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you admit my Distinction, but then you urge it will not serve my
Purpose, because (you say) Altho' in the Enacting a Law in the
first Instance, it must necessarily be supposed, from the not giving
it a Limitation, to be the Intention of the Legislature that it should
be perpetual, unless it be in it's own nature made but for a temporary
Purpose, yet you apprehend there is no room for the like supposition
in the present Dispute. And you say further, That " if there be no
necessity to suppose it the Intention of the Legislature, that the Law
of 1715 should, by that of 1722, be made perpetual, this Case is then
clearly without Distinction." I cannot comprehend why the same
Reason will not hold in a reviving Law without Limitation, which
you admit to be in a Law in the first Instance; but I cannot help
expressing my Surprize at such palpable misconceptions as you have
entertained concerning the Continuance of Laws; for your Reason-
ing tends to prove, that a Law once made must cease, unless some
Intention of the Legislature can be proved that it should continue :
This Proposition, however harsh and even absurd in Terms, it must
now appear, yet is really the scope of your whole Argument, whereas,
had you thought fit to have considered, that when a Law is once
made, or has an Operation or Force, either in the first Instance, or
by Revival, it must necessarily always continue in force, unless the
Cause, nature, or some express Limitation in the Law, determine it;
you would have saved me and your selves much Trouble and Time
on this Subject. A Command or Law, in the nature of the Thing,
once in force, tho' but for a moment, must necessarily always con-
tinue, unless determined by some of the aforegoing Circumstances;
for there is no necessity to shew any Intention to continue it, but to
determine it; and if you should deny this plain Proposition, I will
not pretend further to convince you. This being so, my Distinction
is applicable to the Law of 1715, which was put in force without
any Limitation of Time, by the express words of the reviving Law
of 1722, and now continues, since there is no Circumstance in the
nature of the Thing commanded, or Occasion of making it, to de-
termine it. You have started another notion yet more extraordinary,
viz. That the Clause of Limitation in the Law of 1715 was revived
by the Law of 1722: was such an Assertion ever thought of by any
Lawyer, or even other Person whatsoever as, that when a Law is
revived, the very continuing- Clause is revived ? What Jargon and
Clashing must arise in the Exposition of the Continuance of Laws,
by such Doctrine? The Law of 1715 is, by the continuing Clause in
the Law itself, to be in force for three years, and to the End of the
next Session; which must mean three years from that Session in
1715, or nothing: The Law in 1719 revived that Law for three
years &a which must be from 1719, and the Law in 1722 continued
that Law without any Limitation. But if the Law of 1719 and 1722
revived the continued Clause of 1715 with the other Parts of the
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L. H. J.
Liber No. 46
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