Iviii Introduction.

to detain in your House any Bills Sent up from this, nor has it been Customary
for this house to keep Copies of such Bills, we are the more Obliged to press
you for a return of this Bill." It added that it wished the bill returned as
"It is our Intention to publish the Bill with any Objections you may be pleased
to Offer against it and as we Conceive this will be putting the whole into a
proper Channel not only for the mature Consideration of Ourselves but of
the Public", which cannot be done unless the bill is returned (pp. 388-389).
Back came the Upper House at once with a message that the attitude of the
Lower House was irregular and not calculated to preserve harmony between
the two houses. That the journals of the Lower House show that the estab-
lishment of a college had been under consideration for several years, and last
at the April, 1761, session, and although it might seem to some members of
the Lower House to be a simple matter, it did not appear so to the Upper
House, which had deferred action especially because several of its members
were prevented by illness from attending the meetings. Finally, the Upper
House declared that the practice of retaining rejected bills was of long standing,
and was introduced before any of the members of the present Lower House
could recollect, but if a copy of the bill was wanted, one would be furnished
(pp. 269, 393.394)-

The exchange of messages between the two houses closed with a lengthy
scathing reply from the Lower House, dated November 25, the day before
the session came to an end, thus securing the last say. The house declared
that the upper chamber in refusing to return the bill with a statement as to
its real reason for its rejection, had been guilty of "disingenuous Arts, totally
Inconsistent with the dignity which Should be maintained by Parliamentary
Intercourse" between the two houses. Why did not the Upper House in refus-
ing to return the bill state that the real reasons for its rejection were because it
was not "palatable to your Honours for reasons which you evade to Publish",
and because it did not want its real objections to appear for public examination
and discussion, and not, as it stated, because the plans as embodied in the former
bill were so similar to the present bill as to be more familiar to the members
of the Lower House than to the upper chamber. Nor was it true that the custom
of retaining Lower House bills in the Upper House had developed beyond the
memory of members now in the lower chamber. The house rejected the pro-
posal that the clerk send a copy of the bill; why did it not return the original
bill and keep a copy rather than impose an additional expense upon our
constituents? "We must Submit to the Judgment of the Public, whether
your Honours in detaining the Bill, and evading to point out your Objections,
or propose Amendments, after it had been So long under your Consideration,
or this house in pressing for the bill and your Sentiments upon it, with a
declared Intention to publish both to the World, have proposed the more
rational Expedient for bringing about that mature Consideration which your
Honours affect so much to desire" (pp. 402.404). Of course the purpose
of the Lower House was to force the upper chamber to admit that its real
objection to the bill was its unwillingness to apply to public purposes the money

received from licenses Oil ordinal ics, claimed by the Proprietary as his

prerogative.