postcript.] WEST INDIESo S3 
can impose what terms he pleases, or that he can arbitrarily 
change the law or political form of its government. I 
think he may agree, upon the capitulation, that the con¬ 
quered people shall continue to enjoy their ancient religion 
and laws, and even this must be sub modo; but I deny that 
he could, by his own authority, grant these things after the 
capitulation; for that would amount to an exercise of inde¬ 
pendent sovereignty. The fallacy of lord Mansfield’s argu¬ 
ment, proceeds from an endeavour to confound the king’s 
civil and military characters, and to perpetuate in the chief 
executive magistrate, the vast powers with which it is ne¬ 
cessary to invest the generalissimo of the armies, during the 
continuance of military operations. The moment these 
operations cease, he resumes his civil character, and in that 
character no man will venture to assert that, as king of 
Great Britain, he has the prerogative of being a despot in 
any part of his dominions. 
With respect to the cases of Ireland, Wales, and Ber¬ 
wick, even taking them precisely as lord Mansfield puts 
them, I think they do not weigh a feather in the argument. 
Those cases happened long before the English constitution 
had reduced itself to its present form, consequently, before 
the rights of the people were ascertained and defined as they 
exist at present. If a few instances of the exercise of arbi¬ 
trary power by the ancient kings of England, are to be re¬ 
ceived as decisive cases, to shew what are the powers of the 
crown at this day, I think it would be no very difficult task 
to find authorities, even as low down as the reigns of the 
Plantagenets and Stuarts, to prove, that the British govern¬ 
ment ought to be a pure despotism ! 
