In the following year, the lodge which initiated the Duke of Cumberland was convened at the Thatched House Tavern, the Grand Lodge continuing to meet at the Crown and Anchor.
This may be considered very conclusive evidence of the existence of the prerogative of the Grand Master, which we are now discussing, but the argument _a fortiori_, drawn from his dispensing power, will tend to confirm the doctrine.
No one doubts or denies the power of the Grand Master to constitute new lodges by dispensation.

In 1741, the Grand Lodge of England forgot it for a moment, and adopted a new regulation, that no new lodge should be constituted until the consent of the Grand Lodge had been first obtained, "But this order, afterwards appearing," says the Book of Constitutions,[24] "to be an infringement on the prerogative of the Grand Master, and to be attended with many inconveniences and with damage to the craft, was repealed." It is, then, an undoubted prerogative of the Grand Master to constitute lodges by dispensation, and in these lodges, so constituted, Masons may be legally entered, passed, and raised.

This is done every day.

Seven Master Masons, applying to the Grand Master, he grants them a dispensation, under authority of which they proceed to open and hold a lodge, and to make Masons.

This lodge is, however, admitted to be the mere creature of the Grand Master, for it is in his power, at any time, to revoke the dispensation he had granted, and thus to dissolve the lodge.
But, if the Grand Master has the power thus to enable others to confer the degrees and make Masons by his individual authority out of his presence, are we not permitted to argue _a fortiori_ that he has also the right of congregating seven Brethren and causing a Mason, to be made in his sight?
Can he delegate a power to others which he does not himself possess?
And is his calling together "an occasional lodge," and making, with the assistance of the Brethren thus assembled, a Mason "at sight," that is to say, in his presence, anything more or less than the exercise of his dispensing power, for the establishment of a lodge under dispensation, for a temporary period, and for a special purpose.