Surinam Justice IN THE CASE Of several persons proscribed by certain Usurpers of Power in that COLONY BEING A Publication of that perfect Relation of the Beginning Continuance and End of the late Disturbances in the Colony of SURINAM set forth under that Title by William Byam Esq sometime Rightfull Governour of that Colony AND The Vindication of those Gentlemen sufferers by his injustice from the Calumnies wherewith he asperseth them in that Relation Couched in the Answer thereunto By ROBERT SANFORD Neither least in Innocence nor in Sufferings Nec mori vereor nec vivere virtute salva Laesa mori vivere LONDON Printed for the Authour and are to be sold at the Brasen Serpent in St. Pauls Church-yard 1662. Imprimatur George Stradling S.T.P. Rev. in Christo Pat. Guil. Episc Lond. a Sac. Domest Ex Aed subâ—ud 14. Octob. 1662. To the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners appointed by his Sacred Majesty to consult the Affairs of his Foreign Plantations My LORDS REason could not direct me to a better way to let your Lordships understand the whole of my case then by presenting you with the full charge my adversaries have published against me with such answer to it as truth and my own innocence prompted me to make Here your Honours will finde all the criminations which their inventions could superadd to the proofs brought against us and my refutation of them which are both subjected to your Lordships judgement That this Narrative which I have exposed to publick view is Byam's own I can onely bring these Arguments for when I came to Barbadoes which was long after the departure of my fellow-Proscripts from Surinam Byam not doubting their arrival gave onely short accounts to his friends there of those rancounters amongst us referring them to this Narrative sent formerly But they miscarried by their leaky vessel came not to that Island till I was departed thence and then this Declaration became first publick there Among divers copies one of them was sent to my Vncle well interessed in Surinam with a letter from Byam aggravating my particular fact He sent both to me and I as faithfully as I could transcribe them have sent both into the world I can I believe finde some here who having seen and read them before they came to my hands dare so far rely on their memories as to aver these to be the very same Here now my Lords you have both the parties pleading before your Honours in the contest the disadvantage of the weapons is observable They having afflicted us with the greatest injuries have nothing to doe but to be dirt us with any imputation which may render us criminal enough for the punishments we have suffered We are forced to bring Proofs of our Innocence against their no-proofs of our guilt or else muct fall under 〈…〉 and aspersions as though it were argument enough of our cri 〈…〉 … at we have so highly suffered Certainly it is a hard task to prove negatives but surely a much harder case that suffering Innocence must be put to it while he that hath violated her is credited on his bare assertion yet this is our task and our case and how I have performed it and acquitted my self and friends of their defamations your Lordships alone can judge This I shall chiefly urge our enemies do here confesse that they have despoiled us of reputation and liberty by an infamous imprisonment of goods by heavy fines of houses lands and of countrey by banishment and all this by an usurpt power and an arbitrary tyrannical way of proceedings by the force of an army destroying the Birth-right of the subject If they must have credit given to all their criminations against us I hope they will not he permitted to traverse what they have confessed of themselves If then to subvert the sacred fundamental Sanctions of our Nation to tread under foot the laws established for the preservation of persons and proprieties to usurp Dominion that branch of Regality to congregate an armed force without warrant and therewith to invade the Rights of their fellow-subjects be crimes of a mid-night-hew I hope they may be as well understood when they charge themselves with all this as when they accuse us of what is lesse evident Since also the Honour Libertie and Estates of the subjests are in the protection of the King and his laws why should not these persons be accountable to them how rightly they have deprived us of all these But they think to justifie their proceedings against us by the names of a General Assembly and the united Authority of the Countrey when it is known that the General Assembly though duly Authorized neither there nor in Barbadoes was ever a Court of Judicature especially in criminal cases such being always tried by the Governour assisted by all the Justices at the General Sessions of the Peace where the fact is presented by a Grand Inquest and after found done or not done by a Jury of the neighbourhood And this is according to Magna Charta and to this way of proceedings the Authority of Surinam were bound by their own Act besides the General fundamental Constitution Yet should we grant that it were customary in those Colonies to try offences by the General Assembly contrary to the great Charter it would not excuse a company of men who seiz to themselves the Power and Name of a General Assembly and vote all those that deny their Authority guilty of what crimes they please sparing or punishing them according to the Rule of their wills What they call sedition in us they confesse to be onely a disputing their power and an Act of Parliament cannot authorize any to be Judges in their own cause My Lords as we cannot loose our Allegiance by changing or soil or heaven so neither can we loose the Royal Protection And that subject that hazards life and fortunes to enlarge his Majesties Dominions the revenues of his crown and traffick of the Nation deserves not to be disenfranchised I should not importune your Lordships with a repeated clamour of my case did I groan under a supportable sufferance but wholly to loose an estate purchased by a large expence of money time and travel to be reduced from a plentiful way of being to the nearest confines of Beggery from the dignity of store to the contempts of want to be deprived of that fruition which when it was in hope onely did sweeten the toil of its acquist and what is the sum of all to see a wife and children dear and deserving panting under this whole burthen is so superlative a punishment that I cannot believe all they would make me guilty of can deserve it Death though murther had been a mercy to this And this my Lords without Hyperbole or aggravation is truly my condition whatever I brought into that Colony and whatever improvement of that my industry had made which was sufficiently considerable is so wholly gone that not the least Remains
them I therefore applyed my self for permission to goe to Barbados my importunity at length prevailed and on the 25 th day of January in the close of the day I was put aboard a ship bound for that Island the first minute of liberty I enjoyed since the 26 th day of Novemb. in the morning two or three dayes of which I was shut up in the stinking hold of the shallop all the rest of the time laden with villeinous shackles but by this detention I escaped those calamities which my brethren in exile were by reason of the craziness of their vessel exposed unto and arrived safely at Barbados and from thence hither to England before any news could informe me that they were yet among the living And thus after an expence of nine years pretious time in all which with an unaltered constancy I laboured in that Colonies promotion and to the frequent hazard of my person and detriment to my estate acted more in the publick concernes then any one Gentleman besides and with less consideration for my self now when I just began to taste the fruits of my so long toil I am thrust from thence and them with a violent Impulsion for no other cause but over-tendering the lives of my dearest friend and nearest relation which rationally enough I imagined on the precipice of danger I considered a taken life like split water was never to be gathered up again knowing that there was both justice and vertue in making their rescous the pleasure of preserving lives so dear wing'd me for the attempt and tangled me in the toyles of my deadly-hating enemies I who glory in nothing so much as an untainted loyalty whose most certain religion is obedience to the lawfull Power who onely out of veneration to the name of his sacred Majesty had subjected my self to less then the shadow of his Proclamation to something less then the aire of his commands a Nothing which had usurp't his name to whom I was hitherto complyant in all things and had still so been had not such lives so illegally been threatned must fall now with those abominated imputations of faction sedition treason and rebellion so abhorrent from my soul cast on me to hurry me into the deepest abyss of infamy and all this for endeavouring to fly the persecution of an usurping Tyrant But my great consolation is the same imputation by the same sort of men cast on thousands that acted the same things have for many lustres of years been the onely crown for the most prodigious loyalty and 't is possible the same planet still retains some vigour of its Malignancy especially at so great a distance from the Royal beams And indeed if it be not criminal to confess so much I was not less moved with the consideration of the danger our most sacred laws were in to which I was sworne a Magistrate acting by vertue of a Power derived from the Delegates subordinate to our soveraign lord the King then I was with natural inclinations to my perishing intimates Having alwaies been loyal or a traitour if I may so speak in the Dialect of those times when those Infamous rebels of our last age without and against the King made the ruine of our fundamental sanctions the ground-work of their usurp't dominion I durst not become disloyal or really a traitour now when those same lawes were trampled on to the same end by abetting these usurpers so much the more infamous for pretending to His greater indignity to act by the Kings Authority And therefore I rather chose by a single opposition to fall in defence of our Soveraigns honour and laws then to troop with them from whom I alwaies had a natural aversation And I count it something of glory that since in the times of need I lay under the imperfections of non-age and absence and could not therefore act my affections to the Royal cause I am yet in the last hour of the day thought worthy of those titles which though in themselves the highest scandals are yet by glorious accidents become the most honourable additions to his Majesties most constant servants I have onely to speak to the Conclusion of Byams Declaration and so shall take leave of my Reader Conclusion The Objections made by the Delinquents Sect. 1. That the Governour was Elective by the Countrey and therein but one year according to the established constitution of the Colony and therefore his continuance therein for any longer time without the choice and annual Election of the Delegates of the several Divisions of the Colony is an usurpation upon the liberties of the people Answer Sect. 1 He neither inserts our objections truly nor fully for we objected that the Constitution of the Delegates was that yearly the people should by their Election renew the whole Authority both Governour Councel and Assembly and that the Delegates did so decree we prove from Byams last Commission dated the 15th of June 1660. by the onely vertue of which both he and this whole General Assembly got possession of the Government in which Commission their decree is expressed in these plain english words That the free-holders of each Division doe annually upon the first wednesday in June meet and by their free voices elect three able honest discreet men free-holders and inhabitants in their respective Divisions to be their Representatives for the following year that these * The Divisions were in numb seaven twenty one Representatives be the General Assembly in whom is the supream Power and Government of this Countrey both Legislative and Magistratical with subordination and subjection to the soveraignty and lawes of England as in the Preamble and that They meet the second wednesday in June at the publick place at Toorárica and there appoint from amongst themselves a Governour for that year c. So that by this Act the former custome which he hinteth at viz. of the peoples first choosing the Delegates then the Delegates choosing the Governour the Governour his Councel and after that the people to meet again to elect their Assembly men was discontinued and this other forme ordained to all futurity till determined by the commands of our soveraign And though Byam pretended to those commands yet he may remember for he accuseth us of it Sect. 8. that the foundation on which we firmed our objection was that his Majesty had not yet determined this constitution by his Royal commands That very Governour indeed and General Assembly to whom the Government was committed by these same Delegates at the instant when they made this Establishment for that year and no longer so abused the trust reposed in them that in their very first year they passed an Order for their own perpetuation to which when we objected that they being an inferiour power to that of the Delegates from whom they had their being could not annull their sanctions they confuted us by armes irons fines and banishment Conclusion Answer to the Delinquents objections
truth for the Assertion yet according to that Rule of my Lord Cookes De non apparentibus non existentibus eademest ratio we may rationally affirm from its never being seen or published amongst us that there never was any such Proclamation from the King as they ground their Authority upon that foundation being removed they have none for their Government For the power which they derived from the Delegates was determined by their expresse limitation on the second wednesday in June so that the Dominion which they were possessed of in October following was taken by themselves and is consequently an Usurpation and whether that can be sufficiently slighted contemned or abused let them resolve who yet feel the calamities of our late times in England I never thought flying from Persecution had been ranged with resistance to Power atd wonder as much how Usher could find Masharts Recesses and return unoffended from his Armes a little proofe would have done well some Illustration at least to bring the tale together It should seem if they did betake themselves to armes it was se defendendo so natural as that the Law dares not punish it Nor was it Jones's insufferable Insolence but Byams and Martens implacable hatred that imposed that former fine as Illegally and Arbitralily as his latter fine and Banishment was decreed they might have remembred the Precedents I cited against that Judgement which they could then no otherwise answer than by straffords case attainted by Parliament Declaration Sect. 4. But before I proceed it will be requisite to advise that on the 13 th of February 1660. there was an Act made by the General Assembly for a Levy upon land of halfe a pound of Sugar per Acre to be paid at two several payments this Assessment was to discharge publick debts build a State-house and a Prison which was Gall to the Debauehers of the Colony and also for a Stock in the Treasury Mashart and Jones meeting with the Inhabitants of the Division where they lived were the first that clashed and stormed against it In so much that at that time nothing was done as required whereupon about a week after I summoned all the Inhabitants again but Mashart and Jones appeared not I then Declared unto them upon what Basis the Government stood and the necessity of this Levy which very much satisfied the people and that Mashart may be inexcuseable Capt. Thomas Griffith one of the Representatives of that Division did about the middle of July last informe the said Mashart at his house of the Order of the General Assembly in Obedience to His Majesties Proclamation concerning our present Government the same I advised Mashart the September following with which he then told me he was satisfied Answer Sect. 4. This Section should precede the former as the cause doth the effect for the demanding of this Levy when the Assessors power was legally expired was it indeed which raised the Dispute against the pretended Authority The people before onely muttered at the losse of their Priviledges but when they began to see an approaching losse of what with so much difficulty they laboured for they grew louder in their clamours and thinking themselves well fortified with arguments denyed the power which demanded this of them hoping to lighten their burthen by a new Election which hopes was Byams and his Partisans despair Nor must we think every Silence a Satisfiednesse Declaration Sect. 5. On the 28 th of October at the meeting of the Inhabitants of the Division of Toorarica Mr. William Sanford one of the Confederacy did also very Insolently spit in the face of Authority stirring up the people to sedition and was uncontrolled by his brother Lieutenant Coll. Robert Sanford then present a Magistrate and one of my Councel who afterwards appeared to head the Faction Answer Sect. 5. That Mr. William Sanford at the meeting of the Inhabitants of Toorárica about this Levy did deny payment thereof till he was satisfied by what power it was demanded openly denying the Governours Power I shall readily acknowledge but that he did thereby insolently spit in the face of Authority I must deny for the reasons afore-alledged That he was uncontrolled by me I understand not for the same that Byam saith himself did upon the like occasion in Masharts Division I did here and thereby silenced my brother Perhaps he counts him uncontrolled because uncommanded into Irons as Jones was which exasperated Mashart my brother and divers others But though I was one of Byams Councel I was not of his Closet and my Magistrates oath which he never took deterred me from such lawless severities Declaration Sect. 6. These two pretended Grievances which they seemed to boggle at the Levy and the Government in the latter of which they objected the peoples liberties were infringed were but Cloaks for a farther designe For about six or eight I mention the most male-contents of bad fortunes worse lives and no endeavours envying the prosperity of the industrious and observing their own declining condition occasionod through continued sloth and drunkenness were resolved if possible to unhinge the frame of Authority bring all things into a confused disorder and out of the troubles which their sottish distemper had fancied patch up their decaying fortunes The truth of this and what else I assert will most evidently appear out of the annexed Depositions Answer Sect. 6. When the world reads there were but six or eight so very bad as are here described and after hears that eight onely were banished they cannot but in charity conclude those eight to be the very worst and so amongst our other sufferings we must wander the world with all this filth upon us But till a contrary proofe appear this assertion may be full as current that above three fourths of these Proscripts brought better fortunes into that Colony by many degrees than Byam or the more numerous of his assessors their fines are some evidence of this Nor were they less industrious in improving those fortunes many of them also were seldome exempted from the most eminent employments And if drunkennesse be a crime meritorious in our enemies thoughts of so sharp and severe a punishment as we have undergone I wonder they were not themselves deterred or ashamed at the least so publickly to become examples of excess in that kinde that very night in which they had determined concerning us But I will excuse them as transported with Joy and confesse that Recriminations purge not the guilty And heartily I do wish that this fault could be lesse objected to any of us or to our Nation this I shall onely averre very few of us Exiles did ever any injury either to publick or private Interests by Ebriety a Negation to a bare Affirmative is enough and the likelihood of the other plots objected in this Paragraph we will examine in our answer to the next and to the Depositions annexed to which they referre us Declaration Sect. 7. During part of
curse Come we now to the Testimonies which were brought against us and the particular facts of which we are charged as they are by Byam himself exposed to the worlds view But before I come to their examination I shall premise a few things to the readers consideration There is not in my opinion a more rational evidence of the slenderness of our guilt then our charge if we consider the inquisition upon our actions which was managed in our absence by the subtilest of our enemies and principal parties concerned in the quarrel who having already designed us for destruction and acted againstus with conformable injuries had a Necessity urging them to make us as criminal as was possible Byam therefore when he had seized imprisoned our persons sends for all that can pretend to know or to have heard any thing that might render us culpable and takes their Depositions the reader may finde by the dates of most of them that they were taken before our time of trial while we were cooped up ignorant of our crime and accuser their contents will shew that much of our offence is words and let candor determine whether the most innocent persons may not be destroyed where words are capital if his enemy who is concerned in his ruine have the sole examination of such men as himself will call for and makes severe scrutiny into all his discourses picking there-hence such words as may serve his malicious purpose and cunningly omitting those which being spoken at the same time might extenuate if not amove the evil of the other inserting neither the occasion incitements time place nor condition of the speaker circumstances which illustrate a discourse and make it often appear very divers from the sense of some of its words Nor will his Declaration let us expect more integrity in Byam since when the reader hath throughly read and weighed him he will all along finde him stretching his criminations beyond any thing of proof which he could purchase against us And that strange passage of Harmunds and Lacons some years before whose names vvritten in their ovvn character were found as witnesses to a bill of debt due to Byam and yet themselves did upon their oaths declare they never saw that deed before nor were in place when it was made makes me ready to conclude him not very scrupulous of anothers perjury where it may be to his advantage And though Byam assert that evidence was given vivâ voce of our words and actions yet I shall desire the reader to understand him rightly vvhat he meanes by vivâvoce it vvas not that the vvitness came in in presence of the prisoner and there upon a mutual confrontment did take his oath and then upon that oath charge the prisoner vvith such and such facts the prisoner having liberty of putting questions to him and the court of his side to enjoin an ansvver to such questions but as I said before all or most of the vvitnesses vvere svvore before-hand in the prisoners absence Byam being the man that took the Depositions as much I must suppose to our disadvantage as he could and then vvhen the Delinquents vvere brought before them this Deposition vvas read in presence of the witness vvho by his silence asserts it and if the prisoner began to question him Marten and Noel vvould call it impudence to argue against an oath and Byam command his Marshal to take him avvay and lay him in irons Nor had every one priviledge of seeing his accuser but vvas condemned on Depositions taken God knovvs when where or of whom Yet all this notvvithstanding they found as I hope the reader also vvill our faults so much beneath the punishment they had destinied us to that they durst not bring us before an indifferent Judicature to a trial by our Peers vvhere vve might have liberty of defending our actions by law and should have had our judges of councel with us and sworne to give judgement according to law but brought us before themselves vvho vvere none of them svvorne Magistrates except those tvvo that vvere my assistants in the court of Common-pleas where we were not permitted to enter on any defence that being presently adjudged as an aggravation of our guilt but according to their own wills and prejudices sentenced to inflictions not to be precedented I think in the whole body of our law Statute or Common And herein they acted not onely Counter to the lawes of England to which they had alwaies owned a subjection but to their own constitutions also one instance of that subjection for not many moneths before these very men Enacted That a General Sessions of the Peace and Goal delivery be held twice a year viz. On the first thursday in September and the first thursday in March That this General Sessions doe by a Jury of Grand Inquest enquire into all breaches of the Peace and breaches of Statute and all criminal matters whatsoever and make presentment thereof by Indictment and proceed to the punishment of all malefactours especially where it concernes life or limb according to the known lawes of England But this was made while their authority was derived from the Delegates they decreed then like Substitutes conforming to their Commission and instructions but since that they have given themselves a greater latitude of Power a Power not differing from absoluteness which that they might retain with the less controll they must remove them who have been so long the obstacles to it and because such a general sessions as this Act prescribes cannot compleat their desires therefore are they necessitated to this other manner of proceedings But God grant us more indifferent judges of this necessity then persons so deeply interessed who having themselves created it by usurping a power over us could no other way secure themselves in the dispute made to their power from a being cast in their own action but by an illegal prosecution of us And now I will no longer detein the Reader from a view of the Depositions Deposition The Deposition of Capt. Tho. Griffith aged forty years or thereabouts taken before me this 28 th of Novemb. 1661. 1. Saith That sometime in July last or thereabouts being at the house of Mr. Michael Mashart and having some discourse of what had passed the last Assembly the Deponent told him that it was ordered that the Governour should continue and no new Election to be and this by vertue of a Proclamation from the King Sworne before me William Byam Answer 1. Themselves have confessed that the Kings Proclamation never came to be published amongst us and indeed how should it since such Proclamation never was and also that this very order for their Authorities continuation was never proclaimed but onely mentioned by some few Gentlemen of the Assembly in their occasional discourses as is confessed here and in Sect. 4. Yet see how severely they punish the breach of a law which never had promulgation But grant this order duly published
prisoners were and said you that have any courage follow me and I will assist you with my life and fortunes whereupon they all followed him Capt. Story cryed out Gentlemen to your armes and said Lieut. Col. Sanford be patient and go over to the Governour or otherwise I will send for him he being on the other side of the river this was at the house of Senior Henrico de Casseres where Mr. Stephen Neal now liveth Sworne before me the 29th of Novemb. 1661 W. B. Answer 15 16 17. That particular in these Depositions viz. of assisting them with life and fortunes which I onely controvert I suppose was grounded on an ill understanding or hearing of my discourse with Captain Story to whom I said that if he would grant the custody of the Prisoners to me I would engage my reputation faith life and fortunes for their forth-coming to a legal tryal but be it as it may the great crime inferr'd from hence is that I being Lieutenant Collonel should countermand the Order of my Collonel c. which some there acquainted with little else but military punctilios accounted so high a presumption if not worse that they concluded it could not merit lesse then a capital censure pronounced from a Martial Judicature But besides that I think it safe for all in Authority well to study the Exceptions from that general rule in the Petition of Right before they too hastily Erect military tribunals lest e're they be aware they subvert a fundamental law I shall desire those rash sentencers to consider that a regulated Militia may be in a place where the inhabitants are not in a posture of warre nor under the Dominion of any but the civil sword and that in such a place it is no intrenchment on the lawes of war nor tryable in martial courts if the inferiour Officer contest though to actual violences with his superiour and such is the state of the present question onely what makes it more strong on my part his Commission for Collonel was actually determined by the express limitation of the Authority from whence he first and onely derived it whereas it is controvertible whether I being indefinitely without such limitation appointed Lieutenant Collonel of the Regiment and Judge of the Court of Common-pleas by the Election and Act of the General Assembly who could only appoint all inferiour Ministers did not continue such till the Act by which I was empowred were repealed Nor would I from this assert that I was more rightly in power then Byam for God is my witness that very willingly I would have shaken the burthen of publick administrations off my shoulders and the sensible part of that Colony know how industriously I have declined all those Employments so farre was I from that ridiculous ambition of making my self Governour to be disproved by many instances proved by none Let this truth onely take place that neither of us had a just power and then that objection against me hath lost its sting Yet had their Authority been as legal as they could have desired it to be my fact is but onely an attempt of rescous which was not effected nor was any greater violence then of words formed into perswasions and commands employed on that attempt no evill consequences followed it the prisoners still remained in the custody of the guards and those guards inviolated certainly if a simple rescous though succeeded in be not a crime for which a man must loose fame liberty estate and countrey I am hardly dealt with that have lost all these and my ruine entailed on my children for poorly attempting a Rescous with arguments onely But to make my fault yet less they had no lawfull power and acted by an illegal force to the destruction of the birth-right of their fellow subjects which by this action of mine I endeavoured to prevent and had it succeeded had certainly prevented it and made up all these breaches which was the onely end in my eye And they that will from this onely fact conclude that I excited to the causalities of these mens imprisonment and bring no other instance for their so concluding may as rationally affirm that because a man endeavours to worke the escape of his friend therefore he acted with him in what drew on his restraint I have already particularized in my tryal where the onely sentence pronounced to my ear was to be laid in the hold in irons which was presently executed but about ten dayes after the Secretary brought me their whole condemnation dated and I believe decreed before my day of hearing in these words By the Governour and General Assembly It is ordered by the Authority aforesaid that Lieut. Col. Robert Sanford pay unto the Publick five thousand pounds of Sugar and to be committed close prisoner in irons till a ship sail hence for England it being made appear before this Authority by several evidences that the said Lieut. Col. Robert Sanford in a most rebellious and mutinous manner came to the house where several persons who had taken up armes against the Authority of this Colony and had acted feloniously were committed and would contrary to all law and order not onely have discharged them but commanded them out of the said house and heading them proffered to assist them with his life and fortunes and being called before this Authority then sitting on the Examination and Judging of these seditious and rebellious persons denyed and abused the said Authority Dated the 28 th of Novemb. 1661. W. B. At the instant of my receiving this I paid down my fine and took the Treasurers discharge hoping that I might have prevailed to have been sent off to Barbados with the other Gentlemen and so have been the sooner freed from my hateful restraint and their power also among whom I thought my life not over-secure And were I as earnest to make my enemies odious as they are to befilth us with any sort of dirt I could bring fair evidences of a Practice against me whose barbarisme exceeds any yet instanced in But though it concernes them in the part they have to act to make us at least seem criminal to doe which they therefore gladly recurre to every though improbable calumny to me it is sufficient that I appear innocent wherefore I shall not lengthen my discourse with any digression not absolutely pertinent to my justification though it conduce largely to their blackning That if I appear faultless being fully enough effected by such usage of me as themselves do own I hartily forgive the intention who ever was guilty of it and desire God may do so too 't is enough for me that I am safe Often did I labour by letters to Byam to purchase the favour of as speedy a banishment as my Compeers were like to enjoy and as often had my suit rejected The Councel was courted but with like success the General Assembly forsooth had determined my punishment and they onely could retract the Order To
having owned his Majesty as our supream Magistrate by our solemn proclaiming of him and recognized upon our publick records our Governour as his Governour virtually by his Majesties Declaration The Governour thus authorized empowred and confirmed by the Kings Declaration and his power and authority therein as Governour by virtue thereof recognized by us upon our own Records the disowning of him so to be and the declaring and endeavouring by an Overt act to set up and exect any other Governour in opposition to and contempt of the King his Crown and Dignity signified by his Royal Will and Pleasure requiring our subjection and obedience to his commands and Declaration is treason in such opposers and contrivers Answ … Sect. 3. At length out comes the true reason for this establishment but it is not remembred 1. That Byam plaid the seditions person when out of all publick emploiment and raised many disputes against the power left in possession of the Government by Holdip and therein continued by the peoples representatives as not sufficiently authorized instigating the people to an actual disobedience Nor 2. That though at that time I had the sword of that authority in my hand and the authority to back me yet I did not drive him into exile but made way for him to the Chair by perswading those that sate in it to descend and give the people leave to place in it whom they liked best Nor 3. That after all this notwithstanding the aâ—mes he had particularly against me in all his mâ—vings to sedition in emulation of my eminency and disdain of his own nullity I laid on many on that heap of votes which mounted him to his height therein consulting the Colonies not my own advance this person being of so restlesse an Ambition that if he ruled not all there was no ruling him But of this no more He thus coming to the possession of the Government labours every year to be perpetuated without an annual standing candidate and at last fearing to hazard himself longer on the unconstant multitude elated also with the conscience of his sufferings and service in the Royal cause saies I will continue and I will say the King hath so commanded and I will with force drive away all those that have hitherto and still shall impede me herein be their constant loyalty never so exemplar For what is all this talk of the Kings proclamation but Byams ipse dixit Nay what is it else but a meer fiction raised from a presumption that probably enough the King in this so great a change might so proclaim And these elaborate Arguments or more truly * Major Noel the scribler of this Conclusion a worshipper of O. Cromwel and triumpher in his motto over the martyred Charles with devictâ— hoste libertate donati Noellian Inganneations drawn from this supposal are but like those about the Golden tooth which proved at last a forgery But though to expend wit on an erroneous principle may consist with innocence yet to joyn with those whom onely forgetfulness hath left out of the list of traytours and rebels in bespotting a precise never-varied loyalty with the abominated aspersions of Treason and Rebellion pulling Ruine on whole families and all by a mistake should I exclude malice cannot but by justice be condemned as a criminal temerity I need not controvert the Law our Surinam Iudge so Magisterially concludes with but shall onely add these few assertions out of Iudge Ienkins fol. 195. c. To alter the established Lawes in any part by force is High Treason To usurp the Royal Power is High Treason To subvert the Fundamental lawes is High Treason A necessity of a mans own making doth not excuse him Presentment or tryal by Iury is the Birth right of the subject Magna charta the Petition of Right and other good laws of this land ordain that all mens tryals should be by the established laws and not otherwise they are the very words of the Petition of Right An Act of Parliament that a man should be judge in his own cause is a void Act. ib. fol. 139. The common law of this land is that every Freeman is subject to a tryal by Bill of Attainder in Parliament wherein the King and both Houses must necessarily concur for that tryal is an Act of Parliament to which all men are subject But otherwise no man shall be destroyed c. but by the lawfull judgement of his Peers or by the Common law of the land ib. fol. 93. The Governour and General Assembly as they call themselves of Surinam do here confess that in our tryal and punishment they have usurped a Power equal if not superior to that of the King and both houses of Parliament subverted the fundamental Laws end by force of an Army altered the established Lawes of England in the whole From my own reading I shall subjoine this to discharge men guilty of Treason and Felony is Treason and Felony Byam c. have accused us of both punished us for neither if we be guilty they are answerable for not bringing us to a tryal if we be innocent they are puilty of conspiracy nor can they avoid this Dilemma by objecting our Irons Fines and Banishment for all lawyers know these are not the punishments for treason nor felony nor had we the tryal due to either they did this way indeed revenge themselves on some for endeavouring to unfix them in their usurp't dominion and on me for labouring to disappoint them of their revenge which may possibly be termed an inconsiderate cannot rationally be censured a criminal attempt FINIS The Copy of a Letter which Byam sent to Barbados to my Uncle together with this his Declaration Superscribed For Captain Nathaniel Kingsland my respected friend SIR YOur affection to and interest in this Colony are sufficient obligations to render you an account of the late distempers in our Government and I am sorry to tell you that your Nephew Lieutenant Col. Robert Sanford hath not onely abetted but heaâ—ed the unruly authours of our sad disturbance I have enclosed presented you with an impartial relation of all passages most remarkable wherein I have not the least been swayed by prejudice or animosity What faâ—e thus hurried him to that excess of insolence I cannot well judge unless soaring too high with an â—ver weening gale of his natural and acquired parts which too early advanced him to publick offices of Eminency in the Colony he unadvisedly over-set for want of the ballast of experience and discretion had be learn's to obey before he commanded he would not have commanded before he obeyed which you finde was his errour what Apology he may present you for it I know not I am sure I have not painted it so foul as it really was Sir when you have perused the inclosed papers be pleased to recommend them to the view of Mr. John Kirton and Sergeant Major Authony Rous to whom I desire my respects and service may be presented then after a general accompt of the Colonies present condition he concludes your Nephew had of late a desire to give you a visit which I could not admit at present being the positive order for his departure was for London which was his desire nor would I reverse what the united authority had concluded on If I may serve you in these parts you may he assured of my readiness and fidelity I wish you happiness and rest Surinam the 13th of Decemb. 1661. Your very affectionate friend and servant William Byam This was writ and sent away by those other Proscripes while I remained behind in fetters but their vessel failing them I came to and from the Barbados before this arrived there and so never saw it till I received it sent from my Vncle here in London