secondly, a confirmed act could not be altered or repealed by a lesser authority. 
To allow such would divest the royal prerogative, for the assembly, by annual 
temporary acts, which could not be disallowed before expiration, might 
elude all confirmed acts. Thirdly, no power existed to make laws, such as 
that of 1758, repugnant to reason and fundamentally unjust. Fourthly, colonial 
acts had been declared void upon hearing of private appeals, particularly in 
Winthrop v. Lechmere. Fifthly, the legislative action was termed audacious 
in the light of the rejection of the 1753 assembly petition for increased legislative 
power. Sixthly, the 1758 act having expired before the disallowing order 
was issued, such order was nugatory unless intended to declare the act void 
ab initio? 1 ® 
The respondents, in their printed argument, as background to the cause, set 
forth the legislative history of tobacco payments to the ministry, deducing 
therefrom legislative intent to settle ministerial salaries not exceeding _£8o 
or per annum. It was then pointed out that a great number of payments 
in addition to those clerical were due in tobacco and an effort was made to 
justify legislative commutation of these payments because of the scarcity of 
the crop. 517 As procedural reasons for affirmance of the judgment below it 
was initially urged that the action was not maintainable by force of the 1748 
penalizing act. 518 Secondly, there was advanced the hardship visited upon 
respondents in penalizing them for action compelled by the colony law. 
Thirdly, if such penalty should be incurred, the remedy was an action of debt, 
not of trespass on the case. Fourthly, the proper remedy against the collectors 
was a suit upon the bond entered into for faithful discharge of office. As to 
the substantive question of the validity of the 1758 act, it was contended that 
by the original constitution of Virginia and by the commission to the Earl of 
Loudoun the colony possessed full legislative power. Acts disallowed were to 
become void only from signification thereof to the governor. In the instant 
case the action of the collectors was taken previous to both the disallowance 
and the signification thereof; it would have been impossible for the collectors 
to have acted otherwise than according to the 1758 act without flouting the 
legislature. 519 
516 Add. MS, 36,220/53-54. 
517 Case of Respondent, Add. MS, 36,220/ 
55-56. 
018 That act was designed to rectify the evil 
of collectors of public dues converting to their 
own use the better quality tobacco collected 
and delivering to creditors inferior grades. 
Therefore payments should be made in the 
same inspectors' notes as received; if payment 
accordingly should be refused or delayed, 
collectors were to forfeit double the amount 
involved. But here the collectors received no 
inspector's notes in satisfaction of appellant's 
claims. Secondly, the act was not applicable 
where collectors were not guilty of fraud or 
embezzlement or of conversion of tobacco 
received to their own use, but acted in obedience 
to the 1758 law (Add. MS, 36,220/57). 
519 Ibid.