the undoubted right or authority of His Majesty, His heirs and successors, to admit and receive any appeal from any judgment, decree, sentence or order of any of the said Supreme Courts, on the humble petition of any person or persons aggrieved thereby, in any case in which, and subject to any conditions or restrictions upon and under which it may seem meet to His Majesty, His heirs and successors, so to admit and receive any such appeal. And it further ordered, that in all cases of appeal allowed by any of the said Supreme Courts or by His Majesty, His heirs and successors, such Court shall, on the application and at the costs of the party or parties appellant, certify and transmit to His Majesty, His heirs and successors, in His or their Privy Council, a true and exact copy of all proceedings, evidence, judgments, decrees and orders had or made in such causes so appealed, so far as the same have relation to the matter of appeal, such copies to be certified under the seal of the said Court. And it is further ordered, that the said Supreme Courts respectively shall in all cases of appeal to His Majesty, His heirs and successors, execute and carry into immediate effect such judgments and orders as His Majesty, His heirs and successors, shall make thereupon, in such manner as any original judgment or decree of the said Supreme Court can or may be executed. And it is hereby further ordered, that all orders heretofore made by His Majesty, or by any of His royal predecessors, in His or their Privy Council, and all laws, customs and usages now or at any time heretofore established or in force in any of the said colonies, so far as such orders, laws or usages are in are in anywise repugnant to or at variance with this present order, shall be and the same are hereby revoked, abrogated, rescinded and annulled. And it is further ordered, that for the purpose and within the meaning of the present order, any person lawfully administering for the time being the government of any of the said colonies, shall be deemed and taken to be the Governor thereof. And the Right Honourable Viscount Goderich, one of His Majesty's principal Secretaries of State, is to give the necessary directions herein accordingly. (signed) C. C. Greville. GUIANA, TRINIDAD AND ST. LUCIA, COPIES of the ORDERS IN COUNCIL of the 23rd April and 20th June 1831, for the ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE in British Guiana, Trinidad and St. Lucia. (Mr. Maurice O'Connell.) Ordered, by The House of Commons, to be Printed, 8 May 1832. 432. RETURN to an Address to HIS MAJESTY, dated 9 April 1832;—for, COPY of the PROTEST of the WEST INDIA MERCHANTS, transmitted to Viscount Goderich on the 6th of April 1832. Colonial Department, Downing-street, 12 April 1832. HOWICK. LETTER from A. Colvill, Esq. to Lord Viscount Goderich, &c. &c. &c. MY LORD, West India Committee Rooms, Billiter Court, 6th April 1832. I HAVE the honor to transmit to Your Lordship the inclosed Protest against, and Claim of Compensation for, all Losses which have arisen or may arise from the Order of The King in Council of the 2d November 1831, as regards the Crown Colonies, and the proceedings of Your Lordship towards the Legislative Colonies in the West Indies, as expressed in Your Lordship's Circular Despatch of the 10th December 1831. WE, the undersigned West India Merchants, after giving the most serious and attentive consideration to the Order of The King in Council of the 2d of November 1831, and to the Correspondence of the Secretary of State for the Colonies with the Governors of the several Colonies, and with other parties interested, as appears in the Papers printed by Order of The House of Commons on the 6th of December 1831, and the 15th and 16th March 1832, are of opinion, That the said Order of The King in Council is unjust and oppressive, inconsistent with the Parliamentary Resolution of 1823, and destructive of the rights of Property. That the intention of His Majesty's Ministers to propose to Parliament to adopt Fiscal Regulations for the purpose of coercing the Legislative Colonies, is cruelly oppressive to the Colonists, in the state of commercial distress to which they have been reduced, and is in itself a course of policy the most deplorable, not only from its having been virtually abandoned by Parliament during the American Revolution, but because, in the present dangerous and excited state of the Colonies, it is calculated to produce no other effect than the ruin and destruction of the Property of the Colonists, and ultimately the degradation and barbarism of the Negro Population. That all attempts to induce His Majesty's Ministers to pursue a more safe and prudent course of Policy in the Government of the Colonies having hitherto failed, it becomes our duty to protest against the said Order of The King in Council, as regards the Crown Colonies, against the application of fiscal regulations for the purpose of coercing the Legislative Colonies, and against the arbitrary interference with the rights of private Property without first providing a Parliamentary Fund for H compensation, a course which has always been adopted with regard to property in this Country, whenever it has been interfered with for public purposes; and, if the principles of justice are to be impartially maintained, the same course ought to be adopted with regard to Property in the West India Colonies, which has been acquired and is held under the same sanction of law that all property in this Country is held. We therefore throw the responsibility for all the consequences of those proceedings upon the British Government; and transmit this Memorial to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, as evidence of our Protest and Claim of Compensation for any Loss, deterioration or destruction of Property vested in the Colonies under the sanction of the law, that has been or may be incurred in consequence of the Measures pursued by His Majesty's Ministers, Colvill & Co. Davison, Simpson & Davison Brook, Smith & Co. Alex & Ja Campbell & Co. Wm Fraser, Alexander Neilson & Co. Wm Morrice A. Stewart & Westmorland John Kingston Ede, Bond & Pearse Rainey, Bruce & Co. Judah Cohen Sam' Baker, Phillpots & Co. p'Edwd Francis. |