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For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

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A law of 1774 provided that any person in the province of Massachusetts, who should be accused of riot, resistance of magistrates or the officers of customs, murder, "or any other capital offence," might, at the option of the governor, be taken for trial to another colony, or transported to Great Britain for the purpose. The minister pretended that impartial justice could not be administered in Massachusetts; but the facts of Captain Preston's case refuted his arguments in that direction. The bill was violently opposed in Parliament, yet it became a law. It was decreed that Americans might be "transported beyond the seas, to be tried for pretended offences," or real crimes.<ref name="Lossing" />

On the fifteenth of April, 1774, Lord North introduced a bill in Parliament, entitled " A bill for the impartial administration of justice in the cases of persons questioned for any acts done by them in the execution of the laws, or for the suppression of riots and tumults in the province of Massachusetts Bay, in New England." This bill, known as the ''Administration of Justice Act'', provided that in case any person indicted for murder in that province, or any other capital offence, or any indictment for riot, resistance of the magistrate, or impeding the revenue laws in the smallest degree, he might, at the option of the Governor, or, in his absence, of the Lieutenant Governor, be taken to another colony, or transported to Great Britain, for trial, a thousand leagues from his friends, and amidst his enemies.

 

The arguments used by Lord North in favor of the measure, had very little foundation in either truth or justice, and the bill met with violent opposition in parliament. The minister seemed to be actuated more by a spirit of retaliation, than by a conviction of the necessity of such a measure. "We must show the Americans," said he, ' that we will no longer sit quietly under their insults; and also, that even when roused, our measures are not cruel or vindictive, but necessary and efficacious." Colonel Barre, who, from the first commencement of troubles with America, was the fast friend of the colonists, denounced the bill in unmeasured terms, as big with misery, and pregnant with danger to the British Empire. "This," said he, "is indeed the most extraordinary resolution that was ever heard in the Parliament of England. It offers new encouragement to military insolence, already so insupportable. By this law, the Americans are deprived of a right which belongs to every human creature, that of demanding justice before a tribunal composed of impartial judges."<ref>[[Lives of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence]], p. 292</ref>

 

<blockquote>In that case, it shall and may be lawful for the governor, or lieutenant-governor, to direct, with the advice and consent of the council, that the inquisition, indictment, or appeal, shall be tried in some other of his Majesty's colonies, or in Great Britain.<ref>[http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=4101 Administration of Justice Act ]</ref><blockquote>

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