assembled Parliament before the Order in Council was issued (for, in fact, the proclamation against forestallers and regraters had been issued on the 10th of September, when Parliament, if not farther prorogued, would have met within a week). But on that same day Parliament was farther prorogued from the 16th of September till the 11th of November,[20] and it was not till after that prorogation, on the 24th of September, that the Order in Council was issued. In the House of Lords it seems to have been admitted that the embargo was, under all the circumstances, not only desirable, but "indispensably necessary."[21] But the Opposition in that House, being led by a great lawyer (Chief-justice Lord Mansfield), took a wider view of the whole case; and, after denouncing the long prorogation of Parliament as having been so culpably advised that there was no way left of meeting the emergency but by an interposition of the royal power, directed the principal weight of their argument against the doctrine of the existence of any dispensing power. It was urged that the late Order in Council could only be justified by "the general proposition that of any, and, if of any, of every, act of parliament the King, with the advice of the Privy Council, may suspend the execution and effect whenever his Majesty, so advised, judges it necessary for the immediate safety of the people." And this proposition was denounced as utterly inconsistent with the principles of the Revolution, which had been "nothing but a most lawless and wicked invasion of the rights of the crown," if such a dispensing power were really one of the lawful prerogatives of the sovereign. Reference was made to the powers in more than one instance, and especially in the case of ship-money claimed and exercised by Charles I.; and it was affirmed that "the dispensing and suspending power, and that of raising money without the consent of Parliament, were precisely alike, and stood on the very same ground. They were born twins; they lived together, and together were buried in the same grave at the Revolution, past all power of resurrection." It was even argued that the dispensing or suspending power was yet more dangerous than that of raising money without a Parliamentary vote, since it was a power which might do the most mischief, and with the greatest speed, so many were the subjects which it included. It would be a return to the maxims of the idolators of prerogative as understood in those earlier days, that is, of absolute and arbitrary power, _a Deo Rex, a Rege Lex_. It was farther argued that, unless it could be said that the moment Parliament breaks up the King stands in its place, and that the continuance of acts is consigned into his hands, he cannot of right suspend any more than he can make laws, both acts requiring the same power. The law is above the King, and the crown as well as the subject is bound by it as much during the recess as in the session of