England; and the nation
regarded, with the utmost anxiety, every circumstance of this
celebrated trial. The event was easily foreseen: but the principles, and
reasonings, and behavior of the parties engaged in the trial, were much
canvassed and inquired into; and nothing could equal the favor paid to
the one side, except the hatred which attended the other.

* Rush. vol. ii. p. 355. Whitlocke, p. 24.

It was urged by Hambden's counsel, and by his partisans in the nation,
that the plea of necessity was in vain introduced into a trial of
law; since it was the nature of necessity to abolish all law, and, by
irresistible violence, to dissolve all the weaker and more artificial
ties of human society. Not only the prince, in cases of extreme
distress, is exempted from the ordinary rules of administration: all
orders of men are then levelled; and any individual may consult the
public safety by any expedient which his situation enables him to
employ. But to produce so violent an effect, and so hazardous to every
community, an ordinary danger or difficulty is not sufficient; much less
a necessity which is merely fictitious and pretended. Where the peril is
urgent and extreme, it will be palpable to every member of the society;
and though all ancient rules of government are in that case abrogated,
men will readily, of themselves, submit to that irregular authority
which is exerted for their preservation. But what is there in common
between such suppositions and the present condition of the nation?
England enjoys a profound peace with al her neighbors; and what is
more, all her neighbors are engaged in furious and bloody wars
among themselves, and by their mutual enmities further insure their
tranquillity. The very writs themselves, which are issued for the
levying of ship money, contradict the supposition of necessity, and
pretend only that the seas are infested with pirates; a slight and
temporary inconvenience, which may well await a legal supply from
parliament. The writs likewise allow several months for equipping the
ships; which proves a very calm and deliberate species of necessity,
and one that admits of delay much beyond the forty days requisite for
summoning that assembly. It is strange, too, that an extreme necessity,
which is always apparent, and usually comes to a sudden crisis, should
now have continued without interruption for near four years, and should
have remained during so long a time invisible to the w