Under these circumstances what was the course pursued by the Chief Justice, who gave the opinion of the court, and who alone of its members appears, in the report, to have taken part in the case? He reversed the order in which the relator's counsel had presented their client's case and substituted the following:-- 1st. Has the applicant a right to the commission he demanded? 2d. If he has a right and that right has been violated, do the laws of his country afford him a remedy? 3d. If they do afford him a remedy, is it a mandamus from this court? That the question of jurisdiction is always the first in order is a proposition too plain and too well-established to be discussed. It is not only a rule in our judicial system and in that from which ours has been derived, but must of necessity be a feature in every enlightened system of jurisprudence. This order was observed by the counsel for the relator, but was so changed in the opinion of the court as to make the consideration of the merits precede the question of jurisdiction--an arrangement for which no good reason could be given, and for which therefore none was attempted to be given. The motive lay on the face of the transaction. It was the only way in which the court could avoid the necessity of saying that they had no jurisdiction over the subject before proceeding to discuss and decide upon its merits. It was to avoid, though in appearance only, this judicial deformity that the Chief Justice reversed the order of the questions, and then in an opinion, which occupies some twenty-six pages in Cranch's Reports,[35] he attempted to prove that the withholding of the commissions was an act not warranted by law, but a violation of a vested legal right which the court pronounced it to be; yet wound up with an admission that the court had no jurisdiction of the subject, and of course no right to act upon it. [35] See Cranch's _Supreme Court Reports_, Vol. I. p. 137.