We may observe that the article of Purveyance is here very gently touched upon, and confined to a sign-manual. Mr. Anderson supposes that there must have been many more than _fifty_ Coaches introduced by the above allowance of _twelve_ horses; but it seems rather to imply that no Coach-Master should engross more than six Coaches to himself. This also might be a tacit mode of preserving a supply of horses to be purveyed for the King when necessary. One may collect from hence that private Coaches were sparingly kept, by the mention of the Nobility and Gentry. Hitherto we have found the Hackney Coaches under the regulation of the Crown, or its immediate Officers; but we are now to look for them at a time when the Monarchical Government was suspended, during the Protectorate. Whether the Master of the Horse received any emolument from granting the above Licences, is not apparent; but under the Commonwealth we find that the Coaches became subject to a tax towards the expence of their regulation; for by an Act of Oliver's Parliament, A. D. 1654, the number of such Coaches, within London and Westminster, was enlarged to _two hundred_[365]. The outlying distance was also augmented to _six_ miles _round the late lines of communication_, as the Statute expresses it; by which I conceive that the greatest distance was extended to _nine_ miles, including the _three_ prescribed, or rather enjoined, by the regulating proclamation of King Charles I. in the year 1635. By this Act of Oliver's Parliament, the government of the Hackney Coaches, with respect to their _stands_, _rates_, &c. was placed in the Court of Aldermen of London; and as, of course, this new business would require Clerks, and other officers, to supervise it, the Coach-Masters were made subject to the payment of _twenty shillings_ yearly for every such Coach. [365] Anderson says _three hundred_, but that must be an error; for the Docquet of the Act in Scobel says, that "the number of persons keeping Hackney Coaches shall not at one time exceed _two hundred_." This must apply to the number of Carriages; and so Sir William Blackstone understood it. Commentaries, vol. I, 4to. Here we have brought the Coaches under a Police similar to that of our own time; but it did not long remain in the hands of the Corporation; for in the year after the Restoration, the establishment was new-modelled by an Act of the 13th and 14th of King Charles II. 1661, wherein it is specified that no Coaches were to be used without a Licence,--who may be entitled to such Licences,--that the number shall not exceed 400,--what shall be the rates,--with penalties for exacting more[366]. [366] See the Act in the Statute Book.