by his instructions, has laid his Governors
under such restrictions, that they can pass no law of any moment, unless
it have such suspending clause: so that, however immediate may be the
call for legislative interposition, the law cannot be executed till it
has twice crossed the Atlantic, by which time the evil may have spent
its whole force.

'But in what terms reconcilable to Majesty, and,at the same time to
truth, shall we speak of a late instruction to his Majesty's Governor
of the colony of Virginia, by which he is forbidden to assent to any law
for the division of a county, unless the new county will consent to
have no representative in Assembly? That colony has as yet affixed no
boundary to the westward. Their Western counties, therefore, are of
indefinite extent. Some of them are actually seated many hundred miles
from their Eastern limits. Is it possible, then that his Majesty can
have bestowed a single thought on the situation of those people, who, in
order to obtain justice for injuries, however great or small, must, by
the laws of that colony, attend their county court at such a distance,
with all their witnesses, monthly, till their litigation be determined?
Or does his Majesty seriously wish, and publish it to the world, that
his subjects should give up the glorious right of representation, with
all the benefits derived from that, and submit themselves to be absolute
slaves of his sovereign will? Or is it rather meant to confine the
legislative body to their present numbers, that they may be the cheaper
bargain, whenever they shall become worth a purchase?

'One of the articles of impeachment against Tresilian and the other
Judges of Westminster Hall, in the reign of Richard the Second, for
which they suffered death, as traitors to their country, was, that they
had advised the King that he might dissolve his Parliament at any time:
and succeeding Kings have adopted the opinion of these unjust Judges.
Since the establishment, however, of the British constitution, at the
glorious Revolution, on its free and ancient principles, neither his
Majesty nor his ancestors have exercised such a power of dissolution in
the island of Great Britain;* and, when his Majesty was petitioned by
the united voice of his people there to dissolve the present Parliament,
who had become obnoxious to them, his Ministers were heard to declare,
in open Parliament, that his Majesty possessed no such power by the
constitution. But ho