Book Description

Excerpt from The British Plutarch, Vol. 5 of 6: Containing the Lives of the Most Eminent Statesmen, Patriots, Divines, Warriors, Philosophers, Poets, and Artists, of Great Britain and Ireland, From the Accession of Henry VIII, to the Present Time, Including a Complete History of England From That AEra Neither the exact time of the birth of Henry Booth, nor yet any account of his infant years remains on record; the first mention made of him being, "that during the life of his father, he was knight of the shire for the county of Chester, in several parliaments, in the reign of king Charles II." And in the house of commons he constantly shewed himself a firm opposer of arbitrary power, and a steady friend to the rights of the people. He exerted himself in support of the bill of exclusion; and in the speech which he made on that occasion, he endeavoured to prove, (to use his own words) that the next of kin has not so absolute an inherent right to the crown, but that he may for the good of the nation be set aside: " as all government was instituted for the benefit of the people, and not for the private interest of any particular family or individual. He was very solicitous to have procured an act for the punishing those, who were known to have received bribes from the court, in the parliament which was stiled the Pension Parliament, in the in the reign of king Charles II. In the speech which he made on this subject in the subsequent parliament, he said, "Breach of trust is accounted the most infamous thing in the world, and this these men have been guilty of to the highest degree. Robbery and stealing, our law punishes with death; and what deserve they, who beggar and take away all that the nation has, under the protection of disposing of the people's money for the honour and good of the king and kingdom." About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."