14.] [Footnote 3: NOTE C, p.52.The reason assigned by Sir Philip Warwick (p.

2) for this unusual measure of the commons, is, that they intended to deprive the crown of the prerogative which it had assumed, of varying the rates of the impositions, and at the same time were resolved to cut off the new rates fixed by James.

These were considerable diminutions both of revenue and prerogative; and whether they would have there stopped, considering their present disposition, may be much doubted.

The king, it seems, and the lords were resolved not to trust them; nor to render a revenue once precarious, which perhaps they might never afterwards be able to get reestablished on the old footing.] [Footnote 4: NOTE D, p.80.Here is a passage of Sir John Davis's Question concerning Impositions, (p.

131.) "This power of laying on arbitrarily new impositions being a prerogative in point of government, as well as in point of profit, it cannot be restrained or bound by act of parliament; it can not be limited by any certain or fixt rule of law, no more than the course of a pilot upon the sea, who must turn the helm or bear higher or lower sail, according to the wind or weather; and therefore it may be properly said, that the king's prerogative, in this point, is as strong as Samson; it cannot be bound; for though an act of parliament be made to restrain it, and the king doth give his consent unto it, as Samson was bound with his own consent; yet if the Philistines come, that is, if any just or important occasion do arise, it cannot hold or restrain the prerogative; it will be as thread, and broken as easy as the bonds of Samson.