Selected quad for the lemma: act_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
act_n	letter_n	parliament_n	patent_n	2,384	5	10.0609	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46306	A journal of several remarkable passages, before the Honourable House of Commons, and the Right Honourable the Lords of Their Majesties Most Honourable Privy Council: relating to the East-India trade.	England and Wales. Parliament.; England and Wales. Privy Council.	1693 (1693)	Wing J1097AA; ESTC R212937	49,490	71

prove That their Unjust and Unwarrantable Actions have been such as have tended to the Scandal of our Religion to the Dishonour of the Crown and Nation the Reproach of our Laws the Oppression of the People and the Loss of the Trade it self For some of which they and their Agents have been justly Censured in Parliament But to follow the Respondents in their own Method As to the Petition relating to the Charter now lying before Your Majesty The Petitioners in all humility Reply That the Respondents have endeavoured to Evade the main Scope thereof which was not as they insinuate only to suspend the Passing of the Charter but that the Petitioners Right to the Freedom of that Trade might be determined by a due course of Law In order to which the Petitioners offered to Join in a speedy Trial which would settle this matter and the Respondents avoiding it plainly argues their own Conviction that the Law is against them which makes them decline that Method of a Legal Determination by which the common Rights of all Men are and ought to be decided and therefore endeavour to draw it into question before Your Majesty in Council where they themselves know it cannot be determined But the Petitioners in humble Confidence of Your Majesties Justice hope that Your Majesty will not deprive them and the rest of Your Majesties Subjects of their Right thereunto For that the Petitioners are advised That not only the Executing such Prohibitory Powers but even the very Obtaining them are criminal and punishable by Law As to the First of the Eight Points insisted on by the Respondents viz. The Nature of the Avoidance of their Charters by Act of Parliament c. The Petitioners humbly Reply That the desired Charter is not so properly a Restauration of the Late Company as a New Creation and that a Corporation when once Void as in the present Case cannot be Restored by a Charter of Restauration but must be done either by an Act of Parliament or a Charter of New Creation and so is the Scope of the Grant now desired And as to the Respondents Pretence That the Intention of the Parliament was not to Dissolve them 'T is most evident That the Parliament did Intend that their Failure of Payment at the day should Determin their Charter for that the time of Payment is made peremptory and penal by the words and meaning of the said Act and no Averrment in any case ought to be Received out of Parliament to Construe an Act of Parliament contrary to the express Letter of it especially where the Parliament who made the Act is in being and like to be so soon Assembled again But the industrious and eager Application of the Respondents for a Charter to Pass when the Session is so very near plainly shews they are convinced That the Parliament had no such Intention whatever they may pretend For the House of Commons was so far from discovering the least Intention to continue them when they were a Company much less to Restore them now they are not that they have twice solemnly Addressed to His Majesty to Dissolve them and in the whole time that this matter was depending before them 't is observable they did not make any the least step which tended to their Continuance Moreover the restless Importunity of the Respondents for a Charter at this time is the more unseasonable in regard His Majesty declared in His Message to the House of Commons the last Session That the Dissolving the Late Company and constituting a New one tho' necessary to preserve this Trade could not be perfected by His own Authority alone without the concurrence of the Parliament to make it complear and useful And for that reason having commanded all the Proceedings in that matter to be laid before them His Majesty referred it to their Settlement who being prevented by the Companies great Opposition Addressed to the King the last Session to Determin the Charter reserving the Settlement of that Trade to themselves as His Majesty had graciously Referred it And this zealous Application of the Respondents for a Charter to pass so nigh the Session can be no other than a Design in them to take the Settlement of that Trade out of those very hands to which His Majesty did so expresly commit it Therefore it seems a great failure in the Respondents of that Duty they owe to Your Majesty To press so earnestly the Passing a Charter in direct opposition to the declared Sence and repeated desires of the Commons in Parliament so nigh the time of their Meeting As to the Respondents pretence of Equity in case of Penalties and Forfeitures the Petitioners humbly Reply That tho' there can be no Equity against the penalty of an Act of Parliament yet the forfeited Estate of the Late Company being now Your Majesties may be Restored to them at Your Majesties pleasure without any such Charter as is desired if Your Majesty shall think fit so far to remit the Forfeiture which with humble submission is all the equity they can pretend to And if their Estate be so valuable as they alledge it is Your Majesties Remitting their Forfeiture as to that will be so great a Grace and Bounty toward them that they will have no reason to urge the Payment of their Tax as an Argument for a New Charter or any ways to regret the Payment ' thereof And because the Respondents have endeavoured to excuse their Non-payment alledging the Exchequer was shut and that their Money was ready had the Officers been there to Receive it The Petitioners cannot but Observe That all their other Allegations are made the less creditable by the insincerity of this For when this Matter was referred by Your Majesty to be Examined it did plainly appear by the Testimony of some of the Principal Officers in the Receipt of Your Majesties Exchequer taken in the presence of several of the Respondents themselves and afterwards confirmed by the Affidavits of several of the Under-officers now ready to be produced That the Office-doors were open on the 25th of March last during the usual Hours that the Officers were attending in their Places that Publick Business was dispatched and that the Respondents Money would have been Received if it had been Tendred Which Misrepresentation of this Matter to Your Majesty is a great Presumption in the Respondents Besides their eager pressing for a New Charter is a sufficient Argument of their Self-conviction That their Money was neither Paid nor Tendred at the time appointed and consequently That their Charters are Void As to the Second Allegation in the said Answer wherein the Respondents charge the Petitioners to insist That such Restitution and Grant of the Sole Trade is against Law and do assert the Power of the Prerogative in Granting a Sole Trade to some with Exclusion to others Forasmuch as the Respondents do urge the Power of the Prerogative to Obstruct the Petitioners in the Exercise of their Lawful

Trade the Petitioners humbly beg Your Majesties Grace and Favour to permit them to stand upon the Law in the Just Defence of their Right thereunto And tho' the Respondents endeavour to Justifie under the Prerogative the Lawfulness of such a Grant yet they have not quoted any Legal Authorities for it nor any Practice more Antient than in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth when the First East-India Charter was Granted which was only for Fifteen Years as was usual in case of a New Invention but could give it no Legal Authority if it were in it self Illegal seeing many things formerly done of that kind have been afterwards questioned and adjudged Illegal in Parliament But the Petitioners are so well assured of Your Majesties Justice that the Example of none of Your Royal Predecessors can be any Argument to Your Majesty for the Passing any Grant except it be Legal And though such Prohibiting Patents were first Granted toward the latter end of that Queens Reign yet when the mischievous consequences of them came to be taken notice of a very severe Law was made in the very next Reign against all such Prohibitions called the Statute of Monopolies which did but assert and declare that which was before the Ancient and Common Law of the Land the Benefit of which Common Law the Petitioners humbly Claim as their undoubted Hight by virtue whereof all Your Majesties Subjects are as they are advised equally entituled to the Freedom of Foreign Trade and humbly conceive cannot be restrained from it by colour of any Grant from the Crown Which Liberty of Trade hath been also asserted and confirmed by Magna Charta and many other Statutes And because the Respondents by way of Reflection have alledged That the said Statutes have been misunderstood and misapplied by the Petitioners They therefore crave leave to annex hereunto not only an Abstract of divers of the said Statutes but also of some few of those numerous Authorities of Common Law whereby the Liberty of such Trade is Asserted All which they Humby Offer to Your Majesties Consideration As to the Pretence of the Vnlawfulness of Trading with Infidels the Petiti●ners think it so mean that it scarce deserves an Answer being a meer Chimaera of Popish Original without any other Foundation However they crave leave to Affirm That no Law of England makes it Criminal to Buy Goods of a Jew or to Sell them to a Pagan and by their being permitted to inhabit among us we daily Converse and Trade with them and they with us But supposing such Trade were Criminal by Law as the Respondents insinuate tho' it is not yet the Charter they desire must be Illegal in that it would amount to a Dispensing with the Common Law which is against the Bill of Rights and the true Constitution of the English Government But the presumption of the Respondents is very remarkable in this That they have ventured to Cite for an Authority of Law that which they style the Solemn Judgment in Westminster-Hall which never had any Credit among the Learned in that Profession And therefore to quote the Judgment only of those Persons for Law who have been so far Censured in Parliament as to be Excepted out of the Last Act of Indemnity for the open perverting and violating thereof is so far from being an Argument for the Legality of their Patent that with humble submission it is really and truly a Great Argument against it And the Respondents Petitioning the House of Commons several times since that Unwarrantable Judgment to have this Trade restrained to themselves by Act of Parliament plainly shews They were convinced That neither that Judgment nor their Charter were sufficient to Restrain that Trade without an Act of Parliament As to the Third Point in the said Answer concerning the Clauses and Powers in the desired Charter which are repugnant to the Laws of the Land and the Respondents Pretence That no such Powers will be Restored by the said Charter because by a particular Clause therein those Powers only are Restored which the Late Company have or may Lawfully Use or Enjoy and no other The Petitioners do humbly Reply That the said Answer as well as the said Clause it self are both Evasive and Equivocal For that in the Charter which the Respondents desire it is recited That the King is willing they should Enjoy all such and the like Lawful Powers as if their first quarterly Payment had been duely made From whence it must naturally be inferred All the Powers in their former Charters are Restored and may be Executed without distinction of their being any of them Illegal Which is so far from implying any of them not to be Lawful that in common Vnderstanding it rather Asserts them All to be so And the desired Charter further Restores and Confirms all those Powers which were or might be Lawfully held and enjoyed by the Late Company by virtue of any former Charters as fully as if the said Powers and Charters were at large recited From which the Petitioners crave leave to Observe to Your Majesty That the very Granting those Powers seems to imply them to be Lawful in regard it ought not to be surmised That any thing should be Granted by the Crown which is otherwise and those to whom the Grant is to be made are thereby encouraged to think them Lawful and to Execute them as such without any scruple Besides the Powers in their former Charters being promiscuously Restored without distinguishing the Lawful from the Unlawful The desired Charter as it is drawn hath left it not only to the Late Company themselves but to their Agents and Factors nay even to their very Servants and Mariners in India to determin which of the said Powers may and which may not be Lawfully used which is in effect to Restore them all the Powers they think to be Lawful and so all those Powers will be Lawful to them which they take to be so since the Charter hath not distinguished but left it to them to judge who are so incompetent Judges And 't is easie to be conjectured what Interpretation they are like to make of the Lawfulness of those Powers when Restored by Observing how they formerly understood and used them For they seized the Persons swallowed up the Estates and embrewed themselves in the Blood of their Fellow-Subjects And all this notwithstanding it was Unlawful was acted as if it had been Lawful by colour of their said Charters without suffering any manner of Contradiction to their pretended Authority And tho' it may be rationally supposed those Thirteen pervons who were Executed at St. Helena whom the Parliament voted were Murthered did object against the Vnlawfulness of that Power whereby they were Tryed for their Lives yet they were Hanged 'till they were as certainly Dead as if that Power had been Lawful So that the Exercise of such dangerous Powers in Countries so distant is not only without Relief but in some cases without any possibility of