154 COURT-MARTIAL ON GRANDVAL. [1692 came from active service in the field to the senate, and said honestly what they knew. Lord Colchester, who commanded the third troop of horseguards, was one of these. He told his story simply and clearly; and his relation confirms the ordinary historical accounts in all essentials: "I find the business of Steinkirk stick with some gentlemen. The chief occasion of the ill-success there was the wrong information given to the king of the ground we were to pass, which was so full of hedges and woods, that we could not draw up one body to sustain another; horse and foot were mingled. I saw the attack made by Fagel; Dutch, English, and all nations: they beat the French from hedge to hedge, but their very weight of men bore us down. The French came upon us, and Auverquerque came up, and behaved himself as well as any man in the world. He sent us two Danish regiments, and we retreated to the main body, and from thence to the main camp.' The anger of the House centred upon Solmes. "When this attack was formed," said colonel Cornwall, "Solmes was there, with ten battalions to sustain them. Solmes said, 'That to send more was to slaughter more."" The king withdrew his countenance from the obnoxious general, who had offended by his haughtiness as well as by his conduct in the battle of Steinkirk. He fell in a second unfortunate battle in the coming year. The Court-Martial on Grandval was re-opened in a week after the battle. Two of the Generals of whom it was originally composed had fallen in the field-Mackay and Lanier. The duty of the court was not very embarrassing; for the prisoner had made a circumstantial confession, "without any constraint or pain, or being in irons." So says the official relation of the Court-Martial. He declared that the late French minister, Louvois, had in 1691 entered into an agreement with Anthony Dumont, about the murder of king William; that upon the death of Louvois the design dropped, but that Barbesieux, the son of Louvois, who succeeded him as Secretary of State to the French king, revived the project, and had several conferences with him, Grandval; that he was engaged in the affair with colonel Parker, in the service of king James; and that with him, Barbesieux, and Dumont, the plan was arranged, which was that he should shoot William, when he exposed himself during the campaign. Leefdale was then brought into the scheme. The most material averment of the prisoner was, that he had seen James at St. Germains, his queen being present, and that James said, "Parker has given me an account of the business; if you and the other officers do me this service, you shall never want." Grandval was executed in the camp at Hal, according to his sentence. He declared in a letter to a friend that it cost him his life for having obeyed the orders of Barbesieux. The confession of Grandval was printed and circulated in several languages. No answer was made to its circumstantial statements, vouched for by ten distinguished officers of various nations, who composed the Court-Martial. The king returned to England on the 18th of October. The outward signs of a cordial welcome awaited him. There were illuminations as he passed through London to Kensington. There was a loyal address from the Corporation of London; and the king dined at Guildhall on the Lord Mayor's day. There was a solemn thanksgiving for his safe return, and for "Parliamentary History," vol. v. col. 718. 1692.] CRIME AND PUBLIC DISTRESS. 155 the great victory at sea. But there were many symptoms of political and social distempers, which made sober men uneasy. In September the queen had issued two proclamations-one for the discovery of seditious libellers, the other for the apprehension of highwaymen. The one proclamation was far more effective than the other. The libellers worked their secret presses, and the furious zealots circulated their productions without any material injury to the government. The people grumbled a little more under the pressure of taxation, and under other evils of their daily life, when they read inflammatory pamphlets from Jacobites and Non-jurors; but a return to the times before the Revolution was the farthest from their wishes. There was a good deal of alarm in that autumn of 1692, from the daring crimes that sometimes seem epidemic in a nation. Hence the proclamation against highwaymen. We have mentioned a robbery of the tax-collectors in Hertfordshire. Similar gangs of banditti robbed mails and stage-coaches even in the day-time. William on his return took strong measures to put down these enormities. Many highwaymen were discovered and executed; and a regiment of dragoons was used as a preventive police, and patroled all the great roads leading to the capital. Burglars were almost as bold and as numerous as footpads and highwaymen. We doubt whether there was any especial distress connected with this particular juncture; though it is said that there was a failure of the harvest-that the heavy rains had been fatal to the crops-that no fruit ripened-that the price of the quarter of wheat doubled. Evelyn indeed writes in his Diary of the 1st of October, "This season was so exceedingly cold, by reason of a long and tempestuous northeast wind, that this usually pleasant month was very uncomfortable. No fruit ripened kindly." But he says nothing of a bad harvest in England. He says, "France is in the utmost misery and poverty for the want of corn and subsistence." The harvest of 1692 is represented as plentiful, so that England was exporting corn. Nevertheless there can be no doubt that amongst a people who had not previously borne such heavy burdens of taxation as four years of war had imposed upon them—and whose industry was not sufficiently developed to enable them to bear their burdens without being weighed down-there must have been much suffering and more discontent. The king opened the Parliament on the 4th of November. He thanked them for their large supplies; he would be compelled to ask for a further supply to maintain a force by sea and land. He was sensible how heavy this charge was upon his people. It afflicted him to learn that it was not possible to be avoided, without exposing the kingdom to inevitable ruin and destruction. He hoped for their advice and assistance, which had never failed him. The House of Commons set about giving its advice; but it did little more than display a good deal of ill-humour as to the conduct of the war. There were several important matters bearing upon the future condition of the country, arising out of the proceedings of this Session, which we shall briefly notice. Turning over the Index of the ponderous Statute-book, to look for Acts. + Macaulay, vol. iv. p. 204. * Ante, p. 40. Tindal, vol. iii. p. 217. 156 COMMENCEMENT OF THE NATIONAL DEBT. [1698. that have had a permanent influence on the condition of the country, we might perhaps pass over one Act that bears this lengthy title: "An Act for granting to their majesties certain rates and duties of excise upon beer, ale, and other liquors for securing certain recompenses and advantages in the said Act mentioned, to such persons as shall voluntarily advance the sum of ten hundred thousand pounds towards carrying on the war against France." Under this statute commenced the National Debt of England. The million of money which was to supply a portion of the expenses of the war “in a manner that would be least grievous," as the preamble says, was expected to be voluntarily advanced on the credit of the special provision of the new duties of excise, which were to be set apart as they were paid into the Exchequer. The ten hundred thousand pounds were speedily subscribed; for the industry of the people had created capital which was seeking employment, although they had been far more heavily taxed during four years than at any previous period. Louis, although he was familiar with the system of loans, was somewhat amazed at the comparative ease with which taxes were raised and a million of money borrowed in England upon the credit of the taxes. He is said to have exclaimed, "My little cousin the prince of Orange is fixed in the saddle; no matter; the last louis d'or must carry it." This was really a just view of the premises of success, though the great king's conclusions were fallacious. The people of England were in a far better condition than the people of France, to fight on without expending all to the last louis d'or. The working and accumulating Middle Class was far more powerful in the one nation than in the other. There can be no doubt that the means first created by the Act of 1693 for the investment of superfluous capital, have largely contributed to the progressive development of the national resources. There can be no doubt, on the other hand, that the facilities of borrowing by the creation of Stock, have often led to extravagant expenditure in wars that have averted no real danger nor secured any public advantage. There can be nothing more true than the assertion of Mr. Ricardo that "there cannot be a greater security for the continuance of peace, than the imposing on ministers the necessity of applying to the people for the taxes to support a war." He has further observed, speaking the language of common sense which is the language of all true political economy, that "the burdens of a war are undoubtedly great during its continuance, but at its termination they cease altogether. When the pressure of war is felt at once, without mitigation, we shall be less disposed wantonly to engage in an expensive contest, and if engaged in it, we shall be sooner disposed to get out of it, unless it be a contest for some great national interest." Although the statesmen and the people of the reign of William III. felt that the war against the preponderance of France, and the consequent subjection of England, was for a great national interest, they also felt that the burden could not be borne in the existing state of the country without resort to the system of loans. In the case before us they did not contemplate a permanent loan. In the next year, when the Bank of England was established *4 Gul. & Mar. c. 3. 1693.] COMMENCEMENT OF THE NATIONAL DEBT. 157 upon the condition of lending a sum of money to the government, of which the principal could not be demanded by the lenders, though the borrowers had the privilege of paying it off, a permanent debt was begun to be contracted. The system of borrowing went on for three years, till at the peace of Ryswick the debt amounted to twenty-one millions and a half. Nevertheless, so strong was the objection to the continuance of that system, that, although engaged in a most expensive war for five years after the accession of Anne, the debt was reduced to sixteen millions. In half a century more it had increased to seventy-five millions. It was then the received opinion of financiers that if it ever reached a hundred millions the nation must become bankrupt. When we look at the one million borrowed on Life annuities in 1693, and the eight hundred and three millions constituting the public debt of the United Kingdom in 1858, we may be amazed at the vast amount of the burthen which has been gradually accumulating, but we also can now distinctly perceive how that burthen has been borne. It has not weighed down the country, because all the material resources of the country have been increasing with it. The increasing wealth-of which this vast debt owing by the nation to the nation is a symbol,-produced by the incessant applications of capital and labour, of science and invention, has increased the ability of the great body of the people to participate in the advantages to be derived from a ready and secure investment of their savings, with the condition that the sum so invested might be easily transferable. To this cause may be attributed the ease with which the government of that day could obtain loans by the creation of Public Funds at a fixed rate of interest, chiefly upon annuities. That facility shows the growing importance of the trading class, who most readily lent their surplus capital. Money, also, was no longer hoarded by those who had no means of employing it commercially; although, for a considerable period, there were vast numbers who had not sufficient confidence in the government to lend. The time was far distant when there would be three hundred thousand persons receiving dividends upon stock, and when one million three hundred and forty thousand persons would also lend their small accumulations through the agency of Savings' Banks. The country was steadily growing more prosperous, as the National Debt went on increasing to six times the amount at the period when inevitable bankruptcy was predicted. It was six hundred millions at the peace of Amiens. The eighteenth century, deficient as it was in many social improvements which we now command, was a period of rapid progress in agriculture and manufac tures ; and with this progress came a greater command of food and clothing, better dwellings, less frequent and less fatal epidemics for the great bulk of the people. The loan of 1693 has furnished data for a remarkable inquiry into the prolongation of life in the eighteenth century, consequent upon the bettered condition, and therefore improved health, of the population. That loan was a tontine. Every contributor of 1007. might name a life, to receive a fixed dividend during the duration of that life. As the annuitants dropped, their shares of the dividends were also to be divided amongst the survivors, till the whole number of annuitants was reduced to seven. In 1790, during the ministry of Mr. Pitt, another tontine 158 THE LICENSING ACT EXPIRES. [1693. was negociated. The comparative results, as exhibiting the probable duration of life at the two periods, have been worked out by Mr. Finlaison, upon the assumption that the 438 females and 594 males named in 1693, and the 3974 females and 4197 males named in 1790, were the youngest and the healthiest lives that the shareholders could select. Taking the dates at which the annuities of 1693 fell in, and estimating those of 1790 that had fallen or were still remaining in 1851, the calculation showed that in 1790 the expectation of life had increased one-fourth.* In 1692, “An Act for continuing certain laws that are expired and near expiring" was passed, in which the Act of Charles II., continued by that of James II., "for preventing abuses in printing seditious, treasonable, and unlicensed books and pamphlets, and for regulating printing and printingpresses," then about to expire, was continued to the 13th of February, 1692, and to the end of the next Session of Parliament. If that renewed Act should expire, the Press, exempted from the superintendence of a licenser, would to a great extent be freed; its real freedom would depend upon the law of libel, and its honest application. The licenser of the Stuarts, sir Roger Lestrange, was ejected from his office at the Revolution. "His sting is gone," says John Dunton. That worthy chronicler of publishers and authors sketches the characters of the successors of the Tory licenser, saying, very libellously, "he would wink at unlicensed books if the printer's wife" kept up to the example of too many wives of that age. He describes Mr. Fraser "commonly called Catalogue Fraser, from his skill in books;" Dr. Midgley, "no bigot; " Mr. Heron, with "an air of pleasantness in his countenance; and " our last licenser, before the Act of Printing expired, Edmund Bohun, Esqre.,” “a furious man against dissenters," and " a pretty author himself."+ Edmund Bohun brought his own house down over his head. He carried his party feeling into his official occupation; but had very strange notions which his party would not avow. He was bitterly attacked by a writer of very questionable notoriety, Charles Blount; and was more effectually damaged by a scheme of the same person" to ensnare and ruin him." Blount wrote a pamphlet, which Bohun readily licensed-for it rested the rights of the sovereigns of the Revolu tion upon a principle which would confer upon them absolute power. On the 22nd of January, complaint was made to the Commons, that a pamphlet, entitled "King William and queen Mary Conquerors, contained matter of dangerous consequence to their majesties, to the liberties of the subject, and to the peace of the kingdom." The House examined the matter; ordered the pamphlet to be burned by the common hangman; and prayed the Crown to remove from his office Mr. Edmund Bohun, the licenser, who had suffered the pamphlet to be printed. With the removal of this licenser the system of licensing came to an end. The Act for regulating Printing expired. The House was in a libel-burning mood, with regard to the same description of offence: "Dr. Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury's book burnt by the hangman, for an expression of the king's title by conquest, on a complaint of Joseph Howe, a member of parliament-little better than a madman."§ Some were for impeaching the * We gather these facts from a paper by Dr. Southwood Smith, read at Birmingham in 1857. + Dunton's "Life and Errors," p. 351, edit. 1705. Macaulay. S Evelyn. "Diary," Feb. 4. |