22 The most personally disturbing dimension of Miller's discussion of my article comes on pp. 554–5, n. 63. In this note Miller seems to impugn my integrity by suggesting that I altered one parliamentary speech to make it conform to my interpretative needs. It was indeed my intention, as Miller avers, to suggest that ‘Holt talked of two different meanings’ of the word abdicate. Miller contends, on the contrary, that ‘by the plain sense of the words he [Holt] discussed only one’. (Miller, p. 554) In fact, Holt's intentions are clear and they were to defend the choice of ‘abdicate’ because it had the two different meanings that I identified in my article. Holt's speech is long and much of it rambling. That is why I shortened it to include only the relevant passage and inserted the word ‘also’ to clarify Holt's obvious meaning. Early in his speech Holt traced the ancient history of the now obsolete meanings of ‘abdicate’. It is important to remember here the context of Holt's speech. He delivered it immediately following Somers' explanation of the meaning of ‘abdicate’ as a word that ‘doth naturally and properly signify entirely to renounce, throw off, disown, relinquish any thing or person, so as to have no farther to do with it’ (Cobbett's parliamentary history of England, v [London, 1809], p. 68Google Scholar). Holt, speaking next, was agreeing with Somers. ‘That it is an ancient word’, he said, ‘appears by the authors that have been quoted, and it is frequently met with in the best of Roman writers, as Cicero, &c. and by the derivation from “dico”, an ancient Latin word. – That now it is a known English word, and of a known and certain signification with us, I will quote to your lordships an English authority, and that is the Dictionary set forth by our countryman Minshew, who hath the word “abdicare” as an English word, and says that it signifies to “renounce” which is the signification the commons would have of it’. (Ibid. p. 71) Thus, here Holt's point is that ‘abdicate’ is an ancient and traditional English word and was chosen by parliament because it implies force and permanence. In the next part of his speech, Holt addressed other objections of the Lords to the choice of this word. ‘Your lordships second Reason, for your first Amendment in changing the word “abdicated “’, Holt observed, ‘is, because in the most common acceptation of the civil law, abdication is a voluntary express act of renunciation. That is the general acceptation of the word, and I think the commons do use the word in this case, because it [also] hath that signification.’ (Ibid. p. 71) Again, the insertion of ‘also’ to clarify Holt's meaning is appropriate, although in this case, since I have quoted the earlier passage in full, it is redundant. Holt was addressing two different meanings of the word. Miller and I may interpret this speech differently, although for the life of me I cannot imagine how.
