1783.baron Steuben, and general Knox, be a committee to wait on the commander in chief, with a copy of the institution, and request him to honor the fociety by placing his name at the head of it." They likewife defired general Heath to tranfmit copies of the inftitution, with the proceedings thereon, to the commanding officer of the fouthern army, the fenior officer in each state, from Pennfylvania to Georgia inclufive, and to the commanding officer of the Rhode Inland line, requesting them to take fuch measures as may appear to them neceffary for expediting the establishment of their ftate focieties, Circular letters were accordingly written; and the plan of the Cincinnati carried into execution, without the least opposition being given to it by any one state, or body of men in any. A pamphlet was at length published figned Caffius, dated Charlestown, October 10, 1783, entitled Confide, rations on the Society or Order of Cincinnati; with this motto, "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion." It is thought to be written by Ædanus Burke efq; one of the chief juftices of South Carolina; and is well executed. The author undertakes to prove," that the Cincinnati creates two diftinct orders among the Americans-ist, A race of hereditary nobles, founded on the military, together with the powerful families, and first-rate, leading men in the state, whofe view it will ever be, to rule : and 2dly, The people or plebeians, whose only view is not to be oppreffed; but whofe certain fate it will be to fuffer oppreffion under the inftitution." Remarking upon the reafon for the members being called the Cincinnati, he exclaims As they were taken from the citizens, why in the name of God not be contented "to return to citizenship", without ufurping an hereditary 1783. 1 order? or with what "propriety can they denominate" themselves from Cincinnatus, with an ambition fo rank as to aim at nothing lefs, than Otium cum Dignitate, "Retirement and a peerage"? Did that virtuous Roman, having fubdued the enemies of his country, and returned home to tend his vineyards and plant his cabbages; did he confer an hereditary order of peerage on himfelf and his fellow foldiers? I answer, No; it was more than he dared to do." When near the end he fays," With regard to myself, I will be candid to own, that although I am morally certain the inftitution will entail upon us the evils I have mentioned: yet I have not the moft diftant idea, that it will come to a diffolution. The first clafs, or leading gentry in the ftate [of South Carolina] and who will always hold the government, will find their intereft in fupporting a diftinction that will gratify their ambition, by removing them far above their fellow citizens. The middling order of our gentry, and substantial landholders, may. The alarm is become. fo univerfal, that the general and *783. and will join their influence for the removal of fuch obnoxious parts. General Greene, the late commanding officer of the fouthern army, has acknowledged to me in converfation, that there is not in the fociety, as at present constituted, a delicacy with regard to the general body of American citizens; and it may be fairly prefumed, that a fimilar fentiment is espoused by the late commander in chief. It is to be hoped, that the feveral ftates will unite in determining, that the fociety fhall diffolve with the deaths of the present officers and honorary members, and that it fhall not be perpetuated by an acceffion of new and younger ones. In their late contest with Great Britain they acted upon the maximabfta principiis. They must apply it afresh for their fecurity against lordly dominion. How much a people, and governmental powers, are prone to put up with and practise internal encroachments upon liberty, when they have fecured themselves from fuch as are foreign, may appear from the following facts. In 1782, captain Gilbert Dench was chofen for Hopkinton, and fuffered to fit as member in the Maffachusetts house of representatives, though he had a dwelling in and lived at Boston for a full year before the choice. Edward Pope efq; was reprefentative for Dartmouth and naval officer at the fame time. Both were under an abfolute difqualification by the conftitution. On Tuefday the 6th of May, 1783, the town of Boston, which could not comply with a warden-act, upon the plea that it was against the conftitution, chofe James Sullivan efq; one of their reprefentatives in direct oppofition to the conftitution, which requires that every reprefentative 5 fhould fhould have been an inhabitant of the town he is chofen 1783. to represent, one year at least next preceding his election. When, the propriety of his election was inquired into by the house, a majority determined in favor of it; upon the flimfy plea, that he transacted business in Boston though he slept at Cambridge, and removed with an intention of becoming an inhabitant, in time to have completed that inhabitancy which the conftitution requires; and that his stopping at Cambridge to fecure the health of one of his family, whofe life must have been endangered by her spending the summer in Boston, was occafioned by an act of God. The fame caufe which secured his election, fecured his feat, viz. an avowed and violent oppofition to every moderate meafure in favor of the parties who, by the provifional articles, were to be the objects of the congreffional recommendation. By a paragraph in a bill, which was before the house (during this their first feffion) and afterward paffed into a law, cafes were fubmitted to the fole judgment of two justices of peace, that ought to have been left to the determination of a jury. But certain members protested against it, affigning the following reafons for their fo doing" 1. Because we apprehend other provifion might have been made, confiftent with the constitution, and at the fame time more effectual. for the purpose of preventing the return of perfons who have left this state and joined the enemies of the United States, than that provided in the paragraph aforefaid. Such conftitutional and more effectual provision was moved and urged by the diffentients and others, as a substitute in place of the faid paragraph, and is as follows, viz. "Provided never theless, } 1783. thelefs, that if any perfon committed as aforefaid, shall before the warrant is made out by the governor to fend him out of the ftate, petition the governor, he shal with advice of council, appoint three juftices of the county, quorum unus, where fuch perfon ftands com mitted, to iffue their precept for a jury to be drawn ou of the superior court box and fummoned to appear a a certain time and place, and to inquire on oath whether the perfon fo committed is within the act aforefaid: and if the jury fhall return their verdict, that fuch per fon is not within said act, then he shall be discharged and not be transported: but fuch person fhall not be liberated from his confinement until a verdict is fo given in his favor. And in every fuch cafe the juftices fhall appoint fome meet perfon to act as council on behalf of government, at the expence of the commonwealth. And the perfon petitioning for fuch trial shall pay all the coft thereof in the fame manner as other perfons are obliged to do, in bringing forward a fuit at law."2. Becaufe by the faid paragraph, that effential right of freemen, a trial by jury, is taken away, and every fubject of this commonwealth expofed to be deprived of his liberty, property and rights of citizenship, and to the infamous punishment of banishment, by the fole judgment of two juftices of the peace.-" 3. Because it is a flagrant and direct violation of the principles and fririt of the conftitution, and the letter of the declaration of rights, art. xii. which provides that, "No fubject shall be arrested, imprisoned, despoiled, or deprived of his property, immunities or privileges, put out of the protection of the law, exiled or deprived of his life, liberty or estate, but by the judgment of his peers, or the |