Most of the money went into the king's coffers for his private use; neither was he accountable for any part of it.

Hence arose the form of the king's thanking his subjects for their benevolence, when any subsidies, tenths, or fifteenths were given him: but the supplies now granted are of another nature, and cannot be properly called a particular benefit to the crown, because they are all appropriated to their several uses: so that when the House of Commons tack to a money bill what is foreign and hard to be digested, if it be not passed, they put themselves and their country in as great difficulties as the prince.

On the other side, there have been several regulations made, through the course of time, in parliamentary proceedings; among which it is grown a rule, that a Bill once rejected shall not be brought up again the same session; whereby the Commons seem to have lost the advantage of purchasing a redress of their grievances, by granting supplies, which, upon some emergencies, hath put them upon this expedient of tacking: so that there is more to be said on each side of the case, than is convenient for me to trouble the reader or myself in deducing.
Among the matters of importance during this session, we may justly number the proceedings of the House of Commons with relation to the press, since Her Majesty's message to the House, of January the seventeenth, concludes with a paragraph, representing the great licences taken in publishing false and scandalous libels, such as are a reproach to any government; and recommending to them to find a remedy equal to the mischief.

The meaning of these words in the message, seems to be confined to these weekly and daily papers and pamphlets, reflecting upon the persons and the management of the ministry.

But the House of Commons, in their address, which answers this message, makes an addition of the blasphemies against God and religion; and it is certain, that nothing would be more for the honour of the legislature, than some effectual law for putting a stop to this universal mischief: but as the person,[36] who advised the Queen in that part of her message, had only then in his thoughts the redressing of the political and factious libels, I think he ought to have taken care, by his great credit in the House, to have proposed some ways by which that evil might be removed; the law for taxing single papers having produced a quite contrary effect, as was then foreseen by many persons, and hath since been found true by experience, For the adverse party, full of rage and leisure since their fall, and unanimous in defence of their cause, employ a set of writers by subscription, who are well versed in all the topics of defamation, and have a style and genius levelled to the generality of readers; while those who would draw their pens on the side of their prince and country, are discouraged by this tax, which exceeds the intrinsic value both of the materials and the work; a thing, if I be not mistaken, without example.
[Footnote 36: Mr.Secretary St.John, now Lord Viscount Bolingbroke.
[ORIGINAL NOTE.]] It must be acknowledged, that the bad practices of printers have been such, as to deserve the severest animadversions of the public; and it is to be wished, the party quarrels of the pen were always managed with decency and truth: but in the mean time, to open the mouths of our enemies and shut our own, is a turn of politics that wants a little to be explained.