rs; which is called
butlerage, because paid to the king's butler[y].

[Footnote y: Dav. 8. _b._ 2 Bulstr. 254.]

OTHER customs payable upon exports and imports are distinguished into
subsidies, tonnage, poundage, and other imposts. Subsidies are such as
were imposed by parliament upon any of the staple commodities before
mentioned, over and above the _custuma antiqua et magna_: tonnage was
a duty upon all wines imported, over and above the prisage and
butlerage aforesaid: poundage was a duty imposed _ad valorem_, at the
rate of 12_d._ in the pound, on all other merchandize whatsoever: and
the other imports were such as were occasionally laid on by
parliament, as circumstances and times required[z]. These distinctions
are now in a manner forgotten, except by the officers immediately
concerned in this department; their produce being in effect all
blended together, under the one denomination of the customs.

[Footnote z: Dav. 11, 12.]

BY these we understand, at present, a duty or subsidy paid by the
merchant, at the quay, upon all imported as well as exported
commodities, by authority of parliament; unless where, for particular
national reasons, certain rewards, bounties, or drawbacks, are allowed
for particular exports or imports. Those of tonnage and poundage, in
particular, were at first granted, as the old statutes, and
particularly 1 Eliz. c. 19. express it, for the defence of the realm,
and the keeping and safeguard of the seas, and for the intercourse of
merchandize safely to come into and pass out of the same. They were at
first usually granted only for a stated term of years, as, for two
years in 5 Ric. II[a]; but in Henry the fifth's time, they were
granted him for life by a statute in the third year of his reign; and
again to Edward IV for the term of his life also: since which time
they were regularly granted to all his successors, for life, sometimes
at their first, sometimes at other subsequent parliaments, till the
reign of Charles the first; when, as had before happened in the reign
of Henry VIII[b] and other princes, they were neglected to be asked.
And yet they were imprudently and unconstitutionally levied and taken
without consent of parliament, (though more than one had been
assembled) for fifteen years together; which was one of the causes of
those unhappy discontents, justifiable at first in too many instances,
but which degenerated at last into causeless rebellion and murder.
For, as in every