They put an end to all equivocation respecting the King's claim to levy tonnage and poundage, which had been so long in controversy, by another act declaring in explicit terms that no subsidy, custom, impost or any charge whatsoever shall be imposed or laid on any merchandise, imported or exported by subjects, denizens or aliens, without common consent in Parliament. After providing these fundamental barriers for the protection of the people against arbitrary taxation-barriers so effectual that there has never been any attempt since to overleap them in the domestic administration of England-this enlightened and never to be forgotten Parliament proceeded to provide a security (even more necessary and indispensable) for the protection of personal liberty against the power of arbitrary imprisonment, which we have seen so frequently and wantonly exercised by the King in this reign and so shamelessly sustained by the decision of his Judges. In an act passed by them for the abolition of the hateful and iniquitous tribunal of the Star-Chamber, it was specially enacted as a sacred principle of English liberty that if any person be committed by the privy council or any of them, or by the King's special command, he shall have his writ of Habeas Corpus, in the return to which the officer, in whose custody he is, shall certify the true cause of his commitment, and the court from whence the writ issued shall, within three days thereafter, determine whether the cause so certified is a legal and sufficient ground to warrant the detention of the prisoner, and discharge or remand him accordingly. So important a safeguard was this for the liberty of the people, that

a statute founded upon it and adding only a few supplemental details respecting its execution, which passed in the reign of Charles II. has been styled by a learned commentator* on the Laws of England, the bulwark of the Constitution.

A melancholy and disgraceful experience having shewn what servile tools of tyranny, Judges who held their offices at the pleasure of the King were prone to become, Charles was prevailed upon by the earnest representations of this Parliament to give all the Judges patents during good behaviour, instead of patents during pleasure. Thus another great principle, which more than half a century afterwards was incorporated into the Act of Settlement as a fundamental security of the public liberty, owes its practical assertion at this early period to the wise and vigilant statesmen who now ruled the parliamentary councils of England. Seeing in the long and frequent disuse of Parliaments during this reign the prolific source of national calamities and oppression as well as a flagrant violation of the vital principle of a free constitution, they provided another security for public liberty, (at that time of the highest importance,) in the act for Triennial Parliaments, by which the Chancellor or keeper of the great seal was required, under heavy penalties, to issue writs for a new Parliament within three years from the termination of the last, and in case of his failure, the Peers were enjoined to do so, and if they failed, then the sheriffs, and in their default, then the electors themselves were authorized to hold elections; and it was farther enacted, that no fu

* Blackstone.

ture Parliament should be dissolved or adjourned without their own consent, in less than fifty days from the opening of the session. The nation shewed its sense of the value of this acquisition by celebrating its achievement with bonfires and every demonstration of public joy.

By these fundamental acts, with others of a subsidiary character, which were consummated, through a throng of opposing difficulties, within nine months after the opening of this memorable Parliament, the fabric of British liberty rose again in lofty and majestic proportions. With effectual securities provided against arbitrary taxation and for the protection of personal liberty-the redress of private wrongs confided to a Judiciary to be henceforward independent, and the correction of public abuses ensured by frequent and regular conventions of a free Parliament-nothing seemed wanting to the integrity of the ancient and prescriptive rights of English freemen. For the preservation of these invaluable privileges, when they were exposed to their greatest peril, the English people and all who have inherited any portion of their free institutions, must forever stand indebted to the master-spirits who presided over the arduous labours of the first session of the Long Parliament, and to their illustrious predecessors, the brave and wise and noble patriots who had valiantly sustained the same struggle through forty years of incessant conflict. With the irrefutable testimony of history before his eyes, proving beyond controversy that this succession of great men and patriots were the true saviours and restorers of British freedom, and the real authors

of some of the very constitutional provisions he most exalts, is it not marvellous that the learned but courtly Commentator on the Laws of England, whom I have just quoted, should refer "the complete restitution of English liberty," not to the æra of the glorious struggle we have been reviewing, but to the profligate and corrupt times of Charles II.* I am happy to be able to set off against so imposing an authority that of a most accurate, judicious and discriminating writer on the Constitutional History of England,† who, though far from approving the subsequent proceedings of this Parliament, yet declares that its earlier acts "have given it a higher claim to the gratitude of the nation, and effected more for English liberty than any which had gone before or has followed it," and that it is from this "æra of 1640-1, rather than from the Revolution of 1688, or any other epoch, we must date the full legal establishment of the liberties of England."

These great measures having been carried, and articles of pacification concluded with the Scots, the Parliament after an uninterrupted session of nine months filled with labours and cares of the most momentous character determined to take a short recess, while the King was making a journey into Scotland to conciliate more effectually the discontented spirits of his native country. The Parliament appointed a committee, consisting of two or three members of each House, to accompany him, for the alleged purpose of seeing the articles of pacification executed

* Commentaries on the Laws of England, last chapter of 4th volume. + Hallam.

by the Scots, but more probably, from a jealousy of the King's designs, whose route lay through both the English and Scottish armies, which were then disbanding. For this jealousy some foundation had been afforded by the revelation of circumstances, a short time before, which seemed to implicate the King in a plot to bring the army up to London to awe or dissolve the Parliament. Hampden and Sir Philip Stapleton were the members of the committee on the part of the House of Commons, and actually accompanied the King. During the time of the King's visit to Scotland, an insurrection of the Roman Catholic population of Ireland took place, marked by massacres and butcheries of the helpless Protestants more horrible and appalling than any recorded in history. Though there never has been any sufficient evidence that these shocking scenes of carnage were instigated by the King, yet it was known that the insurgents pretended authority, and some of them boasted actual commissions, from him, and it is not to be wondered at, therefore, that suspicions were entertained by many, at that time, that he was not wholly unconnected with those dreadful occurrences.

Other circumstances combined with these to inflame the prevailing distrust of the King's purposes; and when the Parliament re-assembled, a temper of less calmness and sobriety was observed among the members. One of the first proceedings of this session was the presentation by a committee of what has been called the Grand Remonstrance, a paper elaborately prepared, containing a vivid and animated summary of all the grievances and misgovernment