ARGUMENT CONCERNING IMPOSITIONS, &c. 45 



by yielding those things which are not tenable, 

 and keeping the question within the true state 

 and compass ; which will discharge many popular 

 arguments, and contract the debate into a less 

 room. 



Wherefore I do deliver the question, and exclude 

 or set by, as not in question, five things. First, the 

 question is &quot; de portorio,&quot; and not &quot; de tribute,&quot; to 

 use the Roman words for explanation sake ; it is 

 not, I say, touching any taxes within the land, but 

 of payments at the ports. Secondly, it is not touch 

 ing any impost from port to port, but where &quot; claves 

 &quot; regni,&quot; the keys of the kingdom, are turned to let 

 in from foreign parts, or to send forth to foreign 

 parts, in a word, matter of commerce and inter 

 course, not simply of carriage or vecture. Thirdly, 

 the question is, as the distinction was used above 

 in another case, &quot; de vero et falso,&quot; and not &quot; de 

 &quot; bono et malo,&quot; of the legal point, and not of the 

 inconvenience, otherwise than as it serves to de 

 cide the law. Fourthly, I do set apart three com 

 modities, wool, wool-fells, and leather, as being 

 in different case from the rest ; because the cus 

 tom upon them is &quot; antiqua custuma.&quot; Lastly, 

 the question is riot, whether in matter of impos 

 ing the king may alter the law by his preroga 

 tive, but whether the king have not such a preroga 

 tive by law. 



The state of the question being thus cleared and 

 freed, my proposition is, that the king by the funda 

 mental laws of this kingdom hath a power to impose 



