1728
Contest respecting salary.
Mr. Burnet, who had been appointed governor of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, was received with great pomp in Boston. At the first meeting of the assembly, he stated the King's instructions to insist on an established salary, and his intention firmly to adhere to them. The assembly was not less firm in its determination to resist this demand; and, that no additional and unnecessary obloquy might be encountered, resolved, not to mingle any difference concerning the amount of the salary, with the great question of its depending on the will of the legislature. As soon therefore as the compliments usual on the arrival of a governor had passed, the house voted one thousand seven hundred pounds towards his support, and to defray the charges of his journey. This vote was understood to give him, as a present salary, a sum equal to one thousand pounds sterling per annum. The governor declared his inability to assent to this bill, it being inconsistent with his instructions. After a week's deliberation, the assembly granted three hundred pounds for the expenses of his journey, which he accepted; and, in a distinct vote, the farther sum of one thousand four hundred pounds was granted toward his support. The latter vote was accompanied with a joint message from both houses, wherein they asserted their undoubted right as Englishmen, and their privilege by the charter, to raise and apply money for the support of government; and their willingness to give the governor an ample and honourable support; but they apprehended it would be most for his majesty's service to do so without establishing a fixed salary. The governor returned an answer on the same day, in which he said, that, if they really intended to give him an ample and honourable support, they could have no just objection to making their purpose effectual by fixing his salary; for he would never accept a grant of the kind then offered.
The council was disposed to avoid the contest, and to grant a salary to the present governor for a certain time; but the house of representatives, remaining firm to its purpose, sent a message to the governor requesting that the court might rise. He answered, that a compliance with this request would put it out of the power of the legislature to pay immediate regard to the King's instructions; and he would not grant a recess, until the business of the session should be finished. The representatives then declared that, "in faithfulness to the people, they could not come into an act for establishing a salary on the governor or commander in chief for the time being," and, therefore, renewed their request that the court might rise.
Both the governor and the house of representatives seem, thus far, to have made their declarations with some reserve. A salary during his own administration might, perhaps, have satisfied him, though he demanded that one should be settled, generally, on the commander in chief for the time being; and the house had not yet declared against settling a salary on him for a limited time. Each desired that the other should make some concession. Both declined; both were irritated by long altercation; and, at length, instead of mutually advancing fixed at the opposite extremes. After several ineffectual efforts on each side, the representatives sent a message to the governor, stating at large the motives which induced the resolution they had formed. The governor returned a prompt answer, in which he also detailed the reasons in support of the demand he had made. These two papers, manifesting the principles and objects of both parties, deserve attention even at this period.
The house, not long after receiving this message, far from making any advances towards a compliance with his request, came to two resolutions strongly expressive of its determination not to recede from the ground which had been taken.
These resolutions gave the first indication, on the part of the representatives, of a fixed purpose to make no advance towards a compromise. They induced the governor to remind the court of the danger to which the proceedings of that body might expose the charter. This caution did not deter the house from preparing, and transmitting to the several towns of the province a statement of the controversy, which concludes with saying, "we dare neither come into a fixed salary on the governor for ever, nor for a limited time, for the following reasons:
First, Because it is an untrodden path which neither we, nor our predecessors have gone in, and we cannot certainly foresee the many dangers that may be in it, nor can we depart from that way which has been found safe and comfortable.
Secondly, Because it is the undoubted right of all Englishmen, by magna charta, to raise and dispose of money for the public service, of their own free accord, without compulsion.
Thirdly, Because it must necessarily lessen the dignity and freedom of the house of representatives, in making acts, and raising and applying taxes, &c. and, consequently, cannot be thought a proper method to preserve that balance in the three branches of the legislature, which seems necessary to form, maintain, and uphold, the constitution.