en so little satisfaction
to the commons;[*] an expedient by which Charles endeavored to persuade
the people that he had nowise receded from his former claims and
pretensions, particularly with regard to the levying of tonnage and
poundage. Selden also complained in the house, that one Savage, contrary
to the petition of right, had been punished with the loss of his ears,
by a discretionary or arbitrary sentence of the star chamber:[**] so apt
were they, on their part, to stretch the petition into such consequences
as might deprive the crown of powers which, from immemorial custom, were
supposed inherent in it.

But the great article on which the house of commons broke with the king,
and which finally created in Charles a disgust to all parliaments,
was their claim with regard to tonnage and poundage. On this occasion,
therefore, it is necessary to give an account of the controversy.

The duty of tonnage and poundage, in more ancient times, had been
commonly a temporary grant of parliament; but it had been conferred
on Henry V., and all the succeeding princes, during life, in order to
enable them to maintain a naval force for the defence of the kingdom.
The necessity of levying this duty had been so apparent, that each king
had ever claimed it from the moment of his accession; and the first
parliament of each reign had usually by vote conferred on the prince
what they found him already in possession of. Agreeably to the
inaccurate genius of the old constitution, this abuse, however
considerable, had never been perceived nor remedied; though nothing
could have been easier than for the parliament to have prevented
it.[***]

* State Trials, vol. vii. p. 216. Rushworth, vol. i. p. 643.

** State Trials, vol. vii. p. 216. Parl. Hist. vol. viii. p.
246.

*** Parl. Hist. vol. viii. p. 339, 343.

By granting this duty to each prince during his own life, and for a
year after his demise to the successor, all inconveniencies had been
obviated; and yet the duty had never for a moment been levied without
proper authority. But contrivances of that nature were not thought of
during those rude ages; and as so complicated and jealous a government
as the English cannot subsist without many such refinements, it is easy
to see how favorable every inaccuracy must formerly have proved to
royal authority, which, on all emergencies, was obliged to supply, by
discretionary power, the great deficiency of the laws.

T