or any manner of Article contained in that Charter willed and granted that such manner of Statutes and Customes should be void and frustrate for ever Anno 28 Ed. 1. Artic. super Chartaâ— ca. 2. upon complaint that the Kings Ministers of his house did to the great grievance and damage of the people take the goods as well of the Clergy as the Laity without paying any thing or els much less then the value It was ordained that no Pourveyors should take any thing but for the Kings House and touching such things as they should take in the Country of meat and drink and such other mean things necessary for the house they should pay or make agreement with them of whom the things should be taken nor take more then should be needfull to be used for the King his Houshold and Children with a Proviso therein that nevertheless the King and his Counsel did not intend by that Estatute to diminish the Kings Right for the antient prices due and accustomed as of wines and other goods but that his Right should be saved unto him in all points Anno 16 Ed. 2. the King sent his Writ to the Justices of the Court of Kings Bench then not so fixed as now or of later times to command them to take care to punish the Infringers of those Lawes And howsoever the Articles and inquiries in the Eyres in the Reign of King Edward the first were to enquire and punish those Sheriffs Constables or Bayliffs which took any victuals or provisions for the King or his Houshould which shews that then also no Markets were kept at the Court gates nor that all the Kings provisions were there bought or taken contra voluntatem eorum quorum Catalla fuerint without the will of the owners which in all probability was to be regulated and perswaded by that duty and loyalty which every good Subject coming to a Country or City Market did bear to his Soveraign and the Preserver by his authority and power of not only what they brought to Market that day but what was left at home or to be brought at other times to Market and the words sine consensu voluntate c. without the consent of the Seller are to be interpreted and understood saith Sir Edward Coke to have been inserted in that and other Statutes for that Pourveyers would take the goods of such men as had no will to sell them but to spend them for their own necessary use But afterwards some abuses like weeds getting in amongst the best corn or greatest care of the watchfull Husbandman happening in the manner of Pourveyances by taking them without warrant or threatning the Sellers or Assessors to make easie prices or not paying ready money or the Market rate for them or taking more then they needed or by greater measures making the Pourveyances for divers Noble-men belonging to the Court as of the Duke of Gloucester in the Reign of King Henry the sixth and in his time also some Hostlers Brewers and other Victuallers keeping Hosteries and Houses of retailing victuals in divers places of the Realm having purchased the Kings Letters Patents to take Horses and Carts for the service of the King and Queen did by colour of them take horses where no need was and bring them to their Hosteries and other places and there keep them secretly untill they had spent xx d or xl.d. of their stuff and sometimes more and then make the owners pay it before their horses could be delivered and sometimes made them pay a Fine at their will and at other times took Fines to shew favour and not to take their horses and many times would not pay for the hire of the said horses and carts divers Acts of Parliament upon complaints at several times in Parliament of the said abuses committed by Pourveyers were made to prohibit and provide against them but none at all to take away the Pourveyance it self or Prae-emption or the Kings just Rights and Prerogatives therein but a saving of the Kings Rights especially provided for in many of them as Anno 10 Ed. 3. ca. 4. The Sheriff shall make Pourveyance for the Kings horses Anno 18 Ed. 3. ca. 4. In the Commissions to be made for Pourveyance the Fees of the Church shall be exempted in every place where they be found Anno 25 Ed. 3. ca. 1. after that in Anno 20 Ed. 3. divers Pourveyers had been attainted and hanged for fending against those Lawes and that in the 23. year of that Kings Reign divers of the Kings Pourveyers were indited for breach of those Lawes It was enacted that If any Pourveyer of victuals for the King Queen or their Children should take Corn Litter or Victuals without ready mony at the price it commonly runneth in the Market prized by Oath by the Constable and other good people of the Town he shall be arrested and if attainted suffer pains as a Thief if the quantity of the goods the same require Cap. 6. No Pourveyer shall take cut or â—ell wood or Timber for the Kings use for work growing near any mans dwelling house Et cap. 7 Keepers of Forrests or Chaces shall gather nothing nor victuals nor sustenance without the owners good will but that which is due of old right Cap. 15. If any Pourveyer take more sheep then shall be needfull and be thereof attainted it shall be done to him as a Thief or a Robber Anno 36 Ed. 3. ca. 6. No Lord of England nor none other of the Realm of what estate or condition that he be except the King and the Queen his wife shall make any taking by him or any of his Servants of any manner of victuals but shall buy the same that they need of such as will sell the same of their good will and for the same shall make ready payment in hand according as they may agree with the seller And if the people of Lords or of other doe in other manner and thereof be attainted such punishment of life and of member shall be done of them as is ordered of the buyers the occasion of the making of which Statute and the preceding Act of Parliament of 25 Ed. 6. before mentioned Sir Edward Cook informes us was a book written in Latin by Simon Islip Archbishop of Canterbury and before that a Secretary of State and Privy Councellor to King Ed. 3. called Speculum Regis sharpely inveying against the intollerable abuses of Pourveyers and Pourveyance in many particulars and earnestly advising and pressing him to provide remedies for those insufferable oppressons and wrongs offered to his Subjects which the King often perusing it wrought such effect as at divers of his Parliaments but especially in his Parliament holden in the 36 year of his Reign he did of his own will without the motion of the great men or Commons as the Record of Parliament speaketh cause to be made many excellent Laws against the oppressions and falshood of Pourveyâ—rs
The Antiquity Legality Reason Duty and Necessity OF PRAE-EMPTION AND POURVEYANCE FOR THE KING OR Compositions for his Pourveyance As they were used and taken for the Provisions of the KINGS Houshold the small charge and burthen thereof to the PEOPLE and the many great Mischiefs and Inconveniences which will inevitably follow the taking of them away By FABIAN PHILIPPS Manilius 3 Perquè tot Aetates hominum tot tempora Annos Tot Bella varios etiam sub pace labores Virgil Aeneid lib. 8. Sic placida populos in pace regebat Deterior donec paulatìm Decolor Aetas Et Belli Rabies Amor successit habendi London Printed by Richard Hodgkinson for the Author and are to be sold by Henry Marsh at the sign of the Princes Arms in Chancery-Lane 1663. To the Right Learned and truely Noble Lord Christopher Lord Hatton Baron of Kirkby Knight of the Bath Governor of the Isle of Guarnesey and one of the Lords of his Majesties most Honorable Privy Council My Lord THE Holy Evangelist St. Luke in his Gospel and History of the Acts of the blessed Apostles when he inscribed or Dedicated it to his friend Theophilus hath given us to understand that the Dedication of Books unto such as would read and peruse them is no late or Novel usage for it was in those times or shortly after not thought to be unfitting or unnecessary to take the approbation and opinion of Grave and Learned men of such things as were to be made publicke as Plinius Junior in his Epistles informs us so that it may with reason and evidence be concluded that the Dedication of Books was not originally to procure the favor of some great or good Man neither were the Epistles Dedicatory heretofore acquainted with those gross Flatteries untruths or immense and accumulated praises of the Patrons or their Ancestors which some Foraign Printers for their own private gain do use in publishing Books out of some Copies and Manuscripts left by the deceased Authors or as too many German and other Authors have of late stuffed their Dedications withall which Heroick and great Souls do so little relish as the Books themselves would meet with a better entertainment if they came without them but one of the best and most approved usages of Dedications hath certainly and most commonly been derived from no other Source or Fountain then the great desire which the Author had there being before printing most probably but a few Copies sent abroad to receive the friendly censure and approbation of some Learned man who would in those days carefully read and peruse it and not as now too many men do oscitanter and cursorily take a view onely of the Frontispice or Title and lay it in the Parlor or Hall Windows to be idly turned over by such as tarry to speak with them or else crowd it in their better furnished then read or understood Libraries to make a Muster or great shew of such Forces as they have to bring into the Feild of Learning when there shall be any occasion to use them but neither then or before are able to finde or say what is in them But your Lordship being Master of the Learning in Books as well as of an excellent well furnished Library with many choice Manuscripts never yet published and very many Classick Authors and Volums printed and carefully pick't and gathered together out of the Gardens of good letters which an unlearned and reforming Rebellion and the Treachery of a wicked servant hired to discover them did very much diminish And your Eye and Judgement being able before hand to Calculate the Fate of the Author in the good or bad opinion of all that go by any Rules or measure of right Reason Learning or Judgement I have adventured to present unto your Lordship these my Labours in the Vindication of the Legality Antiquity right use and necessity of the Praeemption and Pourveyance of the Kings of England or Compositions for the Provisions of their Royall houshold for that your Lordship is so well able to judge of them and having been Comptroller of the houshold to his Majesties Royal Father the Martyr King CHARLES the First and to the very great dangers of your person and damage of your Estate like one of Davids good servants gone along with him in all his Wars and troubles when as he being first assaulted was inforced to take Arms against a Rebellious and Hypocritical part of his people in the defence of himself and his people their Religion Laws and Liberties and the Priviledges of Parliament and not only remained Faithfull to him during his life but after his death unto his banished and strangely misused Royal Issue when Loyalty and Truth were accompted crimes of the greatest magnitude and like some houses infected with the plague had more then one ✚ set upon them with a Lord have mercy upon us And did whilst that blessed King continued in his Throne and Regalities so instruct your self in those Excellent Orders and Government of his house as you have been able to enlighten and teach others amongst whom I must acknowledge my self to have been one and out of a Manuscript carefully collected by your Lordship concerning the Rules and Orders of the Royal houshold which your Lordship was pleased to communicate unto me to have been very much informed which together with the many favors with which you have been pleased to oblige me the incouragements which you have given me to undertake this work and the great respect and veneration which I bear unto your Lordships grand accomplishments in the Encyclopaidia large extent and traverses of all kinde of learning and your knowledge of Foraign Courts and Customes which being very extraordinary if you were of the ranke of private men must needs be very much more when it shall be added to the eminency of your Birth and qualitie and the Trust and Emploiments which his Majesty hath been pleased deservedly to confer upon you have emboldened me to lay these my endeavors before your Lordship submitting them to an utter oblivion and extinguishment and to be stifled in the Birth or Crâ—dle if they shall not appear unto your Lordship to be worthy the publike view and consideration Wherein although some may feast and highly content their Fancies with censuring me that I have been to prodigal of my labors in proving either at all or so largly the antiquity or legality of the Kings just Rights unto Prae-emption and Pourveyance or Compositions for them when as the Act of Parliament in Anno 12 of his now Majesties raign for taking them away doth give him a Recompence for them yet I may I hope escape the censure or blame of setting up a Giant of Straw and fighting with it when I have done or of being allied to such as fight with their own shadows or trouble themselves when there is neither any cause or necessity for it when as the Act of Parliament for taking away Pourveyance
charge and burthen thereof to the People and the many great Mischiefs and Inconveniences which will inevitably follow the taking of them away THat wise Councel and Saying of Solomon the wisest of Men as well as Kings To fear God and honor the King and not to meddle with them who are given to change should if it were not a part of the Sacred Volumes not be denied an admission into every mans care and observation to follow that advice as well as to believe that it is good to do so when as every Nation in the World in every age and generation of mankind may by woful experience many times acted over subscribe unto it or be ready to make Oath or Affidavit of the many ill consequences which have very often happened in the Tryal and event of the contrary and is the more to be followed in the retaining of good Laws or not changing them upon Light seldom small or inconsiderable inconveniences for that those antient and righteous Judicial and Moral Laws of Moses written or dictated by God himself and originally fitted for the Jewish Government and the Manners and Customs of that his Darling and beloved people were not certainly intended to Lacquie after the humors designs passions or Interests of men and those people who were to obey and observe them but to remain and continue as fixed and permanent as they were good and profitable for otherwise they would not have been commanded to be taught their Children and after Generations to be laid up in their hearts and their Souls written upon the Posts of their houses and on their Gates bound for a Sign upon their hands and as Frontlets between their eyes For howsoever other Laws which have not so divine an Original or not being de jure Naturae and drawn from that holy and excellent fountain of Scripture are and may upon a true not phantastick or imaginary ballancing and due consideration of Conveniencies with Inconvenienâ—es be alterable and either totally taken away or reformed Yet when the ages past and daily experiences have not only told us but all the people of the world that new Laws cannot give us that certainty of their effects which the old have done nor can be like Christal so clear and transparent as to give us beforehand a liberty of discerning the effects hoped for and that experience is by much a better guide then hopes or expectation we may with som assurance of reason conclude that Licurgus did not ill to ordain that de legibus semel receptis probatis disserere non liceret that the goodness of Laws experimented should be honored rather then called in question did not merit a repoof when for fear of the Inconstancy of the Lacedemonians or a less understanding part of them he caus'd an oath to be taken that those Laws which he had devised for them should not be altered until his return from Delphos where or at Creet he pined himself to death to make them perpetual and that Solon was not likewise to be blamed in imitating him so far as to ordain an Oath to be taken by the people of Athens not to change the Laws which he had ordained for them but would rather endure a ten years absence not much unlike a banishment from that his beloved country because he would not give them any occasion or temptation of changing them and that our late Factious and ignorant Legislators have been far exceeded and outgone by the inferior and overwise seeming Members or parts of the body natural represented in Menenius Agrippa's happy Fable to the seditious Romans of the mutiny of the Members of the body natural against the Belly or Paunch thereof who did not in all that contention and desire of some better as they thought order to be enacted betwixt it and the Members many of them having several intents and interests propose as our late Giddy Reformers have done any thing against the Soveraignity or Supremacy of the Head or to dislocate or cast it into a meaner scituation or condition amongst its inferiors upon pretence that it might be more serviceable if it were placed in a Co-ordination in the middle of the body or to reside nearer the Belly or Feet and be a Concomitant of them and their more ignoble Offices would conduce to a better Reiglement of the affairs of the Belly and the rest of the inferior Members or a more even walking or at least not so often stumbling of the Feet and prevent many a prejudice to those now more remote parts from its ordinary care and protection And we cannot therefore without some wonder contemplate the vast difference which appears to have been betwixt all the heretofore popular Pretences and intended Reformations of the Athenian and Spartan Commonwealths now sufficiently quieted and purged of those humors by a Turkish Tyranny and that of the Romans in their many Tumults and Seditions under their many several sorts of Governments and our godly as they called themselves Reformers of laws amenders of male administration as they supposed in Government when as those Greeks and Romans being Heathens could pursue their ends without rapine and plundering of their fellow citizens but our men of Ignorance and Innovation could in their vertigo and overturning of Kingdoms and good Laws finde the way to all manner of Ravage Rapine and Injustice to enrich and advance themselves by that great gain and spoil which they met with by the alteration of Laws and invadeing their Neighbors and other mens Proprieties And at the same time when they made their Jugling self denying Ordinancâ— and pretended so much to Revelations and Gifts extraordinary could think of nothing more then making themselves great by the ruine of their betters the afflictions of the poor and needy the Widdows and Fatherless And rather then faile of their prey which had such a pleasant Haut-goust or relish cooked and palated for them by the Devil would pretend all our Laws and good and reasonable Customs to be as bad as they were antient and rather call their Fore-fathers fools for enacting or permitting them then acknowledge those Excellencies Reason Justice and Goodness which were every where to be found in them as if more then six thousand years of the Worlds age already past were not time enough to teach mankind necessary helps for its well being and preservation or as if God having given man a reasonable Soul endued with all those eminent faculties which he communicated unto it had confined the right use of them to the later part decrepit and old age only of the world and permitted all the experiments of the long lived Patriarches and their succeeding Generations and all the Rules of Prudence and Wisdom which the former ages had observed and found to be good and useful for the sons of men to be so bound up in the bundles of vanity or not worth the heeding as every Chimaera or Megrum of the less
in many as Canterbury York Durham Lincoln Coventry and Lichfield Exeter Ely Winchester and Norwich much abated when as now by the rise of mony and prises they are greatly different from what they then weâ—e and are of some of those Benefices and Spiritual Promotions but the eighth or tenth and of many but the twentieth part And receives his prae-Fines and post-Fines Licences and Pardons of Alienation upon Common Assurances at less then a tenth and many times less then a twentieth part of the true yearly values of the lands or rates which the Law ordering the compositions to be upon oath intendeth him after the example of his Royal Father who permitted the yearly value of lands in Capite and by Knight-service to be found by Juries and Inquisitions at the tenth part of the now true yearly value when as by oath they were to find and certifie the true yearly values and all the Lands of the Kingdome but his own are raised and improved generally ten to one or very much in very many parts and particulars thereof more then what they were two hundred years last past in or about the Reign of King Henry the sixth when as the errable and pasture lands which are now in Middlesex let at fifteen or sixteen shillings per annum an Acre and Meadow commonly at forty shillings and sometimes at three pounds the Acre were in Anno 1 Ed. 3. at a farre lesser yearly value when two Toftes of Land one Mill fifty acres of Land and two acres of Wood in Kentish Town near London was of no greater yearly value then 20 s. and 3 d. and the courser sort of pasture land in Essex now let for 8 or 9 s. the Acre and Meadow at twenty or thirty shillings the Acre was then in that Countie and in many fertill Counties within sixty miles and farre less of London valued but at eight pence per annum and four or five pence the Acre errable and the like valuations were holden in licences of Mortmain in all his extents or values of lands seised for taken into his hands Received their primer seisins at the like small yearly rate and took for suing out of Liveries which may be resembled to a Copiholders admittance not a fifth part proportionably to what is now paid by Copiholders to their Lords of Manors and respites of homage as they were taxed and set in anno primo Jacobi in a very easie manner Did not in the valuation of Lands and Estates as some Lords of Manors have been known to doe whereby to rack and oppress the Widdows and Fatherless employ some Sycophants or Flatterers of the Manor to over-value them or have some Decoyes in the assessing of Fines to seem willing to pay or give as much when they are sure to have a good part of it privately restored unto them again or cause their poor Tenants to be misled and the more willingly cozen themselves by crediting hard and erroneous Surveyes taking Leases of their Copihold Estates or using some other unwarrantable and oppressive devices worse then the Pharisaicall Committees did in the renting of lands they had no title unto when they did put men to box one another by overbidding themselves at their wickedly improving Boxes But did according to his Father King James his instructions given to his Councel of the Court of Wards in the assessing of Fines for the Marriages of the Wards and renting of their Lands which too many of the Nobility and Gentry and other of his Subjects did never or very seldome order the Stewards of their Manors to doe order that upon considerations which might happen therein either by reason of the broken estate of the deceased want of provision for his wife his great charge of children unprovided for infirmity or tenderness of the Heirs incertainty of the title or greatness of the incumbrances upon the Lands they should have liberty as those or the like considerations should offer themselves to use that good discretion and conscience which should befit in mitigating Fines or Rents to the relief of such necessities Suffers the Fees of his Chancery and Courts of Common-pleas and Kings-Bench for the small Seals to be receved as they were in the Reign of King Ed. 3. and the Tenths reserved upon the Abby and Religious lands at no greater an yearly value then they were in the later end of the Reign of King Henry the eighth when they were first granted though now they are of a four times or greater yearly value The Fees of the Seals of Original and Judiciall Writs and Process in Wales as they were in the 34. year of the Reign of King Henry the eighth when the English Courts of Justice were there first erected takes six pence a piece for Capons reserved for Rent in Queen Elizabeths time the issues of lands forfeited unto him upon Writs of distringas at such small rates as six shillings eight pence upon one distringas and 10 s. at another which the Law intendeth to be the profits of the Lands distrained betwixt the Teste and the return of the Writs which would have amounted unto twenty times or a great deal more and receiveth his Fines upon Formedons and othe real Actions granted and issuing out of the Chancery at most gentle and moderate rates his Customes inward and outward at easie rates proportionable to such small values as the Merchants advantage to themselves shall give in or the Officers or Commissioners for the King at the Custome-houses shall at randome and without view think to be a favourable and easie estimate Some single ones of which before recited undervaluations besides the profits of the Tolls of Fairs and Markets if rightly and justly paid according to the true improved values or two of the most of them would make up in a constant Revenue unto him a great deal more then the Compositions for his Pourveyances yearly and lately amounted unto by the difference betwixt his rates or prices and those of the Market A due consideration whereof if there were nothing else to put in the Ballance might induce the Earls Marquesses and Dukes of England who have received their honors and dignities from his Royal Progenitors to permit him as well to enjoy his Pourveyance and reasonable support maintenance of the honor of himself and his Royal Family as they doe take and receive of him their Creation monies being antiently a third part of the fines and profits of the Counties whereof the Earls are denominated since reduced to a certain and yearly sum of money when as also not a few of them have had great and large Revenues given them by his Royal Progenitors to uphold and sustein their Dignities and Honors And the Bishops whose Bishopricks and Baronies and most of the Revenues belonging unto them were of the foundation of the Kings Royal Ancestors and received their Investitures and Temporalties from him may if they shall think the Compsitions for Pourveyances ought not
or Assessements when they bear a Moiety hath for the most part the Furs of Lapland brought unto him yeerly for the use of himself and such of his Court as he shall please to bestow them giving the Merchants or such as bring them some smal retributions and rewardeth many of his Nobility and sometimes strangers with the vassalage of diverse of the Boors and Husbandmen of the Nation who having few or no liberties of their own can make themselves gainers by invading Germany and pretending to fight for the liberties of other men Doth not do as the Dutch United Provinces and their hoghen Mogen or Corporation of Kings are pleased to do who besides their Schoorsteen gelt or Chimney money yeerly paid and other monies raised upon extraordinary necessities do yeerly exact and leavy de twee honderâ—ste penning two hundreth penny and the thousandth penny of every mans estate towards the charges of the wars and as ordinary payments and Assessements quae semel recepta as some of their own do acknowledge semper exiguntur once crept into a custom are always leavyed de imposteâ— vâ—n de huizen which is an eighth penny paid out of the Rent of every house and a Gulder or our two shillings for every man or Maid-servant which the Master or Mistriss is bound yearly to pay and as much for every Waggon or Boat the Ships or greater Vessels having a rate imposed upon them according to the Tun six gulderen or twelve shillings sterling per annum upon every Coach almost a sixth penny of the Rent of Lands per annum as the Magistrate shall estimate it four Stivers and a half almost our five pence for every Acre of Land sowed with Corn or other things for every moneth from the time of the sowing of it untill the Reaping or Harvest thereof the fourâ—ieth penny and in Amsterdam the eightieth penny as well as the fortieth of all Houses Lands or Ships sold which as to the houses is so often as the State is believed to get in a few years the full price or value thereof den impost van veze gelde brieven which is upon every paper wherein any Contract last Will and Testament Petition or Act in any Court or Assemly or before any Magistrate shall be written to be of any force or validity and to be sealed in the Margin of every leaf of Paper with a small seal two stivers or two pence half penny and with a greater seal if it be of more concernment four stivers or five pence the Impost van ongeâ—on cerde processen for a Fine paid for not making good an Action or Suite for every fifty Guilders or five pounds sued for thirty stivers or three shillings English â—out gelt a certain quantity of salt sold by the Magistrates at a certain rate or price to every Family or Town Excise upon Beer French Spanish Rhenish and Brandewine Oyls Vineger Butter Corn ground at the Mill Pease Fatches Barly Oats Pease dryed or undryed in the Oven Apples Pears Nuts Grapes Herring Salt Fish Candles either Wax or Tallow Turfs English or Scottish Coles Tobacco Sope Pitch Lead Brick Cloth Silk and Cloth of Gold Convoy Gâ—lden Convoy money for guarding Ships at Sea and haven gelden for money to maintain and repair their Ports and Havens a seventh penny of the price of all Beasts or Cattel sold three stivers for every moneth for every young Beast of three years old or above and two for Horses the ninth penny of the price of Sturgeons and Salmons the eighth of the price of Wood and the ninth of Tapestry Hangings and guilt leather their licenten or money to be paid for Passes or Licence to carry Merchandize into the enemies Country or Quarters for every Hog or Pig killed three stivers and a half for every gulder of the value cum multis aliis with many other Taxes and Assessements not here recited the most of which notwithstanding seven or eight years perfect and compleat peace with their potent and long provoked enemy the Spaniard in more then threescore years warres Masses of money expended on both sides can be yet kept on foot and continued upon the pretences of paying of debts incurred or to provide and furnish a Treasury against future contingencies or to keep the government in the hands of the hoghen moghen high and mighty Lords the States who have tasted the sweetness of governing their fellow subjects by laying out of the peoples money and imposing Taxes to maintain that frame of a Commonwealth which pessimo exemplo hath so much troubled Christendom and cost them more blood and money then would have subdued the Turk and sent him from his Ottoman Port to abide the Resurrection of his Mahomet or worthless Progenitor at Mecca and they that thought themselves undone and ruined in the beginning of the Duke of Alvas government if they should pay a tenth for all that was bought or sold and made that to be one of their causes to shake off their obedience and ingage in a war against their lawful Prince could since endure more then ten times greater Taxes and Impositions and can now be content to pay excessive rates and prices for all things that they do buy or use and greater Taxes and Tributes then any the most absolute King or Prince would adventure to impose upon his subjects Et haec omnia teste Grotio tempus majora ferendi assuetudine molliâ—ra fâ—cit which as the learned Grotius saith time and a custome of beaâ—ing such burdens have made more easie and their Magistrates cunningly obseâ—ving the disposition of that people quaestus inhiantem ac magis pecuniae quam gloriae ac honoris to be more greedy of gain and money then of honor or glory for so Meteranus and Strada describes their nature and conditions have put them on and incouraged them to a liberty of gain and enriching themselves aswell as their Commonwealth and made that to be as the sugar to sweeten the bitteâ—ness of their Taxes Quae hic multo graviora Graviora ac in aliis siâ— dictis non liberis Regionibus which are there greater then in other Countries which are said to be not so free Et ex hac Regiones ac urbes seu potius earum Magistratus liberum absolutumque exercent Imperium Imo liberius absolutius quam multis est Regibus in sibi subjectos populus autem eodem respecto multo subjectos servilioris addictioris est conditionis quam ullae aliae in Europa gentes and by this means those Provinces and Cities or rather their Governors or Magistrates do exercise a â—ull and absolute Dominion over them yea a greater and more absolute then many Kings do over their subjects and the people are theâ—eby made to be under a greater vassalage and in a more servile and slavish condition then any other Nation in Europe and it is therefore more then a surmise that lucri faciendi effraenata
interpreted fraud and deceit neque verò tantum intellectum rerum sed in voluntatis usu quaedam contrahentibus inter se aequalitas debetur ne plus exigatur quam par est and that not only in the right apprehension or understanding well what is bought but in the exercise of the will there be an equality or rule of equity kept and observed betwixt the contracters so as nothing be exacted or required more then is fitting From whence the power of keeping Markets and Fairs and of the meetings or gathering together of the people to buy or sell thereat which have been so exceedingly profitable to the people and so abundantly usefull and not to be wanted was so originally in government and so inherent to Monarchy and Magistracy as without the Kings Licence or approbation it could not without the danger of sedition or ill intended or dangerous Assemblies or Meetings of the people be left to every man to do what he would in coming thither nor be consistent with the Rules of Justice to permit the rich and mighty to oppress the weak and needy by enhaunce of prices using false weights or measures deceitfull dealing or sale of corrupt and unwholsome victuals and in that particular also had no worse a foundation and originall then the Laws and command of the Almighty and the King of Kings Ye shall doe no unrighteousness in judgement in mete yard in weight or in measure just ballances just weights a just Ephah and a just Hin shall ye have a false ballance is an abomination to the Lord but a just weight is his delight a just weight and ballance are the Lords or as the Latine hath it Judicia Domini sunt all the weights of the bag are his omnis aestimatio siclo Sanctuarii ponderabitur and the Shekel of the Sanctuary was to be the Rule or Standard Et statutum ergo erat in Haebraeorâ—m republica ut omnes venditiones emptiones omnesque contractus qui pecunia conficiebantur probatis siclis juxta justum Sicli Sanctuarii conficerentur and it was therefore saith Menochius a Custome or Law amongst the Hebrews that all buying sellings and contracts made for money should be according to that Shekel magistratibus constitutis ementium indemnitati consultum est and the care that buyers should not be deceived belonged to the Magistrate The Athenians had their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad quos pertinebat curare ut venditores justis mensuris uterentur Officers like our Clerks of the Market which did oversee and take care that the sellers should sell by just and true measures and the other Cites and parts of Greece were not without their Officers qui negotiationi Nundinationi praefuerunt which were appointed to look to the Markets and Fairs which Aristotle likes so well of as he makes it to be primum ex necessariis more then ordinarily necessary To which were somthing near related the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at Athens qui curabant ut frumentum farinae panes justo pretio venderentur eâ—rumque decem in urbe jus dicebant quinque in Piraeo which ordered corn bread and other provisions to be sold at reasonable rates ten of which had their Judicatories in the City it self and five in the Piraeum or Haven Whence probably the Romans their imitators and after subduers having learned it had their Aediles Cereales qui falsas mensuras frangebant which broke any false Measures they could find and imposed Fines upon offenders quibus as St. Hierom saith vendentium rabies coercebatur the extortion of sellers was hindred and some ages after under their Emperors vini carnis sabiâ— curam prefectus Annonâ— habebat ut ne immodico pretio obsonia venderentur the Prefect or Surveyor of victuals and provision did take care that wine flesh salt and victuals should not be sold at unreasonable prices aestimabantur pecora pro anni fertilitate usu temporum and set the rates of Cattel according to the plenty of the year or accustomed rates Et pecâ—rum carniumque aliorum ad victum civium spectantium prefectus urbis arbiter erat And the Governour of the City had also a power of rating the price of Cattel flesh and other victuals and the Civil Law informes us that in every Town of the Roman Empire which was once extended over a great part of the world there were some appointed to look to weights and measures Which the Gothes as small friends as they were of the Civil Lawes so well liked as they could not but cut out a pattern by it and the Franks Germans Swedes and Spaniards and all other Nations of Europe within the large lines of Communication of the Jus Caesareum or Civil Law though some of them as the Dutch Hungarians and others gain the greater Excise or Tribute by the rise or heightning of the prices of many things which are sold at the Markets in the great and Western Empire of the Romans held to be so consistent with right reason and the ends and good of Government as by the love and liking or necessity of it they would make that and no other the path and readiest way to suppress or prevent the peoples too much exacting and oppressing of one another in the daily use of victuals and necessaries as the Banda's or rates set by the Magistrates in Rome Florence Italy and Spain upon Butchers meat and other sorts of victuals and commodities so as a child may be sent to Market and not be cozened will sufficiently evidence The Wisigothes ordained double the price quantum de justo pretio fraudatum est as much as was over and above their just price to be restored by the buyer to the seller Et si in contractu venditionis minus precium datum fuerit per fraudem if in the bargain a lesser price was given by deceipt aut etiam contra voluntatem vendentis amplius datum precium or a price greater then the seller would have taken And Four times the value of what was gained by deceipts by false weights or measures was to be paid to the party grieved The old Almans did rate and set the price of Oxen. The Emperor Charlemaigne commanded the Longobards ut mensurae secundum jussionem suam aequales fiant that their measures should as he had ordained be equall and in time of scarcity and famine limited the price of Oats and Barley The Emperor Frederick the Second in Anno 1224. ordained that deprehensus in dolo cibaria prohibita vel corrupta vel vinum lymphatum pro puro vendendo That if any of the Sicilians should deceive another or sell prohibited or corrupt meat or bad and adulterated wine though by no worse ingredients then water for good he should pay a pound of the purest gold to his Exchequer if he were poor and could not pay it he should be
beaten and if taken in the fault the second time should loose his hand and the third time should be hanged Et ad legitima pondera mensuras merces quaslibet vendere voluit venditores and commanding that all things should be sold by just weights and measures ordained that whosoever should be found guilty in doing contrary thereunto should pay a pound of the purest gold to his Treasury quam si dare non poterit condemnatus cum pondere mensura ad collum ejus appensis in sui paenam a well deserved punishment and every where to be imitated aliorum exemplum per terram in qua fraudem commiserit publice fustigetur which if he should not be able to pay he was with the weight or measure hung about his neck for a punishment to deterre others from doing the like to be beaten about the place where the fraud was committed for the second offence to have his hand cut off and for the third to be hanged The Swedes ordained that all moveables should be bought presentia testium before witnesses and imposed penalties upon any deceits used therein And in the former France for the modern ought to be distinguished from the antient as having for the most part since unhapily exchanged their antient Laws Liberties for an Arbitrary power the survey correction of weights and measures is as it was formerly un droit de la couronne a right of the Crown and antiently there were Roys des Merciers en toutes les Provinces de France proueus par le grand Chambrier de France qui avoyent la visitation des poids et balances some Officers called Kings of the Mercers in every Province of France appointed by the great Chamberlain of France which were to visit the weights measures and ballances and Tiller saith that the grand Chambellan himself was therefore sometimes called Roy de Merciers quand l' office Feodall du grand Chambrier avec ses dependances a esâ—e reiiny a la Couronne par le Roy Francois le premier en l' an 1545 les Roys ont bien commis des visiteurs ou Roys des Merciers c. King of the Mercers and that when the Office Feodal of the great Chamberlain with its dependances was united to the Crown by King Francis the first in the year 1545. the Kings of France have since appointed those visiteurs c. Et qu'en la menue merchandise qui sont les victualles et autres petites commoditez pour l' entretien et usage iournalier du peuple les Juges de Police y peuvent mettre tax et faire tout autre reglement pour empescher les Monopoles et autres abus mesme pour fair fournir l' habitant avant le Marchand qui les vent revendre and as touching small Merchandize as victuals and other the like commodities for the daily use of the people the Magistrates or Judges appointed for that purpose may set a rate or price make orders to prevent ingrossings monopolies or other abuses and command the seller to furnish the Inhabitants before such as buy to sell again Et de cet article dependent les poids mesures pour ce qu'en vain y mettroit en le prix si le poids et mesures n'y estoient certaines justes And to them the care of weights and measures appertained for that otherwise it would be in vain to set the price if the measures and weights should not be certain and just And our Saxon Kings did think the Markers deserved a more then ordinary care to be taken therein when as King Alured or Alfred as good in his government as his name did as Sir Henry Spelman thinks most probably ordain Court Leets to be holden twice a year in singulis Villis in every or many Towns of the Kingdome and that in the multitude of those very atnient little Courts which our Nobility and Gentry have ever found to be very usefull for their own just rights and power over their Tenants in their Regalities as they are now called and subordinate Jurisdictions and if well observed and looked unto would be for the publick good and profit both of the King and all sorts of his people The Steward gives at this day in charge to the Juries little or not at all observed the more is the pitty to the great inconveniencies and grievances of the people to inquire of deceits and abuses in Trade or such as make or sell deceitfull wares or sell by false weights and measures of Bakers and Brewers which keep not the assise prices and quantities according to the Writing or Roll of the Kings Marshalsey of Victuallers and Fishers selling at unreasonable rates of Forestallers Regrators and Ingrossers or which buy up Corn Butter Cheese and other victuals with an intent to sell again to advance the price thereof c. King Edward in Anno 912. did ordain that no man should buy any thing without a voucher nor out of a Town unless in presence of a Magistrate or other good men King Athelstane about Anno 930. ordaâ—ned that extra oppidum quicquam viginti denariis carius aestimatum no man should buy any thing out of a Town of above the value of twenty pence or within the Town but in the presence of the Magistrate or the Kings Officer King Edgar did about the year 960. ordain the price wooll with a nec pluris is vendatur that more should not be given for it Canutus made a Law against false weights and measures and no man in City and Country was to buy any thing living or dead exceeding the price of four pence without the testimony of four good witnesses and if he did and another claimed it he should not vouch him that sold it The Thol or Toll as we now call it was before and at the Conquest usually paid pro libertate vendendi â—mendi for licence to buy or sell or as a Tribute upon the sale thereof Every man was prohibited to buy any thing sine fidejussoribus without Vouchers or Pledges And if the Seller had not Pledges he was to be stayed or arrested untill he had brought a warranty Et si quis aliter emeret quod stultè emisset cito perdet And if any should otherwise buy he was quickly to loose what he had so foolishly bought By the Laws of William the Conqueror nemo emat quantum quatuor denariis aestimatur neque de re mortua ne que de viva absque testimonio quatuor hominum aut de Burgo aut de villa no man was to buy any thing which amounted to the value of 4 d. without testimony of four witnesses of the Town or Village Et ut nulla viva pecunia vendatur aut ematur nisi intra civitates et hoc ante tres fideles testes nec aeliquam rem vetitam sine fidejussore warranto quod si aliter fecerit