This decree cannot be explained on any other theory than that the Lord Chancellor regarded the Act of Assembly to have been void ab initio; and we suspect that this conclusion had nothing to do with the Order in Council of January, 1719/20. This was worded as a mere disallowance, yet to treat it as such would admit that the acts done pursuant to the statute before that date (viz., the vesting of title in the trustees, the purchase at vendue by Houston after November 16, 1718, and his conveyance to Hamilton of December 10, 1718) would have been sufficient to vest title in Hamilton, and a decree to reconvey would have been necessary. It would be flying in the face of the wellunderstood legal implications of the usual formula of repeal to claim that the language meant something else. It would not have been in the equity tradition to redefine the formula by reference to the consistent use of the word "void" in the charter clause dealing with the crown's supervision of legislation. In consequence, since the only way to give the plaintiffs relief was to treat the act as void, such avoidance could only be by judicial declaration. This is what in effect happened, and a warrant for such judicial action undoubtedly lay in the established English rule that interested parties who had not consented to a private bill could not be bound by it. It is regrettable that no trace of an opinion has been found, for the occasion seems to us to have warranted one. Perhaps Lord King, who was completely familiar with the situation created by Winthrop v. Lechmere, having been consulted by Connecticut, may not have realized that a declaration of nullity was unusual. In any event the case must have made a stir in its day, for as late as 1750 Lord Hardwicke refers to it in a notebook as "fresh in everyone's memory," and in the printed reports he twice refers to it—in particular to ground Chancery's jurisdiction in Penn v. Lord Baltimore. It remains, however, an unsatisfactory precedent on the problem of a declaration of nullity. 560 On the other hand, we have seen no contentions that the courts at Westminster were not empowered to declare the acts of colonial legislatures void upon proper occasion. Upon the analogy of the power over the by-laws of domestic corporations such procedure would not appear unprecedented. THE MASSACHUSETTS ACT OF PARDON AND INDEMNITY We have already mentioned above the 1767 proposal in the House of Lords to declare null and void ab initio a Massachusetts act of pardon. On April 10, 1767, the opposition in the Lords attacked an act of general pardon and indemnity combined by Massachusetts with a 1766 act for granting compensation to sufferers in the recent Stamp Act riots. This legislative action was rep- 560 The decree is in P.R.0., Chan. 33/360 Pt. 2, f. 344 V. The Hardwicke notebook reference is in Add. MS, 36,179/141. Hardwicke refers to Richardson v. Hamilton in Roberdean v. Rous (1738), West. t. Hardwicke 365; 1 At\. 544.