For the first, I am a little to alter their name; for in stead of takers, they become taxers.

Instead of taking provisions for your majesty's service, they tax your people 'ad redimendam vexationem;' imposing upon them and extorting from them divers sums of money, sometimes in gross, sometimes in the nature of stipends annually paid, 'ne noceant,' to be freed and eased of their oppression Again, they take trees, which by law they cannot do; timber trees which are the beauty, countenance, and shelter of men's houses; that men have long spared from their own purse and profit; that men esteem for their use and delight, above ten times the value; that are a loss which men cannot repair or recover.

These do they take, to the defacing and spoiling of your subjects' mansions and dwellings, except they may be compounded with to their own appetites.

And if a gentleman be too hard for them while he is at home, they will watch their time when there is but a bailiff or a servant remaining, and put the axe to the root of the tree, ere even the master can stop it.

Again, they use a strange and most unjust exaction in causing the subjects to pay poundage of their own debts, due from your majesty unto them; so as a poor man, when he has had his hay, or his wood, or his poultry (which perchance he was full loath to part with, and had for the provision of his own family, and not to put to sale) taken from him, and that not at a just price, but under the value, and cometh to receive his money, he shall have after the rate of twelve pence in the pound abated for poundage of his due payment upon so hard conditions.