powers'. From these texts they inferred, that the new oaths ought to be taken without scruple; and that those who refused them, concealed party under the cloak of conscience. On the other hand, the fallacy and treachery of these arguments were demonstrated. They said, it levelled all distinctions of justice and duty; that those who taught such doctrines, attached themselves solely to possession, however unjustly acquired; that if twenty different usurpers should succeed one another, they would recognise the last, notwithstanding the allegiance they had so solemnly sworn to his predecessor, like the fawning spaniel that followed the thief who had mounted his master's horse, after having murdered the right owner. They also denied the justice of a lay-deprivation, and with respect to church government started the same distinctions de jure' and 'de facto', which they had formerly made in the civil administration."

LIBERTY OF THE PRESS ALLOWED. 1695. A general system of printing and licensing was established by a decree of the Star-chamber in 1637, and continued by an order of the Lords and Commons, 1643. It was in consequence of this order, that Milton wrote his "Areopa gitica; a Speech for the Liberty of unlicensed Printing", addressed to the parliament of England, in which he shows that the system of licensing originated with the papal Inquisition, and that it ought not to be adopted by a Protestant community; he further points out its uselessness and injustice, and observes that the order of parliament is only a revival of the former order of the Star-chamber. After the Restoration, a licensing act passed in 1662, and was continued in full force till 1679. It was revived by James in 1685, for seven years, and in 1692, continued till the end of the session of 1693, when it expired. Several attempts were subsequently made to revive the Censorship of the Press, but without success. Even during the existence of a censorship, many unlicensed publications were circulated, and during the first four years after the Revolution, by none more than the Jacobites. When it was found no longer possible to restrain the press, ministers themselves employed it against their opponents. Hallam says, "This was first practised (first, I mean, with the avowed sanction of the government,) by Swift in his Examiner, and some of his other writings. And both parties soon went such lengths in the warfare, that it became tacitly understood that the public charaoters of statesmen, and the measures of administration, are fair topics of pretty severe remark".

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A COMMISSION APPOINTED TO PREPARE ALTERATIONS IN THE LITURGY. 1689. At the same time that toleration was granted to Protestant Dissenters, an attempt was made to obtain some alterations in the Establishment itself. For this purpose a commission issued to prepare alterations in the Liturgy and Canons, to make proposals for reforming the Ecclesiastical Courts, and to provide for a strict method of examining candidates for holy orders". Ten bishops and twenty divines were named for this work, many of them the brightest ornaments of the English Church. After long discussions, some alterations were agreed to, but the Universities and the majority of the Convocation decided against their being made. Bishop Short remarks on this abortive attempt: " Whether or no any great success might have arisen from an attempt at a comprehension, is very doubtful. Those who have once left the communion of the

Establishment are not likely to be reclaimed by any changes which can be made in the services; but it would surely be desirable, if every objection which a sober and reasonable churchman might make to these formularies, were as far as possible obviated. There were many things which did then, there are some things which do now, offend the true friends of the Church of England, who willingly comply with the liturgy and services, as established by law, because they esteem the Common Prayer Book, as a whole, to be a most excellent composition, one wonderfully well suited to the purposes for which it was intended; but who nevertheless, regard it as a human production, and therefore capable of improvement, as well as requiring from time to time, verbal alterations, as the language of the country gradually varies. And the quiet friend of reform cannot but feel sorry that the attempt was then dropped, and has never since been carried into effect."

THE BANK OF ENGLAND ESTABLISHED. 1694. The Jews appear among the first persons in this country that made a business of money transactions. They were succeeded by loan banks or Lombard houses for lending money on pledge. At a more recent period the goldsmiths became bankers, first merely as places of deposit or safekeeping, and afterwards for discount. For more than a century prior to the establishment of the Bank of England, the goldsmiths held the same rank and importance in commerce, and exercised similar functions, as the private bankers do at the present day. The Bank of England was founded principally through the exertions of Paterson, the projector of the Darien Company. The following paragraph is from the "Pictorial History of England". Paterson according to his own account, commenced his exertions for the establishment of an English bank, similar to those already existing at Amsterdam, Venice, Genoa, and Hamburgh, in 1691. A principal object which he had in view from the first, in addition to the accommodation of the mercantile community, appears to have been the support of public credit, and the relief of the government from the ruinous terms upon which the raising of the supplies and other financial operations were then conducted. The lowest rate, he tells us, at which advances used to be obtained from capitalists, even upon the land tax, which seems to have been considered the surest part of the national revenue, was eight per cent. although repayment was made within the year, and premiums were generally granted to the subscribers. On anticipa tions of other taxes, counting discount and interest, the public had sometimes to pay twenty, thirty, or even forty per cent.

"William was abroad when the proposal was brought before the cabinet in 1693, where long debates took place upon it, in the presence of the queen, but at last an act of parliament was passed (5 and William and Mary, c. 20) which in imposing certain rates and duties on tonnage of ships, and upon beer, ale and other liquors, authorised their majesties to grant a commission to take subscriptions for £1,200,000, of the whole £1,500,000 which the new taxes were expected to raise, and to incorporate the subscribers into a company, under the name of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England. Interest at eight per cent. was to be allowed upon the money advanced, and about £4000 a year for management. The company were to be enabled to purchase lands, &c. and to exercise all the usual

powers of bodies corporate; but were not to trade in the buying or selling of any goods or merchandise, except that they might deal in bills of exchange, and in buying and selling of bullion, gold or silver, and in selling any goods or merchandise which should be pledged to them for money lent thereon, and might also sell the produce of their own lands."

THE NATIONAL DEBT. 1697. When the Revolution took place, the arrears due to the army and king's servants made a sum of about £650,000, to meet which there were moneys sufficient either in the exchequer, or in the hands of the receivers of taxes. There was however besides, a debt due by the State to the amount of £1,328,526, being the sum seized by Charles II. belonging to the banker's funds in the exchequer, 1672. During the war with France, William was obliged to borrow money, much of it in the shape of annuities. At the peace of Ryswick in 1697, the amount of undischarged obligations amounted to more than £5,000,000. This sum was then constituted into one debt or fund, and called the First General Mortgage. Inaluding moneys borrowed from the Bank in 1694, and the East India company in 1699, the Public Debt at the death of William was £16,394,702.

The following causes have been assigned for the accumulation of debt in William's reign. Inadequacy of the taxes to meet the expenses of the state, and the reluctance of the new government to impose more; the expenses of the Revolution itself, and the reduction of Ireland; the recoinage, which cost in loss and expense two and a half millions; and the French war, which was carried on at an enormous outlay, and at the same time greatly injured the commerce of England.

"The want of parsimony" observes Adam Smith, "in time of peace, imposes the necessity of contracting debt in time of war. When war comes, there is no money in the treasury but what is necessary for carrying on the ordinary expense of the peace establishment. In war an establishment of three or four times that expense becomes necessary for the defence of the state, and consequently a revenue three or four times greater than the peace revenue. Supposing that the sovereign should have-what he scarce ever has-the immediate means of augmenting his revenue in proportion to the augmentation of his expense, yet still the produce of the taxes, from which this increase of revenue must be drawn, will not begin to come into the treasury till perhaps ten or twelve months after they are imposed; but the moment in which war begins, or rather the moment in which it appears likely to begin, the army must be augmented, the fleet must be fitted out, the garrisoned towns must be put into a posture of defence; that army, that fleet, those garrisoned towns, must be furnished with arms, ammunition, and provisions: an immediate and great expense must be incurred in that moment of immediate danger, which will not wait for the gradual and slow returns of the new taxes. In this exigency government can have no other resource but in borrowing."

CHAPTER VII.

ANNE. MARCH 8, 1702-AUGUST 1, 1714.

SECTION I. STATE OF AFFAIRS ON THE ACCESSION OF ANNE.

1. Anne's great aversion to the Whigs: her ministry. The Lady Marlborough accounts for the predilections of Anne in the following manner :- "The queen had from her infancy imbibed the most unconquerable prejudices against the Whigs. She had been taught to look upon them all, not only as republicans, who hated the very shadow of regal authority, but as implacable enemies to the Church of England. This aversion to the whole party had been confirmed by the ill-usage she had met with from her sister and King William, which, perhaps more owing to Lord Rochester than to any man then living, was now to be all charged to the account of the Whigs. And Prince George her husband, who had also been ill-treated in that reign, threw into the scale his resentment. On the other hand, the Tories had the advantage, not only of the queen's early prepossessions in their favor, but of their having assisted her in the affair of her settlement. is no great wonder therefore, that all these things considered, that as soon as she was seated on the throne, the Tories (whom she usually called by the agreeable name of the church party,) became the distinguished objects of the royal favor."

It

The office of lord high treasurer was at first declined by Godolphin, but his objections were subsequently overruled by the persuasions of Marlborough, who had indeed refused to command the forces abroad, unless the treasury were in hands upon which he could depend. Prince George the queen's husband, was created lord high-admiral, and a council appointed to assist him in the conduct of the admiralty, of which Sir George Rooke was the president, and the other members Tories or Jacobites. The Earl of Nottingham, one of the Tory chiefs, and his dependent Sir Charles Hedges, were secretaries of state. Pembroke took Somerset's place as lord president, Rochester, the queen's uncle, was continued lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and Marlborough appointed captain-general of the forces. The only Whigs that held posts of considerable influence, were Devonshire, lord high-steward, and Mr. Boyle, chancellor of the exchequer. The names of the great

Whig leaders, Somers, Halifax, and Orford, were erased from the list of persons to be summoned to attend the meetings of the privy council.

2. Anne adopts the foreign policy of William. The Dutch were greatly depressed on hearing of the death of William, but their drooping spirits revived when the express brought them the queen's speech, in which it was declared that too much could not be done for the encouragement of their allies, in humbling the power of France. They were shortly after further inspirited by the arrival of Marlborough as ambassador extraordinary to the States-General, to assure them that her Britannic Majesty would maintain the alliances concluded by the late king, and do everything that the common concerns of Europe required. It was arranged that Marlborough should have the chief command of the allied armies, and that war should be declared the same day at London, the Hague, and Vienna, which was done on the 4th of May. France had been in raptures at the death of William, and tried their best efforts to detach the Dutch from the alliance, but without effect.

3. The former parliament meets. March-May, 1702. To prevent the inconvenience and danger in calling a new parliament immediately on the accession of a new sovereign, it was enacted by the 7 and 8. Will. III., that the parliament in being shall continue for six months after the death of any king or queen, unless sooner prorogued or dissolved by the successor. Anne in her speech to the parliament recommended the union of England and Scotland. To carry out the queen's wish, the Commons brought in a bill empowering her majesty to name commissioners to treat with the Scots for a union with the two kingdoms. The measure met with great opposition from the Tory members, but it seemed so necessary to secure the protestant succession against the designs of France, and the claims of the Pretender, that the bill passed both Houses.

SECTION II. ANNE'S FIRST PARLIAMENT, 1702-1705. 1. Tories preponderate in the first parliament. Burnet says: "The queen did not openly interpose in the elections, but her inclination to the Tories appeared plainly, and all people took it for granted, that she wished they might be the majority : this brought on the inconstancy and servility that is natural to multitudes and the conceit which had been infused and propagated with much industry, that the Whigs had charged the nation with great taxes, of which a large share had been devoured by themselves, had so far turned the tide that the Tories in the House of Commons were at least double the number of the Whigs.