the phrase 'a spring and magazine that should have no bottom'.....

A writ was
issued by the King, commanding the city of London to equip and
man ships of war for his service. Similar writs were sent to the
towns along the coast. These measures, though they were direct
violations of the Petition of Right, had at least some show
of precedent in their favour. But, after a time, the government
took a step for which no precedent could be pleaded, and sent
writs of ship-money to the inland counties. This was a stretch
of power on which Elizabeth herself had not ventured, even at a
time when all laws might with propriety have been made to bend
to that highest law, the safety of the state. The inland counties
had not been required to furnish ships, or money in the room of
ships, even when the Armada was approaching our shores. It seemed
intolerable that a prince who, by assenting to the Petition of Right,
had relinquished the power of levying ship-money even in the
out-ports, should be the first to levy it on parts of the kingdom
where it had been unknown under the most absolute of his
predecessors.

Clarendon distinctly admits that this tax was intended, not only
for the support of the navy, but "for a spring and magazine that
should have no bottom, and for an everlasting supply of all
occasions." The nation well understood this; and from one end of
England to the other the public mind was strongly excited.

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