ready money in open market (when the
royal residence was more permanent, and specie began to be plenty)
being found upon experience to be the best proveditor of any.
Wherefore by degrees the powers of purveyance have declined, in
foreign countries as well as our own; and particularly were abolished
in Sweden by Gustavus Adolphus, toward the beginning of the last
century[r]. And, with us in England, having fallen into disuse during
the suspension of monarchy, king Charles at his restoration consented,
by the same statute, to resign intirely these branches of his revenue
and power, for the ease and convenience of his subjects: and the
parliament, in part of recompense, settled on him, his heirs, and
successors, for ever, the hereditary excise of fifteen pence _per_
barrel on all beer and ale sold in the kingdom, and a proportionable
sum for certain other liquors. So that this hereditary excise, the
nature of which shall be farther explained in the subsequent part of
this chapter, now forms the sixth branch of his majesty's ordinary
revenue.

[Footnote q: 4 Inst. 273.]

[Footnote r: Mod. Un. Hist. xxxiii. 220.]

VII. A SEVENTH branch might also be computed to have arisen from wine
licences; or the rents payable to the crown by such persons as are
licensed to sell wine by retale throughout England, except in a few
privileged places. These were first settled on the crown by the
statute 12 Car. II. c. 25. and, together with the hereditary excise,
made up the equivalent in value for the loss sustained by the
prerogative in the abolition of the military tenures, and the right of
pre-emption and purveyance: but this revenue was abolished by the
statute 30 Geo. II. c. 19. and an annual sum of upwards of L7000 _per
annum_, issuing out of the new stamp duties imposed on wine licences,
was settled on the crown in it's stead.

VIII. AN eighth branch of the king's ordinary revenue is usually
reckoned to consist in the profits arising from his forests. Forests
are waste grounds belonging to the king, replenished with all manner
of beasts of chase or venary; which are under the king's protection,
for the sake of his royal recreation and delight: and, to that end,
and for preservation of the king's game, there are particular laws,
privileges, courts and officers belonging to the king's forests; all
which will be, in their turns, explained in the subsequent books of
these commentaries. What we are now to consider are only the profit