309 



COKE, J. W. 



COLBERT, JEAN BAPTISTE. 



310 



to concur in the measure, which was, at laat, and after many ineffectual 

 attempts at evasion, reluc'-intly assented to by the kiug. One of the 

 last acts of his public life was his spirited denunciation of the Duke 

 of Buckingham as the cause of all the misfortunes of the country. 

 As a proof of the earnest feelings by which he was impressed, Rush- 

 worth records that, on this occasion, " Sir Edward Coke, overcome 

 with passion, seeing the desolation likely to ensue, was forced to sit 

 down when he began to speak, through the abundance of tears." At 

 the close of the session of parliament in March 1629, the growing 

 infirmities of advanced age induced him to withdraw from public life, 

 and to spend the remainder of his days in retirement on his estate at 

 Stoke Pogis, in Buckinghamshire. Still it appears that his vigorous 

 and active mind was not without employment ; and the last years of 

 his life are said to have been occupied by the revision of the numerous 

 works which he left behind him. 



The last entry in his note-book, written with almost as firm a hand 

 as he wrote at the age of forty, records the following incident, which 

 may possibly have been the cause of his death : 



" Memorandum. Die Jovis, the iii rd of May 1632, riding in the 

 morning in Stoke, between eight and nine of the clocke to take the 

 ayre, my horse under me had a strange stumble backward, and fell 

 upon me (being above eighty years old), where my head lighted nere 

 to sharpe stubbes, and the heavy horse upon me. And yet, by the 

 providence of Almighty God, though I was in the greatest danger, yet 

 I had not the least hurt, nay, no hurt at all. For Almighty Qod 

 saith by his prophet David, ' The angel of the Lord tarrieth round 

 about them that feare him, and delivereth them.' Et nomen Domini 

 benedictum, for it was his work ! " 



He died on the 3rd of September, in the following year, repeating 

 with his last breath the words, " Thy kingdom come, thy will be 

 done ; " and was buried in the family burying-place of the Coke family 

 in the church of Titeshall, in Norfolk. 



The most celebrated of Sir Edward Coke's works is the treatise 

 commonly known by the name of ' Coke upon Littleton, or the First 

 Institute.' It consists of a minute and laborious commentary upon 

 the text of Littleton's ' Tenures,' in the course of which almost the 

 whole learning of the common law, as it existed in his time, is digested 

 and explained. This book has ever since the time of Lord Coke to the 

 present day .been considered as a work of the highest authority in the 

 municipal and constitutional law of England. The ' Second Institute ' 

 contains noteg on several ancient statutes; the 'Third Institute' is a 

 treatise on criminal law ; and the ' Fourth Institute ' treats of the 

 origin and jurisdiction of different courts. Besides these works, Sir 

 Edward Coke was the author of a treatise on copyholds, entitled ' The 

 Complete Copyholder,' and a ' Reading on Fines.' He also published 

 a collection of Reports, which are still of great value to the profession, 

 and at the time of their appearance formed an epoch in the history of 

 the law. Sir Francis Bacon speaks of this produce of the industry and 

 learning of his great rival in terms of high and deserved commenda- 

 tion; and justly acribes to the Reports the praise of having pre- 

 served the vessel of the common law in a steady and consistent course ; 

 " For the law," says he, " by this time had been like a ship without 

 ballast, for that the cases of modern experience are fled from those 

 that are adjudged and ruled in former time." It would have been 

 well for the critical fame of Coke had he spoken in as honourable 

 terms of his greater rival's philosophical labours. 



(Many of the dates and incidents in this sketch of Sir E. Coke's life 

 are taken from some characteristic memoranda in his own hand-writing 

 prefixed to a volume of Notes among the Harleian manuscripts in the 

 British Museum, No. 66S7. It is remarkable that these Notes had 

 not been referred to by any of Coke's numerous biographers before the 

 publication of this biography in the ' Penny Cycloptedla.') 



COKE, J. W. [LEICESTER, EARL OP.] 



COLBE'RT, JEAN BAPTISTE, born in 1619, at Rheims, was 

 brought up to business. Ho was first employed at Lyou, in a com- 

 mercial house, and afterwards went to Paris, where he was introduced, 

 about 1648, to Mazarin, who employed him first as an amanuensis, 

 but afterwards made him intendant or steward of his vast fortune. 

 Mazarin appointed him his executor on his death-bed in 1661, and 

 recommended him to the king as a man deserving all his confidence. 

 Louis XIV., on appointing Colbert contruleur-gc'neral des finauces, had 

 many conferences with him, which led to the dismissal and imprison- 

 ment of Fouquet, the superintendent of the finances, who had assisted 

 in dilapidating the resources of the state to serve the cupidity of 

 Mazariu. On the trial there was a manifest anxiety on the part of 

 the court and of Colbert to have Fouqnct condemned to death, but 

 D'Ormesson, one of the reporting judges, stood firm ; he found much 

 abuse and inal administration, but no proof of peculation. Fouquet 

 was condemned to banishment, and his property was confiscated. 

 Louii XIV. aggravated this sentence into imprisonment for life in the 

 citadel of PigneroL 



Colbert advised the king to form a chamber of justice for the liqui- 

 dation of the debts of the state. The finances were in a ruinous 

 condition ; out of eighty-four millions which the people paid the 

 treasury received only thirty-two. The farmers of the revenue had in 

 their hands all the resources of the kingdom ; it was calculated that 

 during the last five years they had appropriated to themselves eighty 

 millions. They w~re now called to n severe account; and all the 



forms of inquisitorial process, torture not excluded, were employed to 

 convict them. The result was that Colbert recovered for the king the 

 sources of the public revenue, and reduced the debts of the state by 

 an arbitrary composition, which was in fact a real bankruptcy. Having 

 got rid of the burdens, he next applied himself to simplify and im- 

 prove the collection of the revenue. He reduced by two-fifths the 

 tallies, or land and income tax, which was unequally distributed, 

 owing to the exemptions of the privileged classes. Finding this tax 

 unmanageable, Colbert preferred reducing it, to make it weigh less 

 heavily on the poorer classes. He founded his chief dependence on 

 indirect taxation, or taxes upon consumption, which he raised not less 

 than ten-fold. Besides the octroi, or barrier duty on provisions, of 

 which he appropriated one half to the treasury, and the aides or 

 excise duties on wine aud spirits, he imposed a stamp duty upon 

 paper used in commercial aud j udicial proceedings, a stamp on plate, 

 a duty on paper, a licence duty, and he established the monopoly of 

 tobacco, &o. He also made a new aud minute tariff for the custom 

 duties. At his death (1683) the regular revenue of France was 

 116 millions of livres, of which 23 millions were absorbed by the 

 charges of collection and administration, and the rentes or annuities 

 due by the state, leaving 92 millions of net receipt, instead of 32, 

 which he had found when entering office twenty-two years before. 

 (Leuiontey, ' Pieces Justificatives.') One-half only of this increase 

 was obtained through additional taxation ; the other half was the 

 result of better order and economy. Colbert however had to deal 

 with a sovereign, absolute, young, fond of pleasure, of pomp, and of 

 war, seconded by an ambitious and unprincipled minister, Louvois. 

 In the latter years of his administration, Colbert was therefore obliged, 

 despite of his often-expressed aversion to loans, to have recourse to 

 ruinous loans, an increase of the oppressive tallies, the sale of offices 

 aud honours, and other extraordinary or war expedients. This took 

 place during the second war of Louis XIV., which began in 1672, and 

 ended by the peace of Nimeguen, 1678-79. 



Colbert's most strenuous and effective efforts were directed to the 

 encouragement of commerce and manufactures. To accomplish his 

 object, he adopted the only means known at that time, perhaps the 

 only means practicable in his situation, and under such a government 

 as that of Louis XIV., privileges, patents, monopolies, bounties, aud 

 honours. He is generally looked upon as the inventor, or at least the 

 great propagator, of the system of the balance of trade. He made 

 numerous regulations to protect, as it was then called, the various 

 branches of national industry. He also forbade the exportation of 

 corn with the view of insuring plenty, but the result was that culti- 

 vation declined, and France suffered several severe dearths under his 

 administration. He is accused of having sacrificed agriculture to 

 manufactures, but in fact his principles were erroneous with regard 

 to both. One merchant, more enlightened than the rest, being con- 

 sulted by him on the best means of favouring commerce, answered 

 him, " Laissez faire et laissez passer," " let us alone, leave us free and 

 uncontrolled in our transactions, and let goods pass freely," advice 

 which Colbert did not understand. In the subsequent century there 

 rose in France another school, opposite to his, which saw in agricul- 

 ture alone the real wealth of a state : these men were called " econo- 

 inistes." Mengotti, in his sensible treatise 'II Colbertismo,' has 

 explained the principles and exposed the errors of both. But what- 

 ever may be thought of Colbert's measures, he certainly succeeded in 

 giving a great impulse to French industry; he roused and directed 

 the national mind towards a new and useful exercise of its faculties : 

 the history of French manufactures may be said to begin with Colbert. 

 Woollens, silk, glass, pottery, leather, and iron manufactures, were 

 either created by him, or greatly enlarged and improved. He founded 

 Quebec and Cayenne, made new settlements in India and on the coast 

 of Africa, and favoured the colonies of Martinique and St. Domingo. 

 He chartered privileged companies for the East and West Indies. Ho 

 turned his attention to internal communications, restored the old 

 roads, constructed new ones, planned and effected the great canal of 

 Languedoc, and projected another in Bui-gundy. He also established 

 a free port at Marseille, sent consuls to the Levant, and thus secured 

 to France a considerable part of that valuable trade. He bought 

 Dunkerque and Murdyk, on the coast of Flanders, from Charles II. of 

 England for the sum of five millions of livres (1662). He also founded 

 the dockyards of Brest, Toulon, and Itochefort. When he was made 

 minister of marine, in 1669, in addition to the other departments 

 he held, France had only a few old ships of war rotting in the 

 harbours. Colbert purchased new ones abroad, constructed others at 

 home, and in 1672 France had sixty ships of the lino and forty frigates. 

 But this creation of a navy was extended by the ambition of tlie king 

 much beyond Colbert's original views, which were chiefly directed to 

 the protection of the merchant trade. 



Colbert brought the light of science into the various departments 

 of the administration : his arrangement of the various offices, and the 

 distribution of labour in each, have been highly extolled. He caused 

 the first statistical tables of the population to be made out, and he 

 collected the old charters and historical records of the kingdom. He 

 removed the king's library to better premises, and increased it from 

 16,000 to 40,000 volumes. At the same time he formed his own 

 extensive and valuable library, the manuscripts of which alone amounted 

 to 14,300 volumes, which his grandson afterwards sold to the kiug. 



