their own rules, customs and orders; if it be sufficiently proved that after they had granted warrants for many tracts of land, and that the same was in due time survey'd and return'd, and the patent fees timely paid into the said office; and that if a private Council was called on purpose to avoid spectators, and peremptory orders made that patents should not be granted; and warrants by their orders arbitrarily to have issued in the names of other persons for the same lands, and if when intreated by a solicitor they refus'd to render so

1 The head right system, which originated in Virginia, was that of granting a man so many acres of land gratis for every person he brought into the colony. Such land was supposed to be forfeited if not brought under cultivation within a certain period.

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