CHAP. 1] ORIGIN AND HISTORY 3
more strongly the force of this view than that in 1763, on
the cession of French Canada, the Royal Commission to the
Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of the Province of
Quebec contemplated the calling together for purposes
of legislation of the freeholders of the province, although it
was cautiously provided in the instructions that in the
meantime, until the condition of affairs allowed this to be
done, the Governor could legislate with the advice of the
Council with which he was associated in the Government.
It might, however, have been thought that if such grants
of favour could be made they could also be taken away, but
that view, which was certainly the natural one, was finally
disposed of by the decision of the case of Campbell v. Hall}
when it was laid down after long delay and much hesitation,
but in decisive terms, by Lord Mansfield, that a grant of
a representative constitution could not be recalled, and
that the legislative power of the Crown in respect of a con-
quered or ceded colony departed when the Crown had granted
such a constitution, unless, indeed, the Crown had reserved
a right of revocation in the instrument by which the
constitution was granted. The decision rests on no very
intelligible ground of law, but in point of expediency it
was certainly deserving of approval.
From these principles flowed the result that the Imperial
Parliament had soon to be invoked for the purpose of
securing the establishment of suitable legislative arrange-
ments in the Colonies. If a Colony were acquired by settle-
ment, the only constitution which could be granted was one
which had a lower house elected by the freeholders, or at
any rate by a considerable part of the freeholders, for the
exact nature of the franchise was not defined by any judge-
ment of a court, and the Crown had some latitude in settling
the details of the franchise. Even if a Colony had been
acquired by conquest, if the Crown had bestowed upon it
' 20 St. Tr. 239. Contrast the case of Cape Breton, which had only a
Governor and Council from 1784 to 1820, It was decided (5 Moo. P. C. 259)
that the province had no claim to separate existence when merged by the
Crown with Nova Scotia in 1820,
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