was ordered to sail through their whole fleet on their own coast, and fire upon them if they did not strike their flag to it. The Dutch, who tendered any explanation that the English Government chose to dictate, were studiously insulted. Parliament was prevented from meeting lest they should declare against such atrocious proceedings; but the money of which they had been duped was soon exhausted by debts and expenses. France had promised to pay £200,000 a-year during the war, a sum, however, quite inadequate to maintain the navy. The axe of Charles I. inspired the King and his Ministry with too wholesome a respect for the English nation to venture again upon ship money. In this dilemma the King declared that the staff of the treasurer should reward the ingenuity of the man who should discover an expedient for "raising the wind." Shaftesbury is said to have the merit of originating the idea, but Clifford reaped the profit and honour. The expedient hit upon was to shut up the Exchequer

16. Charles seemed to be most at home in the lowest depths of iniquity. With the treaty of Dover in one pocket, he professed a warm zeal for the Protestant religion; with his Proclamation of 1667 in the other, he seized upon the bankers' money in the Exchequer. When he had performed the splendid feat of duping his Parliament out of £800,000, for the purpose of cutting the throats of the very people to whom they were most attached, it was but sorry game to plunder a few bankers. Nevertheless, the King was so delighted with the peculiar perfidy of the transaction, that, to the promised reward of the treasurer's staff, he superadded an ignominious peerage. On the 2nd January, 1672, appeared a proclamation, stating that the payments out of the Exchequer should be suspended for one year; but interest at the rate of 6 per cent. was promised. The King seized £1,328,526; of this sum £416,725 belonged to Sir Robert Vyner alone

17. The bankers, it is true, were not many, but the money they had belonged in great part to their customers, and these were 10,000. The coup de finance was so cleverly done that no one, except one or two of the most intimate friends of the conspirators,

had the slightest warning. The consternation was dreadful in the City. Numberless merchants were ruined. The distress was felt through all ranks of society. Widows and orphans, who had no other means of investment, had lent their all to the bankers. Many persons went mad; many died of a broken heart; many destroyed themselves. It was at first promised that the suspension should only be for a year; but year after year passed away, and neither the principal nor the interest was paid. But the intensity of the public suffering was too great, and the public indignation was too fierce to be neglected. What seems to be a most extraordinary circumstance is, that although so many persons of influence must have been injured by the transaction, there was no notice of it taken in Parliament. At length, in April, 1676, the King was obliged to order the accounts of the creditors to be examined by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. This having been done, in April 1677 the King issued letters patent, granting to each of the goldsmiths, their heirs and assigns, for the benefit of their creditors, in lieu and satisfaction of their debts, a yearly rent, part of the hereditary excise, equal to 6 per cent. upon the debt, with a clause of redemption, upon the King paying the principal and arrears of interest. These letters were printed and made public on the 23rd of May, 1677, and a bill to ratify them was passed by the House of Lords on the 10th July, 1678, but unfortunately, was not presented to the Commons before the end of the Session, and never became law

18. The interest continued to be paid till Lady-day, 1683, when it ceased. Those were times of fiery trial. The recoil of the crimes and cruelty of the Popish plot had struck down the fomentors of that horrible delusion. The blood of the hostile parties alternately flowed like water from the scaffold. The Royalists had obtained the undisputed ascendency, and payment of the interest due to the bankers immediately ceased. None was paid during the reign of James II. At length, in 1689, when the creditors were worn out with despair, some of them determined to petition the Court of Exchequer to make an order for payment of their claims. The Crown determined to resist payment, and the case was argued at great length; two years were occupied in the arguments and deliberations of the

judges. At length, in 1691, the Court gave judgment in favour of the petitioners, and made an order on the Exchequer for payment. The Court appealed to the Exchequer Chamber. At that time the Lord Chancellor, or the Keeper of the Great Seal, sat in the Exchequer Chamber, and was accustomed to receive the assistance of all the Common Law Judges. Lord Somers was Keeper of the Great Seal. In 1697, the case was argued before the whole of the Judges. There were two points to be decided. 1. Whether the letters patent were good and valid to bind the Crown. 2. Whether the remedy taken by the petitioners was the proper one, and if it was in the power of the Court of Exchequer to order payment from the Treasury of the sums due to the claimants. On the first point the Common Law Judges unanimously held that the letters patent were good and valid to bind the Crown. On the second point they all, with one exception, held that the petitioners had adopted the proper course in petitioning the Exchequer, and that the Court had power to order payment. The Chief Justice of the Common Pleas alone held that they had not adopted the right remedy; that the Court of Exchequer had no power to order payments out of the treasury; and that the claimants ought to have petitioned the King himself. The assistant Judges having thus all delivered their opinions, the case remained for the final judgment of Lord Somers. It is one of the most famous cases in Westminster Hall. The Lord Keeper is said to have expended several hundred pounds in collecting books and pamphlets for his judgment. He carefully abstained from pronouncing any opinion as to whether the grant was good, and bound the Crown; but, after going over all the precedents with extraordinary care and minuteness, and reviewing the history and powers of the Court of Exchequer, he held that the petitioners had adopted a wrong remedy, and that the Court had no power to order payment as it had done. It was doubtful whether the Keeper of the Great Seal had power to give the judgment of the Court against the opinion of the majority of the assisting Judges. Three Judges held that he had not this power, but seven held that he had; he accordingly reversed the judgment of the Court of Exchequer

19. Under such circumstances, it was scandalous and dis

graceful in the Crown to contest the matter any longer. Every one affirmed the case; the objection was purely technical. The claimants appealed to the House of Lords; the Crown persisted in a strenuous and disgraceful opposition, but, on the 23rd January, 1700, the Lords finally gave judgment in favour of the bankers, and reversed the judgment of Lord Somers. One would have thought that after such aggravated wrong and injustice, the Parliament would have hastened to repair the injury done to these unfortunate men. But the strangest part of the case is yet to come. The judgment of the Court clearly established their right to all arrears of interest; but they were not paid one farthing of it. An Act was passed in 1700, that after the 26th December, 1701, the hereditary excise should be charged with interest at the rate of 3 per cent. on the principal, until payment was made of one-half of the debt. Thus ended this monstrous iniquity. The principal never was repaid, but was afterwards consolidated with the South Sea Annuities, and still forms part of the National Debt. It has been calculated that the loss to the bankers and their creditors, from arrears of interest and retention of the principal, was nearly three millions, to say nothing of the frightful expense of such protracted litigation

20. Notwithstanding the political agitation of the period, and the vice and extravagance of the Court, the nation, from the sheer force of its energy, continued to thrive and progress as soon as it attained a tolerably settled condition, but the want of an adequate supply of circulating medium was felt severely to cramp the operations of trade, and many persons who understood the great benefits which foreign countries derived from the establishment of banks, attempted to induce the Government to erect similar institutions. A great number of projects were started in print, some of particularly magnificent dimensions, but, as none of them came to anything, we need not be delayed by them any further

21. The troubled, but glorious era of 1688, not only destroyed public credit, but as was natural, diminished the productiveness of the taxes, and the new Government were obliged to purchase popularity by abolishing the hearth tax.

The tonnage and poundage, which in the reign of James II. produced £600,000, fell in 1693 to £286,687, and, notwithstanding some additional taxes were laid on, the whole revenue in 1693, was £1,510,318. Such an income was wholly inadequate to sustain the feeble and unsettled Government, and the most extensive frauds and robberies prevailed among the public officers. Some of these frauds were brought to light and the offenders punished; but, though commissioners were appointed for the purpose of discovering the defaulters, the Commons resolved in 1701-"That it was notorious that many millions of money had been given to his Majesty for the service of the public, which remain yet unaccounted for." It was alleged, that in five years, the almost incredible sum of nearly eleven millions was thus embezzled

22. The chief object which tempted William's ambition to obtain the Crown of England, was to head the great European alliance against the overwhelming power of France. No sooner was the King pretty firm on his throne than he persuaded the Parliament to agree to a war with their ancient enemies. The Parliament was eager for the war and readily voted supplies, but they were scarce, and difficult to be got. The Government, at first, attempted to persevere in the old plan of mortgaging the grants to be voted by Parliament. Their attempts, however, were not very successful; and, in 1690, Parliament began the system of allowing money to be raised on short annuities, which was attended with good success. The increasing expense of the war, however, rendered this plan too burdensome, and in 1692 a plan was brought forward for raising duties for the space of 99 years, to pay the interest of an intended loan of £1,000,000 upon a tontine scheme. The subscribers were to receive 10 per cent. till 1700, and after that £7,000 per annum was to be divided among the survivors till their number was reduced to seven, when, upon the death of each, his annuity was to lapse to the Crown. So low was the credit of the Government that only £108,100 was obtained on these tempting terms, and a clause was introduced by which the subscribers might obtain 14 per cent. upon any life they chose to nominate. But even these two schemes produced only £881,493