For the first: she may grant non obstantes contrary to the penal laws; which truly, in my conscience (and so struck himself on the breast), are as hateful to the subject as monopolies.

For the second: if any man out of his own wit, industry, or endeavour, find out anything beneficial to the Commonwealth, or bring any new invention which every subject of this kingdom may use; yet in regard of his pains and travel therein, her Majesty perhaps is pleased to grant him a privilege to use the same only by himself or his deputies for a certain time. This is one kind of monopoly. Sometimes there is a glut of things, when they be in excessive quantity, as perhaps of corn; and perhaps her Majesty gives licence of transportation to one man. This is another kind of monopoly. Sometimes there is a scarcity or a small quantity; and the like is granted also.

These, and divers of this nature, have been in trial, both at the Common Pleas upon action of trespass; where, if the Judges do find the privilege good and beneficial for the Commonwealth they will then allow it, otherwise disallow it; and also I know that her Majesty herself hath given commandment to her Attorney-General to bring divers of them, since the last Parliament, to trial in her Exchequer. Since which time at least fifteen or sixteen, of my knowledge, have been repealed; some upon her Majesty's own express commandment, upon complaint made unto her Majesty by petition; and some by Quo Warranto in the Exchequer.

But, Mr. Speaker (said he, pointing to the Bill), this is no stranger in this place; but a stranger in this vestment. The use hath been ever by petition to humble ourselves to her Majesty, and by petition desire to have our grievances redressed d; especially when the remedy toucheth her so nigh in point of Prerogative. All cannot be done at once; neither was it possible since the last Parliament to repeal all.

If her Majesty make a patent or, as we term it, a monopoly unto any of her servants, that must go and we cry out of it: but if she grants it to a number of burgesses or a corporation, that must stand; and that forsooth is no monopoly.

I say, and I say again, that we ought not to deal or judge or meddle with her Majesty's Prerogative. I wish every man therefore to be careful in this point; and humbly pray this House to testify with me that I have discharged my duty in

respect of my place in speaking on her Majesty's behalf; and protest I have delivered my conscience in saying that which I have said.

The question, therefore, was reduced simply to this. Should they proceed by Bill or by Petition? In the course of the warm and very free spoken debate which followed, two or three members expressed a decided opinion for proceeding by Bill, on the ground that the proceeding by Petition had been tried last Parliament and done no good, others expressed a decided opinion against it. But the general feeling of the House seems to have been in favour of committing the Bill, "in order to devise a course :" the question as to the mode of proceeding being therefore left open. So it was agreed that they should go into Committee on it the next afternoon.

One point, however, this first debate had settled. It had revealed the temper of the House and the Country on the subject, and showed the Queen that if her Prerogative was to continue unquestioned she must not allow it to be approached in that temper from that side. As yet she stood personally disengaged; not having committed herself in the matter, except in professing intentions which she had neglected to carry out. She had no difficulty, therefore, in taking the position which the time required; and made her arrangements at once, I suppose, with that view. The Prerogative was not be meddled with: upon that point she was not going to make any concession. But the Patents themselves might every one, if necessary, go overboard; and that would be enough, if handsomely done.

On Saturday afternoon, Nov. 21, the Committee met according to appointment. Cecil was still silent; and Bacon was again the chief speaker on the side of the Government. The general objection, which he had already urged, and which would have applied to any bill for such a purpose, he repeated; adding a particular objection applicable to this particular bill, which nobody seems to have attempted to answer; and which was in fact, I should think, unanswerable. The note of his speech, which contains all we know about it, does not read like a very good report; but the argument is intelligible enough.

SPEECH IN COMMITTEE AGAINST A BILL FOR EXPLANATION OF THE COMMON LAW IN CERTAIN CASES OF LETTERS PATENTS.1

The Bill is very injurious and ridiculous: injurious, in that it taketh or rather sweepeth away her Majesty's Prerogative; 121 Nov., in the afternoon. Townshend, p. 238. D'Ewes, p. 648. Harl. MSS. 2283, fo. 51 b.

and ridiculous, in that there is a proviso that this statute should not extend to grants made to Corporations. That is a gull to sweeten the Bill withal; it is only to make fools fain. All men of the law know that a Bill which is only expository to expound the Common Law doth enact nothing: neither is any proviso good therein. And therefore the proviso in the statute of 34 Hen. VIII. of Wills (which is but a statute expository of the statute of 32 Hen. VIII. of Wills) touching Sir John Gainsford's will, was adjudged void. Therefore I think the Bill unfit, and our proceedings to be by Petition.

Here again the true question was proposed in its simple terms; but the Committee could not keep within it. An attempt on the part of the Solicitor-General to make the Queen's case clearer, by explaining what she had done in the matter since the last Parliament, what she had intended to do, and why she had done no more, roused one of the members for Middlesex to produce a long list of Patents granted since the last Parliament; the reading of which provoked the famous question whether Bread was not among them?' and was followed by a state of excitement tending to no definite resolution, when Townshend himself, "seeing that the Committees could agree upon nothing," came forward with a motion: a motion which received from Bacon an approval so emphatic that the exposition of his policy and proceedings in this matter (which have been much misrepresented) would not be complete without describing it.

The proposition was in effect this:-That the Committee should draw up a speech to the Queen, humbly petitioning, not only "for the repeal of all monopolies grievous to the subject,"—with a view to which every member of the House was to be invited to put in his complaints in writing, but likewise for leave to make an Act that they might be of no more force, validity, or effect than they are at the Common Law, without the strength of her Prerogative,"-(a thing which, though they might do it now, yet, in a case so nearly touching her Prerogative, they would not, as loyal and loving subjects, offer to do without her privity and consent),—and that as soon as this address was drawn up the Speaker should be sent at once (not at the end of the session, as on the last occasion) to speak it to her; and at the same time to deliver with his own hand the lists of monopolies complained of.

This motion, which was quite in accordance with Bacon's idea of the proper way of proceeding, was seconded by him in "a long speech," of which, however, all we know is, that it "concluded thus in the end."

Why you have the readiest course that possibly can be devised. I would wish no further order to be taken but to prefer the wise and discreet speech made by the young gentleman, even the youngest in this assembly, that last spake. I'll tell you, that even ex ore infantium et lactantium the true and most certain course is propounded unto us.1

After which speech of Bacon's the Committee separated, without deciding upon anything except that they would meet again on Monday.

It seems, however, that there was an obstruction somewhere. For on Monday the debate fell away from the point again. Nor did Cecil, who came forward at last, succeed in giving it a better direction; unless indeed his object were (as I rather suspect it was) to introduce an element of disagreement for the purpose of postponing the decision. For after giving his opinion at large upon most of the topics which had been discussed, but without drawing towards any conclusion, he ended, very strangely, with recommending" a new commitment, to consider what her Majesty might grant and what not; and what course they should take, and upon what points," etc. -a recommendation which, proceeding from him, it is difficult to understand, except as a device to keep the waters troubled; for it seemed to import a discussion of the Prerogative itself; and which was met by a counter-recommendation, coming (to make the matter stranger) from the popular side,-for it was moved by one of the members who in the first debate had spoken most decidedly in favour of proceeding by Bill, and seconded by the member who had spoken most vehemently and powerfully against the monopolies-much to the effect of Townshend's proposition of Saturday evening; namely, "that they should be suitors unto her Majesty that the Patentees should have no other remedies than by the laws of the realm they might have, and that their Act might be drawn accordingly." "3 This motion "the House seemed greatly to applaud;" and might, one would think, have passed at once, but that Cecil, for some reason or other, was not disposed to withdraw his own; and the conclusion was that both motions should be determined upon by the Committees that afternoon. Yet in the afternoon, unless Townshend's notes are strangely imperfect, neither of them was put to the question; nor indeed was any question put at all. But the old ground was beaten over again: lists of monopolies were handed about privately and one of these, containing nearly forty titles of

:

1 Townshend, p. 239.

2 Ib. 213.

3 Ib. 243.

Patents granted within the last twenty-eight years, was read out openly by Cecil himself: after which they again separated without concluding upon anything,-to meet in the afternoon of the next day.

These repeated adjournments with no result naturally excited dissatisfaction and suspicion; and on Tuesday morning, "after some loud confusion in the House touching some private murmur concerning monopolies," Cecil had to come forward again; his "zeal to extinguish monopolies making him to speak, to satisfy their opinions that thought there should be no redress of them." He said "he had been a member of the House in six or seven Parliaments, and yet never did he see the House in so great confusion. . . . They had had speeches, and speech upon speech, without either order or discretion. One would have had them proceed by Bill, and see if the Queen would have denied it. Another that the Patents should be brought there before them and cancelled:-and this were bravely done. Others would have them proceed by way of petition," etc. "But

I wish," he concluded, "every man to rest satisfied until the Committees have brought in their resolutions, according to your commandments."

And what was it then that hindered the Committees from coming to a resolution-seeing that there was no difference at all among them in their ends, no material difference about the means, and a general inclination in favour of one of the two courses proposed? The answer, I think, must be that the Queen was going to lay the waves herself, and they were not to subside till she appeared. The extraordinary disorder and confusion which had reigned in the Committee ever since Cecil took a prominent part in the proceedings, and which was leading to an embarrassment from which they could not extricate themselves, was a condition (whether natural or artificial) necessary to give full effect to the scene which followed; and which, as Bacon had no part in it except as a deeply interested spectator, I must be content to describe less at large than I should otherwise wish.

Such a petition from the Commons as Bacon recommended would have opened a fair passage out of the difficulty. But the Queen knew of a more excellent way. The draught of the Subsidy Bill had been proceeding without any check: not a murmur had escaped during all this excitement to show that anybody regretted the grant or wished to hold it back and she bethought herself (being, though not formally apprised, yet known to be aware of what had passed) that it would be no less than gracious, in a case so unusual, to make some acknowledgment. Thus it came to pass that on that very afternoon, when the Committee on Hide's Bill was to have met