APPENDIX F. AT the Court at White Hall the 14 daie of Novem Whereas a Report from the Rt. Honble. the Lords of the Comtee. for Trade and Plantations was this day read at the Board in the words following: May it please your Matie. In obedience to your Maties. Reference of 16th of May last wee have heard the complaint of divers Ffreeholders, Merchants and Inhabitants of the Bermudas against that Company, and being at several times attended by both parties with their learned council, the articles of grievances presented by the Planters many of them appearing of little weight and others being waved and passed over by the complainants, were at length reduced unto the particulars following. Ffirst. The Inhabitants complain that they are forbidden to send any Petitions or present their appeals unto Your Matie. for relief without the approbation of the Governor and Council of those Islands: Ffor remedy whereof wee humbly offer our opinions that your Maties. subjects inhabiting those Islands ought to enjoy the comon influence of Your Royal Protection, and to have an absolute liberty of presenting their Petitions and appeals unto your Matie. without the participation or interruption of any person what soever. And whereas the inhabitants doe likewise complaine that the owners of lands in the Bermudas have by orders from the Company disseized and ousted the Planters without any tryall at Law, wee have heard what could be said in this case by either party and the Company did aleadge unto us that there is a power granted them by Charter to hear and decide all differences and that no title was ever tryed in those Islands untill the yeare 1654 at which tyme they had thought fit by their orders to constitute a Court of Justice upon the place and that they have not only reserved unto themselves the right of appeals but of hearing divers cases at the first instance. The Plaintiffs on the other side did argue that the obligation of attending the Company here for the decision of differences does oftentimes turn to their Ruine by reason of the great expense they are forced to beare in coming so far, and and the neglect of their Plantacons at home, that if, after a tryall at Law in the Island by a Jurie (as happens in divers cases) the Company shall continue to take upon them to reverse the Judgment and to make a different determination here by their own orders, it will be alwaies in their power to favor one another and even to reassume the lands whc. they shall have demised to the Inhabitants: besides that whereas formerly the whole company was resideing here in England, and that at present three parts of four of them being inhabitants upon the place, it is now just and reasonable that the Judicature should attend the major part of them there. In consideration whereof and upon full debate of the matter of this article wee are humbly of opinion that it dos not appeare that the Company have any power by their charter to determine matters of right as a court of Judicature at the first instance and that the tryall of causes originally by the Company here is illegal and ought not to be continued, and that in case the parties will not consent to referr the matter of the whole complaint to the decision of Your Maties. Comtee. of Plantacons, if Your Matie. shall so think fit wee cannot then but advise Your Maty. that the powers of this chartier be left to a tryall at Law by a Scire Facias or Quo Warranto all of which is most humbly submitted. The said Report was thereupon approved in council and it is hereby ordered that in case the Company of the Sumer Islands will not consent to refer the matter of the whole complaint made against them by the Planters to the decision of the Lords of the Comtee. for trade and Plantations then the Powers of their Charter to be left to a tryall at Law by a Scire Facias or Quo Warranto. JOHN NICHOLAS. |