chastisement of that vigilant tribunal. These regulations not only limited the number of presses, and of men who should be employed on them, but subjected new publications to the previous inspection of a licencer. The long parliament did not hesitate to copy this precedent of a tyranny they had overthrown; and by repeated ordinances against unlicensed printing, hindered, as far as in them lay, this great instrument of political power from serving the purposes of their adversaries. Every government, however popular in name or origin, must have some uneasiness from the great mass of the multitude, some vicissitudes of public opinion to apprehend; and experience shows that republics, especially in a revolutionary season, shrink as instinctively, and sometimes as reasonably, from an open licence of the tongue and pen, as the most jealous court. We read the noble apology of Milton for the freedom of the press with admiration; but it had little influence on the parliament to whom it was addressed.

Licensing acts.—It might easily be anticipated, from the general spirit of Lord Clarendon's administration, that he would not suffer the press to emancipate itself from these established shackles.[2] A bill for the regulation of printing failed in 1661, from the Commons' jealousy of the Peers who had inserted a clause exempting their own houses from search.[3] But next year a statute was enacted, which, reciting the well-government and regulating of printers and printing-presses to be matter of public care and concernment, and that by the general licentiousness of the late times many evil-disposed persons had been encouraged to print and sell heretical and seditious books, prohibits every private person from printing any book or pamphlet, unless entered with the stationers' company, and duly licensed in the following manner; to wit, books of law by the chancellor or one of the chief justices, of history and politics by the secretary of state, of heraldry by the kings at arms, of divinity, physic or philosophy, by the bishops of Canterbury or London, or if printed in either university, by its chancellor. The number of master-printers was limited to twenty; they were to give security, to affix their names, and to declare the author, if required by the licencer. The king's messengers, by warrant from a secretary of state, or the master and wardens of the stationers' company, were empowered to seize unlicensed copies wherever they should think fit to search for them, and, in case they should find any unlicensed book suspected to contain matters contrary to the church or state, they were to bring them to the two bishops before mentioned, or one of the secretaries. No books were allowed to be printed out of London, except in York and in the universities. The penalties for printing without licence were of course heavy.[4] This act was only to last three years; and after being twice renewed (the last time until the conclusion of the first session of the next parliament), expired consequently in 1679; an æra when the House of Commons were happily in so different a temper that any attempt to revive it must have proved abortive. During its continuance, the business of licensing books was entrusted to Sir Roger L'Estrange, a well-known pamphleteer of that age, and himself a most scurrilous libeller in behalf of the party he espoused, that of popery and despotic power. It is hardly necessary to remind the reader of the objections that were raised to one or two lines in Paradise Lost.

Political writings checked by the judges.—Though a previous licence ceased to be necessary, it was held by all the judges, having met for this purpose (if we believe Chief Justice Scroggs) by the king's command, that all books scandalous to the government or to private persons may be seized, and the authors or those exposing them punished: and that all writers of false news, though not scandalous or seditious, are indictable on that account.[5] But in a subsequent trial he informs the jury that, "when by the king's command we were to give in our opinion what was to be done in point of regulation of the press, we did all subscribe that to print or publish any news, books, or pamphlets of news whatsoever is illegal; that it is a manifest intent to the breach of the peace, and they may be proceeded against by law as an illegal thing.[6] Suppose now that this thing is not scandalous, what then? If there had been no reflection in this book at all, yet it is illicite; and the author ought to be convicted for it. And that is for a public notice to all people, and especially printers and booksellers, that they ought to print no book or pamphlet of news whatsoever without authority." The pretended libel in this case was a periodical pamphlet, entitled the Weekly Pacquet of Advice from Rome; being rather a virulent attack on popery, than serving the purpose of a newspaper. These extraordinary propositions were so far from being loosely advanced, that the court of king's bench proceeded to make an order, that the book should no longer be printed or published by any person whatsoever.[7] Such an order was evidently beyond the competence of that court, were even the prerogative of the king in council as high as its warmest advocates could strain it. It formed accordingly one article of the impeachment voted against Scroggs in the next session.[8] Another was for issuing general warrants (that is, warrants wherein no names are mentioned) to seize seditious libels and apprehend their authors.[9] But this impeachment having fallen to the ground, no check was put to general warrants, at least from the secretary of state, till the famous judgment of the court of common pleas in 1764.

Instances of illegal proclamations not numerous.—Those encroachments on the legislative supremacy of parliament, and on the personal rights of the subject, by means of proclamations issued from the privy council, which had rendered former princes of both the Tudor and Stuart families almost arbitrary masters of their people, had fallen with the odious tribunal by which they were enforced. The king was restored to nothing but what the law had preserved to him. Few instances appear of illegal proclamations in his reign. One of these, in 1665, required all officers and soldiers who had served in the armies of the late usurped powers to depart the cities of London and Westminster, and not to return within twenty miles of them before the November following. This seems connected with the