cap. 1] THE POWERS OF THE GOVERNOR 111 
mission, he is protected, because in doing them he is the 
servant of the Crown, and is exercising its sovereign autho- 
rity ; the like protection cannot be extended to acts which 
are wholly beyond the authority confided to him. Such acts, 
though the governor may assume to do them as governor, 
cannot be considered as done on behalf of the Crown, nor 
to be in any proper sense acts of state. When questions of 
this kind arise it must necessarily be within the province 
of municipal courts to determine the true character of the 
acts done by a governor, though it may be that, when it is 
established that the particular act in question is really an 
act of State policy done under the authority of the Crown, 
the defence is complete, and the courts can take no further 
cognizance of it. It is unnecessary, on this demurrer, to 
consider how far a governor when acting within the limits 
of his authority, but mistakenly, is protected. 
Two cases from Ireland were cited by the defendant’s 
counsel, in which the Irish courts stayed "proceedings in 
actions brought against the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. In 
these cases the Lord Lieutenant appears to have been 
regarded as a viceroy. In both the facts were brought before 
the court, and in both it appeared that the acts complained 
of were political acts done by the Lord Lieutenant in his 
official capacity, and were assumed to be within the limits 
of the authority delegated to him by the Crown. The courts 
appear to have thought that under these circumstances no 
action would lie against the Lord Lieutenant in Ireland, and 
upon the facts brought to their notice it may well be that 
no action would have lain against him anywhere. (Tandy 
v. Earl of Westmoreland! and Luby v. Lord Wodehouse.?) 
Several cases were cited during the argument of actions 
brought against the East India Company and the Secretary 
of State for India, in which questions have arisen whether 
the acts of the Indian Government were or were not acts 
of sovereignty or state, and so beyond the cognizance of the 
municipal courts. The East India Company, though 
exercising (under limits) delegated sovereign power, was 
subject to the jurisdiction of the municipal courts in India, 
and it will be found from the decisions that many acts of 
the Indian Government, though in some sense they may be 
designated ‘ acts of State’, have been declared to be within 
the cognizance of those courts. Thus in the Rajah of 
Tangjore’s case 3 the question to be decided was thus stated 
‘27 St. Tr. 1246. * 17 Ir. C. L. R. 618. Cf. Sullivan 
v. Spencer, Ir. R. 6 C. L. 173. # 13 Moo. P. C. 22.