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[372] assistance when it is offered them? We serve the
chap. XX.} 1765. Dec.
crown by strengthening its hands.

Northington, the Chancellor, argued from the statute book, that, as a question of law, the dependence of the colonies had been fully declared in the reign of William III.; and he ‘lustily roared,’ that ‘America must submit.’

Lord Mansfield denied the power of the crown to emancipate the colonies from the jurisdiction of the British legislature. He cited Pennsylvania as having of all the colonies, the least pretension to the claim, since its charter expressly recognised impositions and customs by act of parliament. And he endeavored to bring the House to unanimity by recommending the ministry to assent to the amendment; ‘for,’ said he, ‘the question is most serious, and not one of the ordinary matters agitated between the persons in and out of office.’

Failing to prevent a division, Mansfield went away without giving a vote. The opposition was thought to have shown a great deal of ability, and to have expressed the prevailing opinion in the House of Lords, as well as the sentiments of the king. But the king's friends, unwilling to open a breach through which Bedford and Grenville could take the cabinet by storm, divided against the amendment with the ministry.

In the House of Commons the new ministers were absent; for accepting office implies a resignation of a seat in the representative body, and sends a, member to his constituents as a candidate for re-election; yet Grenville, enraged at seeing authority set at naught with impunity, in reference to an act of his ministry, moved to consider North America as ‘resisting the ’

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