The ministers opposed it with great vehemence, even taking some credit to themselves for their moderation in not requiring from the Duke a repayment of the proceeds of the lands in question for the seventy years during which he had held them.

But the case was so bad that they could only defeat Sir George Savile by a side-wind and a scanty majority, carrying an amendment to defer any decision of the matter till the next session.

Sir George, however, was not discouraged; he renewed his motion in 1769, when it was carried by a large majority, with an additional clause extending its operation to the Colonies in North America; and thus, in respect of its territorial rights, the crown was placed on the same footing as any private individual, and the same length of tenure which enabled a possessor to hold a property against another subject henceforth equally enabled him to hold it against the crown.

The policy not less than the justice of such an enactment might have been thought to commend it to every thinking man as soon as the heat engendered by a party debate had passed away.

It had merely placed the sovereign and the subject on the same footing in respect of the security which prescription gave to possession.