To complain of the parliament's employing the power of taxation as the means of extorting concessions from their sovereign, were to expect that they would entirely disarm themselves, and renounce the sole expedient provided by the constitution for insuring to the kingdom a just and legal administration.

In different periods of English story, there occur instances of their remonstrating with their princes in the freest manner, and sometimes of their refusing supply when disgusted with any circumstance of public conduct.

It is, however, certain, that this power, though essential to parliaments, may easily be abused, as well by the frequency and minuteness of their remonstrances, as by their intrusion into every part of the king's counsels and determinations.
Under color of advice, they may give disguised orders; and in complaining of grievances, they may draw to themselves every power of government.

Whatever measure is embraced without consulting them, may be pronounced an oppression of the people; and, till corrected, they may refuse the most necessary supplies to their indigent sovereign.

From the very nature of this parliamentary liberty, it is evident that it must be left unbounded by law; for who can foretell how frequently grievances may occur, or what part of administration may be affected by them?
From the nature, too, of the human frame, it may be expected, that this liberty would be exerted in its full extent, and no branch of authority be allowed to remain unmolested in the hands of the prince; for will the weak limitations of respect and decorum be sufficient to restrain human ambition, which so frequently breaks through all the prescriptions of law and justice?
But here it is observable, that the wisdom of the English constitution, or rather the concurrence of accidents, has provided, in different periods, certain irregular checks to this privilege of parliament and thereby maintained, in some tolerable measure, the dignity and authority of the crown.
In the ancient constitution, before the beginning of the seventeenth century, the meetings of parliament were precarious, and were not frequent.