NOTE 3 S. 



mand a base, petty, or inferior servant to the clerk of the crown or the clerk o f 

 the petty bag, it will be said that our warrant emanuvit improvide, when we shall 

 direct our warrants to these base officers when we may move the great seal of 

 England by it, even as soon as either petty bag or petty officer. 



Extract from Dewe s Journal, 43 Eliz. 18 Nov. 1601, page 642. Mr. Bacon, 

 one of the committees in the bill touching process and pleadings in the court of 

 Exchequer, maketh report of the travel and meeting of the committees, and 

 brought in a new bill drawn to the same purpose ; upon the referring whereof 

 he spake as followeth (out of the private journal) : Mr. Speaker, This bill hath 

 been deliberately and judiciously considered of by the committees, before whom 

 Mr. Osborn came, who 1 assure this house did so discreetly demean himself, 

 and so submissively referred the state of this whole office to the committees, and 

 so well answered in his defence, that they would not ransack the heaps, or 

 sound the bottom of former offences, but only have taken away something that 

 was superfluous and needless to the subject. Touching the committees they 

 have reformed part ; yet they have not so nearly eyed every particular as if 

 they would pare to the quick an office of her majesty s gift and patronage. 

 This bill is both public and private : public, because it is to do unto the sub 

 ject; and private, because it does no injustice to the particular officer. The 

 committees herein have not taxed the officer by way of imputation, but removed 

 a task by removing way of imposition. I will not tell you what we have 

 taken away, either in quo titulos, in Exchequer language, or according to the 

 poet, who saith, Mitte id quod scio, die quod rogo ; I will omit that which you 

 have known, and tell you that you know not and are to know, and that in 

 familiar terms. And so he told the substance of the bill. We found that her 

 majesty, whose eyes are the candles of our good days, had made him an officer 

 by patent ; in which that he might have right, her majesty s learned counsel 

 were there in centinel to see that her majesty s right might not be suppressed. 

 If my memory hath failed me in the delivering of the truth of the proceeding, 

 and the committee s determination, I desire those that were present to help and 

 assist me. Here is the bill. So he called aloud to the serjeant of the house, 

 and delivered him the bill to deliver to the Speaker, which said bill was read 

 prima vice. 



Extract from the Journal of the House of Commons, 43 Eliz. 20 Nov. 1601, 

 page 644. Mr. Francis Bacon said, The gentleman that spake last coasted 

 so for and against the bill, that for my own part, not well hearing him, I do not 

 perfectly understand him. I confess, the bill as it is, is in few words, yet pon 

 derous and weighty. For the prerogative royal of the prince, for my own part, 

 I ever allowed of it, and it is such as shall never be discussed. The Queen, as 

 she is our sovereign, hath both an enlarging and distraining power. For by 

 her prerogative she may at first set at liberty things restrained by statute law or 

 otherwise ; and secondly, by her prerogative she may restrain things which be 

 at liberty. For the first, she may grant non obstante, contrary to the penal 

 laws, which truly, according to my own conscience (and so struck himself on 

 the breast), are as hateful to the subjects as monopolies. For the second, if 

 any man out of his own wit, industry, or endeavour finds out any thing bene 

 ficial for the commonwealth, or bring in any new invention, which every subject 

 of this kingdom may use ; yet, in regard of his pains and travels therein, her 

 majesty is pleased to grant him a privilege to use the same only by himself or 

 his deputies for a certain time. This is one kind of monopoly. Sometime, 

 there is a glut of things when they be in excessive quantity, as perhaps of corn, 

 and her majesty gives license of transportation to one man : this is another 

 kind of monopoly. Sometime there is a scarcity or small quantity, and the 

 like is granted also. These and divers of this nature have been in trial both at 

 the Common Pleas upon actions of trespass, where if the judges do find the 

 privilege good and beneficial to the commonwealth, they then will allow it ; 

 otherwise, disallow it. And also I know that her majesty herself hath given 

 commandment to her Attorney General to bring divers of them, since the last 

 parliament, to trial in the Exchequer, since which time at least fifteen or six 

 teen, to my knowledge, have been repealed; some by her majesty s express 



