allowances. 565 The earlier Virginia precedent, concerned with acts passed 
under the duress of Nathaniel Bacon and his adherents, was hardly appropriate 
566 By the second Virginia precedent three specified provincial acts of 29 
Charles II and all others made in the colony either disagreeable to the power 
residing there or derogatory to a royal proclamation of pardon made in consequence 
of Bacon's Rebellion were in due time to be abrogated and made 
void. 567 This was in the nature of an order for disallowance or for repealing 
legislation rather than a declaration of nullity. Subtraction of these false precedents 
leaves only the residue of Winthrop v. Lechmere and the declarations 
of nullity upon legislative review of the Pennsylvania and Jamaica acts. 
The opposition, unsatisfied with the conciliar disallowance, desired that 
the pardoning section of the Massachusetts act be declared void ab initio. 
Therefore, to censure the ministry obliquely it was first moved that the opinion 
of the judges should be taken in the matter and, secondly, that an address 
to the King be made upon the putative invalidity of the act. Both motions were 
lost by small margins. s6B The importance of this episode should not be overemphasized, 
since it was largely political, rather than constitutional in nature. 
But it does indicate substantial opinion that an act could be declared null and 
565 See supra, pp. 535-36. 
566 The proclamation related that Bacon and 
his adherents had by duress forced the Virginia 
legislature to pass divers pretended acts 
and then declared that "aldiough the pretended 
Acts or laws made in the said Assembly 
of June last (being in manner aforesaid 
obtained) are in themselves null and 
void, yet to the intent no person may pretend 
ignorance His Majesty hath thought fit hereby 
to declare and publish his royal pleasure to 
be that all and every acts and act made or 
pretended to be made by the said Governor 
and Assembly, in the late Grand Assembly 
held at James City in the month of June past 
shall be taken and held null and void and 
shall not for the future, be observed or put 
in execution" (H. of L. MS, 247/99-103). 
567 H. of L. MS, 247/105-11. 
608 Trumbull Papers, 236-37. For the two 
questions proposed for the judges see 16 
Pari. Hist. Engl., 359. Horace Walpole wrote 
that Lord Mansfield maintained that more 
than a disallowance was necessary, that the 
act ought to have been declared null ab initio, 
and demanded that the opinions of the judges 
be taken. Mansfield "spoke with all his subtlety, 
but was very roughly handled by the 
Chancellor [Camden] and Lord Northington. 
The judges would not have given opinions if 
asked." Walpole added that even if the opposition 
had carried the question, they would 
have lost it in committee; the opposition had 
called for papers which went to the committee 
where proxies could not be used (5 Letters 
of Horace Walpole [ed. by P. Cunningham, 
r Bs7]> s°)- For the partisan aspects of the 
matter see Winstanley, Lord Chatham and 
the Whig Opposition (1912), 133-37. For the 
attitude of Lord Mansfield on the act see A 
Narrative of the Changes in the Ministry, 
1765-1767 (ed. by M. Bateson, Camden Soc, 
1898), 101—2. See also 1 Correspondence of 
King George the Third (ed. by J. Fortescue, 
1927), 469-71, 473-76; 4 Grenville Papers 
(ed. by W. J. Smith, 1853), n-13, 222-27; 
MS Charles Garth Corres. (Force trans., L.C.), 
60. For the political background of the episode 
see Feiling, The Second Tory Party (1938), 
c. vii. The significance of the incident has 
been seriously misunderstood in some quarters, 
Bancroft terming it "but a frivolous cavilling 
on the form of a royal veto" (3 History of the 
United States [1895 ed.], 247). McGovney 
(The British Privy Council's Power to Restrain 
The Legislatures of Colonial America, 94 U. of 
Pa. L.R. 59, 84) fails completely to recognize 
that declarations of nullity had taken place 
upon legislative review.