have frequently happened in this and other
seaport Towns. By this we are cut off from
that domestic security which renders the Lives
of the most unhappy in some measure agreeable.
These Officers may under color of Law and
the cloak of a general warrant, break through
the sacred Rights of the Domicil,
ransack Mens
Houses, destroy their Securities, carry off their
Property, an with little Danger to themselves
commit the most horrid Murders.
And we complain of it as a further Grie-
vance, that notwithstanding by the Charter of
this Province, the Governor and the Great
and General Court or Assembly of this province
or Territory, for the time being, shall have full
power and authority, from time to time, to
make, ordain and establish all manner of whole-
some and reasonable Laws, Orders, Statutes,
and Ordinances, Directions and Instructions,
and that if the same shall not within the term
of three years after presenting the same to his
Majesty in Privy Council be disallowed, they
shall be and continue in full force and effect,
until the same shall be repealed by the Great
and General Assembly of this province: Yet
the Parliament of
Great-Britain have rendered,
or attempted to render, null and void, a Law
of this province, made and passed in the Reign
of his late Majesty George the First, intituled,
"An Act stating the Fees of the Custom-House