The Kings of these realms enjoy several powers, wherein the laws have not interposed: So they can make war and peace without the consent of Parliament; and this is a very great prerogative. But if the Parliament doth not approve of the war, the King must bear the charge of it out of his own purse, and this is as great a check on the crown. So the King hath a prerogative to coin money without consent of Parliament. But he cannot compel the subject to take that money except it be sterling, gold or silver; because herein he is limited by law. Some princes have indeed extended their prerogative further than the law allowed them; wherein however, the lawyers of succeeding ages, as fond as they are of precedents, have never dared to justify them. But to say the truth, it is only of late times that prerogative hath been fixed and ascertained. For whoever reads the histories of England, will find that some former Kings, and these none of the worst, have upon several occasions ventured to control the laws with very little ceremony or scruple, even later than the days of Queen Elizabeth. In her reign that pernicious counsel of sending base money hither, very narrowly failed of losing the kingdom, being complained of by the lord-deputy, the council, and the whole body of the English here:[5] So that soon after her death it was recalled by her successor, and lawful money paid in exchange. [Footnote 5: See Moryson's "Itinerary" (Pt. ii., pp. 90, 196 and 262), where an account is given which fully bears out Swift.[T.S.]] Having thus given you some notion of what is meant by the King's "prerogative," as far as a tradesman can be thought capable of explaining it, I will only add the opinion of the great Lord Bacon: That "as God governs the world by the settled laws of nature, which he hath made, and never transcends those laws but upon high important occasions; so among earthly princes, those are the wisest and the best, who govern by the known laws of the country, and seldomest make use of their prerogative."[6] [Footnote 6: The words in inverted commas appear to be a reminiscence rather than a quotation. I have not traced the sentence, as it stands, in Bacon; but the regular government of the world by the laws of nature, as contrasted with the exceptional disturbance of these laws, is enunciated in Bacon's "Confession of Faith," while the dangers of a strained prerogative are urged in the "Essay on Empire." Bacon certainly gives no support to Swift's limits of the prerogative as regards coinage. [CRAIK.]]