Some of the Americans, and those the most patriotic and conservative, thought that Great Britain had jurisdiction to ascertain and execute the law of nations for the common purposes, and in the exercise of that jurisdiction to control, by its decrees and regulations, the action of individuals in the Colonies. This was to regard Great Britain and America as consolidated for the common purposes so as to form what may be called a Justiciary Union. They were content, so long as Great Britain acted on the theory that she was the Justiciar of the British-American Union for the common purposes, and maintained a competent tribunal for determining what were common and what local purposes according to the principles of the law of nature and of nations, that she should finally determine the limits of her own jurisdiction as the Justiciar State of the Union. While I do not mean to say that Great Britain ever recognized that the American Colonies were free states and that she was only a Justiciar State with power of final decision according to the law of nature and of nations over the whole British-American Union for common purposes, yet I think it may not be wholly incorrect to say that from 1700 to 1763, the King and the Parliament of Great Britain, advised by the Committee of the Privy Council for Plantation Affairs assisted by the Board of Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, really acted as the Supreme Administrative Tribunal for applying the principles of the law of nature and of nations in the decision of the questions common to all the free states of a _de facto_ British-American Union and as a necessary incident thereto, decided the limits of the jurisdiction of Great Britain as the Justiciar State of this _de facto_ British-American Union.