NOTE 3 S. 



read, all was then further deferred till Monday next, the time being now far 

 spent, and the house ready to rise. 



Extract from Dewe s Journal, 39 and 40 Eliz. 4 Feb. 1598, page 593. 

 Mr. Francis Bacon, one of the committees in the bill lately passed in the upper 

 house by the Lords, and sent down to this house, against the decaying of houses 

 and towns of husbandry, shewed the meeting and travel of the committees and 

 amendments to the same bill, which amendments being read to the house, was 

 very well liked of by the whole house. 



Extract from Dewe s Journal, 39 and 40 Eliz. 3rd Feb. 1598, page 592. 

 Mr. Francis Bacon, one of the committees in the bill lately passed in the upper 

 house, and sent down by the Lords to this house, entitled an act against the 

 decaying of towns and houses of husbandry, shewed the meeting of the com 

 mittees, and that the more part of them being employed in the committee of a 

 bill for the more speedy payment of the Queen s majesty s debts (who were 

 appointed on Tuesday, the 31st day of January foregoing), and in the bill for 

 the better explanation of the act made in the thirteenth year of her majesty s 

 reign, entitled an act to make the lands, tenements, goods and chattels of 

 tellers, receivers, &c. liable to the payment of their debts, they would proceed 

 in the said other bill, and so moved for another meeting for that purpose. 

 Whereupon it was ordered the same should be at two of the clock of the after 

 noon of this present day in the Exchequer Chamber. 



Extract from the Parliamentary History, 43 Reg. Eliz. Nov. 5, 1601, p. 436. 

 The famous Mr. Francis Bacon, so often mentioned before, stood up to make 

 a motion, and on the offering of a bill spoke thus : Mr. Speaker, I am not of 

 thejr minds that bring their bills into this house obscurely, by delivery only to 

 yovOself or the clerk, delighting to have the bills to be incerto authore, as 

 though they were either ashamed of their work, or afraid to father their own 

 children ; but I, Mr. Speaker, have a bill here, which I know I shall no sooner 

 be ready to offer, but you will be ready to receive and approve. I liken this 

 bill to that sentence of the poet, who set this as a paradox in the fore front of his 

 book, First water, then gold, preferring necessity before pleasure. And I am of 

 the same opinion that things necessary in use, are better than those things which 

 are glorious in estimation. This, Mr. Spea.ker, is no bill of state or novelty, like 

 a stately gallery for pleasure, but neither to dine in or to sleep in : but this bill 

 is a bill of repose, of quiet, of profit, of true and just dealings ; the title whereof 

 is, An Act for the better suppressing of abuses in weights and measures. We 

 have turned out divers bills without disputation ; and for a house of wisdom 

 and gravity as this is, to bandy bills like balls, and to be silent as if nobody 

 were of counsel with the commonwealth, is unfitting in my understanding for 

 the state thereof. I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, out of my own experience, that 

 I have learned and observed, having had causes of this nature referred to my 

 report ; that this fault of using false weights and measures has grown so intole 

 rable and common, that if you would build churches, you shall not need for 

 battlements and bells other than false weights of lead and brass ; and because 

 I would observe the advice given in the beginning of this parliament, that we 

 should make no new laws ; I have only made this bill a confirmation of the 

 statute of the llth of Henry VII. with a few additions, to which I will speak at 

 the passing of the bill, and shew the reasons of every particular clause, the 

 whole being a revival of a former statute ; for I take it far better to scour a 

 stream than to turn a stream : and the first clause is, &quot; That it is to extend to 

 the principality of Wales, to constrain them to have the like measures and 

 weights to us in England.&quot; 



Extract from the Journal of the House of Commons, 43 Eliz, 7 Nov. 1601, 

 page 632. Mr. Francis Bacon, after a repetition of somewhat was done yester 

 day, that the three pound men might not be excluded, he concluded that it was, 

 Duicis tractus pari jugo, therefore the poor as well as the rich not to be 

 exempted. 



Extract from Dewe s Journal, 43 Eliz. 13 Nov. 1601, page 636. Mr. Fran 

 cis Bacon said, It is far more honourable for this house in my opinion, when 

 our warrant shall move the principal member of justice, that when it shall com- 



