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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	design_n	government_n	great_a	288	4	2.1067	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52625	A narrative of affairs lately received from His Majesties island of Jamaica viz. I. His Excellency the Governour Sir Thomas Linch's speech to the assembly met Sept. 21. 1682, II. Samuel Bernard Esq; speaker of the said assembly, his speech to the Governour, III. An humble address from His Majesties council, and the gentlemen of the assembly, to His Most Sacred Majesty, IV. The Governour's speech at the proroguing the assembly.	Jamaica. Governor (1682-1684? : Lynch); Lynch, Thomas, Sir, d. 1684?; Jamaica. Assembly.	1683 (1683)	Wing N169; ESTC R8489	5,914	8

Confusion where we shall not escape Shipwrack without a Miracle the apprehension of which so discomposes me that I cannot say more than God have mercy on us and direct you Samuel Barnard Esq Speaker of the Assembly his Speech to the Governour Sept. 21. 1682. May it please your Excellency TO confirm their own Judgment the Assembly are pleased to continue me their Speaker and that I take likewise to be the reason that prevails with you to approve their Choice I shall not presume Sir to be tedious however we do in all humility acknowledge the frequent and ample Testimonies of his most Sacred Majesties repeated Favours whose goodness like the Sun extends to the utmost corners of his Dominions and especially for this last and most signal one in returning your Excellency to us thereby demonstrating your Government to be both to his satisfaction and that of all his subjects here who shall always preserve their Loyalty entire to him and of consequence their Obedience to your Excellency his immediate Minister and that however represented we can never believe any distinction between the King's interest and the Peoples for indeed whoever preaches up that Destructive Position doth from an ill division of an ill chosen Text deduce worse Doctrine The uncertainties and difficulties under which for some years past we have laboured have been very great I am willing to touch on that no farther than to say being impartially weighed it can never be reasonably imagined we had any other designe but to continue under our old form of Government which his Majesty had been pleased to constitute at first as near that of his Realm of England as so great a Volume could be comprised in so small an Epitome and to preserve the quiet fruition of those Estates which our own industry blest be divine Providence had acquired under the same method of making Laws as is observed in our Native Country from which as the famous Roman saith there is defended a greater Inheritance to us than from our Parents A truth I may say without offence verified in the major part of the Inhabitants of this Island The whole matter of this then being seriously considered to be done upon these ends onely if we may not presume to merit or lay claim to yet from so great a goodness as that of his most Gracious Majesty I doubt not but we may certainly hope for pardon I have now onely to add in behalf of these Gentlemen humbly to crave the preservation of their usual Priviledges freedom of Debate and access to your Person and in particular your Excellencies pardon of the inadvertancies of me their Speaker beseeching you to deem them Errours of Judgement not will His Majesties Council and the Gentlemen of the Assembly for his Island of Jamaica being met at St. Jago de la Vega the 21th day of September 1682. by order of his Excellency the Governour Sir Tho. Linch humbly beseech the Lord President and Lords of his Majesties most Honourable Privy-Council for governing his Majesties Foreign Plantations to present to his most Sacred Majesty this their most humble Address May it please your Majesty HAving received more frequent Testimonies of your Royal Grace and Bounty than others of your Subjects we ought to have been the first to have made profession of our Loyalty and Gratitude to your Sacred Majesty but the unsettledness of our Affairs and that vast distance we are at from your Kingdom of England may move your Majesty the best of Kings to pardon the omition and accept a late but hearty and humble tender of our Duty Dread Sir We do as we have the greatest reason in the world for it bless God and most humbly thank your Majesty for your Care in protecting us for your Grace and Justice in assimulating our Government to that of our Native Country of England for your Majesties favour in ordering us supplies of Negroes at reasonable rates and for those many repeated Acts of Grace Justice Bounty and Protection which your Majesty hath been pleased to confer upon us and this your great and flourishing Island SIR To evidence in some measure our Thankfulness and Duty we most humbly present to your Majesty an Act of Revenue formed by advice of our present Governour which with our former body of Laws we hope quadrates with those Orders and Directions the Lords of your Majesties Privy-Council sent hither We prostrate them and our selves at your Majesties Royal feet humbly beseeching your Majesty will be pleased graciously to pass them considering how much the establishing of known Laws will contribute to the satisfaction of your Subjects and prosperity of this your Majesties Island Dread Soveraign Although we are the remotest of all your Subjects from your Royal Throne yet have we to our great trouble understood there may have been designes to subvert and shake it and that some would have imposed on your Majesty others altered the Succession and secluded your Royal Brother and in order to that or worse ends would have entered into Association All which we utterly detest and humbly beseech your Majesty to believe that we shall always obey your Commands dutifully revere your Person faithfully support your Majesties Government and lawful Succession to the utmost of our power the long and happy continuance whereof both in Church and State we heartily pray for By order of the Council signed this 6th day of Oct. 1682. Rowland Powell Cl. Council By order of the Assembly Sam. Barnard Speaker The Governour 's Speech at proroguing the Assembly from Octob. the 4th 1682. to May the 4th 1683. Gentlemen YOu may believe the disorders of my Head and misfortunes of my Voyage are something alleviated by the joy I have to see this Session so happily and suddenly ended though God has been pleased to confer on me many great and signal Blessings yet none of them methinks ever relisht like this nor is it reasonable they should they have been particular and concerned my self onely This is publick and may I hope reach White-hall and affect not onely us here but every individual man in this great Island and those that shall succeed us in it We have Gentlemen fluctuated many years between Fears and Jealousies among our selves and of our Governours which has occasioned angry disputes here that have rather enlarged than cemented the Breach Like ill Sculptures some would have made the Head too big as others the Members neither of them considering that the perfection and beauty of the Figure consists in the symetry and due proportion of the parts for it 's in the Body Politick as in the Natural if the Head attracts too much nourishment the Members become debile and weak if the Body does it the Head will be rendred incapable of exercising the Divine Function lodg'd in it But you Gentlemen like good Subjects and wise Patriots have duly weighed this and considered there 's a Duty to be paid a Prince as well as a Care to be taken of our selves and that we cannot express our Duty better than in trusting his Majesty we need not fear to do it since he has merited so much from us and that it is certain our Prosperity is his true Interest for Colonies that do not thrive are like Scabs they render nothing to but draw nourishment from the Body We that were of the old Army thankfully remember the Donative his Majesty gave us All of us know he has constantly sent us Supplies in our need Ships to defend us in our danger when we could not he paid our Ministers gave Salaries to our Governours and others allowed Money for our Fortifications and now gives and permits his Rents to be appropriated to the Charge and Support of our Government this and much more his Majesty hath done for us and to make this Care this Munificence like himself perfectly gracious perfectly obliging It was done for us here in those times his Majesty was under the greatest Pressures and Wants at home You Gentlemen have dutifully and gratefully acknowledged this by separating your Laws from his Revenue and by that frank hearty and humble submission you make of all to his Majesties Justice and Grace I am sure ●●u'll find the advantage of it and that there 's no other method of transa●●ing with Princes for there is no parity betwixt us and them they canno● be bound they must therefore be trusted And this confidence were it lawful to make the Comparison I durst say must necessarily have the s●me effect on the King as our Faith has on God if we believe he will do us good There 's no other way to retrieve the good opinion of our Lords at home to be setled and united among our selves and to establish that Credit abroad that may bring People and Trade to us If we should continue at variance among our selves or have contest with our Prince and Governours who would love Jamaica though it has so many Charms or stay in it though it has so many Advantages if one could but breath any where else Does not every one know what influence Agreement and Peace have on mens minds and fortunes which is the reason Morality as well as our Reason bids us pursue Peace with all men If Peace Gentlemen be of this import that it 's to be pursued as a summum bonum what do we all owe to you that have thus overtaken it and thus establisht it among us Surely since Heaven is best described by saying it is the place of Peace and Union you that have brought down and establisht and fixed such a Resemblance of it here ought to expect and have all our Praises all our Thanks and every man of you is sure of all the Services I can ever render him God I hope will give to you all those Blessings in your fortunes in your minds and in your persons promised to Peace-makers and to us those that are the consequences of Peace and Vnion it self FINIS

A NARRATIVE OF AFFAIRS Lately received from his MAJESTIES Island of Iamaica VIZ. I. His Excellency the Governour Sir Thomas Linch's Speech to the Assembly met Sept. 21. 1682. II. Samuel Bernard Esq Speaker of the said Assembly his Speech to the Governour III. An humble Address from his Majesties Council and the Gentlemen of the Assembly to his most Sacred Majesty IV. The Governour 's Speech at the Proroguing the Assembly HONI SOIT QVI MAL Y PENSE DIEV ET MON DROIT LONDON Printed for Randal Taylor near Stationers Hall 1683. A NARRATIVE OF Affairs from Iamaica His Excellency Sir Tho. Linch Governour in Jamaica his Speech at the convening an Assembly at St. Jago de la Vega in Jamaica Sept. 21. 1682. GENTLEMEN AS I expect you should not do much so I suppose you may imagine I should say but little the posture of our Affairs does not require it nor will the disorders of my head permit it However I must tell you The Council and I have convened you by the directions of your own Act that enjoyns your annual Meeting and Sitting ten days otherwise it 's probable we had not given you this trouble now Whatever may be said I must profess I am glad of the occasion of seeing so many of my good Friends together but withal I do assure you it 's not that Consideration made me continue this Assembly for to be plain if I believe you knew in October when the Laws past that my Lord C. was removed I must needs conclude you were neither partial to me as the King's Governour nor very kind as your Friend and who reflects on it now will say so But the reason that induced the Council and me to continue this rather than call another Assembly is we think the Country eased by it and that they cannot visibly make a worthier Choice for it 's you Gentlemen have made these Laws that we hope will be a Magna Charta to us and our Children as well as a Boundary to me and all future Governours And if there be any thing to be added or retrenched to make them pass at home we judge it 's fit you do it that you who have had the charge and trouble of raising this great Structure should have the thanks and glory of finishing it I suppose Gentlemen no body will enter into Disputes about the Legality of this Assembly for the Lords at home say it is lawful And then you all know you are called by the King 's Writ so not dissolved by change of a Governour no more than Parliaments in England and Ireland are by the death or removal of Lieutenants or Chancellors I need not have said this Gentlemen for I know you are too wise to enter into Disputes about Niceties and do consider that as the King and his Ministers intend we shall have all those just Liberties and Freedoms that belong to English-men and good Subjects so our reflecting on things that are not pertinent or reviving those detestable names of Caballers Prerogative and Property-men may give them offence and that will make us uneasie and as it will be troublesome now so may it be ruinous hereafter for common Sense tells us We should not kick against the Pricks and the wise man That it's madness to contend with those that are too mighty And indeed the Contest must be fatal where it is so unequal as to have Power and Right too on the same side Though I cannot Gentlemen speak any thing directly from our Lords about the Laws yet I shall take the liberty to say this from my self that if it 's of the utmost import our Laws pass it may be fit for you to consider now whether they will or no and if you judge they will not then resolve of removing the Obstructions This conjuncture is favourable and may give more encouragement than can be expected next year when I shall be foreclosed all Concessions by positive Orders and the Laws determination Pray Gentlemen consider how much better it is to go voluntarily a step or two back than run the hazard of being driven God knows how far I shall explain my self if you enter into debate of this matter if not it must lie at your door for it 's you must answer to this and it may be future Ages the losing another opportunity of establishing the Peace and Laws of this great and prosperous Colony I beg you Gentlemen to believe that herein I sollicit not my own Concern for God hath been pleased to give me a moderate Estate and the King a competent Salary that I am sure to be paid here or in England so I neither need nor desire any thing from you I onely beg we may do our selves the right to pay the Duty Submission and Gratitude we all owe the King as our soveraign Lord and great Benefactor and that for our Peace and Interest sake we let no factious or scrupulous Spirits insinuate any thing that may make us mistrust a just Prince and prudent Ministers Such is the King such are those Lords that govern us under him Do we not know the bitterest Enemy his Majesty or which is worse Monarchy it self has cannot say he ever took the least thing from the meanest Subject by violence or contrary to Law And if he has ever erred has it been in any thing but in the excess of his Bounty and Mercies Can Faction Malice or Impudence it self then suggest that such a Prince should violate the Laws to take from a young and needy Colony the Revenue himself gives and commands to be raised for the support of their own Government and that at a time he has appointed us an Auditor-General a particular Office to see it 's not misapplied Nor is it possible it should so long as your Act exists and that every one of you knows and I positively affirm But pray pardon me for I am assured Thoughts so criminal and Jealousies so unreasonable are far from every one of us nor can they lodge in any breast but such as have banisht that Loyalty and Reverence that is due to Majesty and Truth I call God to record I knew of no designe to injure or invade your just Liberties nor have I other Instructions than to do right and govern according to the Laws of England and this Island I appeal to you all if you do not know I did not so to the best of my understanding when I had the honour to command here before I must tell you it 's my opinion it was that Consideration and your Satisfaction made the King and his Ministers to send me again that all those Passions that have so long agitated you might be calmed and every thing that gave you ombrage removed Believe me therefore Gentlemen should our Sins Caprice or Follies make us miss that Port that now frankly offers it self and launch into the deep of needless Jealousies and Disputes it 's to be fear'd we may find it a wide Sea of