203.
**** Husb.Col.p.

536.
So many grievances were offered, both by the members and by petitions without doors, that the house was divided into above forty committees, charged each of them with the examination of some particular violation of law and liberty which had been complained of.

Besides the general committees of religion, trade, privileges, laws, many subdivisions of these were framed, and a strict scrutiny was every where carried on.

It is to be remarked that, before the beginning of this century, when the commons assumed less influence and authority, complaints of grievances were usually presented to the house by any members who had had particular opportunity of observing them.

These general committees, which were a kind of inquisitorial courts, had not then been established; and we find that the king, in a former declaration.[*] complains loudly of this innovation, so little favorable to royal authority.