26
H I S T O R Y
O F
CH , was decreed, that in future no greater duty Should be required of HAAPP. III. IIIthem in the militia than from the whites; and the harfh authority, in particular, which the king's lieutenants, majors, and aides-major, commanding in the towns, exercifed over thofe people, was declared oppreffive and illegal. Thefe acts of in足 dulgence were certainly meant as the earneft of greater favours, and an opening to conciliation and conceffion towards the whole clafs of the coloured people.
1790. 1790
T H E general affembly proceeded, in the next place, to rectify fome grofs abufes which had long prevailed in the courts of judicature, confining themfelves however to fuch only as called for immediate redrefs, their attention being chiefly directed to the great and interesting object of preparing the plan for a new conrtitution, or fyftem of colonial government ; a bufinefs which employed their deliberations until the 28 th of May. M . P E Y N I E R was now governor general, from whom the partizans and adherents of the ancient defpotifm fecretly derived encouragement and fupport. T h e whole body of tax-gatherers, and officers under the fifcal adminiftration, were of this number. Thefe therefore began to recover from the panick into which fa great and fudden a revolution had thrown them, and to rally their united ftrength. Nothing could be more oppofite to their wishes, than the fuccefs of the general affembly in the establish足 ment of order and good government throughout the colony. Nor were thefe the only men who beheld the proceedings of this body with an evil eye. All the perfons belonging to the courts of civil and criminal jurisdiction (and their numbers were x considerable)