the conquered territory continued until altered by the crown; indeed, Holt, 
C. J., had stated explicitly "the laws of England did not take place there [a 
conquered country] 'till declared so by the conqueror." 134 It may be, of course, 
that the peculiar situation of Dominica as a so-called "neutral" island with no 
known jurisprudence may have induced the idea that a mere act of possession 
was equivalent to a public declaration of the vigor of the English Acts of 
Trade. The emphasis upon possession was necessary to bring the cases within 
the words of the Navigation Act ("to his Majesty belonging or in his possession") 
and the similar phraseology of the Act for Preventing Frauds, 7 and 8 
William 111, c. 22. This problem had already been before the Council in an administrative 
way. 135 In 1759 the Board of Trade had submitted a representation 
respecting the status of the captured island of Guadeloupe under the 
capitulation which extended all the privileges of commerce on the same conditions 
as applied to British subjects. 138 This was referred to Attorney General 
Pratt and Solicitor General Yorke, who, a few weeks earlier, had reported 
severally that the right of sovereignty had passed by the fact of conquest so 
that Guadeloupe was "a plantation belonging to his majesty and in his possession" 
within the meaning of the Navigation Act and consequently subject 
to the same duties as other British plantations. 137 Here, as in the Dominica 
cases, the issue was seen merely as one of squeezing revenue out of captured 
dominions, and the implications with regard to the lawmaking prerogative 
of the crown were overlooked. The doctrine of Northington, dispensing as it 
did with any explicit promulgation by the crown, amounted to a real diminution 
of this prerogative, and it gained significance from the fact that it was 
expressed in a judicial proceeding. It is picked up eight years later by Mansfield, 
C. J., in his opinion in Campbell v. Hall (1774) 138 in a way that suggests 
that this great judge regarded it to be settled law: 
if the King (and when I say the King I always mean the King without the concurrence 
of Parliament) has a power to alter the old and to introduce new laws in 
a conquered country, this legislation being subordinate, that is subordinate to his 
authority in Parliament, he cannot make any new change contrary to fundamental 
principles: he cannot exempt an inhabitant from that particular dominion; as for 
instance from the laws of trade or from the power of Parliament. 
Although normally acts of Parliament made for the dominions overseas 
presented only the pedestrian task of expounding language, there was occasionally 
an opportunity for the Council, acting judicially, to carry out 
131 Blankard v. Galdy {Holt K.B. 341). 
135 4 APC, Col., #404. 
130 2 Durand-Molard, Code de la Martinique, 
60 (Art. 21). 
137 2 Chalmers, Opinions, 355 et seq. 
138 1 Cowper 204.