If the minority be big enough to maintain support the ends of the Corporation the minority is still the Corporation If any single Person is unwilling the Society should be dissolved and this Corporation is under the Government of any greater Society of Men as a Corporation within a Polity this single person may require and prosecute the revolters from the Society to abide in that Community These societies of men that are form'd by the soveraign Authority cannot dissolve or make the terms of their Society and the Order and Rule of governing them other than is appointed by the Charter of Incorporation Nay it is a Question whether a King can change it who hath not the Power of making Laws For the terms of their Society their Order and Rule of Government is the Condition of Incorporating and upon these terms they consent to be incorporated no man by our Law is compellable to be incorporated against his own liking Roll. 1. Rep. Baggs Case And agreeable hereto changes in the Government of the City of London from the first Charters have been made by Acts of Parliament Acts of Parliament was made for the Division of a Ward and for altering the Election and Continuance of the Office of an Alderman for Life whereas in the first Charters they were choosen annually and not to be choosen the next Year I shall here transcribe the Acts themselves which are not printed but supplied to me by my worthy Friend Mr. Petyt whose enquiry nothing that is notable in our Records hath escaped The Commons in the Parliament 7. R. 2. prayed the King for the maintenance of peace and tranquility in the City of London for the time to come by reason that all the Aldermen were choosen from year to year at the Feast of St. Gregory the Pope and none of them could be re-elected for the year ensuing and others put in their places to the great endamagement of the City The Commons therefore pray the King to grant to the Mayor and Commons of the City and their Successors in that present Parliament that the Aldermen to be elected from year to year at the said Feast franchement Ezluz be freely choosen and that of the most sufficient persons and good fame of those who had been Aldermen as others per le Gardes de la Citee by the Wards of the City Saving to the Wards their free Election in manner aforesaid To which the King answer'd Le Roy le voet Grante to endure so long as good Government should be in the City by reason of that clause Rot. Parl. 7o. R. 2 ds Numb 24. In the Parliament 17o. R. 2 di Numb 25. It was ordained that the Aldermen should not be removed Sanz honest reasonable causes without reasonable Cause In the same Parliament Numb 27. upon the Petition of the Mayor Aldermen and Commons in the said City by reason of the greatness of the Ward of Farringdon which was too great to be governed by one Alderman The King grants that les Gents de la dite Gard of Farringdon within might choose one Alderman and those of Farringdon without another and that both those Aldermen so choosen should not be removed Si non per cause reasonable as it was ordained by the King in Parliament to the Aldermen of the said City But though the Government of such Societies and Corporations may be changed by Law Yet no Law can change the Government of Kingdoms and Common-wealths and alter the terms of Government and Obedience established nothing can do this but chance and time violence and an irresistible Power But every English man ought from the Nature of his Allegiance to defend the English Monarchy with his Life under the Authority of the Government and the protection of Laws To conclude the best way to shew our Loyalty to the King is to think honorably of His Majesty to account his Person Sacred as it is and himself impeccable for so our Government hath made him by imputation which is the highest Prerogative of the Crown and a notable instance of the wisdom of our Government Imperii Majestas Tutelae Salus We heartily bewail the unhappy death of the late King But detest that it should be made a pretense to change our Government They are very bad men that raise on the one side in the People a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or King-dread and on the otherside in the King a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or People dread from his deplorable death Such passions indeed respectively possess the People and Successors of Tyrants and work the woo of the People or the abolition of the Kingly Government But most unnatural these confounding apprehensions are from the death of a good King bitterly bewail'd by almost all of his subjection It is too unreasonable that we should offer up our antient Government our pretious liberties our Religion it self in the defence of which he dyed to attone for the guilt of an inconsiderable part of the Nation that was engaged in that detestable fact and are since gone to their proper place This is hard that we must loose our Government and have no more English Kings to expiate for their guilt We do not shew our Loyalty but discover an ignominious baseness if we yeeld up our rights at the perswasion of a Courtier who tells us it is for the Kings Service when he is thereby promoting his own advantages and projects and shifting for indeminity upon the ruin of the Government Plutarch in his treatise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 base sneaking says that the Asâ—â—ticks became slaves because they could not pronounce the word NO and gave denyal to Sycohants and flatterers If these Courtiers really and honestly thought it were for His Majesties Service that all Authorities and Dignities in the Government should be held precaciously of the Crown they ought to hold their honors and session in Parliament by the same tenure for that those that shall inherit to them may be wiser than themselves for this there way is their folly and their posterities I hope will not approve their doings When our Preachers exhort to obedience they ought not to be heard if they press us beyond the terms of obedience that the Government hath established And we may dutifully insist notwithstanding to have the benefit of such Laws that the power of the Government can make to preserve us in the peaceable enjoyment of our Religion when we have a Protestant King When they exhort us to Christian patience they should not forget to tell the People that they are not bound to suffer but where the Christian virtue of Fortitude is perfected and not else but as Christian charity doth direct But they ought not by any means to abuse the People with a vain amuzement that a Popish Successor will protect the Church of England I shall end with the words of King Solomon Proverbs 24. My Son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change for their Calamity shall arise suddenly and who knoweth the Ruine of them both It is not good to have respect of Persons in Judgment He that saith unto the wicked thou art righteous him shall the People curse Nations shall abhor him But to them that rebuke him shall be delight and a good Blessing shall come upon them If thou faint in the day of adversity thy strength is small If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death and those that are ready to be slain If thou saist behold we knew it not doth not he that pondereth the Heart consider it and he that keepeth thy Soul doth not he know it and shall not he render to every Man according to his Works ERRATA Pag. 2. L. 23. r the negligence of page number the twelfth is misplac'd after page the thirteenth and must be read before it pag. 7. r obliquandi for obliquendi pag. 12. lin vlt. for which r what pag. 13. L. 19. for help r help'd pag. 19. L. 26 dele all pag. 36. r. By-laws p. 38. l. 21. r. their FINIS
for her sake meerly and as her Enemies But the truth is these men have truly an utter abhorrence against Popery and the Plot and joyn forwardly and zealously against it This their commendable zeal against Popery the Conspirators give out and make it believed is their zeal for their own peculiarities for their dividing way and for those things wherein they differ from us They have affrighted the Church of England with designs of those men against her even in these their actings and appearings against Popery and the Plot. What these men endeavour against Popery some that are of the Church of England do oppose for no other reason but for that they desire it And they are contrary to those of the Church of England with whom these Dissenters do concurr in any thing though never so conducible to the preservation of the Nation and our Religion and the Conspirators have now made and reckon'd even such also of the adverse party Whigs and Fanaticks and every thing they say or do is opposed thwarted contradicted and censured as disloyal and fanatical It is now come to pass that no mans reason is regarded the true state of things and our present condition the arts of our Enemies and their designs are not considered But whatever we say or do is fanaticisme savors of forty one By this Artifice they tye together a sort of men amongst you that consider little and make of them an obstinate party which they Act and manage and engage in courses which tend to their own and the publick ruin with an utter neglect of Rights Laws and antient constitutions nay they endeavour to subvert them all that they may more certainly and speedily arrive at the mischiefs designed by our Enemies The greatest fear of the loss of your Charter and City is from your selves Your Charter Government and Priviledges have no Enemies that can hurt them but your selves against you it is only that your Charter comes to be defended So transported are some of you grown with the humor of opposition and contradiction since the discovery of the Popish Plot against some that are called Dissenters Which is brought about by the ammusing arts and impostures of the Conspirators That you are become eager for the destroying of your Charter because these Dissenters have concurred with the majority in defending it Your Charter had never been attach'd if some of you had not been perswaded to be willing to forego it and at the same time seem to be weary of the ancient Government and careless of your Religion and willing to part with them too by the Embraceries of such Persons that fear a Parliament more than Doomsday By the influences of these Men who are for making a New Government because they cannot Live under the Old you are made content to forego your Charter and the Antient Government the safeguard of our Religion and the English Liberty for such new Establishments as these confiding Men will form and contrive for you who will use you most certainly as your easiness doth deserve No Quo Warranto had ever been brought against your City to destroy your Corporation and Government for petitioning His Majesty for a parliament in a time of a Popish Plot at home detected but not duly punished nor prevented when we are under the Fears of a Popish Successor against which Parliaments have heretofore consulted how to secure our Religion and of the growing power of France which every Man living apprehends had not some for no other reason but that they will be against Dissenters disliked petitioning Your dislike of petitioning is the only reason in the World for the unlawfulness of it Without that it had been impossible to have had a Lawyers opinion that a Petition to the King was unlawful made in form as the Law directs or allows for a thing lawful and necessary viz. that we might have our Government in use when we had the greatest need of it and that a Parliament might sit when we were under Evills scarce sufferable that no Power or Authority but that of a Parliament could redress Lawyers have opinions to sell at any time if they have the opinion of a forward and probable Dr tho' never so corrupt or corrupted to mistake or of the many to countenance them tho' they have not the least colour of reason to support them And according to their Fee and Expectation they seem confident must look assured and tell you they have a very good Cause this they can with some Face do in case any Error or Mistake hath prevailed to deceive many You your selves being first deceived they take money and are not bound to disabuse you especially when you are resolved not to change your opinion and act agreeably But if that Petition had been assisted and promoted by your selves too it might have prevailed for the best of Kings do not refuse the universal Desires of the People and the Nation had long since been discharged of all the Evils that now disquiet us But by your dissent from it it hath got the appearance of a Crime And the Plotters have got this advantage upon us thereby that His Majesty is not like to have any Petitions against them since they are declar'd ungrateful to His Majesty and he is become more inaccessible They have brought it about that it is now accounted a fault to desire a Parliament that only can and will redress our Grievances I will shortly shew you how contrary you are herein to the provision of our Law and that you have herein deprived as much as in you lyes your fellow Subjects of their rights in the Government By the Stat. of 4 Ed. 3. C. 14. 36 E. 3. C. 10. It is provided that Parliaments be holden once every Year which are confirmed by an Act of this King call'd the Triennial Act. In 25 E. 3. Statute of Provisors are contained these Words That the right of the Crown of England and that the Law of the said Realm is such that upon the mischiefs and damages which happen to the Realm the King ought and is bound by Oath with the accord of his People in his Parliament to make remedy and Law in removing the mischiefs and damages which thereof ensu'd King Ed. 1. did appoint certain select Persons of the Clergy and Laity to examine the wrongs done to his People by his Ministers in order to the redress thereof in the approaching Parliament 17 Ed. 3. Dors Memb. 2. In the 15th of Ed. 3. a Declaration was openly made in the Parliament que chescum saith the Rolls que se sente grevez per le Rey ou ses Ministers ou autres que ils metroient lour petitions avants ils averont bone conenable remedy i. e. That all People which found themselves aggrieved in any matter even by the King himself his Officers or others should bring forth their Petitions and thereupon should have good and convenient remedy to them ordein'd Rot. Parl. 15 E.
3. Numb 5. the like was done by the very Writ of Summons of Parliament 21 E. 3. part 2. Dors Memb. 9. and in open Parliament 37 Ed. 3. Rot. Parl. N. 2. The Divines that have no care how to prevent the impendent Evils will allow us at least Prayers and Tears Sure then then they ought to give us leave to petition the Throne and shed the Tears of Suppliants at the Foot-stool of His Majesty When they encourage men in their importunities to God Almighty by remembring the Parable that our Saviour used to that purpose of the unjust Judge that neither feared God nor reverenced man and yet did right to the Widow at her importunity sure they do allow petitioning his Vicegerent We cannot believe they pray in secret to God Almighty unless they will petition His Majesty openly for putting a stop to the incursions of Popery upon us Our Enemies the Papists cannot inwardly condemn our Petitions as unlawful tho' they are afraid of them for that they may possibly obtain to prevent their Design A bloody Assassinate and Cut-throat is not made more cruel by the wailings and passionate beseechings of the innocent Man for his Life Though they give the Villain some trouble and make it more uneasy to him to do the feat by the regrets which he suffers from his Humanity awakened by Pity moving intreaties and expostulations But it is suspected you are like to have little success in your intentions to destroy the Charter in Course of Law to which you are perversly acted by your displeasure against the Dissenters and others whom you causlesly hate and unreasonably oppose for their sake And therefore you have proceeded by the way of fact and have procured that the great Offices of the City are executed by Men not duly thereto chosen for the bringing this about you have used such bad arts as would quite destroy your credit and shut you out of all Commerce if they were practised in your private dealings in your Trades and Occupations If you seriously reflect and consider the methods that have been used for that purpose and will allow the same Rule which is observed by you in your private transactions and trade for publick affairs and administration of publick rights which are in their nature Sacred of a publick concern the violation of them more hurtful scandalous and criminal and in this your Consideration also will lay aside your factious animosities against the other party to which you have furiously made your selves opposite you will be herein self condemn'd I will not remember the particulars of fact they are fresh in your memory and your own thoughts if any thing must make you wise and recover your understandings But by this Course you have Evacuated your Charter in fact and have already Officers of a Forreign nomination You have given trouble and disgrace to the Old Sheriffs that were duly chosen to their Office and acquitted themselves faithful to the Rights of the Charter not only depriv'd them of the reward that is due to a faithful and strenuous discharge of so difficult an Office but blame them and reproach them and for their good deed sake go about to deprive the City of a free choice of such Officers for the time to come Who will be most gratifyed by these proceedings with little recollection you may easily conclude They haue already condemned the Charter and City and have executed the Magistrates in Effigie upon the Stage in a Play called the Duke of Guise frequently acted and applauded intended most certainly to provoke the rabble into tumults and disorder The Roman Priest had no success God be thanked when he animated the People not to suffer these same Sheriffs to be carried through the City to the Tower Prisoners Now the Poet hath undertaken for them being kicked three or four times a Week about the Stage to the Gallows infamously rogued and rascalled to try what he can do toward making the Charter forfeitable by some extravagancy and disorder of the People which the Authority of the best governed Cities have not been able to prevent sometimes under far less provocations But this ought not to move the Citizens when he hath so malitiously and mischievously represented the King and the Kings Son nay and his favorite the Duke too to whom he gives the worst strokes of his unlucky fancy He puts the King under the person of H. 3d. of France who appeared in the head of the Parisian Massacre The Kings Son under the person of the Duke of Guise who concerted it with the Queen Mother of France and was slain in that very place by the righteous judgment of God where he and the Queen Mother had first contrived it The Duke of Guise ought to have represented a great Prince that had inserved to some most detestable Villany to please the rage or lust of a Tyrant Such great Courtiers have been often sacrificed to appease the furies of the Tyrants guilty conscience to expiate for his Sin and to attone the People Besides that a Tyrant naturally stands in fear of Ministers of mighty wickedness he is always obnoxious to them he is a slave to them as long as they live they remember him of his guilt and awe him These wicked Slaves become most imperious masters They drag him to greater evils for their own impunity than they first perpetrated for his pleasure and their own ambition But such are best given up to publick Justice But by no means to be assassinated Untill this age never before was an assassination invited commended and encouraged upon a publick Theatre It is no wonder that Trimmers so they call men of some moderation of that party displease them For they seem to have Designs for which it behoves them to know their men they must be perfectly wicked or perfectly deceived of the Catiline make bold and without understanding that can adhere to men that publiquely profess Murthers and applaud the Design Caius Caesar to give unto Caesar the things that are Caesars was in the Catiline Conspiracy and then the word was he that is not with us is against us for the instruments of wickedness must be men that are resolute and forward and without consideration or they will deceive the design and relent when they enterprize But when he was made Dictator and had some pretences and a probability by means less wicked and mischievous to arrive at the Government his words was he that is not against us is with us But to Pompey only it belonged and to his cause or the like cause to the Defenders of antient established Governments of the English Monarchy and Liberties to say they that are not with us are against us in internecino bello in attacks upon Government medii pro hostibus habentur neutral men are Tray-tors and assist by their indifferency to the Destruction of the Government As many as applaud this play ought to be put under sureties of the peace and yet not one
displace from its self the Choice of a Coroner which being placed there by the Common Law nothing but an Act of Parliament can remove Which will plainly appear by the short History of Sheriffs which I shall here subjoyn The Sheriffs in the time of the Saxons were choosen by the Freeholders in the County Courts The Saxon Laws were confirmed by the first William as appears by the Chronicon Leitchfeldense cited by Mr. Lambert in his Archajonomia page 158. But this Right of the Counties to choose their Sheriffs was arbitrarily disturbed by a plenitude of power in the confused and troubled times of William Rufus H. 1. King Stephen But it appears by the Records of H. 3. time some Counties still retained their Antient rights and choose their Sheriffs By the 28 Ed. 1. The Counties were restored to or confirmed in Their Antient rights of choosing Sheriffs where the Shriefalties had not been before granted in Fee which were granted by Encroachment of power minus justè but by this Law such grants were confirmed By the Statute of 9. Ed. 2. It was ordained that the Sheriffs should be assigned by the Chancellor Treasurer Barons of the Exchequer and the Justices This Statute is interpreted not to extend to these Shrieffalties that were granted in Fee But such are intended excepted As it hath been always understood that particular rights are not extinguished by general Laws This is the Accompt of the History of the Law of Shrieffalties in General To discend to the Sheriffs of London William the Conqueror soon after this Confirmation of the Laws of England in Parliament by his Baronage which then made the English Parliaments whereby the Counties were confirmed in their Rights to choose their Sheriffs grants by his Charter confirmed in Parliament Civibus Londini totam dictam Civitatem Vicecomitatum L. K. Arch. Lond. fol. 120. That is he grants that they shall continue a City and County and the right of chosing Sheriffs shall continue to them That which was their right before become by his Charter better established An antient prudence and caution of Subjects in transacting with their Kings us'd more especially by our Ancestors viz to have their Right and Laws by way of Grant Charter from the Crown for those Mighty Kings that will not be confin'd by Laws yet have held themselves bound by their Charters and Grants Which made our Ancestors put the Confirmation of their most precious Laws and Rights under that form for their better Establishment And this Charter of King William was to the like purpose that he should not by his power break in upon the Rights of the County of the City of London of making their Sheriffs or other the Rights of the City By this it appears that the making Sheriffs belongs to the City by a Common Law right by an Appointment of the Common Law as to their particular never yet chang'd by any Statute Law nor can this right therefore be altered or displac't but by Act of Parliament The Sheriffalty of Middlesex was granted by H 1. to the City upon this reason the better to enable the City to keep the Peace for many Murders Rapins and Villanies being committed on the City the Offenders would thereupon fly into Middlesex and the Citizens having no power of Jurisdiction in that County the Offenders often escaped This Charter hath been confirmed amongst other their Charters by several Acts of Parliament The consequence whereof is that the Sheriffalty of Middlesex is not to be displac't from the City but by Act of Parliament which is thus remonstrated A grant made by the Crown confirmed in Parliament of any Estate profit or emolument whatsoever which can amount to no more than a creating or transferring a right that right may certainly be surrendred or regranted to the Crown or as the proprietor pleaseth But the grant of an authority or power confirmed by Act of Parliament that refers to administration of justice a grant of such a Nature as this is under such an inducement as is contained in the mentioned grant of the Sheriffs of Middlesex to the City of London doth not only create a right but gives an authority directs how a publick Office shall be administred and is a Law for governing that matter and consequently makes a perpetuity of that office in the City and it is not in the Power of the City to transfer or extinguish it or innovate the Direction and Order of the Law therein so made and provided The Sheriffalty of Middlesex is become upon the matter appendant to the Sheriffalty of London or to speak more properly vnited The Sheriffs of London are always Sheriffs of Middlesex and are not choosen thereto by a distinct question in the Common Hall But for that it is not generally understood how a Corporation or Society of men may discorporate and dissolve themselves and least an inconsiderable minority which shall pretend themselves the Majority and though but two hundred say they more than three thousand and take upon themselves to dissolve the Corporation of the City Tho their skill in Arithmetick is better than their Honesty I shall shortly discourse how a Society of Men may be dissolved A greater number cannot dissolve a body politick every man hath a Negative against a dissolution of that Body whereof he is a member tho he is to be concluded by the majority in any matter determinable and governable by that Society A Majority doth not determine a less number in the state of nature every mans particular consent was necessary to make him a member of any society and so it is to unmember him That a majority concludes the less number is by the agreement of all that enter into that society without which no society can subsist But whether they shall continue to be a society or no is a question in which the members of that society do admit themselves at liberty and act at that time as in the state of nature and therefore the Majority cannot bind the few in this Question and dissolve the Society No man can be a member of any Society without his own consent But every Member of a Society gives his Faith ipso facto by becoming so to every one of that Society to support and maintain it No man can propound any question without Leave first had of the Society for dissolving that Society for to do it otherwise is to transgress against the Faith that he owes to the Comunalty When such a Question is with Leave of the Society propounded a Majority cannot dissolve that Society as to the Dissenters and these that are willing to continue it But such Majority at the most if that have but a Leave to go out of that Society dismember themselves which seems to be yielded them implicitly in giving leave to put the Question But if such Question be put without leave first had of the Comunalty the propounder deserves a punishment to be inflicted upon him