The Lower House. 167

the Aids for the King, therein proposed, or unjust or unreasonable
in the Means, or too sparing in the Sum offered, and that he would
have signified his Opinion relative to such Matters, I am far from
thinking that House would have thought his Lordship a competent
Judge of the Propriety or Impropriety of all those Parts of the
Bill, or if he had ventured to give his Opinion thereon, that they
would have paid any regard to it, when they afterwards disregarded
that of his Majesty's Attorney General, who had seen what had
been urged by the Two Houses both for and against it; and I cannot
help thinking you are too hasty in drawing from his Lordship's
Silence, this Conclusion, That he did not think the Bill in any of
these Respects liable to the least Objection: Could he indeed have
then seen all that afterwards passed between the Two Houses there-
upon, or on a Bill very similar to it, his Lordship might perhaps
have been able to form some Judgment of the Propriety or Im-
propriety of the general Plan, and particular Parts of it; but it
would surely have been a little unreasonable for the Lower House
to expect his Lordship, without hearing or seeing what could be
offered on both Sides, would undertake to determine concerning any
besides the military Part of it, of which his Lordship probably
thought himself as capable of judging, as the Gentlemen who had
framed it.

L. H. J.
Liber No. 52
April 23

That Opinion of Mr. Pratt's, was, I apprehend, given on a Perusal
of the Bill, and Messages that in 1758 passed between the Two
Houses, which, as I conceived they contained a full and true State
of the Dispute between them on the Bill, I therewith transmitted;
and the Opinion I communicated to the Lower House undoubtedly
shews that he was intimately acquainted with the several Points in
Dispute between them; and being all that I received from England
in Return, if I declined giving that House any Satisfaction they
wanted, it was owing to my not having it in my Power to gratify
their Wishes. I am indeed sensible, that the Opinions of Counsel are
governed by the Manner in which the Facts they are founded on,
are stated, and I perceive there is some Difference between those of
the late Lord Chief Justice Willes, and his Majesty's late Attorney-
General, with respect to the Nomination of Officers; but as the
Lords of Trade, in their Report Two Years ago on some Laws
passed in Pennsylvania, which Report met with the Concurrence of
his Majesty's Council, have repeatedly declared their Sentiments
concerning the Right of the Crown, and in that Government of the
Proprietors to the Nomination of Officers, I am in Hopes that their
Lordships Opinion will always have it's Weight with us, and that
Right of the Proprietary be never again controverted in this Province.

As you were pleased, in Answer to my Speech at the Opening of
the Session, wherein I avoided making any particular Application
to the Lower House of the Reprehension contained in the Secretary

p. 75