Sir Richard Blake HIS SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS At a Grand Committee for the Bill against paper Petitions.  
Master Brereton sitting in the CHAIR june XXVIII. 1641.  
LONDON, Printed Anno Domini, 1641.   

Sir Richard Blake his Speech in the House of COMMONS, at a Grand Committee for the Bill against Paper Petitions,  
Master Brereton sitting in the Chair. June 28. 1641.  
Master Brereton,  
THe matter we now treat of is of great importance, it is of the power that Paper Petitions have of late usurped in this Kingdom by the Arbitrary Judicature of Civil Causes and Controversies. It will become the Judgement of this great Council to consider, First, of the Nature and Essence, then of the fruits and effects of these Paper Petitions, and lastly, if we find those fruits so bitter and unsavoury, that instead of pleasing they poison us, to grub them up, and root them so out that they shall never grow again in this Garden of ours, this our Eden, our dear Country, to destroy us and our posterity, as the forbidden fruit did in Adam all mankind.  
Sir, there are many things described by their Contraries, this will be granted is Color contrarius albo, it is the deprivation and annihilation of our Fundamental and vital Laws: Our Laws (Sir) are the ne plus ultra to all Kings and Subjects, and as they are Hercules his Pillars, so are they Pillars to every Hercules, and Prince, that they cannot pass; and Pillars that bear and support every Subject in his life, in his Lands, and his goods.  
When Rome triumphed in her ancient greatness, and was acknowledged sole and sovereign Empress of all the Nations in the World, a Poet of those times shows the cause of her continued splendour and flourishing estate by this Verse,  Moribus antiquis stat res Romana, virique. 
I may not unaptly apply that Verse to this Kingdom, and truly say, that Legibus antiquis stat res Hiberna, virique. Our Laws are the breath of our nostrils, the sight of our eyes, the very Soul and Nerves by which this great body politic of ours doth live and move, they are the best Guards of Kings, Magistrates, and virtuous men, they are Snaffles to bridle the wicked, they are Sickles to cut down all weeds growing up in the Common-weal; those paper Petitions are their Antagonists, their professed enemies, they trample them under foot, not revering or respecting their venerable gray-headed antiquity, not regarding that by their influence and virtue we now sit together in this great Council, aswell for the conservation of them, as propagation of a new fruitful seed of more to posterity, not valuing the great and unspeakable benefit that mankind hath originally received from them, in that by their means we lead the lives of reasonable men, not of brute Beasts, of Freemen, not of Slaves, of Civil men, and not of Savages.  
Those paper Petitions like whirlwinds throw down all before them that stand in their way, make one man in the Lucifertan (as I may term it) Exaltancie of his power to monopolise and appropriate unto himself the abilities of all men, the properties of all Courts.  
The Judges, once like so many Planets shining in their several Orbs, observing their constant motion in their several Courts of Judicature, imparted unto us the comfortable light, and vivificant heat of the Laws, those paper Petitions extinguish and put out this light, with the vapours that rise from them, they eclipse and darken the Lustre of it, they sully the white Furs of their Robes, they endanger the blackening of their whiter consciences, when by force of the Commands of those Petitions they are required contrary to their Oath, not only to delay, but to deny Justice.  
The Marshal's Court was originally erected for Arms and Honour, the Chancery for Equity, the Exchequer for the Revenues, & King's Bench for the Pleas of the Crown, the Common Pleas for Pleas between Subject and Subject, and the Prerogative, Consistory, and Bishops Courts for Ecclesiastical Causes; from those Cisterns the water of life did issue and flow upon us, but inimicus & iniqu●s homo superseminovil z … in … dio tritici, one man in his vast unlimited and transcendent power, took all their Functions upon himself alone, vainly acted himself Omnipotent, which is an Attribute proper to God Almighty, and that in quarto modo, (as your Logicians term it) soli semper & uni, created himself Earl Martial, Lord Chancellor, Chief Baron, nay, all the Barons of the Exchequer, Chief Justice, nay, all the Justices of either Bench, Archbishop, Bishop, nay, all the Archbishops, Bishops, Deans and Chapters of the Kingdom.  
Justine in the Preface to his History tells us, that in the nonage and first infancy of the World, Populus nullis legibus tenebatur, arbitria potentium pro Legibus erant, The people had no positive Laws to govern them, the wills of great ones were their Laws, and those wills were so inordinate and so exorbitant, that for the most part, they made their own wills and fancies to be their Treasurers, and Hangmen, measuring by that yard, and weighing in that Balance both good and evil. After the Revolution of so many Ages, as if Pythagoras his opinion of Transmigration were true, or that the Platonic year of reducing all things to the same beginning, continuance and period (how false soever in the books of nature) had been come, have we not lived as it were in these times? have we not groaned? and were not our backs cracked under the weight that paper Petitions, and the Commands of those great ones upon them involved, and fettered us in? were not our adversaries by their References made our judges? and our judges, our sworn judges made Arbitrary Censurers of what properly was to be determined before themselves in their Courts? were not our Freeholds and goods violently & extrajudicially taken from us? were not our bodies imprisoned? Our bodies (Sir) whose liberty the Common Law did so highly esteem, that they were not for any cause whatsoever to be restrained, but only for force, and that because the Law being the preserver of the quiet and Tranquillity of the Kingdom detested and abhorred force, as the enemy and violator thereof, those bodies of ours were not only imprisoned, but pillori'd, whipped and scourged upon Sentences given upon paper Petitions, and ourselves forced, as Children are, to kiss the rod by making a forced acknowledgement of Gild, against our knowledge and conscience, without which we could not redeem those bodies from perpetual Imprisonment, our estates from being extended, and our goods from being seized.  
Upon the late solemn and famous Trial of the Earl of Strafford, and in the greatest presence of the World, for that the King was pleased to be personally present, & all the States of the Kingdom of England assembled in Parliament, with the Commissioners and Committees of both his other Kingdoms, it hath been offered to Consideration as a matter of great consequence, that it imbaseth the spirits of a Nation, when they must stand in fear of Pilloring, Scaffolding, and like punshments, it takes away their spirits, tenders them pusillanimous and weakhearted, in England where this was represented, they suffered not under such pressures or fears; the King whose virtues are his Inmates, and true qualities ingenrate both in his judgement and nature, with the sunshine of his presence (which makes them happy) clears and expels all such mists, but the reports of our miseries occasioned by the frequency of such usage, or rather mis-usage, flying over unto them with the gale of our sighs, and springtide of our Tears, wrought that charitable Impression, and drew that Emphatical expression from them, Si in viridi ligno hoc faciunt, in arid● quia fiet? if they out of the sense of our slavish sufferance took that to Consideration, and their pious Commiseration, have not we in whose Scene that Tragedy was acted greater cause to take it to our more serious thoughts? surely we have, and cannot without blemish to our judgements, and wrong to ourselves and posterity, but endeavour to remove the cause, Sublata causa tollitur effectus: And the principle cause I conceive to proceed from those paper Petitions, the proceed upon them being not limited to any certain Rule, time, season, place, cause, or thing, nor any degree, Sex, age, or quality privileged by them, by them his Majesty loseth a considerable part of his Revenue, that might justly and lawfully result and accrue unto him out of original Writs, Fines, Amerciaments and profits, by them the Subject loseth the benefit of his writ of Error, Bill of reversal, Vourcher Essoignes, Views, Fines, with Proclamations and Descents, and by them many other Legal and Just advantages in the ordinary course, and Courts of Justice are declined, and their only Consequence is by immoderate and unlawful Fees to enrich Secretaries, Clerks, Pursivants, and Sergeants at Arms, and not only them, but Projectors, Informers, and such other Horsleeches, that suck the blood of our bodies, and marrow of our bones, and their malignant operation rests not here, but extends to our intrinsical parts, that we call Qualitates animae they strongly endeavour to subvert.  
That the planting of Learning is the true and right way to plant Civility, and that  
— ingenuas didicisse fideliter arts  
Emollit mores, nee sinit esse feros,  
Our own observation and the experience of all Nations tells us, and Cornelius Tacitus in the life of Agricola demonstrates.  
Julius Agricola the Roman, General in Brittany, found the ancient Inhabitants rude, barbarous, and apt upon every occasion to make war, he being a wise man, as he was a valiant man, conceived it the best way to Civilize, and consequently to contain them in the Sphere of their obedience to the Roman Monarchy, to build and erect free Schools, and places of public resort, and in them to have the Children of the Nobles, and Gentlemen, trained, and instructed in the liberal Sciences, which he did, the event answered his expectation, and his policy had the wished effect, for the British youth being curious to attain the Eloquence of the Roman language, the Roman attire grew to be in account, and the Go●● in request among them, and so came as Tacitus observes to the height of Civility, which ever since they have to their great glory maintained. And I am (M. Brereton) of opinion, that our Ancestors in their great wisdom left for us such part of the Common-Law as is written, The plead of them, and original Writs, in the Latin language, because that being the general, and an immutable language, not subject to be sophisticated as all other languages (except the Hebrew and Greek) were, or to receive Majus aut Minus, a Language that was never conquered with any Conquest, and that the fury of the Saxons, Danes, and Normans, could never so extirpate or suppress, but that our Laws still lived in it, as in the Vestal fire that is never extinguished, to the end I say, that we might be incited and invited to the knowledge and use thereof; to strengthen my opinion in this, and to show how necessary the knowledge of it is for the professors of our Laws, I will present unto you the Authorities of two of the greatest Sages of the Law, the one Ancient, the other Recent, and in their own words, which I only translate, that I may not disparage, or take off the weight of them by mine.  
Mr. Littleton, who is the Portall by which all Students make their first entrance, and who by his excellent Book gives them Ariadne's clue, to guide and direct them in their ways in that intricate Labyrinth, in his chapter of Confirmation, lib. 3. cap. 9 gives them this grave and fatherly advice. Know my Son, that it is one of the most honourable, laudable, and profitable things in our Law, to have the Science of well Pleading in actions Real and Personal, and therefore I counsel thee to employ thy courage and care to learn this.  
Sir Edward Coke, whose learned Works are the Coronides of the Students endeavours, and do polish the same, in Blackamoors Case 8. rep. fol. 159. says that the Clerks are bound by the duty of their Offices to have skill and science in the Form of original Writs, which are the foundation that all the Law depends of, and therefore if the Forms of original Writs be neglected, ignorance the mother of Error, and Barbarism will ensue, and in the end all shall be involved in confusion, and the ancient Law of the Kingdom subverted.  
This is the judgement (M. Brereton,) of these two great Pillars of the Law, and that this they so earnestly direct, hath not been observed in paper Petitions, we all know; a common Scrivener draws them, and an illiterate Clerk, (for so many of them are) whose knowledge soars no higher than his mother Tongue, and whose best abilities, and perfections are to wait officiously upon my Lord, his Master, solicits this, and he, or the powerful intercession of a Favourite prevalls more in businesses of greatest consequence, and where Legal proceed and Scrutiny are requisite, then happily a Littleton or a Cook; O tempora, O mores! which I think we lately had as great cause as Tully to exclaim upon.  
What a great Ornament to this Kingdom Mr. Brereton the Professors of our Laws are, how daily and hourly useful, unto ourselves both in this House and in England, the members of the House (whom we term of the long Robe) are, I leave to the Judicious observation of this Committee, and likewise to their consideration how infinitely they and the rest of that Honourable profession have been damnified by those paper-blasts, Blasts I may well call them, for indeed they blast, and nip in the very blossom the hopes of all our Law Students, who having spent the Spring of their years in the Inns of Court in that study, and many of them the best part of their fortunes, upon their return to this their Native Country, their Land of promise, when they expect to meet with a Harvest to crown their painful and chargeable endeavours, they have hardly glean left for them by those paper-Clerks: This Sir as I conceive is very considerable by us, and those Paper-Petitions being, as I endeavoured in their tree colours to represent them, Tares introduced & planted among the Corn by the enemy of mankind, at least the enemy of the welfare of this Kingdom, in their nature a Monopoly, or rather a Rape upon all men's abilities and the properties of all Courts, being the Bedels' of our bodies, the disseisors of our Lands, Robers of our goods, Suppressors of our intellectual parts, Subverters of the Common-law and Rebels to the Statute-lawes as appears by Magna Charta 2. Hen. 3. by 28. and 25. of E. 3. and by the Record of 21. Ed. 1. that are mentioned in the preamble of the Bill, I am humbly of opinion that as the wisdom of this house hath already looked with a retrospect eye upon some of the many grievances that were occasioned by them, that with the other eye we look forward, Ne quid detrimenti respublica patiatur hereafter.  
M. Brereton, the nature of domination is such, in the irregular minds of some, that having once broken out of Circle, they cannot endure any limitation or bounds, but range at liberty in the wide and spacious fields of their own humours, and being not able to give Laws to their appetites, make Laws as Champions to defend them, and reason as a Parasite to glorify them, & that this hath been so, we have seen, & that it may be so hereafter the condition and nature of man tells us, we are therefore to conclude upon this good way of the perpetual damning of such paper-Petitions as extra judicially determine Civil causes, that they may never rise after in judgement against us, that they may not assume to themselves the force of Bulls & Cannons as they have done, or like Hydra's heads pullulate and spring up, to the bane & utter destruction of us and our posterity, And therefore my vote is that the Bill as it is now drawn shall be approved with those Provisions that are inserted in it, that it shall not extend to his Majesty's Courts of Castle-Chamber, Chancery, Chancery of the Exchequer, Court of Wards, the Presidencies of Monster, Connaght, or the Lieutenancies of the Counties of galway, & the County of Clare, or to the Civil proceed before the Justices of Assizes, but with such qualifications as in the Bill is mentioned, and that the House of the Lords may by Message be acquainted with it, that we may have their concurrent approbation, which I doubt not they will cheerfully give, for the impetuous rage of those Paper Petitions had no more respect, and made no other distinction between the freedom of their Peerage, or their estates and goods, than the meanest common-people. And that his Majesty will give his Royal assent thereunto, I am hopeful and confident, having already in the abyss of his goodness and care of his faithful Subjects of this Kingdom, publicly declared his dissent and averseness from them in the very first Chapter of his Printed Instructions, and likewise in the Proclamation that we sent over into England, to accompany our Protestation to that part of the Preamble of our Act of Subsidies that extolled the Earl of strafford's Government. This being my opinion I humbly submit to the consideration and better judgement of this Committee.  
FINIS.