linen, silk, salt, paper, and other commodities of the growth product or manufacture of the territories of the French King had much exhausted the treasure of this nation, lessened the value of the native commodities and manufactures thereof, and caused great detriment to the Kingdom in general;" the Act abounded with forfeitures of ships and goods, besides pecuniary penalties. Charles II., in imitation of Cromwell, granted a charter of exclusive trade with new and arbitrary powers, to the East India Company. Contrary to all antecedent probability, India has to the present day been admirably governed by a joint-stock Corporation; but the monopoly of trade, and various powers of the Company conferred by the Charter of Charles II., however expedient they may have been in the infancy of oriental commerce, have vanished before a policy dictated by the revolution of Time. It may be doubted whether a "regard to the improvement of foreign commerce," or an opportunity for a lucrative bargain, whereby the necessity for a Parliament might be staved off, and the ways and means of vice and prodigality be supplied, were the stronger motive with Charles II., for the grant of exclusive trade to the East India Company, or for the transfer to that Corporation of a part of the dower of Queen Catharine, the Island of Bombay, "to be held by them in free and common socage, as of the Manor of East Greenwich, at the annual rent of ten pounds." By a very recent Act of Queen Victoria, (20th Vict. c. 64), entitled "An Act to repeal certain Statutes which are not in use," a hundred and eighteen Statutes that had lingered in the Statute Book were repealed. In this Index Expurgatorius we find a cloud of Confiscations and penalties antecedent to the reign of Charles II., which would appear to have been in force in 1856, and had, probably, not fallen into desuetude two hundred years ago; howbeit our law, does not, like that of Scotland, make distinctions of Statutes obsolete, half obsolete, and in viridi observantiâ. The recent Act, moreover, repeals among sleeping Statutes, one of the 12th of Charles II. ch. 32: "An Act against exporting wool, wool-fells, fuller's earth, or any kind of scouring earth;" and another of the 14th of Charles II. c. 18: "An Act against exporting of sheep-wool, wool-fells, mostlings, shorlings, yarn made of wool, wool-flocks, fuller's earth, fulling clay, and tobacco pipe-clay." Blackstone adduces as an example of one of the most useful Statutes against transporting of wool or sheep out of the Kingdom, to the "detriment of its staple manufacture," an unrepealed Act of Elizabeth, making the "transportation of live sheep, or embarking them on board any Ship, for the first offence forfeiture of goods, and imprisonment for a year, and, that, at the end of the year, the offender's left hand be cut off in some public market, and be there nailed up in the openest place; the second offence is felony, and punishable with death." With the like erroneous policy were passed, in the reign itself of Charles II., several Acts concerning wool, which were ordered to be read in Churches and at the Assizes and Quarter sessions, particularly burials in woollen, whereby a penalty was imposed for burying "any corpse in any shirt, shift, sheet, or shroud, or any thing whatsoever made or mingled with flax, hemp, silk, hair, gold or silver, or in any thing other than what is made of sheep's wool. only." This is the law which militated with the ruling passion and last infirmity of Pope's Narcissa: Odious, in woollen ! 'twould a Saint provoke ! As the wool manufacture was an object of unreasonable predilection with the Legislature of Charles II., so was tobacco its abomination, both to the manifest prejudice of the Community, and filling of the royal coffers. It appears from various proclamations, that tobacco had been extensively cultivated in England: by a Statute of Charles II., (22nd and 23rd Car. II.) power is given to sheriffs and constables, to "pluck up, burn, consume, tear in pieces, and utterly destroy all tobacco-seed, plant, leaf planted, sowed, or growing in any field, earth, or ground." Any neglect on the part of officers is punishable with a penalty of five shillings per pole of all tobacco surreptitiously planted. Pecuniary penalties, the spawn of the reign of Charles II., flowed from prohibitions of the importation of cattle, or of cured meat or provisions from Ireland, which offences were declared by the Legislature to be nuisances1. Retailers of coals were obliged, under penalty, to sell at particular rates. It was penal to buy fat cattle in Smithfield and to sell them there again; or for one butcher to sell cattle to another butcher; or to sell leather in a house or shop instead of bringing it into fairs and markets. There is a penalty of £100, imposed by one Act of Charles II., for importing "bonelace, catwork, embroidery fringe, bandstrings, buttons, or needlework." The King took share and share alike with a common informer of the treble of money borrowed upon usury; an Act of the reign confirming an ordinance of the Commonwealth for the reduction of the legal rate of interest to six per cent. The King's interest in the penalty was, perhaps, a cause of the long retention of the Usury Lawsof as much effect as the prohibition of Moses. The penal enactments which abounded in the reign of Charles II. may be viewed not merely in the light of exacting money from the People, but, also, in that of debarring them from the legitimate uses of property, and so far going back to a state antecedent to the establishment of Society, when it yet yet wanted the institution of property as a spur to national industry and improvement. The Subject, in the reign of Charles II., was in a like condition with regard to the enjoyment of property, as that in which, according to the opinions of the Stoics, every person not imbued with their philosophy was placed, viz. that of 1 See an interesting account of the debates on these Bills in Lord Campbell's Life of Clarendon. It was said in the House of Lords that no one could oppose these Bills who had not an "Irish estate, or an Irish understanding." committing some fault whenever they put forward a finger. "Digitum exsere, peccas." IV. Crown Rights in Property. The Domains of the Crown and its casual revenues were originally regarded as allotted to the Sovereign for public use; a maintenance for the establishments of peace and war, as well as for palaces, progresses, and largesses. In process of time, Supplies, under a variety of appellations, became indispensable for meeting the exigencies of the State, owing to the diminution of ancient revenues, and the accumulation and augmentation of modern wants. Afterwards, the Supplies came to be considered as the appropriate fund for defraying the general expences of the nation; the royal domains and casual revenues being treated as the peculium of the Sovereign in the capacity of proprietor. It is obvious, that, in whatever way, or to whatever extent, the ancient revenue of the Crown may have been squandered, it is sound policy, under a monarchical government, to keep open the purses of the Community for an ample and continual support of the Royal Dignity; but Blackstone's argument of a quid pro quo in the case may appear untenable, when he writes"The public patrimony, having, by improvident management, got into the hands of private Subjects, it is but reasonable that private contributions should supply the public service." This is to say, in other words, that inasmuch as Charles II. did not with his own teeth eat up the royal revenue received for perpetual public uses, but fed his mistresses and bastards with it, the present generation ought, in reason, to make compensation for what they vicariously enjoy by the mouths of the progenies of those mistresses and bastards. The question, which was illuminated by the pen of Junius, whether the timber in Whittlebury Forest was available for the navy, or was the property of the Duke of Grafton, turned on the construction of a grant of Charles II. to one of his bastards by an adulteress. The Resumption of Crown-lands was, in the reign of Charles II., in 1678, made the subject of a motion in the House of Commons; a kind of measure, for which, in ancient times, there had been thirty Acts of Parliament; but, as the Parliamentary History relates, 66 on a division, the Resumption was laid aside." The particulars of the debate on the subject are curious. It was argued that to resume Crown-lands granted since the 1st of James would "make an earthquake;" the Crown-lands, at the Restoration, were stated to have been of the value of £150,000 per annum. It was said, that there was always a distinction between the ancient patrimony of the Crown, and escheats, which were a casual revenue that the King had to give for reward of services. It appeared that the largest grants in the reign of Charles II. had been made to the Duke of Albermarle, and to the Earl of Sandwich, as it was said, "for his early repentance." its being alleged that a Member of the House, Sir Charles Herbert, was a large grantee, he stated that the King had granted him four manors of £400 per annum each, “Not a farthing of profit to me, as long as the Queen lives. I desired only a mark of my service, that is all." On In the reign of Charles II. it became a practice to make Supplies themselves part of the Crown's hereditary revenue, as in the instances of the Excise, Wine-licenses, and the Post Office, which included the exclusive right of letting post-horses for hire; besides tonnage and poundage, of which the King was made occupant for life. It appears from the recitals of a statute (22nd and 23rd Car. II. c. 6) that the duty from wine-licenses, which had been settled on the Duke of York by statute, had been purchased by the King for £24,000 per annum to the Duke and his heirs male, which bargain was confirmed by Parliament. Whilst the wine-licenses were in the Duke's hands, the demolition of brothels by the Apprentices occurred, by which, as the Duke complained, two brothel-keepers had their houses pulled down, who paid him each £15 a year for their wine-licenses. |