I agreed to go with him the next morning.
Accordingly Mr. Hanbury called for me and took me in his carriage
to that nobleman's, who receiv'd me with great civility; and after
some questions respecting the present state of affairs in America
and discourse thereupon, he said to me: "You Americans have wrong
ideas of the nature of your constitution; you contend that the king's
instructions to his governors are not laws, and think yourselves
at liberty to regard or disregard them at your own discretion.
But those instructions are not like the pocket instructions given
to a minister going abroad, for regulating his conduct in some
trifling point of ceremony. They are first drawn up by judges
learned in the laws; they are then considered, debated, and perhaps
amended in Council, after which they are signed by the king.
They are then, so far as they relate to you, the law of the land,
for the king is the LEGISLATOR OF THE COLONIES." I told his
lordship this was new doctrine to me. I had always understood
from our charters that our laws were to be made by our Assemblies,
to be presented indeed to the king for his royal assent,
but that being once given the king could not repeal or alter them.
And as the Assemblies could not make permanent laws without
his assent, so neither could he make a law for them without theirs.
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