Page:Letters of Junius, volume 2 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/308

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298
LETTERS OF

weight in this particular case. Necessity includes the idea of inevitable. Whenever it is so, it creates a law to which all positive laws, and all positive rights must give way. In this sense, the levy of ship-money by the King's warrant was not necessary, because the business might have been as well or better done by parliament. If the doctrine maintained by Junius be confined within this limitation, it will go but a very little way in support of arbitrary power. That the King is to judge of the occasion, is no objection, unless we are told how it can possibly be otherwise. There are other instances, not less important in the exercise, nor less dangerous in the abuse, in which the constitution relies entirely upon the King's judgment. The executive power proclaims war and peace, binds the nation by treaties, orders general embargoes, and imposes quarantines, not to mention a multitude of prerogative writs, which, though liable to the greatest abuses, were never disputed.

3°. It has been urged, as a reproach to Junius, that he has not delivered an opinion upon the game laws, and particularly the late Dog-act. But Junius thinks he has much greater reason to complain, that he is never