58. Recommendation for the Removal of a Governor (1762)
This extract illustrates the remedy for persistent disobedience or corruption on the part of a governor.
COPY of Representation from the B: of Trade to the King in Council, for removing Mr. Hardy from the Government of New Jersey, dated March 27th. 1762 for his having appointed three Judges of that Province during their good behaviour, in Disobedience to his Majesty's Instructions.
- To the Kings most Excellent Majesty,
May it please your Majesty . . .
We have already in Our humble Representation to your Majesty of the 11th. of November last so fully set forth Our Opinion of the impropriety of the Judges in the Plantations holding their Offices during good behaviour and the operation, wch. in the present state of those Plantations such a Constitution would have to lessen their just and proper dependance upon your Majesty's Government that it is unnecessary for Us to add any thing further upon that head, and your Majesty's General Instructions to all your Governors and those Instructions in particular which were grounded upon that Representation are so full and so positive that We cannot offer any thing that may in the least degree extenuate so premeditated and unprecedented an Act of disobedience of your Majesty's Governor of New Jersey, in a matter so essential to your Majesty's interest and Service, not only in that Province but in all other your Majesty's American Dominions.
The appointing Mr Morris to be Chief Justice after the Contempt he had shown of your Majesty s authority, by procuring a person who had been appointed to that Office in consequence of His late Majesty's Warrant, to be superseded by a Judgment of that Court, in which he claimed to preside by a bare authority of the Governor, is alone such an example of misconduct, as does, in our opinion, render the Governor unworthy of the Trust your Majesty has conferred upon him.
