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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	king_n	law_n	see_v	2,769	5	3.8029	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30795	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, form the calummies wherewith he asperseth them in that relation / couched in the answer thereunto by Robert Sanford ...	Sanford, Robert.	1662 (1662)	Wing B6377; ESTC R37524	51,112	58

be excuse for them when they come to the Bar to say we bound and gagged him because he should not proclaim our theft and call in defence Declaration Sect. 15. On the 28. of November the General Assembly being sate I sent for Collonel Christopher Legard Captain Charls Legard and Captain Nicholas Sulke who were in England at the happy revolution and did there declare and aver that they had seen and heard his Majesties Proclamation for the continuance of all Governours Magistrates c. I then caused all the inhabitants then present to be drawn up to whom I declar'd the cause of their convention the authours of our disturbances the drift of their designs their rebellious fellonious and most impudent actings and Gods mercy in our preservation The people being all well satisfied I sent for the prisoners one by one before the united authority of the Colony where their charges and impeachments were read evidence viva voce of the words and actions which the annexed depositions will at large declare And according to their crimes and qualities were censured some to depart the Colony and not to return in five years others to depart and were fined others were fined and not sent off but one as deep as the rest carrying himself with remorse submission and civility obtained a more moderate censure Answer Sect 15. There is a sort of men in the world that will say more in their friends behalf then they will swear and such Byam hath got to prove the publishing of a Royal Proclamation which I cannot hear any man in England say he ever heard or saw But it is somewhat strange that Byam and Marten should not above a year before themselves form and contrive an Act for the General Assembly to pass wherein it was ordained That the constitution of the Delegates should not be altered though a Commission came from the sovereign power for the government or propriety untill we had first sent home to acquaint the power with the inconveniencies of admitting a change of rule and obtained an answer And that now upon a hear-say nay some moneths before that hear-say arrived they should be the leading men to change this established form But every man is nearest to himself and Marten besides is so famous in nothing as his variety of councels and it seems the whole bulk of Government must dance to the changes of his brain Yet how slender soever this proof was of a thing of that nature it was suffic●ent and less would have been so in a matter that Byam would that it should be to cause this General Assembly as they call themselves even before any of us were called before them to sentence the disputes to the authority as a trayterous and rebellious opposing his Majesties power and the taking the Shallop without ever examining any reasons as a felonious act so that when we were brought to the Tribunal it was to judgement not to tryal and accordingly we no sooner appeared than received their condemnation Now though be it true that these men heard such a Proclamation I will not determine how far such Royal Edicts exact their obedience within whose precincts they never came to be published yet this I dare aver that there was never any command from his Majesty that any free-man should be taken disseized and axiled without tryal by his Peers and the Law Nor did the King authorize any to be Judges in their own cause or ever grant Commission to Byam to proceed against his Majesties subjects by a martial court and way contrary to the laws and franchises of the land And yet see here Byams confession for thus proceeding against us Nor can they deny this by stiling themselves the united authority for grant their authority lawfull it cannot deprive us of our Magna Charta Priviledges Let Bradshaw declaim with a voice of thunder and face of brass that his Court is founded on the highest authority yet nothing but an army can draw an honest mans silent assent I cannot less wonder at the diversities of judgements on one and the same fact had the law appointed the penalty it could not have been so strangely different nor the Judge if sworn to observe that law have dared to dispense it in a various manner Hence it is evident their judgement if by law was by a diverse and uncertain law and ubi lex aut vaga aut incerta miserrima est servitus Declaration Sect. 16. The last that came before authority was Lieutenant Collonel Sanford who though he brought up the Rear was the head of the faction The first word that proceeded out of his mouth was the lye which he seconded with most impudent railing against the General Assembly whereupon I remanded him to prison to be secured in irons and afterwards fined in five thousand pounds of sugar and to be sent off in the first ship bound for England which was his desire Answer Sect. 16. It is accompted a dangerous birth where the feet come formost and certainly if I were the head of this sedition as they call it the chief reason of its miscarriage was my appearing last in the action The first word that proceeded out of my mouth was a truth and that I seconded by others as great truths but when my arguments grew of force I was silenced And though this General Answer might serve well enough to his general criminations such kinde of Returns having been often adjudged iusufficient it being a Rule that Generale nil certi implicat and therefore the law requires and injoyns certainty yet I will be more particular a curiosity which Byam hath no good successe in and therefore cunningly declines it and tell the world the whole manner of my tryall Being guarded up to the judgement-seat in the night through lanes of souldiers Byam reads to me some depositions containing the manner of my attempting a rescous on the prisoners the witnesses had not front enough to appear and therefore I must credit Byam though no sworn Magistrate and my enemy that they had made such oath When he came to those words that I should say to the prisoners I will assist you with my life and fortunes I said that was a lye whoever swore it And so it was for I never said so nor need I disown it if I had spoke it it being no crime for me to declare a readinesse of exposing life and fortunes for the protection of innocence from a violent oppression But to proceed A silence expecting it I spake these very and onely words I see here so few formalities of a legal Court that I shall use as few in confessing or denying what I stand accused of nor can I expect a very equal proceeding finding those sit as my Judges who are my accusers whom it concerns as much that I be guilty as it concerns me to be not guilty You Sir to Byam and Major Noel there arrested me for High Treason you ought to prosecute not to judge me

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