as if judges did not their duty, or ancient and sworn officers did not their duty, and the like: but it is only to set a custos or watchnian, neither over judges nor clerks, but only over a kind of people that cannot be sufficiently watched or overlooked, and that is, the common promoters or informers: the very awe and noise whereof will do much good, and the practice much more. I will, therefore, set down first, what is the abuse or inconvenience, and then what is the remedy which may be expected from the industry of this officer. And, I will divide it into two parts, the one, for that, that may concern the ease of your people, for with that will I crave leave to begin, as knowing it to be principal in your majesty's intention, and the other for that that may concern your majesty's benefit. Concerning the ease of his majesty's subjects, polled and vexed by common informers. The abuses or inconve niences. 1. An informer exhibits an information, and in that one information he will put a hundred several subjects of this information. Every one shall take out copies, and every one shall put in his several answer. This will cost perhaps a hundred marks that done, no further proceeding. But the clerks have their fees, and the informer hath his dividend for bringing the water to the mill. It is to be noted, that this vexation is not met with by any statute. For it is no composition, but a discontinuance; and in that case there is no penalty, but costs: and the poor subject will never sue for his costs, lest it awake the informer to revive his information, and so it escapeth clearly. 2. Informers receive pensions of divers persons to forbear them. And this is commonly of principal offenders, and of the wealthiest sort of tradesmen. For The remedies by the industry of the officer. if one tradesman may presume to break the law, and another not, he will be soon richer than his fellows. As, for example, if one draper may use tenters, because he is in fee with an informer, and others not, he will soon outstrip the good tradesman that keeps the law. And, if it be thought strange that any man should seek his peace by one informer, when he lieth open to all, the experience is otherwise: for one informer will bear with the friend of another, looking for the like measures. And, besides, they 1. The officer by his have devices to get pridiligence finding this ority of information, and case, is to inform the to put in an information court thereof, who there- "de bene esse," to preupon may grant good vent others, and to procosts against the infor-tect their pensioners. mer, to every of the sub- And if it be said this jects vexed: and withal is a pillory matter to not suffer the same in- the informer, and thereformer to revive his in-fore he will not attempt formation against any it; although therein the of them; and, lastly, statute is a little doubtfine him, as for a mis- ful: yet if hanging will demeanor and abuse of not keep thieves from justice: and by that stealing, it is not pillory time a few of such ex- will keep informers from polling. amples be made, they will be soon weary of that practice. 2. This is an abuse that appeareth not by any proceeding in court, because it is before suit commenced, and therefore requireth a particular inquiry. And, herein, Sir Stephen addeth a notable circumstance: that they will peruse a trade, as of brewers or victuallers, and if any stand out, and will not be in fee, they will find means to have a dozen informations come upon him at once. 3. The subject is often for the same offence vexed by several informations: sometimes the oneinformernotknowing of the other; and often by confederacy, to weary the party with charge upon every of which goeth process, and of But when it shall be the care and cogitation of one man to overlook informers, these things are easily discovered: for let him but look who they be that the informer calls in question, and hearken who are of the same trade in the same place and are spared, and it will be easy to trace a bargain. In this case, having discovered the abuse, he ought to inform the barons of the exchequer, and the king's learned counsel, that by the Star Chamber, or otherwise, such taxers of the king's subjects may be punished. 3. The officer keeping a book of all the informations put in, with a brief note of the matter, may be made acquainted with all informations to come in: and if he find a precedent for the same cause, he may inform some of every of them he must take copies, and make answers, and so relieve himself by motion of the court if he can; all which multiplieth charge and trouble. the barons, that by their Concerning the king's benefit, which may grow by a moderate prosecution of some penal laws. The abuses are inconveni ences. 1. After an information is exhibited and answered, for so the statute requires, the informer for the most part groweth to composition with the defendant; which he cannot do without peril of the statute, except he have license from the court, which license he ought to return by order and course of the court, together with a declaration upon his oath of the true sum that he takes for the composition. Upon which license so returned, the court is to tax a fine for the king. This ought to be, but as it is now used, the license is seldom returned. And although it contain a clause that the license shall be void, if it be not duly returned; yet the manner is to suggest that they are still in terms of composition, and so to obtain new days, and to linger it on till a Parliament and a pardon come. Also, when the license is returned, and thereupon the judge or baron to sesse a fine; there is none for the king to inform them of the nature of the offence; of the value to The remedies. grow to the king if the suit prevail; of the ability of the person, and the like. By reason whereof, the fine that is set is but a trifle, as 20, 30, or 40s., and it runs in a form likewise, which I do not well like for it is "ut parcatur misis," which purporteth, as if the party did not any way submit himself, and take the composition as of grace of the court, but as if he did justify himself, and were content to give a trifle to avoid charge. Which point of form hath a shrewd consequence: for it is some ground that the fine is set too weak. And as for the informer's oath touching his composition, which is commonly a trifle, and is the other ground of the smallness of the fine, it is, no doubt, taken with an equivocation: as taking such a sum in name of a composition, and some greater matter by some indirect or collateral mean. 1. The officer in this 2. An information goeth on to trial, and passeth for the king. In this case of recovery, the informer will be satisfied, and will take his whole moiety, for that he accounts to be no composition: that done, none will be at charge to return the "postea," and to procure judgment and execution for the king. For the informer hath that he sought for, the clerks will do nothing without fees paid, which, duly put in process, and answered. 2. The officer is to follow for the king, that the "posteas" be returned. there being no man to prosecute, there can be no man likewise to pay; and so the king loseth his moiety, when his title appears by verdict. 3. It falleth out sometimes in informations of weight, and worthy to be prosecuted, the informer dieth, or falls to poverty, or his mouth is stopped, and yet so as no man can charge him with composition, and so the matter dieth. 4. There be sundry seizures made, in case where the laws give seizures, which are released by agreements underhand, and so money wrested from the subject, and no benefit to the king. All seizures once made, ought not to be discharged, but by order of the court, and 3. The officer in such case, is to inform the king's learned counsel, that they may prosecute if they think fit. 4. The officer is to take knowledge of such seizures, and to give information to the court concerning them. This is of more difficulty, because seizures are matter in fact, whereas suits are matter of record: and it may require more persons to be employed, as at the ports, where is much abuse. therefore some entry ought to be made of them. There be other points wherein the officer may be of good use, which may be comprehended in his grant or instructions, wherewith I will not now trouble your majesty, for I hold these to be the principal. Thus have I, according to your majesty's reference, certified my opinion of that part of Sir Stephen Proctor's projects, which concerneth penal laws which I do wholly and most humbly submit to your majesty's high wisdom and judgment, wishing withal that some conference may be had by Mr. Chancellor and the barons, and the rest of the learned counsel, to draw the service to a better perfection. And most specially that the travels therein taken may be considered and discerned of by the lord treasurer, whose care and capacity is such, as he doth always either find or choose that which is best for your majesty's service. The recompense unto the gentleman, it is not my part to presume to touch, otherwise than to put your majesty in remembrance of that proportion, which your majesty is pleased to give to others out of the profits they bring in, and perhaps with a great deal less labour and charge. ADVICE TO THE KING, MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MAJESTY, TOUCHING MR. SUTTON'S ESTATE. I FIND it a positive precept of the old law, that there should be no sacrifice without salt: the moral whereof, besides the ceremony, may be, that God is not pleased with the body of a good intention, except it be seasoned with that spiritual wisdom and judgment, as it be not easily subject to be corrupted and perverted: for salt, in the Scripture, is a figure both of wisdom and lasting. This cometh into my mind, upon this act of Mr. Sutton, which seemeth to me as a sacrifice without salt; having the materials of a good intention, but not powdered with any such ordinances and institutions as may preserve the same from turning corrupt, or at least from becoming unsavoury, and of little For though the choice of the feoffees be of the best, yet neither can they always live; use. and the very nature of the work itself, in the vast and unfit proportions thereof, being apt to provoke a misemployment: it is no diligence of theirs, except there be a digression from that model, that can excuse it from running the same way that gifts of like condition have heretofore done. For to design the Charterhouse, a building fit for a prince's habitation, for an hospital, is all one as if one should give in alms a rich embroidered cloak to a beggar. And certainly a man may see "tanquam quæ oculis cernuntur," that if such an edifice, with six thousand pounds revenue, be erected into one hospital, it will in small time degenerate to be made a preferment of some great person to be master, and he to take all the sweet, and the poor to be stinted, and take but the crumbs; as it comes to pass in divers hospitals of this realm, which have but the names of hospitals, and are only wealthy benefices in respect of the mastership; but the poor, which is the "propter quid," little relieved. And the like hath been the fortune of much of the alms of the Roman religion in their great foundations, which being begun in vainglory and ostentation, have had their judgment upon them, to end in corruption and abuse. This meditation hath made me presume to write these few lines to your majesty; being no better than good wishes, which your majesty's great wisdom may make something or nothing of. Wherein I desire to be thus understood, that if this foundation, such as it is, be perfect and good in law, then I am too well acquainted with your majesty's disposition, to advise any course of power or profit that is not grounded upon a right: nay, farther, if the defects be such as a court of equity may remedy and cure, then I wish that, as St. Peter's shadow did cure diseases, so the very shadow of a good intention may cure defects of that nature. But if there be a right, and birthright planted in the heir, and not remediable by courts of equity, and that right be submitted to your majesty, whereby it is both in your power and grace what to do: then I do wish that this rude mass and chaos of a good deed were directed rather to a solid merit, and durable charity, than to a blaze of glory, that will but crackle a little in talk, and quickly extinguish. in the beginning, that in these great hospitals the revenues will draw the use, and not the use the revenues; and so, through the mass of the wealth, they will swiftly tumble down to a misemployment. And if any man say, that in the two hospitals in London there is a precedent of greatness concurring with good employment; let him consider that those hospitals have annual governors, that they are under the superior care and policy of such a state as the city of London; and, chiefly, that their revenues consist not upon certainties, but upon casualties and free gifts, which gifts would be withheld, if they appeared once to be perverted; so as it keepeth them in a continual good behaviour and awe to employ them aright; none of which points do match with the present case. The next consideration may be, whether this intended hospital, as it hath a more ample endowment than other hospitals have, should not likewise work upon a better subject than other poor; as that it should be converted to the relief of maimed soldiers, decayed merchants, householders aged, and destitute churchmen, and the like; whose condition, being of a better sort than loose people and beggars, deserveth both a more liberal stipend and allowance, and some proper place of relief, not intermingled or coupled with the basest sort of poor; which project, though specious, yet, in my judgment, will not answer the And this may be done, observing the species of Mr. Sutton's intent, though varying "in indi-designment in the event, in these our times. For viduo:" for it appears that he had in notion a triple good, a hospital, and a school, and maintaining of a preacher: which individuals refer to these three general heads; relief of poor, advancement of learning, and propagation of religion. Now, then, if I shall set before your majesty, in every of these three kinds, what it is that is most wanting in your kingdom; and what is like to be the most fruitful and effectual use of such a beneficence, and least like to be perverted; that, I think, shall be no ill scope of my labour, how meanly soever performed; for out of variety represented, election may be best grounded. Concerning the relief of the poor; I hold some number of hospitals, with competent endowments, | will do far more good than one hospital of an exorbitant greatness: for though the one course will be the more seen, yet the other will be the more felt. For if your majesty erect many, besides the observing the ordinary maxim, "Bonum, quo communius, eo melius," choice may be made of those towns and places where there is most need, and so the remedy may be distributed as the disease is dispersed. Again, greatness of relief, accumulated in one place, doth rather invite a swarm and surcharge of poor, than relieve those that are naturally bred in that place; like to ill-tempered medicines, that draw more humour to the part than they evacuate from it. But chiefly I rely upon the reason that I touched certainly few men in any vocation, which have been somebody, and bear a mind somewhat according to the conscience and remembrance of that they have been, will ever descend to that condition, as to profess to live upon alms, and to become a corporation of declared beggars; but rather will choose to live obscurely, and as it were to hide themselves with some private friends: so that the end of such an institution will be, that it will make the place a receptacle of the worst, idlest, and most dissolute persons of every profession, and to become a cell of loiterers, and cast serving-men, and drunkards, with scandal rather than fruit to the commonwealth. And of this kind I can find but one example with us, which is the alms-knights of Windsor; which particular would give a man a small encouragement to follow that precedent. Therefore the best effect of hospitals is, to make the kingdom, if it were possible, capable of that law, that there be no beggar in Israel for it is that kind of people that is a burden, an eyesore, a scandal and seed of peril and tumult in the state. But chiefly it were to be wished, that such a beneficence towards the relief of the poor were so bestowed, as not only the mere and naked poor should be sustained, but, also, that the honest person which hath hard means to live, upon whom the poor are now charged, should be in some sort eased: for that were a work generally acceptable of God to make a proceeding. Surely readers in the chair are as the parents in sciences, and deserve to enjoy a condition not inferior to their children, that embrace the practical part; else no man will sit longer in the chair, than till he can walk to a better preferment: and it will come to pass as Virgil saith, Ut patrum invalidí referant jejunia nati.” to the kingdom, if the public hand of alms might hath made a beginning, so this occasion is offered spare the private hand of tax: and, therefore, of all other employments of that kind, I commend most houses of relief and correction, which are mixed hospitals; where the impotent person is relieved, and the sturdy beggar buckled to work; and the unable person also not maintained to be idle, which is ever joined with drunkenness and impurity, but is sorted with such work as he can manage and perform; and where the uses are not distinguished, as in other hospitals; whereof some are for aged and impotent, and some for children, and some for correction of vagabonds; but are general and promiscuous: so that they may take off poor of every sort from the country as the country breeds them: and thus the poor themselves shall find the provision, and other people the sweetness of the abatement of the tax. Now, if it be objected, that houses of correction in all places have not done the good expected, as it cannot be denied, but in most places they have done much good, it must be remembered that there is a great difference between that which is done by the distracted government of justices of peace, and that which may be done by a settled ordinance, subject to a regular visitation, as this may be. And, besides, the want hath been commonly in houses of correction of a competent and certain stock, for the materials of the labour, which in this case may be likewise supplied. Concerning the advancement of learning, I do subscribe to the opinion of one of the wisest and greatest men of your kingdom: That for grammar schools, there are already too many, and, therefore, no providence to add where there is excess: for the great number of schools which are in your highness's realm, doth cause a want, and doth cause likewise an overflow; both of them inconvenient, and one of them dangerous. For by means thereof they find want in the country and towns, both of servants for husbandry, and apprentices for trade: and, on the other side, there being more scholars bred than the state can prefer and employ; and the active part of that life not bearing a proportion to the preparative, it must needs fall out, that many persons will be bred unfit for other vocations, and unprofitable for that in which they are brought up; which fills the realm full of indigent, idle, and wanton people, which are but "materia rerum novarum." Therefore, in this point, I wish Mr. Sutton's intention were exalted a degree; that that which he meant for teachers of children, your majesty should make for teachers of men; wherein it hath been my ancient opinion and observation, that in the universities of this realm, which I take to be of the best endowed universities of Europe, there is nothing more wanting towards the flourishing state of learning, than the honourable and plentiful salaries of readers in arts and professions. In which point, as your majesty's bounty already VOL. II.-31 For if the principal readers, through the meanness of their entertainment, be but men of superficial learning, and that they shall take their place but in passage, it will make the mass of sciences want the chief and solid dimension, which is depth; and to become but pretty and compendious habits of practice. Therefore, I could wish that in both the universities, the lectures as well of the three professions, divinity, law, and physic; as of the three heads of science, philosophy, arts of speech, and the mathematics; were raised in their pensions unto 1007. per annum apiece: which, though it be not near so great as they are in some other places, where the greatness of the reward doth whistle for the ablest men out of all foreign parts to supply the chair; yet it may be a portion to content a worthy and able man; if he be likewise contemplative in nature, as those spirits are that are fittest for lectures. Thus may learning in your kingdom be advanced to a farther height; learning, I say, which, under your majesty, the most learned of kings, may claim some degree of elevation. Concerning propagation of religion, I shall in few words set before your majesty three propositions, none of them devices of mine own, otherwise than that I ever approved them; two of which have been in agitation of speech, and the third acted. The first is a college for controversies, whereby we shall not still proceed single, but shall, as it were, double our files; which certainly will be found in the encounter. The second is a receipt (I like not the word seminary, in respect of the vain vows, and implicit obedience, and other things tending to the perturbation of states, involved in that term) for converts to the reformed religion, either of youth or otherwise; for I doubt not but there are in Spain, Italy, and other countries of the Papists, many whose hearts are touched with a sense of those corruptions, and an acknowledgment of a better way; which grace is many times smothered and choked, through a worldly consideration of necessity and want; men not knowing where to have succour and refuge. This likewise I hold a work of great piety, and a work of great consequence; that we also may be wise in our generation; and that the watchful and silent night may be used as well for sowing of good seed, as of tares. The third is, the imitation of a memorable and religious act of Queen Elizabeth; who, finding a part of Lancashire to be extremely backward in X |