is paid, and in the nature of things must be constantly paid, to that prince, who for time being, is in the actual and full possession of the regal dignity."
Indeed allegiance to a sovereign lord, is nothing more than fealty to a subordinate lord, and in neither case, has any relation to, or connection with laws or parliaments, lords or commons. There was a reciprocal confidence between the lord and vassal. The lord was to protect the vassal in the enjoyment of his land. The vassal was to be faithful to his lord, and defend him against his enemies. This obligation on the part of the vassal, was his fealty, fidelitas. The oath of fealty, by the feodal law to be taken by the vassal or tenant, is nearly in the very words as the ancient oath of allegiance. But neither fealty, allegiance, or the oath of either implied any thing about laws, parliaments, lords or commons.
The fealty and allegiance of Americans then is undoubtedly due to the person of king George the third, whom God long preserve and prosper. It is due to him, in his natural person, as that natural person is intituled to the crown, the kingly office, the royal dignity of the realm of England. And it becomes due to his natural person, because he is intituled to that office. And because by the charters, and other express and implied contracts made between the Americans and the kings of England, they have bound themselves to fealty and allegiance to the natural person of that prince, who shall rightfully hold the kingly office in England, and no otherwise.
"With us in England, says Blackstone, v. 1, 367. it becoming a settled principle of tenure, that all lands in the kingdom are holden of the king as their sovereign and lord paramount, &c. the oath of allegiance was necessarily confined to the person of the king alone. By an easy analogy, the term of allegiance was soon brought to signify all other engagements, which are due from subjects simply and merely territorial. And the oath of allegiance, as administered for upwards of six hundred years, contained a promise to be true and faithful to the king and his heirs, and truth and faith to bear of life and limb and terrene honor, and not to know, or hear of any ill or damages intended him, without defending him therefrom." But at the revolution, the terms of this oath being thought perhaps to favor too much the notion of non-resistance, the present form was introduced by the convention parliament, which is more general and indeterminate than the former, the subject promising "that he will be faithful, and bear true allegiance to only the king," without mentioning his heirs, or specifying the least wherein that allegiance consists.
Thus I think that all the authorities in law, coincide exactly with the observation which I have heretofore made upon the case of Wales, and shew that subjection to a king of England does not necessarily imply subjection to the crown of England; and that subjection to the crown of England, does not imply subjection to the parliament of England; for allegiance is due to the person of the king, and to that alone, in all three cases, that is, whether we are subject to his parliament and crown, as well as his person, as the people in England are, whether we are subject to his crown and person, without parliament, as the Welch were after the conquest of Lewellyn, and before the union, or as the Irish were after the conquest and before Poyning's law, or whether we are subject to his person alone, as the Scots were to the king of England, after the accession of James 1st. being not at all subject to the parliament or crown of England.