said acts; and certify them
back again under the great seal of England. And then, 3. They are to
be proposed, received, or rejected in the parliament of Ireland. By
this means nothing was left to the parliament in Ireland, but a bare
negative or power of rejecting, not of proposing, any law. But the
usage now is, that bills are often framed in either house of
parliament under the denomination of heads for a bill or bills; and in
that shape they are offered to the consideration of the lord
lieutenant and privy council, who then reject them at pleasure,
without transmitting them to England.

[Footnote n: 2 Ric. III. pl. 12.]

[Footnote o: 4 Inst. 353.]

BUT the Irish nation, being excluded from the benefit of the English
statutes, were deprived of many good and profitable laws, made for
the improvement of the common law: and, the measure of justice in both
kingdoms becoming thereby no longer uniform, therefore in the 10 Hen.
VII. a set of statutes passed in Ireland, (sir Edward Poynings being
then lord deputy, whence it is called Poynings' law) by which it was,
among other things, enacted, that all acts of parliament before made
in England, should be of force within the realm of Ireland[p]. But, by
the same rule that no laws made in England, between king John's time
and Poynings' law, were then binding in Ireland, it follows that no
acts of the English parliament made since the 10 Hen. VII. do now bind
the people of Ireland, unless specially named or included under
general words[q]. And on the other hand it is equally clear, that
where Ireland is particularly named, or is included under general
words, they are bound by such acts of parliament. For this follows
from the very nature and constitution of a dependent state: dependence
being very little else, but an obligation to conform to the will or
law of that superior person or state, upon which the inferior depends.
The original and true ground of this superiority is the right of
conquest: a right allowed by the law of nations, if not by that of
nature; and founded upon a compact either expressly or tacitly made
between the conqueror and the conquered, that if they will acknowlege
the victor for their master, he will treat them for the future as
subjects, and not as enemies[r].

[Footnote p: 4 Inst. 351.]

[Footnote q: 12 Rep. 112.]

[Footnote r: Puff. L. of N. 8. 6. 24.]

BUT this state of dependence being almost forgotten, and ready to be
disputed by the Iris