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A91395
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A speech delivered in Parliament, by a worthy member thereof, and a most faithfull vvell-wisher to the Church and Common-weale; concerning the grievances of the kingdome. By I.P. Esquire.
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Pym, John, 1584-1643.
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1641
(1641)
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Wing P4284; Thomason E198_35; ESTC R14550
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22,358
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43
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A SPEECH DELIVERED IN PARLIAMENT BY A worthy MEMBER thereof AND A most faithfull VVell-wisher to the CHURCH and COMMON-WEALE Concerning the grievances of the Kingdome By I. P. Esquire LONDON Printed for 〈…〉 A SPEECH DELIVERED In PARLIAMENT BY A worthy Member therof and a most faithfull well-wisher to the CHURCH and COMMON-WEALE NEver Parliament had greater businesses to dispatch nor more difficulties to The precedent consideration of grievances will further the supply encounter therefore wee have reason to take all advantages of order and addresse and hereby we shall not only doe our owne worke but dispose and inable our selves for the better satisfaction of his Majesties desire of supply The grievances being removed our affections will carry us with speede and cheerefulnesse to give his Majestie that which may bee sufficient both for his honour and support Those that in first place shall endeavour to redresse the grievances will be found not to hinder but to bee the best furtherers of his Majesties service hee that takes away weights doth as much advantage motion as he that addeth wings Divers pieces of this maine worke have beene already Great workes are first to bee considered in the modell propounded his endeavour should be to present to the House a modell of the whole In the Creation God made the world according to that Idea or forme which was eternally preexistent in the divine minde Moses was commanded to frame the Tabernacle after the patterne shewed him in the Mount Those actions are seldome well perfected in the execution which are not first well moulded in the designe and proposition He said he would labour to contract those manifold A double method compounded of grievances and cures affaires both of the Church and State which did so earnestly require the wisedome and faithfulnesse of this House into a double method of grievances and cures and because there wanted not some who pretended that these things wherwith the Common wealth is now grieved are much for the advantage of the King and that the redresse of them will be to his Majesties great disadvantage and losse hee Publike grievances disadvantagious to the King said he doubted not but to make it appeare that is discovering the present great distempers and disorders and procuring remedie for them we should bee no lesse serviceable to his Majestie who hath summoned us to this great Councell than usefull to those whom we doe here represent for the better effecting whereof he propounded three maine branches of his The first generall division discourse In the first he said he would offer them the severall heads of some principall grievances under which the Kingdome groaned In the second he undertook to prove that the disorders from whence those grievances issued were as hurtfull to the King as to the people In the third he would advise such a way of healing and removing those grievances as might bee equally effectuall to maintaine the honour and greatnesse of the King and to procure the prosperitie and contentment of the people In the handling whereof he promised to use such Sharpe matters to be mitigated in the expression expressions as might mitigate the sharpnesse and bitternesse of those things whereof hee was to speake so farre as his dutie and faithfulnesse would allow It is a great Prerogative to the King and a great honour The King can do no wrong attributed to him in a Maxime of our Law that he can doe no wrong he is the fountaine of Iustice and if there be any injustice in the execution of his Commands the Law casts it upon the Ministers and frees the King Activitie life and vigour are conveyed into the sublunary creatures by the influence of Heaven but the malignitie and distemper the cause of so many Fpidemicall diseases doe proceed from the noysome vapours of the earth or some ill affected qualities of the aire without any infection or alteration of those pure celestiall and incorruptible bodies In the like manner he said the authoritie the power and countenance of Princes may concur in the actions of evill men without partaking in the injustice and obliquitie of them These matters whereof we complaine have beene presented to his Majestie either under the pretence of Royall prerogatives Hurtfull projects presented to the King under plausible notions which he is bound to maintaine or of publike good which is the most honourable object of Regall wisedome But the covetous and ambitious designes of others have interposed betwixt his Royall intentions and the happinesse of his people making those things pernicious and hurtfull which his Majestie apprehended as just and profitable He said the things which he was to propound A promise of moderation were of a various nature many of them such as required a very tender and exquisite consideration In handling of which as he would be bold to use the liberty of the place and relation wherein he stood so he would be carefull to expresse that Modestie and humilitie which might be expected by those of whose actions he was to speake And if his judgement Submission to reformation or his tongue should slip into any particular mistake he would not thinke it so great a shame to faile by his owne weakenesse as hee should esteeme it an honour and advantage to be corrected by the wisdome of that House to which he submitted himself with this protestation that he desired no reformation so much as to reforme himselfe The greatest libertie of the Kingdome is Religion Religion thereby we are freed from spirituall evils and no impositions are so grievous as those that are laid upon the soule The next great libertie is Iustice Iustice whereby we are preserved from injuries in our persons and estates from this is derived into the Commonwealth peace and order and safetie and when this is interrupted confusion and danger are ready to overwhelme all The third great libertie consists Priviledge of Parliament in the power and priviledge of Parliaments this is the fountaine of law the great Councell of the Kingdome the highest Court this is inabled by the Legislative and Consiliarie power to prevent evils to come by the Judiciarie power to suppresse and remove evils present If you consider these three great liberties in the order of dignitie this last is inferiour to the other two as Meanes are inferiour to The order propounded in handling these 3 great liberties the end but if you consider them in the order of necessitie and use this may justly claime the first place in our care because the end cannot be obtained without the meanes if we doe not preserve this we cannot long hope to enjoy either of the other Therefore hee said being to speake of those grievances which lie upon the Kingdome hee would observe this order 1. First to mention those which were against the priviledge of Parliaments 2. Those which were prejudiciall to the Religion established in the Kingdome 3.
from whence divers others are derived hee thought it necessary to premise a short narrative and relation of the grounds and proceedings of the power of imposing Not to be taken but by consent in parliament herein practised It was hee said a fundamental truth essential to the constitution and government of this Kingdom an hereditarie liberty and priviledge of al the free born subjects of the land that no tax tallage or other charge might be laid upon us without common Acknowledged by the Conquerour consent in Parliament this was acknowledged by the Conquerour ratified in that contract which he made with this Nation upon his admittance to the Kingdome declared and confirmed in the lawes which he published This hath never beene denyed to any of our Kings Sometimes broken by other Kings but never denyed though broken and interrupted by some of them especially by King Iohn and Hen. 3. then againe confirmed by Mag. Chart. and other succeeding lawes yet not so well setled but that it was sometime attempted by the two succeeding Edwards in whose times Those breaches repaired by succeeding Parliaments the subjects were very sensible of all the breaches made upon the common libertie and by the opportunitie of frequent Parliaments pursued them with fresh complaints and for the most part found redresse and procured the right of the subject to bee fortified by new Statutes He observed that those Kings even in the Acts Some mixture of evidence for the subject in these very breaches whereby they did breake the law did really affirme the subjects libertie and disclaim that right of imposing which is now challenged for they did usually procure the Merchants consent to such taxes as were laid thereby to put a colour of justice upon their proceeding and ordinarily they were limited to a short time and then propounded to the ratification of the Parliament where they were cancell'd or confirmed as the necessity and state of the Kingdom did require But for the most part such charges upon merchandize The grant by parliament most usuall were taken by authoritie of Parliament and granted for some short time in a greater or lesser proportion as was requisite for supply of the publike occasions six or twelve in the pound for one two or three yeares as they saw cause to bee imployed for the defence of the Sea and it was acknowledged so clearely to be in the power of Parliament 〈◊〉 they At first variously limited in respect of time and persons Afterwards Confirmed to the King for life have sometimes beene granted to Noble men sometimes to Merchants to bee disposed for that use Afterward they were granted to the King for life and so continued for divers descents yet still as a gift and grant of the Commons Betwixt the time of Edward the third and Queene No contrary practice betweene Edw. 3 and Q. Mary Maay never Prince that he could remember offered to demand any imposition but by grant in Parliament Queene Mary laid a charge upon cloth by the equitie of the Statute of Tunnage and Poundage because the rate set upon wooll was much more than upon cloth and there being little wooll carried out Pretended equitie for the Custome upon cloth of the Kingdom unwrought the Q. thought she had reason to lay somewhat more yet not fâ—ll so much as brought them to an equalitie but that still there continued a lesse charge upon wooll wrought into cloth than upon wooll carried out unwrought untill King The grounds of the pretermitted Custome Iames's time when upon Nicholsons project there was a further addition of charge but still upon pretence of the Statute which is that we call the pretermitted custome In Queene Elizabeths time one or two little impositions crept in the generall prosperitie of her raigne Bates Case overshadowing small errours and innovations one of these was upon Currants by occasion of the Merchants complaints that the Venetians had laid a charg upon the English cloth that so we might bee even with them and force them the sooner to take it off this being demanded by King Iames was denyed by one Bates a Merchant and upon a suite in the Exchequer was adjudged for the King The judgment therein for the King The manner of which judgement was thus There were then but three Iudges in that Court all differing from one another in the grounds of their sentences The first was of opinion the King might impose upon such commodities as were forraign and Resulting from different opinions of the Iudges superfluous as Currants were but not upon such as were native and to bee transported or necessarie and to bee imported for the use of the kingdome The second Iudge was of opinion he might impose upon all forraign Merchandise whether superfluous or no but not upon native The third that for as much as the King had the custodie of the Ports and the guard of the Seas and that hee might open and shut up the parts as he pleased hee had a prerogative to impose upon all Merchandise both exported and imported This single distracted and divided judgement is The only foundation of the power of imposing the foundation of all the impositions now in practice for after this King Iames laid new charges upon all commodities outward and inward not limited to a certaine time and occasion but reserved to himselfe his heires and successors for ever The first impositions in fee simple that were ever heard of in this followed with complaints and preserved by breaches of Parliaments Kingdome This judgement and the right of imposing thereupon assumed was questioned in septimo duodecimo of that King and was the cause of the breach of both those Parliaments In 18. and 21. Iacobi it was declined by this House that they might preserve the favour of the King for the dispatch of some other great businesses upon which they were more especially attentive In 1. of his Majestie It necessarily came to be remembred The redresse desired without diminution of the K. profit upon the proposition on the Kings part for renewing the bill of Tonnage and Poundage but so moderate was that Parliament that they thought rather to confirme the impositions already set by a Law to be made than to abolish them by a judgement in Parliament but that and divers insuing Parliaments have beene unhappilie broken before that endeavour could bee accomplished only at the last meeting a Remonstrance was made concerning the libertie of the Subject in this point and it hath alwayes beene exprest to bee the meaning of the House and so it was as hee said his owne meaning in the proposition now made to settle and restore the right according to law and not to diminish the kings profit but to establish it by a free grant in Parliament Since the breach of the last Parliament his Majestie hath by a new book of Rates very much increased New burdens since