, should be corrected and re-assized, as occasion
should require, at the said office. That, in order to enforce the
uniformity in weights and measures to be used for the future, all
persons appointed by the crown to act as justices of the peace in any
county, city, or town corporate, being respectively counties within
themselves, throughout the realm, should be empowered to hear and
determine, and put the law in execution, in respect to weights and
measures only, without any of them being obliged to sue out a _dedimus_,
or to act in any other matter; and the said commissioners should be
empowered to sue, imprison, inflict, or mitigate such penalties as
should be thought proper; and have such other authorities as should be
necessary for compelling the use of weights and measures, agreeably to
the aforesaid standards. The models or patterns of the said
standard yard and pound, and of the parts and multiples thereof,
before-mentioned, should be distributed in each county, in such a manner
as to be readily used for evidence in all eases where measures and
weights should be questioned before the said commissioners, and for
adjusting the same in a proper manner.]

[Footnote 504: Note 3 U, p. 504. The letter was to this effect: _To
their excellencies Messrs. Hopson and Moore, general officers of his
Britannic Majesty at Basseterre._ "Gentlemen--I have received the
letter which your excellencies have done me the honour to write, of the
twenty-fifth. You make me proposals which could arise from nothing but
the facility with which you have got possession of the little town and
citadel of Basseterre; for otherwise you ought to do me the justice
to believe they could not be received. You have strength sufficient to
subdue the exteriors of the island; but with respect to the interiors,
the match between us is equal. As to the consequences that may attend
my refusal, I am persuaded they will be no other than such as are
prescribed by the laws of war. Should we be disappointed in this
particular, we have a master powerful enough to revenge any injury
we may sustain. "I am, with respect, "Gentlemen, "Your most obedient
servant, "Nadau D'Etreil." It is pretty remarkable, that the
apprehension of cruel usage from the English, who are undoubtedly the
most generous and humane enemies under the sun, not only prevailed among
the common French soldiery throughout this whole war, but even infected
officers of distinction, who ought to have b