ed of as illegal.
But if proclamations had authority, of which nobody pretended to doubt,
must they not be put in execution? In no instance I must confess, does
it more evidently appear, what confused and uncertain ideas were during
that age entertained concerning the English constitution.

Ray, having exported fuller's earth, contrary to the king's
proclamation, was, besides the pillory, condemned in the star chamber
to a fine of two thousand pounds.[****] Like fines were levied on
Terry, Eman, and others, for disobeying a proclamation which forbade
the exportation of gold.[v] In order to account for the subsequent
convulsions, even these incidents are not to be overlooked as frivolous
or contemptible. Such severities were afterwards magnified into the
greatest enormities.

There remains a proclamation of this year, prohibiting hackney coaches
from standing in the street.[v*] We are told, that there were not above
twenty coaches of that kind in London. There are at present near eight
hundred.

* Lord Lansdown, p. 515. This story is told differently in
Hobart's Reports, p. 120. It there appears, that Markham was
fined only five hundred pounds, and very deservedly; for he
gave the lie and wrote a challenge to Lord Darcy. James was
anxious to discourage the practice of duelling, which was
then very prevalent.

** Rush. vol. ii. p. 144.

*** Rush. vol. ii, p. 288.

**** Rush. vol. ii. p. 348.

v Rush. vol. ii. p. 360.

v* Rush. vol. ii. p. 316.

{1636.} The effects of ship money began now to appear. A formidable
fleet of sixty sail, the greatest that England had ever known, was
equipped under the earl of Northumberland, who had orders to attack
the herring busses of the Dutch, which fished in what were called the
British seas. The Dutch were content to pay thirty thousand pounds for
a license during this year. They openly denied, however, the claim of
dominion in the seas beyond the friths, bays, and shores; and it may be
questioned whether the laws of nations warrant any further pretensions.

This year, the king sent a squadron against Sallee; and, with the
assistance of the emperor of Morocco, destroyed that receptacle of
pirates, by whom the English commerce, and even the English coasts, had
long been infested.

{1637.} Burton, a divine, and Bastwick, a physician, were tried in the
star chamber for seditious and schismatical libels, and were cond