It must not be supposed, however, in consequence of what has been said about the extent of the regal power in England, that the daily care and responsibility of the affairs of government, in its ordinary administration, rested directly upon the king. It is not possible that any one mind can even comprehend, far less direct, such an enormous complication of interests and of action as is involved in the carrying on, from day to day, the government of an empire. Offices, authorities, and departments of administration spring up gradually, and all the ordinary routine of the affairs of the empire are managed by them. Thus the navy was all completely organized, with its gradations of rank, its rules of action, its records, its account books, its offices and arrangements for provisionment and supply, the whole forming a vast system which moved on of itself, whether the king were present or absent, sick or well, living or dead. It was so with the army; it was so with the courts; it was so with the general administration of the government, at London. The immense mass of business which constituted the work of government was all systematized and arranged, and it moved on regularly, in the hands of more or less prudent and careful men, who governed, themselves, by ancient rules and usages, and in most cases managed wisely. Every thing, however, was done in the king's _name_. The ships were his majesty's ships, the admirals were his majesty's servants, the war was his majesty's war, the court was the _King's_ Bench. The idea was, that all these thousands of officers, of all ranks and grades, were only an enormous multiplication of his majesty; that they were to do his will and carry on his administration as he would himself carry it on were he personally capable of attending to such a vast detail; subject, of course, to certain limits and restrictions which the laws and customs of the realm, and the promises and contracts of his predecessors, had imposed. But although all this action was theoretically the king's action, it came to be, in fact, almost wholly independent of him. It went on of itself, in a regular and systematic way, pursuing its own accustomed course, except so far as the king directly interposed to modify its action.