Two objections to this act on the ground of instructional violations are possible. 
Certainly disregarded was the instruction that no assent should be given 
to any law enacted for a time less than two years. 444 Whether the statute was 
contrary to the article prohibiting assent to any law repealing a former law, 
confirmed or unconfirmed, without a suspending clause leaves some room for 
argument. 445 In the first place the act in question did not specifically "repeal" 
the 1748 act, but rather superseded its provisions. Whether the 1755 act had 
"repealing" effect depended upon answer to the factual question whether the 
substitution provided therein constituted a decrease of the salary formerly 
granted or merely a commutation thereof. The Virginia Council declared the 
1755 act not "contradictory" to the earlier act, but merely commutative 
thereof. 446 Nevertheless, since the commutation rate was somewhat below the 
market value of tobacco, the act was repealing in nature. 447 In some quarters 
it was felt that the principal evil was the precedent set of interference with 
the 1748 establishment rather than any loss entailed by the instant act. 448 
508). Compare the assertion that the act passed 
by but one vote (1 Meade, Old Churches, Ministers, 
and Families of Virginia [1857], 217). 
The legislative sources are uninformative; see 
Journals House Burgesses Va., 1752—55, 1756— 
58, 323-24, 326 and 3 Legislative Journals of 
the Council of Virginia (1919) 1191-92, 1193. 
444 1 Labaree, Royal Instructions, #205. This 
limitation was alleged by the colony clergy to 
have been inserted with knowledge that the 
law was "contrary to royal prerogative and instruction" 
and in fear of repeal. A ten-month 
period was long enough for all tobacco payments 
to be made and yet not long enough to 
obtain a disallowance (Perry, op. cit., 442). 
On the extensive use of temporary acts to escape 
imperial control, see Russell, The Review of 
Colonial Legislation by the King in Council, 
208-11. 
445 For the instruction see 1 Labaree, Royal Instructions, 
#205. This instruction was not regarded 
with favor in the colony. In April, 
1752, a representation was made to the King 
in Council complaining of the inconveniences 
caused by confirmation of many laws, so that 
they could not be repealed or altered except 
by an act with a suspending clause (5 Hening, 
Stat, at Large Va., 432-36). For the legislative 
course of the address see Journals House Burgesses 
Va., 1752-55, 1756-58, 78 et seq. It was 
later contended by the clergy that this application, 
that repealing acts might be in force until 
the royal pleasure was known, was an acknowledgment 
that without such conciliar order acts 
passed without a suspending clause had no 
force (Fulham Palace MSS, Va., Box 2, #132). 
The Board of Trade in reporting adversely on 
the address declared that to grant the requested 
power "would be to take away, or at least to 
render useless and ineffectual that power which 
the crown has so wisely and properly reserved 
to itself of rejecting such laws passed in the 
colonys, as shall upon due consideration be 
thought improper or liable to objection and 
would destroy that check, which was established 
not only to preserve the just and proper 
influence and authority which the crown ought 
to have in the direction and government of its 
colonies in America, but also to secure to its 
subjects their just libertys and privileges" (4 
APC, Col, #186). 
416 Perry, op cit., 462-63. 
447 Ibid., 508; cf. ibid., 441, wherein it was 
represented that although tobacco was valued 
at 2d. per pound by virtue of the act, the market 
was "generally expected to be 3d. if not 
4d. per pound (of this currency which is at 
least 25 per cent worse than sterling and sometimes 
more)." John Camm later alleged a 
sterling loss by virtue of the act (Camm, 
A Single and Distinct View, 4). It has been 
stated that during the eighteenth century the 
price of tobacco "ranged between about three 
pence per pound as a maximum down to a half 
penny or less. ... It was rarely higher than 
two pence" (Gray, The Market Surplus Problems 
of Colonial Tobacco, 7 William and Mary 
Coll. Quart. [2d ser.], 232). 
448 Perry, ed., Hist. Coll. Rel. Amer. Col. 
Church, Virginia, 448, 508-9.