Though the motive for granting it had been the enabling of the king to guard the seas, it did not follow, that because he guarded the seas, he was therefore entitled to this revenue without further formality: since the people had still reserved to themselves the right of judging how far that service merited such a supply.

But Charles, notwithstanding his public declaration, was far from assenting to this conclusion in its full extent.

The plain consequence, he saw, of all these rigors, and refinements, and inferences, was, that he, without any public necessity, and without any fault of his own, must of a sudden, even from his accession, become a magistrate of a very different nature from any of his predecessors, and must fall into a total dependence on subjects over whom former kings, especially those immediately preceding, had exercised an authority almost unlimited.

Entangled in a chain of consequences which he could not easily break, he was inclined to go higher, and rather deny the first principle, than admit of conclusions which to him appeared so absurd and unreasonable.

Agree-* to the ideas hitherto entertained both by natives and foreigners, the monarch he esteemed the essence and soul of the English government: and whatever other power pretended to annihilate or even abridge, the royal authority, must necessarily, he thought, either in its nature or exercise, be deemed no better than a usurpation.