Page:Letters of Junius, volume 1 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/165

 two, of the three estates, have power to make a new law, without the concurrence of the third. They know that a man who maintains such a doctrine, is liable, by statute, to the heaviest penalties. They do not acknowledge that the house of commons have assumed a new privilege, or declared a new law.—On the contrary, they affirm that their proceedings have been strictly conformable to, and founded upon the ancient law and custom of parliament. Thus, therefore, the question returns to the point at which Junius had fixed it, viz. Whether or no this be the law of parliament. If it be not, the house of commons bad no legal authority to establish the precedent; and the precedent itself is a mere fact, without any proof of right whatsoever.

correspondent concludes with a question of the simplest nature: Must a thing be wrong because it has never been done before? No. But, admitting it were proper to be done, that alone does not convey an authority to do it. As to the present case, I hope I shall never see the time, when not only a single person, but a whole county, and, in effect, the entire collective body of the