hole kingdom. And
as to the pretension, that the king is sole judge of the necessity, what
is this but to subject all the privileges of the nation to his arbitrary
will and pleasure? To expect that the public will be convinced by such
reasoning, must aggravate the general indignation, by adding to violence
against men's persons, and their property, so cruel a mockery of their
understanding.

In vain are precedents of ancient writs produced: these writs, when
examined, are only found to require the seaports, sometimes at their own
charge, sometimes at the charge of the counties, to send their ships
for the defence of the nation. Even the prerogative which empowered the
crown to issue such writs is abolished, and its exercise almost entirely
discontinued from the time of Edward III.;[*] and all the authority
which remained, or was afterwards exercised, was to press ships into the
public service, to be paid for by the public.

* State Trials, vol. v. p. 245, 255.

How wide are these precedents from a power of obliging the people, at
their own charge, to build new ships, to victual and pay them, for
the public; nay, to furnish money to the crown for that purpose? What
security either against the further extension of this claim, or against
diverting to other purposes the public money so levied? The plea of
necessity would warrant any other taxation as well as that of ship
money; wherever any difficulty shall occur, the administration, instead
of endeavoring to elude or overcome it by gentle and prudent measures,
will instantly represent it as a reason for infringing all ancient laws
and institutions: and if such maxims and such practices prevail, what
has become of national liberty? What authority is left to the Great
Charter, to the statutes, and to the very petition of right, which in
the present reign had been so solemnly enacted by the concurrence of the
whole legislature?

The defenceless condition of the kingdom while unprovided with a navy;
the inability of the king, from his established revenues, with the
utmost care and frugality, to equip and maintain one; the impossibility
of obtaining, on reasonable terms, any voluntary supply from parliament;
all these are reasons of state, not topics of law. If these reasons
appear to the king so urgent as to dispense with the legal rules of
government, let him enforce his edicts by his court of star chamber, the
proper instrument of irregular and absolute power, not p