Her sister, after the commencement of the war with France, had, from her own authority, imposed four marks on each tun of wine imported, and had increased the poundage a third on all commodities.

Queen Elizabeth continued these impositions as long as she thought convenient.

The parliament, who had so good an opportunity of restraining these arbitrary taxes when they voted the tonnage and poundage, thought not proper to make any mention of them.

They knew that the sovereign, during that age, pretended to have the sole regulation of foreign trade, and that their intermeddling with that prerogative would have drawn on them the severest reproof, if not chastisement.

See Forbes, vol.i.p.