exauditori, purgatori, malorum depulsori. I doubt not but we, here assembled for the commonwealth in this parliament, shall meet with all these attributes in our sovereign. I make no question but he will graciously hear our supplications, purge away our grievances, and expel malefactors; that is, remove ill ministers, and put good in their places. No less can be expected from his wisdom and goodness.

But let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, if we partake not of one attribute more in him; if we address not ourselves unto that, I mean bonorum conservatori, we can have no solid, no durable comfort in all the rest; for let his majesty hear our complaints never so compas. sionately; let him purge away our grievances never so efficaciously; let him punish and dispel ill ministers never so exemplarily; let him make choice of good ones never so exactly; yet if there be not a way settled to preserve and keep them good, the mischiefs and they will grow again like Sampson's locks, and pull down the house upon our heads. Believe it, Mr. Speaker, they will.

It hath been a maxim among the wisest legislators, that whosoever means to settle good laws, must proceed in them with a sinister opinion of all mankind, and suppose that whosoever is not wicked, it is for want only of the opportunity.

It is that opportunity of being ill, Mr. Speaker, that we must take away, if ever we mean to be happy; which can never be done, but by the frequency of parliaments.

No state can wisely be confident of any public minister's continuing good, longer than the rod is over him.

Let me appeal to all those that were present in this house, at the agitation of the petition of right; and let them tell us truly, of whose promotion to the management of affairs do they think the generality would at that time have had better hopes, than of the late Mr. Noy and sir Thomas Wentworth both being at that

time and in that business, as I have heard, most keen and active patriots, and the latter of them (to the eter inal aggravation of his infamous treachery to the commonwealth be it spoken) the first mover and insister to have this clause added to the petition of right: That, for the comfort and safety of his majesty's subjects, he would be pleased to declare his will and pleasure, that all his ministers should serve him according to the laws and statutes of the realm.

And yet, Mr. Speaker, to whom now can all the inundations upon our liberties, under pretence of law, and the late shipwreck, at once, of all our property, be attributed more than to Noy? and those, and all other mischiefs whereby this monarchy hath been brought almost to the brink of destruction, so much to any as to that grand apostate to the commonwealth, the now lieutenant of Ireland?

The first, I hope, God hath forgiven in the other world, and the latter must not hope to be pardoned in this, till he be dispatched to the other.

Let every man but consider those men as once they were. The excellent law for the security of the subject, enacted immediately before their coming into em ployment, in the contriving whereof themselves were principal actors; the goodness and virtue of the king they served, and yet the high and public oppressions that in his time they have wrought; and surely there is no man but will conclude with me, that, as the deficience of parliaments hath been the causa causarum of all the mischiefs and distempers of the present times, so the frequency of them is the sole catholic antidote that can preserve and secure the future from the like.

Mr. Speaker, let me yet draw my discourse a little nearer to his majesty himself, and tell you, that the frequency of parliaments is most essentially necessary to the power, the security, the glory of the king.

There are two ways, Mr. Speaker, of powerful rule ; either by fear or love; but only one of happy and safe VOL I.

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rule, that is, by love; that firmissimum imperium quo obedientes gaudent :-To this Camillus advised the Romans. Let a prince consider what it is that moves a people principally to affection and dearness towards their sovereign, he shall see that there needs no other artifice in it than to let them enjoy, unmolestedly, what belongs unto them of right: if that hath been invaded and violated in any kind, whereby affections are alienated, the next consideration for a wise prince, that would be happy, is how to regain them; to which three things are equally

necessary.

Re-instating them in their former liberty.

Avenging them of the authors of those violations. And, Securing them from apprehensions of the like again. The first, God be thanked, we are in a good way of. The second in warm pursuit of. But the third, as essential as all the rest 'till we be certain of triennial parlia. ments at the least, I profess I can have but cold hopes of. I beseech you then, since that security for the future is so necessary to that blessed union of affections, and this bill so necessary to that security, let us not be so wanting to ourselves, let us not be so wanting to our sovereign, as to forbear to offer unto him this powerful, this everlasting philter, to charm unto him the hearts of his people, whose virtue can never evaporate.

There is no man, Mr. Speaker, so secure of another's friendship, but will think frequent intercourse and access very requisite to the support, to the confirmation of it; especially if ill offices have been done between them; if the raising of jealousies have been attempted.

There is no friend but would be impatient to be debarred from giving his friend succour and relief in his necessities.

Mr. Speaker, permit me the comparison of great things with little; what friendship, what union can there be so comfortable, so happy, as between a gracious sovereign and his people? and what greater misfortune can there be to both, than to be kept from intercourse, from

the means of clearing misunderstandings, from interchange of mutual benefits?

The people of England, sir, cannot open their ears, their hearts, their mouths, or their purses to his majesty, but in parliament :-we can neither hear him, nor complain, nor acknowledge, nor give, but there.

This bill, sir, is the sole key that can open the way to a frequency of those reciprocal endearments, which must make and perpetuate the happiness of the king and kingdom.

Let no man object any derogation from the king's prerogative by it. We do but present the bill; it is to be made a law by him. His honour, his power, will be as conspicuous in commanding at once that parliaments shall assemble every third year, as in commanding a parliament to be called this or that year. There is more of majesty in ordaining primary and universal causes, than in the actuating particularly of subordinate effects.

I doubt not but that glorious king Edward III. when he made those laws for the yearly calling of parliaments, did it with a right sense of his dignity and honour.

The truth is, sir, the kings of England are never in their glory, in their splendor, in their majestic sovereignty, but in parliament.

Where is the power of imposing taxes? where is the power of restoring from incapacities? where is the legislative authority? why, marry, in the king, Mr. Speakerbut how? in the king, circled in, fortified, and evirtuated by his parliament.

The king, out of parliament, hath a limited, a circumscribed jurisdiction. But waited on by his parliament, no monarch of the East is so absolute in dispelling grievances.

Mr. Speaker, in chasing ill ministers, we do but dissipate clouds that may gather again; but in voting this bill, we shall contribute, as much as in us lies, to the perpetuating our sun, our sovereign, in his vertical, in his noon day lustre.

SIR JOHN WRAY,

(Member for Lincolnshire.)

His speech is chiefly remarkable for the great simplicity of the style, and as an instance of the manner in which an honest country gentleman, without much wit or eloquence, but with some pretensions to both, might be supposed to express himself at this period.

Sir John Wray's Speech.

Mr. Speaker,

I TAKE it we have now sat in this great council fifteen or sixteen weeks; a longer time than any parliament hath done these many years: God hath given us a fair and blessed opportunity, if we lay hold of it, and call to mind the best motto for a parliament, which is, non quam diu, sed quam bene.

Mr. Speaker, we have had thus long, under our fathers, many ostrich eggs, which, as some observe, are longest in hatching, but once hatched, can digest iron; and we have many irons in the fire, and have hammered some upon the anvil of justice into nails; but we have not struck one stroke with the right hammer, nor riveted one nail to the head.

Mr. Speaker, God forbid we should be cruel or vindictive to any; but let us take heed we be not so to ourselves, and them that sent us, if we do not mend our pace, and so run as we may obtain.

Mr. Speaker, I hope we shall make good the work we have undertaken, and win that prize and goal we aim at ; else, if we fail in this our pursuit of justice, it is time to look about us; for then I fear we ourselves shall

hardly escape scot-free. It will not be our six subsidies that will help us, unless we be good husbands, and cut