Thirdly, And in this present Parliament, how did they endeavour to
prepossess the Members of the House of Commons with strange, and false
prejudices and assertions drawn from irrational, and groundless
suppositions, making us the greatest Tyrants in the World, inferring
ridiculously that a Lady, or Charitable Gentlewoman (for in that
believing Sex they have gain'd a great deal of ground by their
falsities) might not give the Poor a Cordial, &c. without being
questioned by the College; whereas they know in their Consciences,
that the College hath power enough by their first Charter to act as
much in this kind against themselves, and all other persons, as they
desired of this present Parliament; And yet neither Apothecary, or any
other who practised charitably, were ever troubled for so doing. They
pretended also they were abridged wholy from their Trade, and might
not sell a penny-worth of Mithridate, &c. without a Doctors Bill.
Whereas there's not a word in the Charter to that purpose; the sole
intent whereof was to keep them as well as other Mountebanks, from
prescribing (which they call selling) the Physicians only livelyhood.
And as to the bill itself so much railed on by them in
Westminster-Hall, Coffee-Houses, Ale-Houses, &c. 'tis easie to make it
out, that this Charter as proposed gives the Apothecaries more liberty
and freedom of exercising their lawful Trade, then is enjoyed in any
other Nation, where both Corporations are erected, and that it doth in
nothing infringe, or diminish their freedom as Citizens, or their
Charter as Apothecaries; and that our Charter was compiled by some,
and perused and approved by others the most eminent Lawyers in England
for Worth and Place; and yet none of these could find any thing in it
either Illegal, Tyrannical, or unfit to be desired of the Parliament.
Nay many mis-informed Members being rightly instructed in the true
state of the matter, have acknowledged the justice of it; And was no