Also, a couple of notes about a tax resistance action in Bermuda in . My first notice comes from the Bury and Norwich Post of , though they credit it to a “New York paper”; a longer version of the same report (also credited to “a New York Paper of ”) appears in the Morning Chronicle of , which I interpolate below:
Remarkable Epoch of Bermuda
On , under the administration of his Excellency Lieutenant-General the Honourable Sir William Lumley, K.C.B. and in a time of profound peace, military force takes precedence of the civil powers!!! The people of the parish of St. George were not well pleased with their parson, and an opinion having gone abroad that owing to some informality in signing the assessment they were not liable to pay their taxes, refused to open their purses to the tax-gatherer. It was decided by judges of law that they must pay: the collection had, however, been retarded; and when the present or new vestry were chosen, the greater part of two years’ taxes was due. The priest wanted his cash, and finally called on the Governor [William Lumley] for help. The Governor ordered the old wardens to make up their accounts, and transfer them to the new wardens — allowing them two months for settlement of their accounts, when it is contended that the ecclesiastical law allows them two years for that purpose. They treated his order with contempt; he then threatened them in various ways, and told them they should go to “prison, where no power under Heaven could release them,” &c. He sent his constables after them to attend his court; they refused to come, and he then sent and brought them by military force to the church door, where, with closed doors, he ordered them to comply with his demands; but they were stubborn, and after much threatening on the part of the Governor, they were committed to gaol under a military guard.
Lumley’s acts were later ruled illegal (Basham v. Lumley, ), and he was fined £1,000. Even if, as governor of the Bermuda colony, Lumley had also been granted ecclesiastical authority by the crown, the court ruled, he was not thereby authorized to use his civil authority to imprison people who refused his ecclesiastical orders; at most he could excommunicate them.
