earls, viscounts, barons, baronets-who were willing to purchase these titles at fo high a price; but then he fhould not have compelled any, who were unwilling, to be knighted, much lefs fhould he have obliged them to pay for their refufalHenry III. of France, fold no lefs than one thousand letters of nobility in Normandy alone.

This is the merchandize of princes. As the first discoverers of America bartered for gold, and the first settlers in Penfylvania purchased land with glafs bubbles and gilded toys, fo have princes, by their gilded toys, induced men to part with, not only their honour and their confcience, but even their silver and their gold. This, however, has afforded only a momentary supply.

2. Ship-money. This was required at first from the fea-ports, and afterwards from the whole kingdom, under pretence of protecting trade, defending the coasts, maintaining the empire of the fea, and fecuring the honour of the British flag, In cafes of fudden emergency, and urgent neceffity,

neceffity, the fovereign, in the exercise of his rightful prerogative, armed his fubjects with the utmost speed, to repel the danger, and the merchants lent their fhips with chearfulness.

Unhappy Charles, by endeavouring to derive from fhip-money a permanent revenue, and fuch as would render him independent on his parliaments, brought the claim into difcuffion. Notwithstanding he had artfully intrenched himself behind the opinion of the twelve judges, the fallacy of that opinion was fo obvious to all men, that he was obliged to give up his claim, and in the year 1641 paffed a law to abolish this fubfidy entirely.

3. Tunnage and poundage. This was a duty on merchandise, granted originally by parliament for the protection of trade, and limited to fhort periods, or to the continuance of a war. Edward IV. collected these duties two years without any grant from parliament; in the third year of his reign, this fubfidy was granted to him. -It should be remembered, that this was a time of great anarchy and confufion,

Henry

of

Heny Vl. that weak prince, ruined by
his minifters, was depofed after he had
reigned thirty-eight years. A prince of
a different family afcended the throne,
cla ming the crown by the choice of the
people, and fupporting that claim at the
head of forty thoufand men.-Margaret,
the ambitious and warlike queen
Henry VI. at the head of fixty thousand
men, engaging the new-elected king at
Towton, was defeated, and forced to fly,
with the king her husband. This new-
elected king had been proclaimed on the
fifth of March, in the year 1461, by the
title of Edward the IVth; he had not,
however, time to affemble a parliament
'till November the 4th of the fame year, at
which time he got his title to the crown
acknowledged. The kingdom was actually
at war with France, Scotland, Bretagne,
and the Low Countries, and Margaret
was ftill in arms. The very next year
fhe led her troops into England; they
were again defeated, but fhe escaped.
Edward, therefore, had as yet no time to
attend to forms; but when he had taken
Henry

Henry prifoner, and confined him in the Tower, he then applied to parliament, and got a grant of tunnage and poundage. It is indeed not unlikely, that this fubfidy had been granted in the last reign, for the continuance of that war which Edward the IVth himfelf brought to a conclufion.

From the first expulfion of the house of Lancaster, 'till its reftoration in the perfon of Henry the VIIth, being twentyfour years, was a time of great confufion; during this period, regular forms could be but little attended to.-When Henry the VIIth came to the throne, he granted commiffions for collecting certain duties and cuftoms due by law; but he granted none for receiving the duty of tunnage and poundage, until the fame was granted to him in parliament. This grant was made to him for life. In the beginning of every fucceeding reign, the grant was renewed, always for life. The fovereigns who fucceeded Henry the VIIth, never waited for the grant, but collected this fubfidy in the intermediate space be

tween the death of the predeceffor and the new grant; this was done, perhaps, through habit and inattention, most likely by defign. In these reigns the prerogative of the crown was raised to a moft formidable height. James the Ift. collected this fubfidy above a year before he received the grant, and by his own authority raised the duty to five per cent. Unhappy Charles was at first unwilling to receive it as a grant, and determined at all events not to part with it. He told his parliament that he had collected this fubfidy by his own prerogative, that in granting their petition of right, he had never promifed to give it up to them. "But for tunnage and poundage, it is a thing I can not want, and was never intended by you to ask, nor meant by me, I am fure, to grant." He next year foftened this language a little, faying, "We did not challenge it of right; but took it de bene effe, fhewing thereby not the right, but the necessity by which we were to take it;" he took it however, in spight of his parliament, after

he