Confented to do what they did; I fay I doubt not but we fhall then find him to have been a most Admirable Sollicitor, through a most abominable Judge. He it is who not only gave away with his Breath what our Ancestors had purchafed for us by fo large an Expence of their Time, their Care, their Treafure, and their Blood, but employed an Industry as great as his Injuftice, to perfwade others not only to foy with him in that Deed of Gift, but ftrive to root up thofe Liberties, which he had cut down, and to make our. Grievances immortal, as well as our Slavery irrepairable, left any part of our Pofterity might want occafion to Curfe him, he decla red that Power to be fo Inherent in the Crown, that it was not in the Power of a Par-. liament to divide them. Tho

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Common Fame, Mr.Speaker, (and I think here that Common Fame is ground enough for this House to accufe upon, and then undoubtedly enough to be accufed upon in this House) hath fo generally reported this, that I expect not you should bid me Name him whom you all know: Nor do I look to tell you News, when I tell you 'tis my Lord Keeper; but this I think to put you in mind of, That his Place admits him to his Majesty's Ear, and trusts him with his Majesty's Confcience; and how pernicious every Moment must be to us, whilft the one gives him means to infufe fuch unjuft Opinions of this Hoafe into his Majesty,

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(many

(many believing him to have been the Principal Secretary) and the other puts the vast and almost unlimited Power of the Chancery into fuch Hands, which in the Safeft would be Dangerous. For my part, I can think no Man here fecure that he fhall find himself worth any thing when he rifeth, whilst all our Eftates are in his Breaft, who hath facrificed his Country to his Ambition; whilft he who hath prostituted his own Confcience, and the keeping of the King's, and he who hath undone us already by Whole fabe, hath Power left in him to undo ús by Retail

Mr. Speaker, in the beginning of this Parliament, he told us, and I am confident every Man here believed it before he told it, and not the more for his telling of it, tho' á forry a Witness is a good Teftimony against himself, That his Majefty never required any thing from any of his Minifters but Justice and Integrity, against which, if any one of them lave tranfgreed upon their Heads, and that defervedly, it was to fall And truly af ter he hath in this faying pronounced his own Condemnation we thall be more partial to him, than he is to himself, if we be flow to purfue it, baim 3 baim rivy tug of Anne i dr

It is therefore my Just and Humble Motion, That we may Choose a Select Committee, to draw up his and their Charge, and to examine the Carriage of this particular, to make ule of it in the Charge; and if he fhall be

found

found guilty of Tampering with Judges against the Publick Security, who has thought Tampering with Witneffes in a Private Caufe worthy of fo fevere Fine; if he fhall be found not only to have gone before, but beyond the reft in his Judgment, that in the Punishment for it, the Juftice of this House may not deny him that due Honour both to precede and exceed the reft.

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The Lord FALKLAND's Speech to the Lords of the Upper Houfe of Parliament, the 14th of Jan. 1640, upon the carrying up the Impeachment against the Lord Keeper FINCH.

My Lords,

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HESE Articles against my Lord Finch being read, I may be bold to apply that of the Poet, Nil repert tales verfus qua voce leguntur, and doubt not but your LordShips must be of the fame Opinion, of which the House of Commons appears to have been, by the Choice they have made of me, that the Charge I have brought, is fuch as needs no Affiftance from the Bringer; leaving not fo much as the Colour of a Colour for any Defence, including all poffible Evidence, and all poffible Aggravation that Addition alone excepted, which he alone could make, and hath made; I mean his Confeffion, inclu ded in his Flight. Here

Here are many and mighty Degrees of Supererogation, (fo that High Treafon is but a: part of his Charge) purfued by him so forcibly in every kind of Condition, being a Silent Speaker, an Unjuft Judge, and an Und confcionable Keeper, that his Life appears a perpetual Walfare, by Mines, and by Battery, by Battel, and by Stratagem, against our Fundamental Laws, (which by his own Confeffion our feveral Conquefts had left untoucht) and against the Excellent Conftitution of this Kingdom, which hath ever made it appear to Strangers rather an Idea, than a real Common-wealth; and procured the Honour and Happiness of this, to be the Wonder and Envy of other Nations.

And with this unfortunate Succefs as he always intended to make our Ruine the ground of his Advancement, fo he ever made his Ad-" vancement, the means of our further Ruine afterwards, fo that contrary to the very end of his Place, and the end of that Meeting, in which he held his Place, he had as it were gagg'd the Commonwealth, taking away (to his Power) all Power of Speech from! that Body, of which he ought to have been the Mouth, and which alone can perfectly reprefent the Condition of the People, whom that only reprefents; which if he had not done, in all probability what fo Grave and Ludicious an Affembly might have offered to! the Confideration of fo Gracious, and fo gid Good

Good a Prince, had occafioned the Redress of the Grievances they then fuffered, and prevented thofe which we have fince endured. According to the ancient Maxim of adiffer quas laferis, he pursued this offence towards the Parliament, by inveighing against the Members, by fcandalizing the Broceedings, by trampling upon the Acts and Declarations, by ufurping, and by deftroying the Rights, by diminishing and abrogating the Power both of that and other Parliaments, and making them as much as in him lay, both ufelefs and odious to his Majefty; and purfued bis Hatred to this Fountain of Jufice, by corrupting the Streams of it, the Laws, and by perverting it's Conduit-Pipes, the Fudges. Zh

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He practifed the annihilating of the An cient and Notorious Perambulations, of particular Forefts, the better to prepare and enable himself to annihilate the Ancient and Notorious Perambulations ofthe whole Kingdom, the Metes and Bounds between the Liberties of the Subject, and Sovereign Power; he endeavoured to have all the Tenures Da rante bene placite, to bring all Law from his Majesty's Courts into his Majesty's 'Breaft; he gave our Goods to the King, our Lands to his Deer, Liberties to his Sheriffs; fo that. there was no way by which he did not, equal to his Power, overthrow the Common-wealth in his Crime; that this being