g patents should be repealed, and no
more be granted.'

The speeches of the members are a very favourable specimen of the
parliamentary oratory of Queen Elizabeth's reign, as may be seen from
the following delivered by Mr Martin. He is no philosopher, it will be
observed, in political economy, but speaks from the actual grievances
witnessed by him. 'I speak for a town that grieves and pines--for a
country that groaneth and languisheth under the burden of monstrous
and unconscionable substitutes to the monopolitans [meaning
sub-monopolists, who paid so much for enjoying the monopoly in a
certain district] of starch, tin, fish, cloth, oil, vinegar, salt, and
I know not what--nay, what not? The principal commodities both of my
town and country are engrossed into the hands of those blood-suckers
of the commonwealth. If a body, Mr Speaker, being let blood, be left
still languishing without any remedy, how can the good estate of that
body long remain? Such is the state of my town and country. The
traffic is taken away. The inward and private commodities are taken
away, and dare not be used without the licence of these monopolitans.
If these blood-suckers be still let alone to suck up the best and
principal commodities which the earth hath given us, what shall become
of us from whom the fruits of our own soil and the commodities of our
own labour--which, with the sweat of our brows, even up to the knees
in mire and dirt, we have laboured for--shall be taken by warrant of
supreme authority which the poor subjects dare not gainsay?' Another
member, Sir Andrew Hobby, on the opposite side, started up, and said,
'that betwixt Michaelmas and St Andrews tide, where salt before the
patent was wont to be sold for 16d. a bushel, it is now sold for 14d.
or 15d. a bushel.'[4]

The Stuart monarchs were not, as the world too well knows, so wise as
Queen Elizabeth. King James found the granting of monopolies a very
convenient way of making a revenue. It saved him from coming in
contact with a discontented parliament; and whatever heartburnings it
might create, did not immediately affect his own royal comfort.
Accordingly, he granted a number of monopolies both of necessaries and
luxuries. This created a system of the grossest oppression; since the
great monopolists not only made as much as they could at the expense
of the people, but sold portions of their monopolies to grasping,
rapacious underlings, who conveyed the grievance into every