Mr. waller's SPEECH in Parliament, At a conference of both Houses in the painted Chamber. 6. july 1641.   printer's or publisher's device 
LONDON. Printed by J. N. for Abel Roper at the black spread Eagle over against Saint Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet. 1641.   

MY LORDS,  
I Am commanded by the House of Commons, to present you with these Articles against M. justice Crawley, which 〈◊〉 your Lordships shall have been … d to hear read I shall take leave (according to custom) ●o say something of what I have coll●●●ed from the sense of that House concerning the crimes therein contained.  Here the charge was read containing his extrajudi iall opinions subscribed, and judgement given for Ship-money, and afterward a declaration in his charge at an Assize, that Shipmoney was so inhaerent a right in the Crown, that it would not be in the power of a Parliament to take it away. 
MY LORDS, Not only my wants but my affections render me less fit for this employment: for though it has not been my happiness to have the Law a part of my breeding, there is no man honours that profession more, or has a greater reverence towards the grave judges the Oracles thereof. Out of Parliament all our Courts of justice are governed or directed by them, and when a Parliament is called, if your Lordships were not assisted by them, and the House of Commons by other Gentlemen of that Robe, experience tells us it might run a hazard of being styled Parlamentum indoctorum. But as all professions are obnoxious to the malice of the professors, and by them most easily betrayed, so (my Lords) these Articles have told you how these brothers of the Coyfeare become fratres in malo; how these sons of the Law have torn out the bowels of their mother: But this judge (whose charge you last heard) in one expression of his excels no less his Fellows, than they have done the worst of their predecessors, in this conspiracy against the Commonwealth. Of the judgement for Ship-money, and those extrajudicial opinions preceding the same (wherein they are jointly concerned) you have already heard; how unjust and pernicious a proceeding that was in so public a Cause, has been sufficiently expressed to your Lordships: But this man, adding despair to our misery, tells us from the Bench, that Ship-money was a Right so inhaerent in the Crown, that it would not be in the power of an Act of Parliament to take it away. Herein (my Lords) he did not only give as deep a wound to the Commonwealth as any of the rest, but dipped his dart in such a poison, that so fare as in him lay it might never receive a cure. As by those abortive opinions subscribing to the subversion of our propriety, before he heard what could be said for it, he prevented his own, so by this declaration of his he endeavours to prevent the judgement of your Lordships too, and to confine the power of a Parliament, the only place where this mischief might be redressed: Sure he is more wise and learned, then to believe himself in this opinion, or not to know how ridiculous it would appear to a Parliament, and how dangerous to himself, and therefore no doubt but by saying no Parliament could abolish this judgement, his meaning was that this judgement had abolished Parliaments.  
This imposition of Ship-money springing from a pretended necessity, was it not enough that it was now grown annual, but he must entail it upon the State for ever, at once making necessity in haerent to the Crown, and slavery to the Subject? Necessity, which dissolving all Law is so much more prejudicial to his Majesty then to any of us, by how much the Law has invested his Royal State with a greater power, and ampler fortune, for so undoubted a truth it has ever been, that Kings as well as Subjects are involved in the confusion which necessity produces, that the Heathen thought their gods also obliged by the same, Pareamus necessitati quam nec homines nec dii superant: This judge then having in his charge at the Assize declared the dissolution of the Law by this supposed necessity, with what conscience could he at the same Assize proceed to condemn and punish men, unless perhaps he meant the Law was still in force for our destruction, and not for our preservation, that it should have power to kill, but none to protect us; a thing no less horrid than if the Sun should burn without lighting us, or the earth serve only to bury and not to feed and nourish us. But (my Lords) to demonstrate that this was a supposititious imposed necessity, and such as they could remove when they pleased, at the last Convention in Parliament a price was set upon it, for twelve Subsidies you shall reverse this Sentence: It may be said that so much money would have removed the present necessity, but here was a Rate set upon future necessity, For twelve Subsidies you shall never suffer necessity again, you shall for ever abolish that judgement; Here this mystery is revealed, this visor of necessity is pulled off, and now it appears that this Parliament of judges had very frankly and bountifully presented his Majesty with twelve Subsidies to be levied on your Lordships, and the Commons: Certainly there is no privilege which more properly belongs to a Parliament, then to open the purse of the Subject, and yet these judges, who are neither capable of sitting among us in the house of Commons, nor with your Lordships, otherwise then as your assistants, have not only assumed to themselves this privilege of Parliament, but presumed at once to make a present to the Crown of all that either your Lordships or the Commons of England do, or shall hereafter possess.  
And because this man has had the boldness to put the power of Parliament in balance with the opinion of the judges, I shall entreat your Lordships to observe by way of comparison the solemn and safe proceeding of the one, with the precipitate dispatch of the other: In Parliament (as your Lordships know well) no new Law can pass, or old be abrogated, till it has been thrice read with your Lordships, thrice in the Commons House, and then it receives the Royal Assent, so that 'tis like gold 7 times purified; whereas these judges by this one resolution of theirs would persuade his Majesty, that by naming necessity he might at once dissolve (at least suspend) the great Charter 32 times confirmed by his Royal progenitors, the petition of Right, and all other Laws provided for the maintenance of the Right and propriety of the Subject; a strange force (my Lords) in the sound of this word necessity, that like a Charm it should silence the Laws, while we are despoiled of all we have, for that but a part of our goods was taken is owing to the grace and goodness of the King, for so much as concerns these judges, we have no more left than they perhaps may deserve to have, when your Lordships shall have passed judgement upon them: This for the neglect of their Oaths, and betraying that public trust, which for the conservation of our Laws was reposed in them.  
Now for the cruelty & unmercifulness of this judgement, you may please to remember that in the old Law they were forbid to seethe a Kid in his mother's milk, of which the received interpretation is, that we should not use that to the destruction of any creature which was intended for its preservation; Now (my Lords) God and Nature has given us the Sea as our best Guard against our Enemies, and our ships as our greatest glory above other Nations, and how barbarously would these men have let in the sea upon us, at once to wash away our Liberties, & to overwhelm, if not our Land, all the propriety we have therein, making the supply of our Navy, apretence for the ruin of our Nation; for observe I beseech you the fruit and consequence of this judgement, how this money has prospered, how contrary an effect it has had to the end for which they pretended to take it: On every County a ship is annually imposed, and who would not expect, but our seas by this time should be covered with the number of our ships? Alas (my Lords) the daily Complaints of the decay of our Navy tell us how ill ship-money has maintained the Sovereignty of the sea; and by the many petitions which we receive from the wives of those miserable Captives at Algiers (being between 4 and 5 thousand of our Countrymen) it does too evidently appear that to make us slaves at home, is not the way to keep us from being made slaves abroad; so fare has this judgement been from relieving the present or preventing the future necessity, that as it changed our real propriety into the shadow of a propriety, so of a feigned it has made a Real necessity.  
A little before the approach of the Gauls to Rome, while the Romans had yet no apprehension of that danger, there was heard a voice in the Air, louder than ordinary, The Gauls are come, which voice after they had sacked the City, and besieged the Capitol, was held so ominous, that Livy relates it as a Prodigy; This Anticipation of necessity seems to have been no less ominous to us; These judges like ill boding birds have called necessity upon the State in a time when I dare say they thought themselves in greatest security; but if it seem superstitious to take this as an Omen, sure I am we may look on it as a cause of the unfeigned necessity we now suffer, for what regret and discontent had this judgement bred among us? And as when the noise and tumult in a private house grows so loud as to be heard into the streets, it calls in the next dwellers either kindly to appease, or to make their own use of the domestic strife; so in all likelihood our known discontents at home have been a concurrent cause to invite our Neighbours to visit us so much to the expense and trouble of both these Kingdoms.  
And here, my Lords, I cannot but take notice of the most sad effect of this oppression, the ill influence it has had upon the ancient reputation and valour of the English Nation and no wonder, for if it be true that oppression makes a wise man mad, it may well suspend the courage of the valiant: The same happened to the Romans when for renown in Arms they most excelled the rest of the world; the story is butshort, 'twas in the time of the Decemviri (and I think the thief-troublers of our State may make up that number,) The Decemviri, my Lords, 
Livy lib. 5.  had subverted the Laws, suspended the Courts of justice; and (which was the greatest grievance both to the Nobility & people) had for some years omitted to assemble the Senate, which was their Parliament; This says the Historian did not only deject the Romans, and make them despair of their Liberty, but caused them to be less valued by their Neighbours: The Sabines take the advantage and invade them; and now the Decemviri are forced to call the long desired Senate, whereof the people were so glad, that Hostibus belloque gratiam habuerunt: This Assembly breaks up in discontent, nevertheless the war proceeds; Forces are raised, led by some of the Decemviri, and with the Sabines they meet in the Field; I know your Lordships expect the event; My Author's words of his Countrymen are these, Ne quid ductu aut auspicio Decemvirorum prosper gereretur, vinci se patiebantur, They chose rather to suffer a present diminution of their Honour, then by victory to confirm the tyranny of their new Masters: At their return from this unfortunate expedition, after some distempers and expostulations of the people, an other Senate, that is a second Parliament, is called, and there the Decemviri are questioned, deprived of their Authority, imprisoned, banished, and some lose their lives; and soon after this vindication of their Liberties, the Romans by their better success made it appear to the world, that liberty and courage dwell always in the same breast, and are never to be divorced. No doubt, my Lords, but your justice shall have the like effect upon this dispirited people; 'tis not the restitution of our ancient Laws alone, but the restauration of our ancient courage which is expected from your Lordships: I need not say any thing to move your just indignation that this man should so cheaply give away that which your noble Ancestors with so much courage and industry had so long maintained: you have often been told how careful they were, though with the hazard of their lives and fortunes, to derive those Rights and Liberties as entire to posterity as they received them from their Fathers; what they did with labour you may do with ease, what they did with danger you may do securely, the foundation of our Laws is not shaken with the Engine of War, they are only blasted with the breath of these men, and by your breath may be restored.  
What judgemenrs your Predecessors have given, and what punishments their Predecessors have suffered for offences of this nature; your Lordships have already been so well informed, that I shall not trouble you with a repetition of those precedents: Only (my Lords) something I shall take leave to observe of the person with whose charge I have presented you, that you may the less doubt of the wilfulness of his offence.  
His education in the Inns of Court, his constant practice as a Counsellor, and his experience as a judge (considered with the mischief he has done) makes it appear that this Progress of his through the Law, has been like that of a diligent Spy through a Country into which he meant to conduct an enemy.  
To let you see he did not offend for company, there is one crime so peculiar to himself, and of such malignity, that it makes him at once uncapable of your Lordship's favour, and his own subsistence incompatible with the right and propriety of the Subject: for if you leave him in a capacity of interpreting the Laws, has he not already declared his opinion, That your votes and resolutions against Ship-money are void, and that it is not in the power of a Parliament to abolish that judgement? To him, my Lords, that has thus played with the power of Parliament, we may well apply what was once said to the Goat browsing on the Vine, Rode, caper, vitem, tamen hinc cum stabis ad arras In Tua quod fundi cornua possit, erit:  
He has cropped and infringed the privileges of a banished Parliament, but now it is returned he may find it has power enough to make a Sacrifice of him, to the better establishment of our Laws; and in truth what other satisfaction can he make his injured Country, then to confirm by his example those Rights and Liberties which he had ruined by his opinion?  
For the proofs, my Lords, they are so manifest, that they will give you little trouble in the disquisition; his crimes are already upon Record, the Delinquent and the Witness is the same; having from several Seats of judicature proclaimed himself an Enemy to our Laws and Nation, Ex ore suo judicabitur. To which purpose I am commanded by the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses of the House of Commons, to desire your Lordships that as speedy a proceeding may be had against Mr. justice Crawley as the course of Parliaments will permit.   
FINIS.