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Updated: June 1, 2025
Even Lord Ellenborough, whose fame is bright amongst the reputations of honorable men, could not always exercise self-control when attempts were made to lessen his customary profits, "I never," writes Lord Campbell, "saw this feeling at all manifest itself in Lord Ellenborough except once, when a question arose whether money paid into court was liable to poundage.
Tonnage and poundage had not yet been granted by parliament; and the commons had artfully, this session, concealed their intention of invading that branch of revenue, till the royal assent had been obtained to the petition of right, which they justly deemed of such importance. * Rushworth, vol. i. p. 628. Journ. 18th 20th June, 1628. Journ, 26th June, 1628.
He levied certain duties called tonnage and poundage which had not been granted by the Parliament, and could lawfully be levied by no other power; he called upon the seaport towns to furnish, and to pay all the cost for three months of, a fleet of armed ships; and he required the people to unite in lending him large sums of money, the repayment of which was very doubtful.
Turgot's reform of a system which was always harassing and often ruinous to an innocent individual, consisted in the creation of the task of collection into a distinct and permanent office, exercised over districts sufficiently large to make the poundage, out of which the collectors were paid, an inducement to persons of intelligence and spirit to undertake the office as a profession.
They therefore instructed the committee of ways and means to consider so much of the annuity and lottery act passed in the preceding session as related to the three per centum annuities, amounting to the sum of seven millions five hundred and ninety thousand pounds, granted in the year one thousand seven hundred and fifty-nine; and also to consider so much of the said act as related to the subsidy of poundage upon certain goods and merchandise to be imported into this kingdom, and the additional inland duty on coffee and chocolate.
For refusing to pay, five knights were sent to prison by order of the privy council "without cause shewn," whereby the crown avoided a judicial decision on the legality of the loan. This provoked the Petition of Right in 1628; but in 1629 Charles finally quarrelled with parliament over the question whether in assenting to the petition he had abandoned his right to levy tonnage and poundage.
Charles had, therefore, recourse to the Stuart device of stirring up the people to give, by means of letters to the clergy, but without result, and in 1686 he directed that two-thirds of the army poundage should go to the continuance of the building, and finally that the whole should be devoted to this purpose after deductions for necessary expenses.
And in my Lord Treasurer's excellent letter to the King upon this subject, he tells the King how it was the spending more than the revenue that did give the first occasion of his father's ruine, and did since to the rebels; who, he says, just like Henry the Eighth, had great and sudden increase of wealth, but yet, by overspending, both died poor; and further tells the King how much of this L1,200,000 depends upon the life of the Prince, and so must be renewed by Parliament again to his successor; which is seldom done without parting with some of the prerogatives of the Crowne; or if denied and he persists to take it of the people, it gives occasion to a civill war, which may, as it did in the late business of tonnage and poundage, prove fatal to the Crowne.
It was, besides, a foreign manufacture, and must have paid some duty, the ancient custom of tonnage and poundage at least, to the king. This duty, indeed, would not probably be very great.
The transit was happily effected, and closely hidden in wool, Leonard Copeland was lifted out the boat, more than half unconscious, and afterwards transferred to the vessel, and placed in wrappings as softly and securely as Grisell and Clemence could arrange before King Edward's men came to exact their poundage on the freight, but happily did not concern themselves about the sick man.
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