THE CHANCELLOR'S CASE.— 1 BLAND. 577

behavior,) and their salaries ascertained and established; but upon
the address of both Houses of Parliament, it may be lawful to re-
move them." (g)

(g) The Long Parliament, says the historian of the Commonwealth of Eng-
land, deserves to be forever held in grateful remembrance for the great im-
provements we derive from them in points most essential to the independ-
ence and freedom of man in society. Among which is that which relates to
the tenure by which the Judges, who are appointed to determine questions
of law between man and man, and between the sovereign and the subject,
hold their offices. One of the earliest decisions of that Parliament was the
vote condemning the judgment which bad been given for the King in the
matter of ship money. And shortly after, January, 1643, the House of
Lords appointed a committee to consider, among other things, of the Judges
holding their places durante bene placito. The next day they deputed seven-
teen of their body to present their humble desire to the King, that the
twelve Judges, and the attorney of the Court of wards, might hold their
places by patent, quamdiu se bene gesserint. They accordingly waited on
Charles with their request; to which he signified his assent. Agreeably to
this decision, in the petition of both houses of Parliament presented to the
King at Oxford, at the close of the first campaign of the civil war. they
make it one of their demands, that the twelve persons whom they name for
the office of Judges, as well as all the Judges of the same Courts for the
time to come, should hold their places by letters patent quamdiu se bene
gesserint.—(Godw. Com. Eng. b. 3, c. 29.)

Immediately after the King had been put to death it was enacted by the
Long Parliament, that the commissioners of the great seal should also hold
their offices during good behavior. (3 Godw. Com. Eng. 11.) But this import-
ant improvement as to the tenure by which the Judges and Chancellor were
to hold their offices, was, on the restoration of Charles the Second, entirely
put aside, and nothing more said upon the subject until some time after the
English Revolution of 1688, when it was enacted by the Statute of the IS &
13 W. 3, c. 2, that the Judges should hold their commissions during good
behavior; still however leaving the Chancellor to hold, as formerly, during
pleasure.

In an opinion of the attorney and solicitor general D. Ryder, and W. Mur-
ray, given on the 23d of June, 1753, to the commissioners of trade and plan-
tations respecting an Act passed by the General Assembly of Jamaica, pro-
viding, that all the Judges of the Supreme Court of judicature of the island
should hold their offices quamdiu se bene gesserint, they say, that "it directly
affects the royal prerogative, in a point of great moment, and for which no
occasion is pretended to be given, by the abuse of any power committed to
the Governor; or, if there had been any. it would be much more suitable to
his Majesty's honor and dignity, to reform it, by his own authority, fully
sufficient for that purpose, in such manner, as to his royal wisdom should
seem meet, than by the interposition of an Act of Assembly; nor does it
appear to us, that in the situation, and circumstances, in which this island,
or the other American plantations, stand, it would be advisable, either for
the interests of the plantations themselves, or of Great Britain, that the
Judges in the former should hold their places quamdiu se bene gesserint."—
(2 Chal. Opin. Em. Law, 105.)

"The next general point yet undetermined, (said Governor Pownall in
1768 in speaking of the Colonial Governments,) the determination of which
very essentially imports the subordination and dependence of the Colony
37 1 B.