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Militia Laws prior to that ? Your Excellency may easily be informed
there were several Laws made long before that of 1715 and under
the very same Title; why then may not this Law of 1732, if tis to be
taken as a supplementary Law, have been intended as a Supplement
to some of those former Laws, as well as to that of 1715. If you
should say those former Laws were repealed or expired, we must
beg leave to answer, that of 1715, long before the making the Law
of 1732, was expired; and as this of 1732 contains no particular De-
scription, whereby we may distinguish what former Laws might be
meant, the one may as well be conjectured to be meant as the other :
Nor would that Apprehension, that some former Militia Law was
then in force, and that the Law of 1715 in particular was so, be any
Revival of that Law, there being we conceive a manifest Difference
between supposing, or taking for granted, that a Law which is actu-
ally expired is in force, and an express Intention to revive or give a
new Being to any such Law; and as to the first, they might con-
sistently enough upon that Supposition have made a Supplement
to aid some Defects in such Law, which upon considering it was
not in force, they perhaps never would have revived, and as to the
latter, there is not in the Law of 1732 any Expression which shews
their Intention to give new Life or Being to any Law, which had
been before then expired; and a bare Apprehension, supposing there
were, any such, that the Law of 1715 was in force, would be so far
from having such Effect as is contended for, that it would not re-
vive that Law, but would also render the Result of that Appre-
hension entirely void and frustrate, agreeable to that known Rule,
that whatever is grounded upon an Untruth, is so far from changing
it's nature into a Truth, that on the contrary such Superstructure
is thereby rendered entirely void. And if your Excellency will per-
sist in having this latter a Supplementary Law, we take the Conse-
quence to be this, that the Law to which this Law was intended as
supplementary, and on the Existence of which it must consequently
depend, having no Being at the Time, and by that means there being
no Foundation, this supplementary Law, which is the Superstruc-
ture, must inevitably fall to the Ground.
Having already taken up so much of your Excellency's Time in
the foregoing Part of this Address, and, as we think, shewn the
Insufficiency of any Arguments hither to made use of to establish
the Existence of the Law of 1715, under which you say the One
Pound of Tobacco per Taxable was levied, we shall say little upon
the Construction of those Clauses recited in your message, and
which being taken for the present as they stand there, we apprehend
from the plain and obvious Construction of them, it will be no diffi-
cult matter to guess at the Sincerity of your Excellency's and the
Council's Resolution not to exercise that Power which you contend
you are invested with, without the greatest necessity " and we shall
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L. H. J.
Liber No. 46
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