consequence of the proclamation, might have laid his action against the custom-house officers, and would infallibly have recovered damages. No jury could refuse them and if I, who am by no means litigious, had been so injured, I would assuredly have instituted a suit in Westminster Hall, on purpose to try the question of right. I would have done it upon a principle of defiance of the pretended power of either or both Houses to make declarations inconsistent with law; and I have no doubt that, with an act of Parliament on my side, I should have been too strong for them all. This is the way in which an Englishman should speak and act; and not suffer dangerous precedents to be established, because the circumstances are favourable or palliating.

With regard to Lord Camden, the truth is, that he inadvertently overshot himself, as appears plainly by that unguarded mention of a tyranny of forty days, which I myself heard. Instead of asserting, that the proclamation was legal, he should have said, "My "Lords, I know the proclamation was illegal; but I "advised it, because it was indispensably necessary "to save the kingdom from famine; and I submit "myself to the justice and mercy of my country."

Such language as this would have been manly, rational, and consistent: not unfit for a lawyer, and every way worthy of a great man.

PHILO JUNIUS.

P. S. If Scævola should think proper to write again upon this subject, I beg of him to give me a direct answer; that is, a plain affirmative or negative, to the following questions: In the interval between the publishing such a proclamation (or order of council) as that in question, and its receiving the sanction of the two Houses, of what nature is it? Is it legal or illegal? or, is it neither one nor the other? I mean to be candid, and will point out to him the consequence of his answer either way. If it be legal, it wants no farther sanction: if it be illegal, the subject is not bound to obey it, consequently it is an useless, nugatory act, even as to its declared purpose. Before the meeting of Parliament, the whole mischief which it means to prevent will have been completed.

SIR,

LETTER LXI.

TO ZENO.

October 17, 1771.

THE sophistry of your letter in defence of Lord Mansfield is adapted to the character you defend. But Lord Mansfield is a man of form, and seldom in his behaviour transgresses the rules of de