54? ARGUMENT CONCERNING 



modern more submiss ; for in the ancient form some 

 times they insert a flat condition that the king shall 

 not further impose ; in the latter they humbly pray 

 that the merchants may be demeaned without op 

 pression, paying those rates ; but whether it be 

 supplication, or whether it be condition, it rather im- 

 plieth the king hath a power ; for else both were 

 needless, for &quot; conditio annectitur ubi libertas pras- 

 &quot; sumitur,&quot; and the word oppression seemeth to refer 

 to excessive impositions. And thirdly, that the sta 

 tutes of tonnage and poundage are but &quot; cumula 

 tive&quot; and not &quot; privative&quot; of the king s power prece 

 dent, appeareth notably in the three pence overplus, 

 which is paid by the merchants strangers, which 

 should be taken away quite, if those statutes were 

 taken to be limitations ; for in that, as was touched 

 before, the rates are equal in the generality between 

 subjects and strangers, and yet that imposition, not 

 withstanding any supposed restriction of these acts of 

 subsidies of tonnage and poundage, remaineth at this 

 day. 



The sixth consideration is likewise of an objec 

 tion, which is matter of practice, viz. that from R. IFs. 

 time to Q. Mary, which is almost 200 years, there 

 was an intermission of impositions, as appeareth both 

 by records and the custom-books. 



To which I answer ; both that we have in effect 

 an equal number of years to countervail them, namely* 

 100 years in the times of the three kings Edwards 

 added to 60 of our last years ; and &quot; extrema obru- 



