Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	chancellor_n	great_a	seal_n	2,853	5	8.3166	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63120	A short history of standing armies in England	Trenchard, John, 1662-1723.	1698 (1698)	Wing T2115; ESTC R39727	36,748	56

A Short HISTORY OF Standing Armies IN ENGLAND Captique dolis donisque coacti Quos neque Tydides nec Larissaeus Achilles Non anni domuere decem non mille Carinae Virg. Aen. ii LONDON Printed in the Year MDCXCVIII The PREFACE THERE is nothing in which the generality of Mankind are so much mistaken as when they talk of Government The different Effects of it are obvious to every one but few can trace its Causes Most Men having indigested Ideas of the Nature of it attribute all public Miscarriages to the corruption of Mankind They think the whole Mass is infected that it 's impossible to make any Reformation and so submit patiently to their Countries Calamities or else share in the Spoil whereas Complaints of this kind are as old as the World and every Age has thought their own the worst We have not only our own Experience but the Example of all Times to prove that Men in the same Circumstances will do the same things call them by what names of distinction you please A Government is a mere piece of Clockwork and having such Springs and Wheels must act after such a manner and therfore the Art is to constitute it so that it must move to the public Advantage It is certain that every Man will act for his own Interest and all wise Goverments are founded upon that Principle So that this whole Mystery is only to make the Interest of the Governors and Governed the same In an absolute Monarchy where the whole Power is in one Man his Interest will be only regarded In an Aristocracy the Interest of a few and in a free Government the Interest of every one This would be the Case of England if som Abuses that have lately crept into our Constitution were remov'd The freedom of this Kingdom depends upon the Peoples chusing the House of Commons who are a part of the Legislature and have the sole power of giving Mony Were this a true Representative and free from external Force or privat Bribery nothing could pass there but what they thought was for the public Advantage For their own Interest is so interwoven with the Peoples that if they act for themselves which every one of them will do as near as he can they must act for the common Interest of England And if a few among them should find it their Interest to abuse their Power it will be the Interest of all the rest to punish them for it and then our Government would act mechanically and a Rogue will as naturally be hang'd as a Clock strike twelve when the Hour is com This is the Fountain-Head from whence the People expect all their Happiness and the redress of their Grievances and if we can preserve them free from Corruption they will take care to keep every body else so Our Constitution seems to have provided for it by never suffering the King till Charles the Second's Reign to have a Mercenary Army to frighten them into a Compliance nor Places or Revenues great enough to bribe them into it The Places in the King's Gift were but few and most of them Patent Places for Life and the rest great Offices of State enjoy'd by single Persons which seldom fell to the share of the Commons such as the Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer privy-Privy-Seal Lord High-Admiral c. and when these Offices were possess'd by the Lords the Commons were severe Inquisitors into their Actions Thus the Government of England continu'd from the time that the Romans quitted the Island to the time of Charles the First who was the first I have read of that made an Opposition to himself in the House of Commons the road to Preferment of which the Earl of Strafford and Noy were the most remarkable Instances who from great Patriots became the chief Assertors of Despotic Power But this serv'd only to exasperat the rest for he had not Places enough for all that expected them nor Mony enough to bribe them 'T is true he rais'd great Sums of Mony upon the People but it being without Authority of Parliament and having no Army to back him it met with such Difficulties in the raising that it did him little good and ended at last in his ruin tho by the means of a long and miserable War which brought us from one Tyranny to another for the Army had got all things into their Power and govern'd the Nation by a Council of War which made all Parties join in calling in Charles the Second So that he came in with the general applause of the People who in a kind fit gave him a vast Revenue for Life By this he was enabled to raise an Army and bribe the Parliament which he did to the purpose but being a luxurious Prince he could not part with great Sums at once He only fed them from hand to mouth So that they found it as necessary to keep him in a constant Dependence upon them as they had upon him They knew he would give them ready Mony no longer than he had absolute necessity for them and he had not Places enough in his disposal to secure a Majority in the House for in those early days the art was not found out of splitting and multiplying Places as instead of a Lord Tr r to have Five Lords of the Tr ry instead of a Lord Ad l to have Seven Lords of the Ad ty to have Seven Commissioners of the C ms Nine of the Ex ze Fourteen of the N vy Office Ten of the St mp Office Eight of the Pr ze Office Sixteen of the Commissioners of Tr de Two of the P st Office Four of the Transports Four for Hackny Coaches Four for Wine-Licenses Four for the Victualling Office and multitudes of other Offices which are endless to enumerat I believe the Gentlemen who have the good Fortune to be in som of these Imployments will think I complement them if I should say they have not bin better executed since they were in so many hands than when in fewer and I must confess I see no reason why they may not be made twice as many and so ad infinitum unless the number be ascertain'd by Parliament and what danger this may be to our Constitution I think of with Horror For if in Ages to com they should be all given to Parliament Men what will becom of our so much boasted Liberty what shall be don when the Criminal becoms the Judg and the Malefactors are left to try themselves We may be sure their common danger will unite them and they will all stand by one another I do not speak this by guess for I have read of a Country where there was a constant Series of mismanagement for many Years together and yet no body was punish'd and even in our own Country I believe som Men now alive can remember the time when if the King had but twenty more Places in his disposal or disposed of those he had to the best