106 MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS. 



with the advice of his council, he shall think fit to be re 

 moved ; or be the better provided to carry through such of 

 them as he shall think fit to be maintained, in case they 

 should be moved, and so the less surprised. 



First, therefore, to begin with the patents, we find three 

 sorts of patents, and those somewhat frequent, since the 

 session of 7mo, which in genere we conceive may be most 

 subject to exception of grievance ; patents of old debts, 

 patents of concealments, and patents of monopolies, and 

 forfeitures for dispensations of penal laws, together with 

 some other particulars, which fall not so properly under any 

 one head. 



In these three heads, we do humbly advise several courses 

 to be taken ; for the first two, of old debts and conceal 

 ments, for that they are in a sort legal, though there may 

 be found out some point in law to overthrow them ; yet it 

 would be a long business by course of law, and a matter 

 unusual by act of council, to call them in. But that, that 

 moves us chiefly, to avoid the questioning them at the 

 council table is, because if they shall be taken away by the 

 King s act, it may let in upon him a flood of suitors for re 

 compense ; whereas, if they be taken away at the suit of 

 the parliament, and a law thereupon made, it frees the King, 

 and leaves him to give recompense only where he shall be 

 pleased to intend grace. Wherefore we conceive the most 

 convenient way will be, if some grave and discreet gentle 

 men of the country, such as have lost relation to the court, 

 make, at fit times, some modest motion touching the same ; 

 and that his majesty would be graciously pleased to per 

 mit some law to pass (for the time past only, no ways touch 

 ing his majesty s regal power) to free the subjects from the 

 same; and so his majesty, after due consultation, to give 

 way unto it. 



For the third, we do humbly advise, that such of them, 

 as his majesty shall give way to have called in, may be 

 questioned before the council table, either as granted con 

 trary to his majesty s book of bounty, or found since to 

 have been abused in the execution, or otherwise by expe 

 rience discovered to be burdensome to the country. But 

 herein we shall add this farther humble advice, that it be 

 not done as matter of preparation to a parliament ; but that 

 occasion be taken, partly upon revising of the book of 

 bounty, and partly upon the fresh examples in Sir Henry 

 Yelverton s case of abuse and surreption in obtaining of 



