My

formerly agreed a Book of Rates without so cedent, 29th Eliz. It was in a private bill, much as seeing it, signed by the Speaker sir which we have no entry of. I shall now obHarbottle Grimston, 12 Carolus ii. confirmed serve, in the year 1660, Dec. 6, An Act 13 of king Charles, which they sent not up, against planting Tobacco in England, an lest your Speaker might sign it too, whereas office and fees was erected in it: we laid it never Book of Rates was read in the lords aside, and sent a new one, which the lords house. The title they have to the giving Aids, passed. It hath been observed to your lordis the only poor thing the commons can value ships, the irregularity of sending us down a themselves upon to their prince. If there be Bill for Prohibition turned into a Bill for an any fault in this bill, it is that they mentioned Imposition; trenching hereby on the right of any rates at all in particular. If they had the h. of commons, in beginning an imposi sent up a Bill of six lines, referring to a Book tion. The substance is the same in both, we of Rates, there could be no reason why your differ only in the way; so that we hope you lordships should not have agreed to that, with will agree. Mr. Attorney concluded: the same difference to the h, of commons, as lords; Aids were never more necessary; and you did for the other. Book of Rates 12 Car. this is no common present, a grant for nine ii. We desire we may not dispute what is years, and cannot miscarry but upon difference not the question. The Rates upon Goods and between the two houses. We desire that in Merchandize is that before us. They sent it no place, upon no occasion they may be made this way, to shew their duty to the king, and wider. There are two differences upon it: respects to the lords; and never supposed it 1. Difference in judgment and opinion; we would be made a handle of difference to ob- hope we have satisfied you therein fully. 2. In struct the gift for ever, as if it were too great interest and privilege: this is in a narrow comto get through. Your lordships begin a new pass, we stand upon this; rates on merchandize thing. We find ourselves possessed of it in you never did impose, never diminish. Books all ages, and find not one grant of Tonnage and of rates have been kept from you, lest you Poundage that is not barely the gift of the should enquire into them. Nothing so dancommons. They hope your lordships will not gerous as differences, nothing so unparlianow go about to assume this; a right so funda- mentary. My lords, pray let nothing be done mentally settled in the commons, that I can- unparliamentary."-Upon the report of this not give a reason for it, for that would be a Conference and consideration had thereupon: weakening of the commons right and privilege, It was resolved, upon the question, by the which we can never depart from, being affir-lords, nem. con. "That the power exercised by matively possessed of it in all ages, and nega- the house of peers, in making Amendments tively as to the lords. But, out of respect to and Abatements in the Bill, entitled, An your lordships, we have called ourselves to ac- act for an additional Imposition on several count upon the Reasons of our proceedings in Foreign Commodities, &c.' both as to the matthis Bill; and do find that nothing that we ter, measure, and time, concerning the Rates have done in it is against the interest of trade; and Impositions on Merchandize, is a fundahut no syllable of the variations made by mental, inherent, and undoubted right of the your lordships but is prejudicial to the balance house of peers, from which they cannot deof trade. Some intrusted therewith will pre- part." sent your lordships the Reasons we shall offer; and though the expressions should be somewhat harsh in the maintaining the Right and Privilege of the h. of commons, we desire all may be received with candour and patience, and you would give it a fair interpretation.

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Second Conference.] April 19. This second conference was desired by their lordships upon the subject-matter of the last Conference, concerning the Bill for Impositions on Merchandize, &c. wherein the commons communicated to the lords, as their Resolution, "The next that spoke was sir Robert "That there is a fundamental right in that Howard, for the particular Amendments. house alone, in Bills of Rates and Impositions [Here follow the several Amendments.] Ile on Merchandize, as to the matter, the meaconcluded by saying, your lordships can- sure, and time." And though their lordships not believe we, in the same barque with ad neither Reason nor Precedent offered by your lordships, should desire storing : the commons to back that resolution, but were give freely, to prevent them. We are com- told That this was a right so fundamentally manded also to say, we should not pursue our settled in the commons, that they could not own interest, if we did not labour for accom- give Reasons for it, for that would be a modation. We have done all we can, to in- weakening of the commons right and privivite the lords to a happy concurrence.' Then lege;' yet the lords in parliament, upon full sir Rd. Temple said, I am commanded to consideration thereof, and of that whole conback all with some observations on your lord- ference, are come to this Resolution, nem. ships precedents: under favour to your prece- con.: "That the power exercised by the house dents, I find at the same time you sent down of peers, in making the Amendments and for a Conference, March 13, 1580, which was Abatements in the Bill, entitled, An Act for reported in the house of commons, and they an additional Imposition on several Foreign justified it by the Entry; the issue was, you Commodities, &c.' both as to the matter, did proceed on the new bill. The second pre-measure, and time, concerning the Rates and

VOL. IV.

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Impositions on Merchandize, is a fundamental, inherent, and undoubted right of the house of peers, from which they cannot depart:"

Reasons of the Pecrs.

will ever be mentioned to their honour, yet no measure for parliamentary proceedings is to be taken from this one instance, to the prejudice of the right of the crown in making Books of Rates, and of the lords in having their due consideration thereof when they shall be enacted in parliament: which was so far from being according to former usage, that the lords considering the necessity and condition of that time, and there being no complaint, passed that Bill upon three readings in one day, without so much as a commitment, little imagining the forwardness of their zeal to the king's service in such a time would have created an argument in the future against their power; and if the lords never did read books of rates in their house, it is as true that the house of commons do not pretend, nor did shew, ever any was read there but this."

kingdom; but they cannot give way that it should be raised by the undervaluing of the house of peers, and an endeavour to render that house unuseful to the king and kingdom, 1. "The great happiness of the govt. of this by denying unto it those just powers which kingdom is, that nothing can be done in order to the constitution of this government and the the legislature, but what is considered by both law of the land hath lodged in it, for the serhouses before the king's sanction be given unto vice and benefit of both. 9. You did at the it; and the greatest security to all the subjects conference tell us, 'That we did agree a Book of this kingdom is, that the houses, by their of Rates, without so much as seeing it; and constitution, do not only give assistance, but that never Book of Rates was read in the are mutual checks, to each other. 2. Consult lords house; and that the said Book of Rates the writs of summons to parliament; and you was signed by sir Harbottle Grimston, then will find the lords are excluded froin none of Speaker of the house of commons, and not the great and arduous affairs of the kingdom sent up, lest the lords' Speaker might sign it and church of England, but are called to treat too.' The Book of Rates instanced in by the and give their counsel upon them all without house of commons was made in a way different exception. 3. We find no footsteps in record from all former books of rates, and by an asor history for this new claim of the house of sembly called without the king's writs, and which commons; we would see that charter or con- wanted so much the authority of parliament, tract produced, by which the lords divested that the act they made was no act till confirm themselves of this right, and appropriated ited by this parliament: Though the work which to the commons, with an exclusion of them-happily succeeded in their hands, for restoraselves: till then we cannot consent to shake tion of the ancient government of the kingdom, or remove foundations, in the laying whereof it will not be denied that the lords and grands of the kingdom had the greatest hand. 4. If this right should be denied, the lords have not a negative voice allowed them in hills of this nature; for if the lords, who have the power of treating, advising, giving counsel, and applying remedies, cannot amend, abate, or refuse a bill in part, by what consequence of reason can they enjoy a liberty to reject the whole? When the commons shall think fit to question it, they may pretend the same grounds for it. 5. In any case of judicature, which is undoubtedly and indisputably the peculiar right and privilege of the house of lords, if their lordships send down a bill to the commons for giving judgment in a legislative way, they allow and acknowledge the same right in the commons to amend, change, and alter such bills, as the lords have exercised in this Bill of Impositions sent up by the commons. 6. By this new maxim of the house of commons, a hard and ignoble choice is left to the lords, either to refuse the crown supplies when they are most necessary, or to consent to ways and proportions of aid, which neither their own judgment or interest, nor the good of the government and people, can admit. 7. If positive assertion can introduce a right, what security have the lords, that the house of commons shall not in other bills (pretended to be for the general good of the commons, whereof they will conceive themselves the fittest judges) claim the same peculiar privileges in exclusion of any deliberation or alteration of the lords, when they shall judge it necessary or expedient. 8. And whereas you say, 'This is the only poor thing which you can value yourselves upon to the king! their lordships have commanded us to tell you, that they rather desire to increase, than any ways to diminish, the value and esteem of the house of commons, not only with his majesty, but with the whole

Next, the precedents were reported: thus,

Though, where a Right is so clear, and Reasons so irrefragable, it is not to be required of those who are possessed of the right, to give Precedents to confirm it, but those who dispute the right ought to shew precedents or judg ments to the contrary (not passed sub silentio, but) upon the point controverted; yet the lords have commanded us to offer and leave with you these following Precedents :-" By Records both ancient and modern it doth appear, 1. That the lords and commons have consulted together, and conferred one with another, upon the subject of Supply to the king, and of the manner bow the same may be levied; as 14 E. iii. N. 5. Apres

6

grand trete & parleance entre les grandz et 'les ditz chivaliers et autres des communes esteans en dit parliament, est accordes et as sentus par tous les grandz & communes, &c.' That they grant to the king the ninth of corn and wool.-29 E. iii. N. 11. 51 E. iii. N. 18. certain lords there named, from time to time, to confer with the commons, for their better

there should be an obstruction upon occasion | been pleased to impart to us.-The commons of this difference, at whose door it must lie; those that assume to themselves more than belongs to them, to the prejudice and diminution of the others right, or theirs that do only exercise that just and lawful power which by the very nature and constant practice of parliament is, and for many ages hath been, vested in both houses.-Their lordships had under their consideration and debate the desiring a free conference with your house, upon the Reasons of the Amendments in difference between the houses; but when they found that you had interwoven your general position with every Reason you had offered upon particulars, it seemed to them that your judgments were prepossessed; and they hold it vain and below the wisdom of parliament to reason or argue against fixed resolutions, and upon terms of impossibility to persuade; and have therefore applied themselves only to that point which yet remains an impediment in the way of free and parliamentary debates and conferences, which must necessarily be first removed, that so we may come to a free conference upon the Bill itself, and part with a fair correspon

dence between the two houses."

confess, that the best rule for deciding questions of Right between the two houses, is the law, and usage of parliament; and that the best evidences of that usage and custom of parliament are, the most frequent and authentic Precedents: therefore the commons will first examine the Precedents your lordships seem to rely upon; then they will produce those by which their right is asserted; and in the last place, they will consider the Reasons upon which your lordships ground yourselves.-By the nature of the Precedents which your lordships produce, there is an evident departure from the question as the former conference left it. There the doubt was narrowed to this single point, Whether your lordships could retrench or abate any part of the Rates which the commons had granted upon merchandize? Here the precedents do go to a joint power of imposing and beginning of taxes, which is a point we have not yet heard your lordships to pretend to, though this present difference prepares way for it: therefore, either these precedents prove too much, by proving a power of imposing; or they prove nothing at all, by not proving a power of lessening. And yet Third Conference.] April 22. The earl they do not prove a power of imposing neither; of Anglesey began the Report of this Con- for those words the lords and commons ference; who said, That Mr. Attorney (sir grant,' must either be understood reddendo Heneage Finch), told them, That, because singula, singulis; that is, the lords grant for the matter is of moment, the h. of commons themselves, and the commons grant for the have trusted none to give their words but counties, cities, and boroughs, whom they rethemselves; therefore have ordered it to be in present; or else the word grant' must be unwriting, as followeth: "The commons have derstood only of the lords assent to what the desired this Conference, to preserve a good commons grant, because the form of law recorrespondence with the h. of peers, and to quires, that both join in one bill to give it the prevent the ill consequences of those misun- force of a law. This answers the statute of derstandings which may possibly interrupt the Magna Charta, c. 37, and those few instances happy conclusion of this session, and of all wherein it is said,The lords and commons future parliaments too, if they be not very grant ; viz. the 47 E. iii. N. 10. 4 R. ii. N. speedily removed: wherein the commons are 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. 6 R. ii. N. 14. But what not without hopes of giving your lordships full answer can be given to those ancient and satisfaction in the point in question, and that modern precedents and acts, where the grant without shaking any foundations, unless it be moves, and is acknowledged to come from the such as no man should lay, much less build commons alone; of which a multitude shall upon, the foundations of a perpetual dissention be hereinafter mentioned? The case of the 14 between the two houses. Three things did sur- E. iii. N. 5, Apres grand trete et parlance prize the commons at the former conference entre lez grantz et chevaliers et communs, concerning the Bill for an additional Impo-fuit assentus,' &c. is no grant of the 9th sition on several Foreign Commodities: 1. sheaf, as your lordships cited it to be; but an That where they expected a discourse upon agreemecut that the nones granted in a former some Amendments to that bill, they met with parliament should now be sold, because the nothing but a debate of the liberties of their money came not in fast enough.-22 E. iii, N. house, in the matter, measure, and time, of 3, which your lordships cite to prove that the rates upon merchandize, with a kind of a de-king did sometimes command the lords to conmand, that these liberties might be delivered up to your lordships by our public acknowledgement before there should be any further discourse upon that bill. 2. That your lordships, should declare so fixed and settled a Resolution in this point, before you had so much as beard what could be replied in defence of the commons. 3. That your lordships should be so easily induced to take this Resolution, if there be no other motives for it than those Precedents and Reasons which your lordships have

sult with the commons about raising Money, proves little of that; but it proves expressly, that the commons granted 3 fifteenths; and as the grant runs wholly in their name, so the record is full of many reasons why they could grant no more, and upon what conditions they granted so much.-And yet all these records, wherein the lords advised with the commons about raising money, though they seem to make a shew in your lordships paper, yet they prove two things of great importance to the