And, if both his grants and the grants of his uncles were illegal, it was absurd to say that the mere lapse of time made a difference.

For not only was it part of the alphabet of the law that there was no prescription against the Crown, but the thirty-eight years which had elapsed since the Restoration would not have sufficed to bar a writ of right brought by a private demandant against a wrongful tenant.

Nor could it be pretended that William had bestowed his favours less judiciously than Charles and James.

Those who were least friendly to the Dutch would hardly venture to say that Portland, Zulestein and Ginkell was less deserving of the royal bounty than the Duchess of Cleveland and the Duchess of Portsmouth, than the progeny of Nell Gwynn, than the apostate Arlington or the butcher Jeffreys.

The opposition, therefore, sullenly assented to what the ministry proposed.