of this fund, and the rapacious character of his predecessor, many of the colonists suspected that very little of it was appropriated during his time to the purposes for which it was intended.  This misapplication of it, however, is but a matter of conjecture; and it was probably to shelter himself from the possibility of falling under a similar imputation, that the present governor has caused quarterly accounts, which are first verified by a committee consisting of the lieutenant governor and the judge advocate, and afterwards examined and approved by himself, to be published for the general information.  This custom, however, is a deviation, although it must be confessed a good one, from precedent:  and the colonists have no guarantee that his successors will not revert to the same mysterious application of this fund that has been practised by his predecessors.  In this case it may be converted into a fruitful source of peculation and plunder, and be at last in a great measure diverted from the public objects for which it was instituted to the satiation of private rapacity, and the colonists become gradually burdened with an overbearing load of taxation, merely for the purpose of enriching their governors.  Be this, however, as it may, the illegality of levying money by the authority of any individual, is, I should presume, quite unquestionable; and I have no doubt that if any of the colonists had public spirit enough to resist the payment of these duties, the court of civil jurisdiction would not enforce it; since the decisions of this court are solely founded on acts of parliament.  The magistrates of the colony might indeed take upon themselves to direct the execution of the governor’s orders, which authorize the levying of these taxes, but I have doubts, since resistance to these orders would not amount to an act of a criminal nature, and the point at issue would be a mere matter of debt between an individual and the government, whether they even would consent to give such an illegal method of taxation the sanction of their support.  At all events an appeal would lie in the shape of a writ of certiorari to the civil court, which could not avoid annulling the judgment of the magistrates, and consequently declaring the governor’s conduct unwarranted and illegal.  Such an occurrence would evidently be attended with the most prejudicial effects; for not to dwell on the mortification which the governor for the time being would experience at discovering in so disagreeable a way that by treading in the footsteps of his predecessors, he had been exercising a power to which his situation gave him no claim, there can be little doubt that a victory of this nature gained by an individual over the executive would be the signal for the institution of suits against the government for the recovery of all the money that has been levied under such an illegal and arbitrary authority.  To prevent the probability of being forced to refund so large a sum of money to the persons or their heirs from whom it has been thus illegally wrested, and to legalize all future levies of duties in the colony, the establishment of a colonial legislature certainly offers the only judicious and constitutional expedient.