resented as an insult to Parliament and a great encroachment on the royal 
prerogative, the King alone being capable of granting a pardon and parliamentary 
action therein being confined in origin and intent to the royal 
pleasure. It was therefore moved by the Duke of Bedford that the King be 
addressed to consider the act and upon its appearing to be null and void, to 
make declaration thereof in the most effectual manner. Administration supporters 
opposed the address as useless in that the act would be disallowed by 
the King in Council in the usual course of events and as implying censure of 
the administration. After much debate the administration carried the day 
upon a division. 5803 Such action was not altogether unprecedented; we have 
seen the earlier address of the House of Lords on two South Carolina acts. 561 
Three days later a Board of Trade representation upon the act was referred 
to the Committee. 562 The Committee, looking upon the matter of declaring 
the act null and void ab initio to be of great importance, considered the matter 
560 a Trumbull Papers, 9 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. 
(sth ser.), 225-26; Mass. Gazette and Boston 
News Letter, #3324 (June 18, 1767). Thomas 
Whately wrote John Temple: "I can hardly 
say who spoke of it with the most indignation, 
and none attempted to vindicate it; 
but the ministers opposed the mode of taking 
notice of it in an address, because they said 
that it seemed to reflect a suspicion on the 
King's servants, as if they could be wanting 
in their duty, which they understood to be to 
advise the crown to disallow it. The answer 
to this objection was that the inexpediency 
of an act of Assembly was alone a sufficient 
reason for disallowing it, but the illegality of 
this act required more than a meer reversal. 
That it was an encroachment on the prerogative, 
an infringement of the constitution, an 
usurpation of powers which neither House 
of Parliament pretended to exercise, for that 
the power of pardon was vested solely in the 
crown; the Lords nor the Commons never 
attempted to indemnify without the concurrence 
of the crown, and that concurrence 
could not be had to this act of assembly, for 
the governor was only a corporation magistrate, 
and not the King's representative in the 
province of Massachusets Bay. That in Virginia, 
after Bacon's Rebellion, the Assembly there 
having passed such an Act of Indemnity, the 
Privy Council declared it null, and in the 
stead of it sent over an act ready drawn up, 
and under the Great Seal, with orders to the 
Assembly to pass it, and it is now in their 
Statute Book. That this should be treated in 
the same manner, and the rather because a 
meer reversal would answer no purpose whatsoever; 
for that a criminal once pardoned is 
pardoned for ever. The grace cannot be recalled 
i£ it has ever been granted, and that 
therefore if this Act of Indemnity should be 
admitted to have existed a moment as a legal 
act, all the purposes intended by it would be 
obtained, and all the operations designed by 
the reversal would be defeated. The previous 
question was carried for the reasons I have 
given; but as the principles held by those who 
were for the motion were not controverted, 
I make no doubt that the measure suggested 
by them of declaring the act null and void 
ab initio will be adopted" (Bowdoin-Temple 
Papers, 9 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. [6th ser.] 
82-83). Agent Mauduit wrote more temperately 
to Hutchinson that: "Much was said 
yesterday about your tacking an act of indemnity 
to that for the compensation. Acts 
of grace can originate only in the crown. 
Lord Shelbourne was amazed that his letter 
could have given the least countenance to the 
passing of it. But Lord Mansfield excused the 
Governor. The Council will certainly declare 
that part null and void, but that need give 
no alarm because something equivalent will 
be done here" (25 MS Mass. Archives [1 
Hutchinson Corres., 1741-73], 178; Mass. 
Gazette and Boston News Letter, #3323, June 
11, 1767). 
561 Supra, p. 534. For threats to move the 
House of Commons on a Maryland Act see 1 
Correspondence of Governor Horatio Sharpe, 
6 Md. Archives, 328. 
562 5 APC, Col, #30. For the act see 4 Acts