. .where his
adulating priestlings are reminding him he was born and educated,
forgetting perhaps if they ever knew, that the tyrants of Rome
were the natives of Rome. Among other edicts which have been
lately sent to this governor, there is one which prohibits his
assenting to any tax-bill, unless the commissioners and other
officers, whose salaries are not paid out of moneys granted by
this government, are exempted from a tax on the profits of their
commissions. Nothing that I can say will heighten the resentment
of a man of sense and virtue against such a mandate; and yet our
governor would have us think it is a mark of his paternal
goodness. Another instruction forbids the governor to give his
assent to grants to any agent, unless he is appointed by a law of
the province, or a resolve of the assembly, to which his
excellency consents. And a third requires him to refuse his assent
to a future election of such councillors as shall presume to meet
together as a council, without being summoned by him into his
presence. These instructions, so humiliating to the council, the
secretary by the governor's order has entered on their journals
It has been observed that the nearer any man approaches to an
absolute independence, the more he will be flattered; and flattery
is always great in proportion as the motives of flatterers are
bad.
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