absolved from their allegiance, and himself come "to deliver Ireland from the jaws of the Devil :" a crisis well fitted to stimulate the loyalty of an English Parliament, and dispose them to vote supplies freely without standing too obstinately upon domestic differences. which could wait for times of more leisure.

The new Parliament met on the 27th of October, and was opened by the Queen in person with the usual formalities, and a speech from the Lord Keeper. To the Lower House (the members of which during the Lord Keeper's speech had been by some mismanagement shut out), the causes of their meeting- which were in fact nothing more than to provide means of defence against the present and threatened dangers-were set forth at large by Sir R. Cecil, on the 3rd of November: whereupon, immediately and without any debate, a committee was appointed to meet on the 7th, to consider the

case.

5.

The four intervening days were occupied with bills brought in or motions made by private members: among which there are two which still retain, in consideration of the mover, some little interest for us.

ness.

It seems that the House was not disposed to pay much attention to the business thus brought before it. Several bills were read and rejected, some read and ordered to be engrossed; but none discussed as if the money bill had been their only serious busiNow in Bacon's opinion it was important to the health of the relation between Crown and Parliament, that Parliament should never seem to be called for money only, but always for some other business of estate besides. And the case being now much the same as in 1593 (concerning which see Vol. I. p. 213), he endeavoured in the same way, by interposing a discussion on some topic of popular and legislative character, to cover the nakedness of the appeal for pecuniary help. The supply committee was to meet on Saturday, the 7th, and on Thursday, as we learn from Townshend, to whose notes we are indebted for almost all we know of the debates during Elizabeth's four last Parliaments, "Mr. Bacon stood up to prefer a new bill;" and spoke as follows:

2

SPEECH ON BRINGING IN A BILL AGAINST ABUSES IN

Mr. Speaker,

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

I am not of their minds that bring their bills into this House

1 Camden.

VOL. III.

2 D'Ewes, p. 626. Harl. MSS. 2283, f. 12.

C

obscurely, by delivery only unto yourself or to the clerks, delighting to have the bill to be incerto authore, as though they were either ashamed of their own works, or afraid to father their own children. But I, Mr. Speaker, have a bill here, which I know I shall be no sooner ready to offer but you will be ready to receive and approve. I liken this bill to that sentence of the poet, who sets this as a paradox in the fore-front of his book, first water, then gold, preferring necessity before pleasure; and I am of the same opinion, that things necessary in use are better than those things which are glorious in estimation. This, Mr. Speaker, is no bill of state nor of novelty, like a stately gallery for pleasure, but neither to dine in nor sleep in; but this bill is a bill of repose, of quiet, of profit, of true and just dealing; the title whereof is an Act for the better suppressing of abuses in weights and measures.

We have turned out divers bills without disputation: and for a house of wisdom and gravity, as this is, to bandy bills like balls, and to be silent, as if nobody were of counsel with the Commonwealth, is unfitting in my understanding for the state thereof. I'll tell you, Mr. Speaker, I'll speak out of mine own experience that I have learned and observed, having had causes of this nature referred to my report, that this fault of using false weights and measures is grown so intolerable and common that, if you would build churches, you shall not need for battlements and bells other things than false weights of lead and brass. And because I would observe the advice which was given in the beginning of this Parliament, that we should make no new laws, I have made this bill only a confirmation of the statute of the 11 Henry 7, with a few additions, to which I will speak at the passing of the bill, and shew the reasons of every particular clause, the whole being but a revival of a former statute; for I take it far better to scour a stream than turn a stream. And the first clause is that it is to extend to the Principality of Wales, to constrain them to have the like measures and weights to us in England.

The next day (Nov. 6),—apparently with the same object of awakening the House to a due sense of its proper business, and asserting its position as a legislative assembly, he made a motion like that which he had seconded at the beginning of the last Parliament (see Vol. II. p. 78)-a motion for a Committee to repeal superfluous laws. For his speech on this occasion, which is not given by D'Ewes,

we are also indebted to Townshend's collection: whose note runs as follows:

SPEECH FOR REPEALING SUPERFLUOUS LAWS.

May it please you, Mr. Speaker, not out of ostentation to this House, but reverence I do speak it, that I do much wonder to see the House so continually divided, and to agree upon nothing; to see so many laws here so well framed, and offences provided against, and yet to have no better success or entertainment. I do think every man in his particular bound to help the Commonwealth the best he may; and better it is to venture a man's credit by speaking than to stretch a man's conscience by silence, and to endeavour to make that which is good in nature possible in effect.1

Laws be like pills all gilt over, which if they be easily and well swallowed down are neither bitter in digestion nor hurtful to the body. Every man knows that time is the true controller of laws, and therefore there having been a great alteration of time since the repeal of a number of laws, I know and do assure myself there are many more than I know laws both needless and dangerous.2

I could therefore wish that as usually at every Parliament there is a Committee selected for the continuance of divers statutes, so the house would be pleased also that there might be a Committee for the repeal of divers statutes, and of divers superfluous branches of statutes. And that every particular member of this House would give information to the Committees what statutes he thinketh fitting to be repealed, or what branch to be superfluous; lest, as he sayeth, pluat super nos laqueos. The more laws we make the more snares we lay to entrap ourselves.3

I do not find that these motions had any "better success or entertainment" than the others. The last raised no discussion at the time, and merged ultimately, as the similar motion in 1597 had done, in an ordinary "continuance act." The Weights and Measures Bill was read a second time the next day, and upon some objections in details summarily thrown out. Upon the question for committing,

1 The original has "to make that good in nature which is possible in effect." 2 So the paragraph stands in Townshend and in the MS. also, except that it has 'any number,' instead of a number:' evidently very much misreported or misprinted. 3 Townshend, p. 194. Harl. MSS. 2283, fo. 15 b.

there were, says Townshend, "some twelve I, I, I, but not one for the engrossing; but all said No. So it was rejected."1

The truth is, I fancy, that the House was in as great a hurry to get the necessary supplies voted, as the Queen was to receive them ; and that they could not attend with spirit to anything else until they had seen that business safely through. The Spaniards were besieged, it is true, in Kinsale by land, and ships had been sent to cut off their supplies by sea; and "many of our discoursers," says Chamberlain,2" gave them for lost, and made it a matter of ease to defeat them by sickness, famine, or the sword;" but they were still there; and Tyrone was approaching from the North with a force almost as large as the besieging army. It may easily be believed therefore, that to provide whatever was necessary for their speedy capture or expulsion seemed to the House the one business to which for the present all others must be postponed. It is certain that they acted in the matter as if they thought so. And as soon as Bacon's Weights and Measures Bill was disposed of, this was the next business that came on.

6.

Sir Walter Raleigh led the way, and though the discussion lasted into the dark, it appears to have turned entirely upon matters of of detail. To the amount of the grant-an amount quite unprecedented-there are no traces of opposition from any quarter. Opinions differed upon the mode of distribution, and in particular upon the question whether the "three-pound men" should be included. But a grant of four whole subsidies, with eight fifteens and tens,— the first to be paid all at once next February, the others each in divided payments at half-yearly intervals, the whole therefore payable within three and a half, years was agreed on in Committee that same Saturday afternoon; and on Monday in the House, after some further discussion of details, "the Speaker appointed the Committees for drawing of the Subsidy Bill,-all to hasten it; and so the House

All this time, not a murmur of discontent is to be traced in the journals; not an allusion to monopolies; not a mention of conditions or reciprocal concessions; but all was going so rapidly and smoothly that one of the members thought it necessary to remind the House that they had as yet done nothing else, and to express a hope "that her Majesty would not dissolve the Parliament till some acts were

231 Oct. 1601, p. 119.

1 Townshend, p. 197. 3 Townshend, p. 205. The Speaker, I suppose, read the names of the Committees, who had already been appointed by the House: p. 203.

passed." On the part of the Government what little it was necessary to say was said by Sir R. Cecil: and the only observation of Bacon's which is reported, is in favour of the non-exemption of "the three-pound men;" upon which, concurring with the majority of the Committee, he concluded "it was dulcis tractus pari jugo: and therefore the poor as well as the rich not to be exempted." "12

What makes the unanimity of the House in this matter the more remarkable is, that their hearts were all the while full of serious discontent with the Government, on account of the still growing grievance of monopolies; that they had come up from all parts of the country charged with complaint and remonstrance; and that the feeling, when it found utterance at last, was general enough and strong enough to silence all expressions of dissent, if any dissent existed. It is curious also to observe, in an assembly so miscel laneous and not very orderly in its debates, how slow this feeling was in finding a tongue. After the subsidy-question had been settled on the 9th of November, there was no more lack of debating. Questions of various kinds,-including a point of privilege which brought them into collusion with the Lord Keeper, and a Bill against Pluralities of Benefices which touched the Prerogative,-were largely and noisily discussed. But it was not till the 18th that a word seems to have been uttered about Monopoly-Patents; nor does any action on that subject appear to have been expected by the public outside. "The Parliament," says Chamberlain, writing on the 14th, "huddles in high matters: only they have had a cast at Osborne's office, to correct and amend it at least; but there is no great hope of success. The Alpha and Omega is concluded already. I mean the grant of four subsidies and eight fifteens."4

Now "Osborne's office" was not one of the monopoly-patents; but the office of Treasurer's Remembrancer in the Exchequer, in which it seems that abuses had been found. A bill on the subject had been brought in, and was then under reference to a Committee, whose report was brought up by Bacon on the 18th, in a speech of which Townshend has preserved for us the following note:

Townshend, p. 204.

2 Ib. p. 204.

3 The Speaker had directed a warrant for a new writ to the Clerk of the Crown. The Lord Keeper desired to have the warrant directed to himself. Some of the members (Bacon among them) preferred that course as more honourable to the House. "It is far more honourable for this house (said Bacon) in my opinion when our warrant shall move the principal member of Justice, than when it shall command a base, petty, or inferior servant to the Clerk of the Crown, or the Clerk of the Petty Bag. It will be said our warrant emanavit improvide, when we shall direct our warrants to these base officers, when we may move the Great Seal of England by it, even as soon as either Petty Bag or Petty officer." But upon inquiry it was found that the precedents were the other way, and the Lord Keeper did not insist. D'Ewes, pp. 636, 637, 643. And see further on, p. 25.

4 Camd. Soc. Publ. p. 122.