may make the rarer shift from Bordeaux to Dublin. 10 In the final analysis it 
is to the muniments of administration and to the men who learn their uses in 
different climes and circumstances that one must look for the elements of 
cohesion without which no concept of empire can be said to exist. 
We can here conveniently refer to but one type of instrument to make at 
once the points of cohesion and of continuity in dominion administration, 
and what we shall have to say must of necessity be largely by way of suggestion, 
since every form used in imperial administration still awaits exhaustive study. 
As the American colonists quickly learned, the governor's commission was a 
document of great significance for their affairs—indeed, it came to be viewed 
on both sides of the water as possessing a basic constitutional force. The eminent 
Sir Bartholomew Shower might argue scornfully before the House of 
Lords in 1693 1J that the common law knew no such office as governor; but 
under such aliases as seneschal, king's lieutenant, warden, or lord deputy, the 
Chancery had been familiar with it for centuries. In general, and by whatever 
name this type of agency was known, it comprehended certain basic functions. 
Whether it was exercised in Gascony, Ireland, or the Channel Islands, the 
office involved the duty of captain general, 12 precisely as it later did in the royal 
colonies of America. It involved a certain responsibility for material royal 
rights, specifically lands. It involved certain jurisdictional authority. It involved 
certain fiscal obligations, as well as rights. We do not mean to imply 
that a full and complete definition of all these functions can be demonstrated 
by early records, as they can be by the commissions of the late seventeenth 
century. On the contrary, the particulars of a deputy's powers underwent a 
process of development and accretion not yet terminated when James Stuart 
succeeded to the English throne. 
The point of departure appears to have been a simple and terse appointment 
to an office. 13 This was quite in accord with the English practice pursued with 
respect to certain governmental jobs, such as a commission to the Common 
Bench, where the precise functions were a matter of usage. Such a form is 
used, for example, with respect to the seneschalry of Gascony, 14 where the 
duties, in so far as they were not traditional, would be assumed pursuant to 
subsequent explicit warrants. The English combination of a commission for 
10 Lodge, Constables of Bordeaux under Edward 
111, 50 EHR 225 et seq., has an account 
of the careers of various such officials; cf. esp. 
John Travers (ibid., 232 n. 18), and Robert 
Wykford (ibid., 236). 
11 Dutton v. Howell, Shower PC. 24. 
12 1 Bemont, Roles Gascons (Supp.) exx; 
Lodge, Gascony under English Rule, 137-38; Le 
Patourel, The Medieval Administration of the 
Channel Islands (1935). 4°; Wood, The Office 
of Chief Governor of Ireland 1272-1509, in 36 
Proceedings Royal Irish Academy, No. 12. 
13 E.g., Seneschal of Gascony, Bemont, Roles 
Gascons, no. 1704; Warden of the Channel 
Islands, Patent Rolls 1225-1232, 350. 
14 1 Bemont, op. cit. (Suppl.) exx ("Ses 
pouvoirs n'etaient pas encore nettement 
definis").