But never was so much multiplied, as at present, the use of these committees; and the commons, though themselves the greatest innovators, employed the usual artifice of complaining against innovations, and pretending to recover the ancient and established government.
* Published on dissolving the third parliament.

See Parl.
Hist, vol.viii.p.

347.
From the reports of their committees, the house daily passed votes which mortified and astonished the court, and inflamed and animated the nation.

Ship money was declared illegal and arbitrary; the sentence against Hambden cancelled; the court of York abolished; compositions for knighthood stigmatized; the enlargement of the forests condemned; patents for monopolies annulled; and every late measure of administration treated with reproach and obloquy.

To-day a sentence of the star chamber was exclaimed against; to-morrow a decree of the high commission.