Extract of a Report of Board of Trade upon considering an Act passed in the Province of North Carolina in January 1771 intituled

An Act for Authorizing presbyterian Ministers regularly called to any congregation within this province to Solemnize the rites of Matrimony under the —— regulations therein mentioned.

That this Act which is passed with a clause of suspension, proposes to repeal so much of a former Act for establishing an Orthodox Clergy, and also of one explanatory thereof, as relates to the prohibition of presbyterian Ministers from solemnizing the rites of Marriage by publication of Banns in their Meetings, or by Licence without paying a fee of twenty shillings to the Episcopal Minister as Incumbent of the parish, this prohibition by the Act now submitted is intended to be taken off, and the presbyterian Ministers allowed to celebrate the rites of Marriage by publication of Banns in their religious Assemblies or by Licence first had and obtained without payment of any tax or fee for such Services to the regular Incumbent of the parish.

This regulation may it please your Majesty appears to Us to be exceptionable as being calculated to deprive the Orthodox Clergy of a fee or perquisite settled and imposed by Act of Assembly and in effect to operate as a Bounty to the tolerated Religion at the expence of the established, and we do therefore humbly propose to your Majesty to signify your Royal Disallowance of this Act.