ordered or enacted by, for, or as, the laws, orders, statutes or constitutions of our said province of South-Carolina, (save and except only the [commander] in chief of the militia, of our said. province of Georgia, to our governor for the time being of SouthCarolina, in manner hereafter declared;) but shall be subject to, and bound to obey, such laws, orders, statutes and constitutions as shall from time to time be made, ordered and enacted, for the better government of the said province of Georgia, in the manner hereinafter declared. And we do hereby . . . ordain ... that for and during the term of twenty-one years, to commence from the date of these our letters patent, the said corporation assembled for that purpose, shall and may form and prepare, laws, statutes and ordinances, fit and necessary for and concerning the government of the said colony, and not repugnant to the laws and statutes of England; and the same shall and may present under their common seal to us . . ., in our or their privy council for our or their approbation or disallowance: and the said laws, statutes and ordinances, being approved of by us in our or their privy council, shall from thence forth be in full force and virtue within. our said province of Georgia. . . . And for the greater ease and encouragement of our loving subjects and such others as shall come to inhabit in our said colony, we do . . . ordain, that forever hereafter, there shall be liberty of conscience allowed in the worship of God, to all persons inhabiting, or which shall inhabit or be resident within our said province, and that all such persons, except papists, shall have a free exercise of religion, so they be contented with the quiet and peaceable enjoyment of the same, not giving offence or scandal to the government. And our further will and pleasure is, and we do hereby . . . declare and grant, that it shall and may be lawful for the said common council . . . to distribute, convey, assign and set over such particular portions of lands, tenements and hereditaments by these presents granted to the said corporation, unto such our loving subjects, natural born, denizens or others that shall be willing to become our subjects, and live under our allegiance in the said colony, upon such terms, and for such estates, and upon such rents, reservations and conditions as the same may be lawfully granted, and as to the said common council . . . shall seem fit and proper. . . Provided ... that no greater quantity of lands be granted, either en

...

tirely or in parcels, to or for the use, or in trust for any one person, than five hundred acres. . . . And we do hereby grant and ordain, that such person or persons, for the time being as shall be thereunto appointed by the said corporation, shall . . . have full power and authority to administer and give the oaths, appointed by an act of parliament, made in the first year of the reign of our late royal father, to be taken instead of the oaths of allegiance and supremacy; and also the oath of abjuration, to all and every person and persons which shall at any time be inhabiting or residing with our said colony; and in like cases to administer the solemn affirmation to any of the persons commonly called quakers, in such manner as by the laws of our realm of GreatBritain, the same may be administered. And we do . . . ordain ... that the said corporation and their successors, shall have full power and authority, for and during the term of twenty-one years ..., to erect and constitute judicatories and courts of record, or other courts, to be held in the name of us . . . for the hearing and determining of all manner of crimes, offences, pleas, processes, plaints, actions, matters, causes and things whatsoever, arising or happening, within the said province of Georgia, or between persons of Georgia; whether the same be criminal or civil, and whether the said crimes be capital or not capital, and whether the said pleas be real, personal or mixed: and for awarding and making out executions thereupon . . . And our further will and pleasure is, that the rents, issues and all other profits, which shall at any time hereafter come to the said corporation, [shall be applied in such manner as the said corporation,'] or the major part of them which shall be present at any meeting for that purpose assembled, shall think will most improve and enlarge the said colony, and best answer the good purposes herein before mentioned, and for defraying all other charges about the same. And our will and pleasure is, that the said corporation and their successors, shall from time to time give in to one of the principal secretaries of state, and to the commissioners of trade and plantations, accounts of the progresses of the said colony. ... And our will and pleasure is, that the common council of the said corporation for the time being . . . shall . . . unto the

1 These words are not in the original, but appear to be necessary to complete

the sense.

have full power

full end and expiration of twenty-one years and authority to nominate, make, constitute and commission, ordain and appoint, by such name or names, style or styles, as to them shall seem meet and fitting, all and singular such governors, judges, magistrates, ministers and officers, civil and military, both by sea and land, within the said districts, as shall by them be thought fit and needful to be made or used for the said government of the said colony; save always, and except such offices only as shall by us . . . be from time to time constituted and appointed, for the managing collecting and receiving such revenues, as shall from time to time arise within the said province of Georgia, and become due to us. . . Provided always . that every governor of the said province of Georgia, to be appointed by the common council of the said corporation, before he shall enter upon or execute the said office of governor, shall be approved by us . . ., and shall take such oaths, and shall qualify himself in such manner, in all respects, as any governor or commander in chief of any of our colonies or plantations in America, are by law required to do; and shall give good and sufficient security for observing the several acts of parliament relating to trade and navigation, and to observe and obey all instructions that shall be sent to him by us . . ., or any acting under our or their authority, pursuant to the said acts, or any of them. [The corporation may establish and train a militia, fortify and defend the colony, exercise martial law in time of war, &c.] And . . . we do . . . grant, that the governor and commander in chief of the province of South-Carolina . . . for the time being, shall at all times hereafter have the chief command of the militia of our said province . . . And . . . we . . . do give and grant, unto the said corporation and their successors, full power and authority to import and export their goods, at and from any port or ports that shall be appointed by us . . . within the said province of Georgia, for that purpose, without being obliged to touch at any other port in South-Carolina. And we do . . . will and declare, that from and after the termination of the said term or [of] twenty-one years, such form of government and method of making laws, statutes and ordinances, for the better governing and ordering the said province of Georgia, and the inhabitants thereof, shall be established and observed within

the same, as we . . . shall hereafter ordain and appoint, and shall be agreeably to law; and that from and after the determination of the said term of twenty-one years, the governor of our said province of Georgia, and all officers civil and military, within the same, shall from time to time be nominated and constituted, and appointed by us . . .

No. 28. Molasses Act

May 17/28, 1733

IN the exchange of fish, lumber and agricultural products for the sugar, molasses and rum of the West Indies, the northern English colonies in America early found their most important and most lucrative trade. Moreover, it was by means of this trade that the money for the purchase of manufactured goods in England was mainly obtained. The adoption of a more liberal commercial policy by France, however, in 1717, enabled the sugar of the French West Indies to displace the British product in European markets, and to compete successfully in the markets of the English colonies; while the prohibition of the importation of rum into France, as a protection to the production of brandy, forced the producers of molasses in the French colonies to seek a market in New England and New York, where molasses, little produced in the English West Indies, was much in demand. The prosperity of the French colonies led to numerous protests from planters in the British sugar islands, and in 1731 a bill to prohibit the importation into Great Britain or the American colonies of any foreign sugar, molasses or rum passed the House of Commons, but was rejected by the Lords. The object of the bill was attained, however, by the passage, in 1733, of the so-called Molasses Act, by which practically prohibitory duties were imposed upon the beforementioned articles. The act was systematically disregarded by the English colonies, and remained largely a dead-letter. The Molasses Act was to continue in force for five years; but it was five times renewed, and by the Sugar Act of 1764 was made perpetual.

REFERENCES. Text in Pickering's Statutes at Large, XVI., 374-379. The act is cited as 6 Geo. II., c. 13. The best discussion of the act is in Beer's Commercial Policy of England (Columbia Univ. Studies, III., No. 2), chap. 6.

An act for the better securing and encouraging the trade of his Majesty's sugar colonies in America.

WHEREAS the welfare and prosperity of your Majesty's sugar colonies in America are of the greatest consequence and importance to the trade, navigation and strength of this kingdom: and whereas

the planters of the said sugar colonies have of late years fallen under such great discouragements, that they are unable to improve or carry on the sugar trade upon an equal footing with the foreign sugar colonfes, without some advantage and relief be given to them from Great Britain: for remedy whereof. . . be it enacted

That from and after . . . [December 25, 1733,] . . . there shall be raised, levied, collected and paid, unto and for the use of his Majesty . . ., upon all rum or spirits of the produce or manufacture of any of the colonies or plantations in America, not in the possession or under the dominion of his Majesty . . ., which at any time or times within or during the continuance of this act, shall be imported or brought into any of the colonies or plantations in America, which now are or hereafter may be in the possession or under the dominion of his Majesty. the sum of nine pence, money of Great Britain, . . . for every gallon thereof, and after that rate for any greater or lesser quantity: and upon all molasses or syrups of such foreign produce or manufacture as aforesaid, which shall be imported or brought into any of the said colonies or plantations the sum of six pence of like money for every gallon thereof...; and upon all sugars and paneles of such foreign growth, produce or manufacture as aforesaid, which shall be imported into any of the said colonies or plantations . . ., a duty after the rate of five shillings of like money, for every hundred weight Avoirdupoize.

IV. And be it further enacted

.., That from and after . . [December 25, 1733,] . . . no sugars, paneles, syrups or molasses, of the growth, product and manufacture of any of the colonies or plantations in America, nor any rum or spirits of America, except of the growth or manufacture of his Majesty's sugar colonies there, shall be imported by any person or persons whatsoever into the kingdom of Ireland, but such only as shall be fairly and bona fide loaden and shipped in Great Britain in ships navigated according to the several laws now in being in that behalf, under the penalty of forfeiting all such sugar, paneles, syrups or molasses, rum or spirits, or the value thereof, together with the ship or vessel in which the same shall be imported, with all her guns, tackle, furniture, ammunition, and apparel.