he
might of the subject is in regard to his prince, or of a servant in,
respect to his master. For sovereignty is not limited either as to power
or as to time. Still less do you represent the sovereignty; for the
people, in giving the general and absolute government to the Earl of
Leicester, have conferred upon him at once the exercise of justice, the
administration of polity, of naval affairs, of war, and of all the other
points of sovereignty. Of these a governor-general is however only the
depositary or guardian, until such time as it may please the prince or
people to revoke the trust; there being no other in this state who can do
this; seeing that it was the people, through the instrumentality of your
offices--through you as its servants--conferred on his Excellency, this
power, authority, and government. According to the common rule law,
therefore, 'quo jure quid statuitur, eodem jure tolli debet.' You having
been fully empowered by the provinces and cities, or, to speak more
correctly, by your masters and superiors, to confer the government on his
Excellency, it follows that you require a like power in order to take it
away either in whole or in part. If then you had no commission to curtail
his authority, or even that of the state-council, and thus to tread upon
and usurp his power as governor general and absolute, there follows of
two things one: either you did not well understand what you were doing,
nor duly consider how far that power reached, or--much more probably--you
have fallen into the sin of disobedience, considering how solemnly you
swore allegiance to him.

Thus subtly and ably did Wilkes defend the authority of the man who had
deserted his post at a most critical moment, and had compelled the
States, by his dereliction, to take the government into their own hands.

For, after all, the whole argument of the English counsellor rested upon
a quibble. The people were absolutely sovereign, he said, and had lent
that sovereignty to Leicester. How had they made that loan? Through the
machinery of the States-General. So long then as the Earl retained the
absolute sovereignty, the States were not even representatives of the
sovereign people. The sovereign people was merged into one English Earl.
The English Earl had retired--indefinitely--to England. Was the sovereign
people to wait for months, or years, before it regained its existence?
And if not, how was it to reassert its vitality? How but through the