Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	act_n	grant_v	majesty_n	1,393	5	7.1213	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55705	The present settlement vindicated, and the late mis-government proved in answer to a seditious letter from a pretended loyal member of the Church of England to a relenting abdicator / by a gentleman of Ireland.	Gentleman of Ireland.	1690 (1690)	Wing P3250; ESTC R9106	56,589	74

their Proceedings against him for Alimony although this was one of the Articles their Commission authorizes them to hear and determine Here the Court looked on their Authority to be from the Statute not the Commission This is a full Judgment and many more might be instanced against those that assert That the King by his Supremacy or the Common Law could Erect such a Court though the Statute were repealed for in this Case he gave Authority to decree Alimony in Cases of severity but because the Statute gave none such their Proceedings were stopped by a Prohibition It is wonderful to me and seems something like an infatuation That the Projectors of that Court did not to gain some credit to it and in return for all the mischiefs they intended find out some real Criminals to make Examples of so that the Nation might sometimes be satisfied with their Judgments though they could not be with their Jurisdiction When we see vengeance over-take notorious Offendors it is but rarely that we inquire whence the blow comes and if we do we are seldom over-strickt in the matter But since they omitted this common piece of Policy after-times will rather suspect that they had not Power by the Commission to punish such Offendors then either that so populous a Nation should want fit Objects for their wrath or that so famed Politicians should contemn so prudent a course All the account I can give of this matter is that Quos Jupiter vult perdere prius dimentat The fifth Article is Levying Money for other time and in other manner than the same was granted by Parliament this he confesses ought not to have been done by the Petition of Right and some older Statutes he mentions which is a Confession of the justness of the Complaint But then what he did of this kind he says was by vertue of a Lease King Charles the Second was impowred to grant for three years This is another instance how small a matter was sufficient lately for Appearance of Law good enough to wrest the Legislative Power out of its proper course For this Lease our Author here speaks of was pretended but to be made by the Commissary of the Treasury the Fifth of February the day before King Charles dyed and when he was lying void of all reason and sence if not of life This looks so like a trick that it supersedes all necessity of enquiry Whether King Charles had power to make a Lease of that part of his Revenue granted him for Life only for any longer time than his Life But to shew the illegality of that Proceeding and the insincerity of the Author I will give the full account of this matter And first it is to be observed that the late King upon his first coming to the Crown levied Money on several Branches of the Revenue setled on King Charles for Life The Subsidies of Tonnage and Poundage and other sums of Money payable on Merchandises Exported and Imported were granted expresly by the Statute to King Charles during life yet the late King by his Proclamation of the 9th of February directs that the same shall be Collected as in the time of his Brother Herein he pretends to no other Law for this but that it is his Will and Pleasure the necessity ●f the Government requiring the same there is no three years Lease in this Case nor any pretence that King Charles did or could make any such so that as to this our Author's assertion is false But indeed as to the Excise the late King made use of that pretence and by his Proclamation of the 16th of February tells us That the late King's Commissioners of the Treasury did on the fifth of February contract and agree with Sir Peter Apsly Sir Benjamin Bathurst and James Grahme that they should receive the Duty of Excise for three years from the date thereof at the Rent of 550000 Pounds per annum And being certified by the Opinion of the Judges that the said Contract is good and valid in Law to the intent that the said persons may have no pretence of with-holding their Rent and that the Subjects may not incur the Penalties inflicted by the Laws of Excise for not making due Entries or Non-payment or concealing any part of the said Duty during the said three years He does publish to all his Subjects that the Judges have certified him their Opinions that the said Contract hath continuance notwithstanding the decease of his Brother His Will and Pleasure therefore is and he thereby Commands the Commissioners of the Excise and other Officers that they be Aiding and Assisting to the said persons in Collecting and Levying the said Duties and that all persons chargeable with the payment thereof do make due Entries and pay the same upon the pains and penalties to be inflicted thereupon according to the Laws of Excise Though these Proclamations were equally illegal yet the first was certainly the more generous it goes roundly to work and tells us in plain terms he wanted the Money and therefore would take it whereas the other pretends to be countenanced by the Law but instead thereof has only that of the Lawyers the Moiety of the Rent therein mentioned is a fair sum to be gained for three years by the private Opinion of the Judges which is sufficiently confuted by a bare stating of the Case The Excise was granted by two Acts of Parliament the one Moiety by one Act the other Moiety thereof by another The first is called a Grant of certain Impositions for the increase of his Majesty's Revenue during his life And Enacts That the Duties therein mentioned shall be paid to the King during his life ' the other Act lays the same Imposition on the several Liquors therein mentioned and Enacts expresly That the same shall be paid to the King his Heirs and Successors for ever Which being the Statutes of one Parliament shews plainly that it was intended that the one half of the Duty should dye with the King otherwise there was no need of two Acts and the reason of the difference is obvious for the last Moiety of this Duty was granted to the Crown in satisfaction of the Profits of the Court of Wards and for the Abolishing of the King 's Pre-emption and Purveyance in which the Crown had an Inheritance In both these Acts there is a Clause for making Leases not exceeding three years which was laid hold on to continue this Tax on us for three years longer than the express time we granted Had this Lease been made bona fide and in King Charles's health it would have been but a frivolous pretence but considering the time it was made it was the smallest way ever was laid hold of by a sinking Cause Our Author comes next to represent our present Condition to us and though he make a fearful Picture of it it is not so dreadful as Popery and Arbitrary Power in their best Dress He says we must pay great

Taxes and reckons up some Millions I am not so conversant in the Affairs of the Treasury as to tell whether his Computation be right but be it so we had rather pay that and much more than fall into our former misery it is some satisfaction to our minds that when our Taxes are paid the rest is our own But to set this matter right and to discover the Author's disingenuity we must take notice that the Statute taking away the Hearth-money one of the most grievous burthens this Nation ever groaned under Peter-pence and Danegeld not excepted passed the Royal Assent the 24th of April 89. And that our Author in several places of his Book takes notice of Statutes passed and other matters happening afterwards as the Pole-bill the first of May the Declaration of War against France the 7th of May the Ease to Dissenters the 24th of May and the Act for satisfying the States-General the 20th of August 89. But yet he speaks not one word of the other and his reason is because if he had done that the great Taxes he speaks of would dwindle into nothing for if that Duty amounted to 200000 Pound per annum we have not yet given the King Twenty years Purchase for it which is the rate most of his Subjects sell at He tells us next The War cannot be carried on without Money and that at the end of it it must cost in a great Sum to Disband the Army which he would perswade us to save by restoring King James This is a declaring War against the Army and will lessen the number of his Friends if he have any there and then if the Nation by restoring that King will avoid paying their own Army they must pay his which is as numerous and to whom there is as great an Arrear due besides all that is due to the French King So that if any be so sordid as to wish a change in the Government it must be on other Motives than to save his Money the restitution of the Hearth-money being all he is like to get by that bargain He tells us next That we who feared the coming of the French in King James 's time have taken a way by declaring War against them to bring them upon us with a vengeance But I would have him know this Nation would rather see the French here open and professed Enemies than pretended Friends and that we fear them less in the one capacity than the other and surely we never had less reason to fear them than at present though it were too great presumption to guess at the Divine Councils or to say that God now designs to be avenged on him for his Blasphemy and many Oppressions or that he has at last heard the Groans of the Fatherless and Widows though doubtless he will in his own due time inquire and visit for these things yet if we consider how he stands with the Kings of the Earth we may rationally hope that his Glory is near an end for the Emperour and Princes of the Empire are exasperated against him not only by his seizing and barbarously destroying their Territories but by his stopping their Victories over the Turks and by assisting them by so great a diversion But it hath pleased God to bless their just Cause with success both against the one and the other with the King of Spain and the States of Holland he has actual War the Cantons of Switzerland at best but Neutral and some think they are almost over-come by the late Pope's advice to quit it who not only styled him the Common Enemy of the Christian part of Europe but with his last Breath advised the Cardinals to oppose his unjust designs Had England ever a better time to humble his Pride or to force him to do justice to themselves and Allies for the many injuries and provocations he has from time to time heaped upon them If we cannot deal with him now that he has no Allies to support but the Turks Irish and Algerines we must despair of ever seeing an end to the Miseries of Europe The sixth is Keeping a standing Army in time of Peace without consent of Parliament He wisely omits Quartering Souldiers contrary to Law being neither able to say any thing in defence of it nor to retort it on the present Government All that he says to this Article is That his Officers were enriched by his Pay and that they were his delight but he does not tell us they were so because he hoped to over-throw our Religion and Laws by their assistance and to throw off Parliaments those Shakells on his designs He tells us next King James used no Forreign force but contented himself with his Natural-born Subjects But was not there some of them as ill as either Dutch or Brandenburger The Irish are more opposite to our Religion and Civll Interest than either of the other But our Author is angry we have an Army in being not designed to enslave the Nation as the last was but ready to oppose all that shall endeavour to bring us under our old Bondage and some to spare to oppose the French design on Flanders by whose Courage he has already received one defeat and durst his General have stayed and not retreated so very fast he might have had another Our Author in his last Leaf gives us so true a representation of the inconveniencies and burthens the Nation groaned under from the Army that I cannot better express them than in the Author's words Some Rake-hells of the Army took liberty to disgrace the Service who to supply their extravagant Expences put the Souldier's Pay into their own Pockets for which they allowed them under-hand to sharp upon the Country and too often leave their Quarters unpaid to the dishonour of the King and ruin of many an honest Man And to add to that Infamy they forced the Constables by threats to give them Certificates that they had paid their Quarters and behaved themselves well in them when in truth they had done neither But to heal the matter he says further That those that were averse to the King's interest with a design to ruin him in the affections of the People either quite concealed this from him or at least so minced the matter that the difficulty the poor Country-man lay under of being heard or relieved made the remedy often prove worse than the disease Doubtless if there had not been too many instances of the fruitless Complaints of the Nation upon the abuses of the Army we should not have had so full a confession as this from our Author The seventh Article is Causing several good Subjects being Protestants to be disarmed But our Author omits the other half That Papists at the same time were both armed and employed contrary to Law What is said to this is so little to the purpose that I scarce know how to Answer it He cannot tell when this was done nor whether those disarmed Protestants were not