nt;
"a practice frequent with skilful artists, when they desire to clear
the wheels from any rust which may have grown upon them. The engine,"
continued he, "may again be restored to its former use and motions,
provided it be put up entire, so as not a pin of it be wanting." But
this was far from the intention of the commons. The machine, they
thought, with some reason, was encumbered with many wheels and springs
which retarded and crossed its operations, and destroyed its utility.
Happy! had they proceeded with moderation, and been contented, in their
present plenitude of power, to remove such parts only as might justly be
deemed superfluous and incongruous.

In order to maintain that high authority which they had acquired, the
commons, besides confounding and overawing their opponents, judged
it requisite to inspire courage into their friends and adherents;
particularly into the Scots, and the religious Puritans, to whose
assistance and good offices they were already so much beholden.

No sooner were the Scots masters of the northern counties, than they
laid aside their first professions, which they had not indeed means
to support, of paying for every thing; and in order to prevent the
destructive expedient of plunder and free quarters, the country
consented to give them a regular contribution of eight hundred and fifty
pounds a day, in full of their subsistence.[*]

* Rush. vol. iii. p. 1295.

The parliament, that they might relieve the northern counties from so
grievous a burden, agreed to remit pay to the Scottish as well as to the
English army; and because subsidies would be levied too slowly for
so urgent an occasion, money was borrowed from the citizens upon the
security of particular members. Two subsidies, a very small sum,[*] were
at first voted; and as the intention of this supply was to indemnify the
members who by their private had supported public credit, this pretence
was immediately laid hold of, and the money was ordered to be paid,
not into the treasury, but to commissioners appointed by parliament;
a practice which as it diminished the authority of the crown, was
willingly embraced, and was afterwards continued by the commons with
regard to every branch of revenue which they granted to the king. The
invasion of the Scots had evidently been the cause of assembling the
parliament: the presence of their army reduced the king to that total
subjection in which he was now held: the commons, for th