It is evident, that those who would apologize for the measures of the court, must, in this case, found their arguments, not on law, but reasons of state. The judges, therefore, who condemned the city, are inexcusable; since the sole object of their determinations must ever be the pure principles of justice and equity. But the office of judge was at that time held during pleasure; and it was impossible that any cause, where the court bent its force, could ever be carried against it. After sentence was pronounced, the city applied in an humble manner to the king; and he agreed to restore their charter, but in return they were obliged to submit to the following regulations that no mayor, sheriff, recorder, common serjeant, town clerk, or coroner, should be admitted to the exercise of his office without his majesty's approbation: that if the king disapprove twice of the mayor or sheriffs elected, he may by commission appoint these magistrates: that the mayor and court of aldermen may, with his majesty's leave, displace any magistrate: and that no alderman, in case of a vacancy, shall be elected without consent of the court of aldermen, who, if they disapprove twice of the choice, may fill the vacancy.
All the corporations in England, having the example of London before their eyes, saw how vain it would prove to contend with the court, and were, most of them, successively induced to surrender their charters into the king's hands. Considerable sums were exacted for restoring the charters; and all offices of power and profit were left at the disposal of the crown. It seems strange that the independent royalists, who never meant to make the crown absolute, should yet be so elated with the victory obtained over their adversaries, as to approve of a precedent which left no national privileges in security, but enabled the king, under like pretences, and by means of like instruments, to recall anew all those charters which at present he was pleased to grant. And every friend to liberty must allow, that the nation, whose constitution was thus broken in the shock of faction, had a right, by every prudent expedient, to recover that security of which it was so unhappily bereaved.