"received me with great civility; and after some questions respecting the present state of affairs in America and discourse thereupon, he said to me: 'You Americans have wrong ideas of the nature of your constitution; you contend that the king's instructions to his governors are not laws, and think yourselves at liberty to regard or disregard them at your own discretion. But these instructions are not like the pocket instructions given to a minister going abroad, for regulating his conduct on some trifling point of ceremony. They are first drawn up by judges learned in the laws; they are then considered, debated, and perhaps amended, in council, after which they are signed by the king. They are then, so far as they relate to you, the _law of the land_, for the king is the _legislator of the colonies_.' I told his lordship this was new doctrine to me. I had always understood from our charters that our laws were to be made by our assemblies, to be presented indeed to the king for his royal assent; but that being once given, the king could not repeal or alter them. And as the assemblies could not make permanent laws without his assent, so neither could he make a law for them without theirs. He assured me I was totally mistaken. I did not think so, however; and his lordship's conversation having somewhat alarmed me as to what might be the sentiments of the court concerning us, I wrote it down as soon as I returned to my lodgings."[8] [Note 8: _Works_, i. 295, 296; see also an account, substantially the same, in letter to Bowdoin, January 13, 1772.] Granville also defended the recent act of Parliament laying "grievous restrictions on the export of provisions from the British colonies," the intent being to distress the American possessions of France by famine. His lordship said: "America must not do anything to interfere with Great Britain in the European markets." Franklin replied: "If we plant and reap, and must not ship, your lordship should apply to Parliament for transports to bring us all back again."