have all his wines seised or limit them to such rigorous observances as the Saxon and some of the Norman Kings did command require to have witnesses and Vouchers for all that the people should sell or buy Or if upon that or some other causes or grounds there were no Markets or Fairs to resort unto or vent the plenty or over-plus of the peoples corn cattel fruits fish flesh butter cheese poultrie or other provisions or commodities and that by tarrying at their own houses they could not be informed what rates they would yeild or what some over-lavishly have given for the like or for less or worse then theirs which is usually a great cause of the enhaunce of prices in the endeavours of all people to get as much for their commodities as they finde others have gotten or as much or more as by any pretences or frauds they can procure for them there would be so much and so great a cheapness and plenty of our native commodities as would draw along with them or cause a great abatement in the rates of setting or letting of land and bring us again into some part of that hospitality charity and alms deeds which our pious Progenitors made to be a great part of their cares and business and rescue us from those great sinnes of avarice envie Pride uncharitableness cozening cheating and oppression under which the Land grones and for which Gods judgements like a sword hanging over our heads in a small silk or hair are ready to destroy us And we should quickly find by the want of Fairs and Markets that which our daily experience now tells us to be true that they are the Markets and Fairs which doe make and yeeld a greater price then can be had at home at the peoples own houses that the Markets and Fairs which are a blessing and happiness to the people granted by our Kings and Princes not now to be wanted with a Safety and Protection in viis Regiis aquis Silvis Semitis in or through his high-wayes or by land or water very often denied by private men through their own lands and Jurisdictions which our forefathers not deserving to be called fools by their lesâ— wise generations for obtaining for them so many good Laws Liberties understood to be so much the Kings rights and favours as in the old Grants and Charters made by the King of any lands or liberties unto them they thought themselves never safe enough unless those words and priviledges were specially inserted And it is obvious to all mens experience that by the intercourse and commerce of the people one with another in the accommodation of one anothers wants affection interest present necessities or occasions the prices of all manner of commodities victuals and provisions have been very much raised and heightned more then formerly or when the buyers were not so numerous and that the vie and biddings which are usually found and to be met with at Fairs and Markets doe much raise and enhaunce them farre above the reall worth or for what otherwise they might be had with a reasonable gain and profit for the things themselves or recompence for labour of bringing them thither as is often found in the way of Holland and some other forreign parts now used by our English and other Merchants of Londan in selling goods or merchandise by an inch or small piece of candle set up to burn for a small time with a condition that he that bids most before it be out shall have it in which contest or striving who shall have the commodity the hasty or over-biddings as the candle goes almost out makes the price to be sometimes a fifth and sometimes a tenth more then it is truly worth and if it chance to be no loss or but a small one to him that winns the bargain it is because it may more conduce to some one particular occasion or affair which that party hath for it more then another That the Markets or Fairs in Cities or great Towns of trade where there are more people a larger expence and more delicate way of living brings the sellers or Market people a meliâ—ur marchè or better gain or return then they would or could get by carrying it to some lesser Town or place not so much frequented And that the ground and soyl near those Market Towns are much bettered and impâ—oved by the ordure dirt and dung of Horses or Cattel in the Streets or Stables carried out and laid upon it That the loss supposed by the duty or compositions for the Pourveyance would not come up to the fortieth or fiftieth part of what they would be otherwise loosers in the fall of their rents and prices And be at last assured to their losses that there can be no reason that all or many of the people who can now take or receive advantage by their own heightning and enhaunce of the prices of provisions at home or at the Markets and so greatly improve their estates by it against the minâ— and intent of the King and his Laws should stretch and raise all they can their rates and prises upon him or should in his particular of his Praeemption Pourveyance or Compositions for it take advantage or benefit by their own wrongs or breach of the Law which by the rule or maxime of the Civil Law that Nâ—mo ex suo delicto meliorem suam conditionem facere potest no man is to make himself a gainer by his own evil doings is not permitted and our Common Law is not willing to allow a man to take benefit de son tort of his own wrongfull actions Or if that shall not be enough to make the experiment let the most froward and unwilling to that Duty and reasonableness of the Praeemption or Compositions for Pourveyance suppose that which was grown to be almost more then a supposition that Oliver the Cheat as well as Darling of the Factious and Rebellious part of the people and the Patrono of all or many of their wicked doings had as William the Conqueror all the Lands of England in his demeasn power or disposing and given to all the people more then eight parts in nine the Tithes or Tenths being reserved to God and the Clergie with all their Liberties Courts-Leet and Baron Franchises Priviledges of Free-warren Fishing Trade and Commerce Markets Fairs and Tolls with many other Immunities and Freedoms which the bounty and indulgence of our more lawfull Kings and Princes have from age to age and one generation to another given and granted to them and their heirs in perpetuity speciall or generall tail and think but how willing and glad they would have been before they were given or afterwards the late little benevolence being given to the King after the greatest Act of Oblivion or Indempnity which ever Englishmen or any other people had bestowed upon them teaching us the difference betwixt after and before and between a willingness to receive benefits and
sold Puertes secos or for goods or commodities carryed to be sold by Land a Tax upon Cards besides many Almoxariffadgo's laid upon the Towns and people a particular Tax upon Tunny Fish a third paâ—t yeerly collected of the Rents and profits of all the Revenues belonging to every City and Town in the Kingdom every one having some appropriate unto them and of Fines and penalties imposed upon any quenâ—s therein Doth not do as the Emperor and German Princes do by their people and subjects who besides the Dranksteur Bierrecht Biersteur or Excise upon drink and their Schoorstein oder Caming gelt or Chimny money Frawlensteur certain quantities of Wine appropriate to the Prince those many Consuetudines quae praestantur in recognitionem Dominii directi Jurium Dominicalium Customes and services which are to be performed to the Emperors or chief Lords of whom they hold and their Laudemia's Lehâ—wahrs or Reliefs which if it be a Hahe Lehâ—wahr is of great men or Estates a Twentieth penny in Ecclesiastical Fees or Revenues two Dollers per cent and in the Kleine lehne wahr or small Estates or Revenues a sixteenth penny and over and above what is paid for Licences of Alienation or for lehn gelâ— for a Liveâ—y or investiture into Lands Hanâ—â—ohn an Oblation for any thing written in a subjects favour by the Prince and Recht steur a payment of money towards the maintenance of the Courts of Justice do take Turkensteur a Tribute for war or defence against the Turks Krieg steur a Tax for the payment of souldiers Forst gelt Forrest money Mase gelt money paid for measures Malschwein for Swine Last gelt Ton money or gaging of vessels Pfâ—ug gelt a Tax upon every Plow Bâ—lcken gelt Timber money Haupt vizh money for the head of every Beast Zehenden vam Fleisch wein corne Erbsen Tenths of Flesh Wine Corn and Herbs Hausen gelt a Tax upon houses Frey gelt money upon the making men to be free Schuck gelt Shoo money Brucken gelt Bridge money â—eg gelt way money or for passage Aufâ—nauch gelt or Aufâ—arth money paid in Cities and Towns for being chosen into any Office or Magistracy and Abefarth Abschusz Ablosung when one removeth his Family or houshold from one City or Town to another and is to pay a tenth of any goods sold upon such removals Toll or Foriscapium to be paid by the buyer over and above the price agreed to be paid to the seller Accisz upon all Commodities sold and spent and a Land steur Tribute upon Lands which is ex voluntate superioris ob necessitatem supervenientem variantur imposed for the other as aide against the Turks and for payment of souldiers are to be by publike assent ordained at their Diets or Parliaments it the pleasure of the Prince and varied according to occasions or necessities And so many other Taxes and payments for the publike saith Bâ—soldus ut nominibus laboretur as there are scarce names enough for them so that as free and full of liberties as that Nation did heretofore suppose themselves to have been they do find by their Taxes and payments that the feathers which their Electors Dukes Margraues Counts Barons and Imperial Cities have eâ—ther taken by force gained by favor or purchased for money from the Imperial Roman Eagle which Crantzius and other good Authors do heavily complain of have but increased rather then eased the burdens of the common people Doth not as the King of the French who besides his Foüages or Chimney money which though they of Gulen did heretofore so little like of as they rebelled against our famous English Black Prince for imposing twelve pence upon every Chimney they believe in that and the other parts of France to be accustumez de toute Anciennete allowed by all Antiquity the services and profits Feodall le Paulet or a Tax of four Deniers upon every liuer or two shillings of the yeerly value of Offices profits of Prizes at Sea and of the Admiralty Tenths and first fruits payable by Ecclesiastical persons Escheates Ottroyes Licenses and Dons gratuits gifts or oblations and Regalities doth continue as perpetual a Tax called le Tailon imposed by King Henry the second in the year one thousand five hundred fourty nine to increase the Wages of the soldery in regard of the dearness of victuals and the burdens which the men at Arms or Gens d' armes did lay upon the Laborers and common people la Creüe or augmentation for the pay of the Army an Impost of the twentieth penny upon Wine sold in gross the eighth upon all in Normandy by retail and a Tax upon all drink now made a constant Revenue of the Crown a Tax upon every vessel of Wine which in the time of Julius Caesar had no Imposition or burden laid upon it carryed into Walled Towns or the Suburbs and to pay as much though it be transported from thence again before it be sold The Gabell upon Salt which being imposed by Philip the long with a Protestation that it should continue but a while and afterwards by Philip de Valois in the year one thousand three hundred twenty eight who declared that he intended not to incorporate it to the Royal Demeasnes being remitted by Charles the fifth in the year one thousand three hundred sixty nine is since made perpetual and annexed to the Royal Revenue and the King and his successors are become the only Merchants of Salt whereof every house is to take a certain proportion loaded with the Kings Taxe and Imposition upon it though it be more then he have occasion to expend the aequivalent or aequipollent which in Narbonne was granted for the abolition of an old Tax of the twentieth part of the price of all moveables sold by retail about the year one thousand four hundred and sixty and agreed to be paid by a Denier in every Liure not onely for all moveables but of Flesh and Fish sold by Retail and the sixtieth part of all the Wine bought to sell again and is paid in Auâ—ergâ—e for a liberty to buy their Salt where they please and to be exempt from the Tax and Imposition of buying it at the Kings Granaries or Salt Magazines being with Wine a great part of the natural commodities of the Country besides the other Impostes Entries or Customes to be paid in Towns or for Peages and passages by Land or Water la subsistance which in the Raign of King Henry the fourth and since have been leavyed pour faire subsister les soldats dans les quartiers d' hyver moyennant quoi on devoit estre exempt du logement de la Gens d' armes durant l' hyver to keep the souldiers in or to maintain them in their quarters all the Winter and to be exempt from the trouble of lodging them in their houses la solde dâ— 50 mille hommes a Tax for the wages of fifty thousand men first laid upon the Cities and Walled Towns
themselves and Blaspheme abuse and crucifie him in his members And that it will be better to subscribe to that which is amongst all civilized Nations and people taken to be an Aphorisme or Maxime irrefragrable that omâ—e imperium omnisque Reipublicâ— forma validissimo munimento tuetur Auctoritate eorum penes quos simmum Imperium existit that all Kingdoms and Governments are most strongly fortified and defended by the authority of those who do govern that praeclara de Imperio existimatio sue reputatio multa efficit plura non nunquam quam vis Arma that the esteem and reputation of a King or Governor doth many times bring greater advantages then power and Armies That it is patrimonium principis as much to a King or Prince as his Patrimony or inheritance and certissima Imperii salutis publciae tutela a most certain guard and defence of a King and his people which Saul well apprehended when upon the displeasure of Almighty God threatned by Samuel he entreated him to honor him before the Elders of his people And that if a long duration of a right or custome and quod semper quod ubique quod ab omnibus approbatum that which is and hath been always every where and of all people so much allowed and practiced should not be enough as it hath in many other things which have a lawful prescription the reason right use and necessity of it and the avoiding of those many inconveniences which will inevitable follow the disuse of it may perswade us to recall again and revive the duties of Prae-emption and Pourveyance or Compositions for them and to petition the King by our Representatives in Parliament as our forefathers did in 14 R. 2. that the prerogative of him and his Crown may be kept and that all things done to the contrary may be redressed That so our King may as Solomon who feasted all the people for seven days and seven days even fourteen days have wherewithall to maintain his own honor and the love of his people anâ— give portions of meat as the Prophet Daniel and others had in the house of Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon that the people may with gladness and rejoycings enter into the Kings Palaces and the King not doubt of their affections though the waters should roar and be troubled and the mountains shake with the swellings thereof that his love unto them may from his throne exhale and attract theirs and distill it down again upon them as the raine upon the grass or showers that water the earth and that our England which was heretofore the happiest Nation that ever the Sun beheld in his journeys may be once again the land of love and happiness and that the people may be as busie in their gratitudes to their Prince as the Rivers are in the tender and payment of their Tributes to the Ocean Moribus antiquis stent res Britanna viresque FINIS ERRATA OR FAVLTS escaped in the Printing PAge 12. line 11. intersere and took only p. 13. l. 27. insert enabled p. 15. l. 10. dele had and besides insert with and l. 11. had p. 26. l. 27. intersere middle p. 27. l. 19. dele and. p. 30. l. 23. dele for a present p. 30. l. 19. dele Sir p. 42. l. 9. dele and Shoes p. 50. l. 8. dele i. in deferiendum p. 51. l. 22. intersere not only p. 62. l. 30. dele and. p. 68. l. 30. dele and intersere and. p. 71. l. 9. intersere of p. 79. l. 28. dele thereupon p. 98. l. 8. intersere to p. 100. l. 30. dele and. p. 107. l. 26. dele about p. 81. l. 7. for eighteenth read fourth p. 113. l. 13. intersere de offendi quietos dele de quietis esse p. 131. l. 23.17 pro 20. p. 133. l. 18. intersere them p. 139. l. 3. intersere if p. 142. l. 1. intersere all p. 153. l. 3. dele which p. 154. l. 9. dele and them intersere as p. 170. l. 7. dele which intersere 15. l. 25. dele pounds intersere marks p. 195. l. 22. dele and. p. 196. l. 26. dele 3. p. 198. l. 16. dele Fisher and read Flesher p. 231. l. 4. dele and. p. 236. l. 8. read delirium p. 261. l. 12. dele Ministry intersere Country p. 264. l. penulâ— dele of p. 266. l 6. dele Nobility and. p. 280. l. ult dele and read to him who p. 281. l. 21. dele all or p. 302. l. 1. read where he took all and dele that notwithstanding p. 337. l. 1. intersere being and but. p. 339. l. 14. dele or p. 365. l. 18. intersere and and l. 19. dele eighteen pence for a hen p. 374. l. 2. read so ibidem l. 28. read keep p. 377. l. 10. dele for and read from p. 391. l. 19. read still p. 450. l. 30. dele noâ— p. 455. l. 14. read Almoxariffadgos p. 456. l. 11. dele quents p. 459. l. 7 put in the mâ—rgent France p. 467. l. 26. read panes p. 468. l. 18. read out of Brescia p. 480. l. 27. intersere which and 29. read Embassadors Prov. 24.21 (b) Deut. 6 8.9.11.18 (c) Plutarch in vita Licurgi (d) Plutarch in vita Solonis (e) Prov. 8.31 (f) Jeremy 6.16 (g) Genesis 43.24 26. (h) 1 Sam. 25. 2 Sam. 8. (i) 2 Sam. 1.17 (k) 1 Reg. 4 21 22 23. (l) 1 Reg. 10.24 25. (m) Josephus de 〈◊〉 Jud. lib. 8. (n) 2 Reg. 3. () Chron. 16. (p) Ezekiel 45. 48. (q) Nehemiah 5.18 (r) Hom. Iliad (s) Boemus de moribus Gentium (t) Sigonius dâ— Repub. Athen. 540. 541. Eudaeus in Pandect 192. (u) Appâ—an l. 1. (x) Rasinus de antiquitate Rom. 993. (y) Pancirollus Comment in notitiam imperii occidentis ca. 5. (z) Rosinus de Antiquâ—tat Rom ca. 14.24 lib. 10. c. 22. (a) Annotations upon Tacitus (b) L. Julia de Magistratibus (c) Cod. tit de cursu publico Ant. Thisius de celebero Repâ—b (d) Pancirol in noâ—itiaÌ„ utriusque Imperii ca. 6. (e) Maranta speculum aureum parte 6. de executione sententiae (f) Bart. in l. jubemus uâ— nullam navem 1â— in princip (g) Novel Majoran tit 1. de Curialibus Cujat tit 48. ad librum 10. Cod. Justinian 1429. Cujacius Commentar Expositio Novel tit 63. k) Pancirollus Comment in notitiâ—m Imperii occidentis c. 65. (l) Zenopbon lib. 8. Paidiae (m) Pancirollus in â—otitia Imperii orientis (n) Spartianus cap. 6. in Seveâ—o (o) Pancirollus Comment in notitiam Imperii orient 86. (p) LL. Wisigoth lib. 9. tit 6. (q) LL. Wisigoth lib. 2. tit 9. (r) Cassiodorus variarum l. 12. (s) Ibidem lib. 11. (t) Leg. Jul. de Annon Cujacius Paratitl in lib. Cod. Justiniani (u) C. de Annon Tribut vegâ—tius (x) Lib. 1. tit de Annon Tribut (y) Cujacius in lib. 1 Cod. Justâ—niani 52. z Ridleys view of the Civil and Ecclesiasticall Lawes (a)
his Plate for religious uses for his Chappel and Devotion sell the Coats of the Yeomen of his Guard break in scorn his great Seal of England by the hand and hammer of a common Blacksmith which shewed what they intended to the life of the owner drive and engage all men into a monstrous Rebellion a slavery which proved to be the consequence and just reward of it and deprive him as much as they could of the loyalty duty love and obedience of his people and having abundantly enriched themselves and their Godless praying party by the Crown Lands and Revenues of the Church most of the Nobility and Gentry and many other good men and their Families did not think it reasonable to serve their Master for a little but as a further reward and recompence for their care and diligence to oppress and ruine their King and his better Subjects would be sure to make for themselves as good a Pourveyance and Provision as they could upon pretences of some little losses in their own small and necessitous Estates and allow one another besides their gaine of plundering and traiterous and sacrilegious purchases out of the improvements of the Common misery and washing as well as wasting three Kingdomes over in blood some fifty pounds some ten some four pounds a week towards theiâ— support and maintenance and to make their proportions the more plausible and to seem something reasonable would not leave out of the account the well stretched Items of the losses and charges of their Grandchildren married Sons and Daughters and when they had finished their ungodly work murdered the King Monarchy Magna Charta Petition of right and the Lawes and Liberties of the People and converted their own sins into the bloody and unsure foundation of a Common-wealth founded upon the blood and murther of their Soveraign and many thousands of his loyal and religious Subjects and the perjury of themselves and as many as they could perswade or constrain unto it and the greatest of iniquities and made the people who got as much ease by it as the Asse in the Fable who thought to make his burden of Sponges the lighter by lying down in the water with them believe that when two parts in three of the Kingdome were undone to enrich a third and brought under a slavery and arbitrary power of the mechanick and ruder sort of them that their freedome from Pourveyance and Cart-taking was an especial deliverance which amongst other wonderfull things as they called them pretended to be done for them being only to buy Sadles for their reforming Legislators to ride upon their backs and a favour much of kin to that of Pharoahs kind usage of the Children of Israel when he set Task-masters over them to afflict them with burdens made their lives bitter with hard bondage caused them to make bricâ— and double the Taâ—e thereof and gather the straw was recompence sufficient for all their money and sins laid out in that wicked and detestable cause and for all that which they were to endure in this life and the next and in that seeming holy but assured cheating a miserable and strangely deluded Nation continued like the Egyptians in their way to the Red sea and oppressing of Gods people untill their Oliver and grand Impostor and Instrument had out-witted and undermined them and insâ—ead of many Tyrants had set up his single Tyranny and having from an indebted and small Estate made much less by a former drunken and debauched conversation by which he was so streightned as not to be able to buy some oats or pease to sow a small parcel of ground but to borrow some of a friend upon his promise of a Repayment upon his hoped for increase at Harvest did notwithstanding neither then nor after a more plentifull crop of his wicked doings and that great Estate which the sinnes of a factious and wicked part of the people had made him Master of ever find the way to satisfie or repay And having largely pourveyed for himself better then he could do in his Brewhouse put an Excise upon Ale Beer and intoxicated as many as he could seduce with an opinion that Rebellion was Religion and gotten an Arbitrary power with a large Revenue in Lands which was the Kings and other mens an Army of twenty thousand Foot and ten thousand Horse and a formidable Navy to be maintained at the peoples charge to continue their misery and three hundred thousand pounds per annum to defray the charges of his tyrannical Government took himself to be a Child of Providence and something more then one of the smallest Branches of Cromwell alias Williams King Henry the eights Barber and therefore in order to a Kingship or something by another name amounting to as much made it his work to disguise and metamorphose the antient Government decry our fundamentall Lawes and every antient constitution dig up by the roots all that was not novel or assistant to his designs fit to make a head out of the Heels and after he had taken an oath to maintain and preserve the Laws and Liberties of the people imprisoned Serjeant Maynard Serjeant Twisden and Mr. Wadham Windam who pleaded in the behalf of a Client for them thought it to be conscience Law and Latin good enough to call our Magna Charta magna Farta and did so order his Convention or thing called a Parliament of England compounded and made up of time-servers and a Medly of Irish and Scottish of the like complexion as they were brought in Anno 1656. by one of their Tooles called an Act of Parliament to ordain that pourveyance or Composition for the Kings house which they were taught to alleage to be a grievance to the people and very chargeable when there was none at all at that time in being in England nor was ever intended by many of the worshipfull Mushrooms to be thereafter should no more be taken under pain of Felony And was as great a kindness and ease to the people as if they had ordained that no more Subsidies which seldome amounted to more then a tenth part of the late yearly Taxes should be imposed by Parliament but Assessments at 70 thousand pounds or one hundred and twenty thousand pounds per mensem as often as long as that which they called the supreme Authority should have or feign a necessity for it or that offenders should be no more sent for by the Kings messengers or tried by Juries and the known Laws of the Land but at Cromwells High Court of Justice or Shambles lined with red or bloody Bayes or that there should be no more use or trouble of the Train Bands but an Army of 30000 domineering Redcoats or Fanaticks with their Bashaws or Major-Generals maintained at the peoples charge to keep or make them quiet under their vassalage or slavery or that there should be no more Coat and Conduct money long agoe remitted by King Charles the Martyr
Capiti cordique suo oppitulari debeat precipue ad dignitatem Regiam Regnique auhoritatem publicam tuendam cum ut membrum particeps fit gloriae qua Caput fruitur every subject ought to assist his King as he would do his own head and heart and more especially to maintain and defend his Kingly dignity and authority for that every member in the body pertakes of the good and honor which the head enjoyes That it cannot be for the good or happiness of subjects to necessitate the power of their Prince or enforce him to try how far it can extend or prevail to free himself from wants or pressures incumbent upon him when as common observation can tell us that small Brooks or Rivolets being stopt or obstructed in their creeping Maeanders or way unto the greater Rivers who are to conduct and lead them into the great assembly or collection of waters will go out of their former gentleness and either inforce a passage by inundations or break their way through all the Barricadoes which can be made to restrain them and that the more they are endeavored to be restrained the more they do rage and easily overcame and bear down before them all that can come in the way of their combined fury stirred up and heightned by the necessities which were put upon them That a want of Revenue in a King to discharge common and ordinary necessaries makes necessitatem invincibilem violentam which saith Aristotle proposito electioni prohibet obstat such an irresistable and violent necessity as it enforceth that which was never intended nor would otherwise have been done which the Wisdom Spirit of God in the vision which he shewed unto the Prophet Ezekiel of the building order of the Holy City the Revenues of the Prince held fit to prevent by a competent Revenue That Armies do notwithstanding all the cares and commands of their Generals and the severest Laws and Discipline of war prohibiting spoil rapine or plundering break out for want of pay and necessaries into all manner of disorders and oppressions and that we need not enquire of the days of old or the Ages past of the numberless mischiefs and inconveniences which have inevitably followed the wants of Princes and the effects of power put on or let loose by necessities And may sadly remember that the people of England denying the late blessed King and Martyr his Customes of Tonnage and Poundage did not onely put him and the cause of his Protestant Allies and friends into many disadvantages for want of those aides which he would otherwise have been enabled to give them and enforced him to fall short of his desires and intentions therein but to give way to many of his craving Scots and wanting servants to take in the assistance of his Royal Prerogative and stretch it further then ever he intended That notwithstanding all the care which he could take that such grants and letters Patents should not transgress or go beyond the bounds of the Law and the right reason and use of it and did upon the granting of many of those Patents cause the Patentees to become bound in Recognizances of great penalties to surrender up their grants and letters Patents if at any time he or his Councel should equiâ—e it And had of his own accord in the year 1639. and 1640. by his Proclamation called in above thirty of such Patents and Commissions as either had been or were likely to be grievances unto the people and in the beginning of that long and unhappy Parliament had graciously condescended to th annulling or abolition of all that did but resemble grievances or were but likely to produce them And that those Letters Patents Commissions and Grants which were called Projects and Innovations were invented and promoted by many Citizens Tradesmen Gentlemen others who being none of the Kings servants did court and wo the Kings Prerogative unto it and busily employed some of the Kings servants to go shares with them in the gain or profit thereof none or very little whatsoever was pretended coming to the King or his Treasury began with the necessities which a causeless discontented part of the people did most unadvisedly and undutifully put upon their King whom they would not suffer to be at any rest untill he had ingaged himself and his Allies in a war with Spain and the then greatly prevailing house of Austria for the recovery of the Palatinate and to make a breach with France for the relief of Rochel and the Hugonots and left him afterwards in the midst of the troubles expence and danger thereof without any aid or assistance to go through as well as he could with it And may now understand how much better it had been to have acquiesced in the many precedents and authorities of the Kings just and legal power of sending his writs to the Cinque ports and many maritime Towns Counties many if not all of whom were by Tenure or Custom in lieu of many liberties priviledges granted unto them by the Kings Royal Progenitors which they do yet enjoy to send or furnish out a certain number of Ships as their own charges when the King should have any publick occasion or necessity to have continued the Kings most just ancient rights and regalities in his Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service which by Land together with a fixed certain aid of Shipping contributed by the Cinque Ports and Maritime Towns and Counties would together with his Commissions of Array have enabled him upon a short warning never to have wanted most puissant and gallant Armies and Forces both by Land and by Sea consisting not of hirelings and strangers but such as would have fought pro Aris Focis for their own as well as their Princes interest and would not easily turn their backs betray or fly from their Wives and Children and their own Estates then to put the King for want of them to a yearly charge of no less than eight hundred thousand pounds per annum by Sea and by Land for the peace security honour of the Nation which did not before cost the late King fourscore thousand pounds per Annum Or to be charged with an everlasting Excise as to the moiety of the Excise of Ale Beer Sider Perry c. which did noâ— the last year amount unto more than one hundred five thousand pounds per annum in recompence of the yearly profits of the Kings Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service and what he looseth by his want of Pourveyance and Compositions for them both which did yearly amount unto a far greater benefit what an ill bargain both the King and the people have by the laying by of the one and granting the other how small an advantage the people got by their heretofore invisible Keepers of their Liberties who did all they could to keep them from them or by Oliver their
for Tillage and Pasturage agros luxuriantes rich and fertil Lands watered and enriched with many Rivers her Mountains and Downs covered and replenished with Sheep and far more then they were before the Raign of King Edward the third abounds with Corn Butter Cheese and all manner of Commodities for the uâ—e and livelyhood of mankind and by a greater improvement of all the Lands of the Kinâ—dom within this last Century or hundred yeares then was in three or four hundred yeares before and by watering marling and burning the more barren parts of it is gone far beyond the time and expectation of our Fathers and Progenitors either Brittaines Saxons or Normans and is in the yearly value of Land increased in many parts or particulars thereof twenty thirty or fourty to one more then it was insomuch as we may to our comfort say and believe that Forraign Writers were well acquainted with our happiness when they called England the Court of Ceres and as Charles the great or Charlemaigne of France our neighbor was wont to term it the Granary of the Western world a Paradice of Pleasure and Garden of God and was many ages before in the Brittish times so fruitful in all kinde of Corn and Grain as the Romanes were wont yearly to transport from hence with a Fleet of eight hundred vessels then but something bigger then Barges great store of Corn for the maintenance of their Armies and our Brittains could before those large improvements of Lands and Husbandry which have been since made in it declare unto the Saxons when they unhappily called them in to their aid and took them to be their friends that it was a Land plentiful and abounding in all things Pope Innocent the fourth in the Raign of our King Henry the third called it Hortus deliciarum a Garden of delights ubi multa abundant where all things are plentiful And in the Raign of King Edward the third where there was small or very little enriching or bettering of Lands compared with what it is now the English Leigier Embassadors at Rome heaâ—ing that Pope Clement the sixth had made a grant as he then took upon him to the King of Spaine of the Fortunate Islands now called the Canaries did so believe that to be England which was then granted by the name of the Fortunate Islands as they made what haste they could home to inform the King of that which they believed to be a danger And may now more then ever well deserve those Encomiums or commendations which our industrious Speed hath given it that her Vallies are like Eden her Hills as Lebanon her Springs as Pisgah her Rivers as Jordan and hath for her Walls the Ocean which hath Fish more then enough to feed her people if they wanted Flesh and had not as they have such innumerable Herds of Cattle flocks of Sheep such plenty of Foul Fruit Poultery and all other provisions on the Land for the sustenance life of man to furnish the delicacy of the richer part of the people and the necessities of the poorer if they would but lay aside their too much accustomed Lazines and carelesseness with which the plenty of England hath infected her people and not suffer the Dutch to enrich themselves and make a great part of their vast Commerce and Trade by the Fish which they catch and take in our Brittish Seas multiplying the stocks of their children and Orphants whilst too many of ours for want of their parents industry have none at all or being ready to starve or dye do begg up and down the streets when the waters have made her great the Deep hath set her on high with her Rivers running round about her plants and sent out her little Rivers unto all the Trees of the field when she is become the Merchant for many Isles hath covered the Seas with her ships which go and return a great deal sooner then Solomons Ships to or from Ophyr searcheth the Indies and the remotest parts of the earth to enrich her borders and adds unto her extraordinary plenty the Spices Sugar Oyl Wine and whatsoever foreign Countries can produce to adorn our Tables which former Ages wanted or had not in so great an abundance And that her people are now if so much no more numerous than formerly by her emptying of multitudes of her Natives into Ireland since the Raign of King Henry the Second many of whose Inhabitants have been English transplanted gone thither by our many great Plantations since the middle of the Raign of Queen Elizabeth sent into America as Virginia Bermudas New-England Barbadoes St. Christophers Mary-Land Charibe Isles Meâ—is c. By our many Voyages at Sea and to the Indies more than formerly our Fishing in Newfound Land which we had not in former dayes our Nursery of War and Regiments of English in Holland and the United Provinces and our greateâ— than formerly Luxury use of Physick and shortning the lives of the richer part of the people by it When the Provisions for the Kings Houshold or the Compositions for them in so great a plenty as England is now more than formerly blessed with notwithstanding that we do keep fewer Vigils Fasting Eves than heretofore and do as it hath been an usage custom of this Nation eat more flesh in every one month of every year the time of Lent excepted which since the Reformation of our Religion the return of it from the now Church of Rome to that which is more Orthodox is very little at all or not so well observed as our Laws intend and it ought to be than all France Spain the Netherlands do in every year would if the Universal Pride Luxury of the people and their Racking and Cheating one another to maintain it did not hinder it be as cheap or cheaper afforded than it was heretofore For that our Ancestors well approved and much applauded customs of Hospitality are almost every where turned out of doors and an evil custom of eating no Suppers which a Tax for a little time of as much as was saved by one meal in every week introduced and brought into fashion to maintain the Grand Rebellion hath helped the Back to cozen the Belly and the Back with its Brigade of Taylors and all other the abused and retaining Trades to Lucifer hath cheated and rooted out Love Charity and good House-keeping and retrenched much of the Provisions which were wont to be better employed That the Lands of most part of the Monasteries and Religious Houses in England and Wales and their yearly Revenues which at the old easie rates were in or about the Raign of King Henry the Fourth computed to be sufficient and enough to maintain fifteen Earls which after the rate of Earls in those dayes and their great Revenues could not be a little fifteen hundred Knights six thousand two hundred Gentlemen and an hundred Hospitals besides â—wenty thousand pounds per Annum to be given
to see or understand it and makes the former Market prizes and rates to be but as Pigmies or Dwarfs to those which are now so immense and Gigantine So as if the Laws of God Nature and Nations right reason and the heretofore well approved custome of England with the care of avoiding of evils and inconveniencies which was wont to be the primum mobile and greatest Orator in worldly affairs to incite and stir up most mens cares and preventions mâ—ny of whom have had cause to lament the not allowing of that and oother the Kings ancient and just rights and a due submission thereunto cannot perswade or lead them unto that great part of reason duty called Prae-emption Pourveyance or Compositions for them the consideration of the lâ—berties and happiness which they do now enjoy more then many of their Ancestors might certainly drive or carry them into their more laudable ways and courses When the peoples want of a liberty of unmannerliness or Praeemption before their Soveraign or his servants on his behalf begets no other loss or grievance unto them then a disturbance of their Fancies or their not obtaining that which did not become them or their Humor of hindring their betters from having of it or to make a vie betwixt them and the Kings servants either to hinder him from having of it or to make him pay for it a great deal more then it was worth Which Davids three Worthies who hazarded their lives And brake thorough the host of the Philistims to draw water out of the Well of Bethlehem and brought it to David who longed and had a desire to drink of it would never have done but would have been ashamed to offer unto their Prince so great an indignity And the charge and enhaunce of the prices of all Commodities necessary for houshold provisions will by the needless racking of rates and prices and the Insana praetia intollerable rates and prices which the King by the avarice and insatiableness of the sellers is and shall be inforced to give so infect and spoile the markets of such part of the people as shall have occasion to buy which are many to every one that is a seller those that are sellers having sometimes also occasion to be buyers as if the wisdom of the King and his great and Privy Councel prevent it not there will in a few years be ten times or a greater charge more then was in the same year when the Pourveyance or Compositions for it were abolished imposed upon the subjects by the Tyranny of rates and prices then ever the Compositions for the Kings Pourveyance or houshold provisions did amount unto And when the difference in the Compositions for the Kings Pourveyance betwixt the Market rates and the Kings price do amount at the utmost but unto sixty five thousand pounds per annum or thereabouts and is charged upon so many and in so easie and petit proportions And being no greater a charge or inconvenience the people who in a legal and Parliamentary way are to help him to sustain and bear his burdens if they love and tender their own good and the well being of themselves and their posterities will too prodigally cast away too much of their own happiness and as much of their own Estates if they shall for want of so small and easie accommodations which are so just and so necessary to the honor and support of their Prince enforce him into so great a prejudice and damage as to pay yearly four times as much as sixty five thousand pounds per annum shall amount unto in many if not all the particulars of his houshold provisions as may be instanced in four and twenty shillings the price of a Sheep which was in the Compositions to be served in at three shillings four pence Aâ— Oxe twelve pounds which was to have been furnished at four marks three shillings or two shillings six pence for a Hen which was to be furnished for two pence four shillings for a Goose which was to be sent in for four pence Lambs at twelve pence a piece for which he now pays eleven or twelve shillings and at Christmas sixteen or twenty shillings Wheat at ten pence a Bushel the Market rate being no more for Wheat in 18. of Queen Elizabeth for which he lately paid before the late dearth 7 s. 6 d. a Bushel and cannot furnish sixteen dishes of meat to the Table of one of his great Officers of his houshold if report be true under twenty shillings a dish And if weather beatâ—n by such an exaction and enhaunce of prices he shall seek a shelter or Port by putting one thousand two hundred and fourty servants the Queens servants above and below staiâ—s not included to Boardâ—wages the profits and allowed avails of their places which contrary to the Laws of England the honor of the King the weal and profit of him and his people too many have deaâ—ly bought and paid for will to reduce their vails and profits of their places into a certain yearly Board-wages their standing Wages and Pensions being so very petit and inconsiderable cost him in such an unreasonable and intollerable exaction and enhaunce of Rates and Prices as there is in the Markets ten times more in money and twenty times more in some then what he now paies if his servants shall not like hunger bitten starved and ragged Beggars be enforced to torment aswell as shame him with their daily Petitions and importunities or be as the naked attendants about the Salvage Kings Or if he shall not make them recompence for the losses of their Diet and availes arising by it will undoe and ruine very near so many Families and Dependencies who have nothing to live upon but his Majesties service and their hopes of subsistance by it Or if the loss of Pourveyance or Compositions for them shall in his house-keeping endamage him but two hundred thousand pounds per annum it will with one hundred thousand pounds per annum profit which was heretofore made by the Tenures amount unto three hundred thousand pounds per annum which will be more then that part of the Excise which was allowed in lieu of the Tenures and Pourveyance and the supplemental Revenue of the Chimney money deductis deducendis will yearly bring into the Kings Exchequer So great a damage will arise unto the King by the loss of his Pourveyance and Compositions for them and so much the greater if he shall put his servants which never King of England was yet inforced unto and the Nobility and Gentry of England untill of late disdained to do to Board-wages and give them recompence for their losses and will be not onely a very great damage and inconvenience in the consequence to the people But a great dishonor unto the King whose sublimity Majesty and Honor is not to be measured or managed by the narrow rules of private men or house-keepers for although it may relish very well