y. Some conferences ensued between the houses where the
lords were tenacious of their right of judicature, and maintained, that
the method in which they had exercised it was quite regular. The commons
rose into a great ferment; and went so far as to vote, that "whoever
should be aiding or assisting in putting in execution the order or
sentence of the house of lords, in the case of Skinner against the East
India Company, should be deemed a betrayer of the rights and liberties
of the commons of England, and an infringer of the privileges of the
house of commons." They rightly judged, that it would not be easy, after
this vote, to find any one who would venture to incur their indignation.
The proceedings indeed of the lords seem in this case to have been
unusual and without precedent.

{1669.} The king's necessities obliged him again to assemble the
parliament, who showed some disposition to relieve him. The price,
however, which he must pay for this indulgence, was his yielding to
new laws against conventicles. His complaisance in this particular
contributed more to gain the commons, than all the pompous pretences
of supporting the triple alliance, that popular measure by which he
expected to make such advantage. The quarrel between the two houses was
revived; and as the commons had voted only four hundred thousand pounds,
with which the king was not satisfied, he thought proper, before they
had carried their vote into a law, to prorogue them. The only business
finished this short session, was the receiving of the report of the
committee appointed for examining the public accounts. On the first
inspection of this report, there appears a great sum, no less than a
million and a half, unaccounted for; and the natural inference is, that
the king had much abused the trust reposed in him by parliament But a
more accurate inspection of particulars serves, in a great measure,
to remove this imputation. The king indeed went so far as to tell the
parliament from the throne, "that he had fully informed himself of that
matter, and did affirm, that no part of those moneys which they had
given him had been diverted to other uses; but, on the contrary, besides
all those supplies, a very great sum had been raised out of his standing
revenue and credit, and a very great debt contracted; and all for the
war." Though artificial pretences have often been employed by kings
in their speeches to parliament, and by none more than Charles, it is