"But if any person shall be committed for any other cause, then the same ought specially to be returned." This paper bears the original signatures of eleven judges. It has no date, but is indorsed 5 June 1591. In the printed report, it is said to have been delivered in Easter term 34 Eliz., that is, in 1592. The Chancellor Hatton, whose name is mentioned, died in November 1591; so that, if there is no mistake, this must have been delivered a second time, after undergoing the revision of the judges. And in fact the differences are far too material to have proceeded from accidental carelessness in transcription. The latter copy is fuller, and on the whole more perspicuous, than the manuscript I have followed; but in one or two places it will be better understood by comparison with it. _Proclamations unwarranted by law._--It was a natural consequence, not more of the high notions entertained of prerogative than of the very irregular and infrequent meeting of parliament, that an extensive and somewhat indefinite authority should be arrogated to proclamations of the king in council. Temporary ordinances, bordering at least on legislative authority, grow out of the varying exigencies of civil society, and will by very necessity be put up with in silence, wherever the constitution of the commonwealth does not, directly or in effect, provide for frequent assemblies of the body in whom the right of making or consenting to laws has been vested. Since the English constitution has reached its zenith, we have endeavoured to provide a remedy by statute for every possible mischief or inconvenience; and if this has swollen our code to an enormous redundance, till, in the labyrinth of written law, we almost feel again the uncertainties of arbitrary power, it has at least put an end to such exertions of prerogative as fell at once on the persons and properties of whole classes. It seems by the proclamations issued under Elizabeth, that the Crown claimed a sort of supplemental right of legislation, to perfect and carry into effect what the spirit of existing laws might require, as well as a paramount supremacy, called sometimes the king's absolute or sovereign power, which sanctioned commands beyond the legal prerogative, for the sake of public safety, whenever the council might judge that to be in hazard. Thus we find anabaptists, without distinction of natives or aliens, banished the realm; Irishmen commanded to depart into Ireland; the culture of woad,[378] and the exportation of corn, money, and various commodities, prohibited; the excess of apparel restrained. A proclamation in 1580 forbids the erection of houses within three miles of London, on account of the too great increase of the city, under the penalty of imprisonment and forfeiture of the materials.[379] This is repeated at other times, and lastly (I mean during her reign) in 1602, with additional restrictions.[380] Some proclamations in this reign hold