eth, and the
government-general conferred on Leicester, was fiercely assailed by the
confidential agents of Elizabeth herself. The dispute went into the very
depths of the social contract. Already Wilkes, standing up stoutly for
the democratic views of the governor, who was so foully to requite him,
had assured the English government that the "people were ready to cut the
throats" of the Staten-General at any convenient moment. The sovereign
people, not the deputies, were alone to be heeded, he said, and although
he never informed the world by what process he had learned the deliberate
opinion of that sovereign, as there had been no assembly excepting those
of the States-General and States-Provincial--he was none the less fully
satisfied that the people were all with Leicester, and bitterly opposed
to the States.

"For the sovereignty, or supreme authority," said he, through failure of
a legitimate prince, belongs to the people, and not to you, gentlemen,
who are only servants, ministers, and deputies of the people. You have
your commissions or instructions surrounded by limitations--which
conditions are so widely different from the power of sovereignty, as the
might of the subject is in regard to his prince, or of a servant in,
respect to his master. For sovereignty is not limited either as to power
or as to time. Still less do you represent the sovereignty; for the
people, in giving the general and absolute government to the Earl of
Leicester, have conferred upon him at once the exercise of justice, the
administration of polity, of naval affairs, of war, and of all the other
points of sovereignty. Of these a governor-general is however only the
depositary or guardian, until such time as it may please the prince or
people to revoke the trust; there being no other in this state who can do
this; seeing that it was the people, through the instrumentality of your
offices--through you as its servants--conferred on his Excellency, this
power, authority, and government. According to the common rule law,
therefore, 'quo jure quid statuitur, eodem jure tolli debet.' You having
been fully empowered by the provinces and cities, or, to speak more
correctly, by your masters and superiors, to confer the government on his
Excellency, it follows that you require a like power in order to take it
away either in whole or in part. If then you had no commission to curtail
his authority, or even that of the state-council, and thus to tread u