la
 
 A'
 
 THE FIRST NINE YEAES OF THE 
 BANK OF ENGLAND 
 
 THOROLD ROGERS
 
 HENRY FROWDE 
 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE 
 AMEN CORNER, E.G.
 
 THE FIEST NINE YEARS 
 
 OP 
 
 THE BANK OF ENGLAND 
 
 AN ENQUIRY INTO A WEEKLY EECOKD OF THE PEICE 
 
 OF BANK STOCK FKOM AUGUST 17, 1694 
 
 TO SEPTEMBER 17, 1703 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES E. THOROLD KOGEKS 
 
 1 MERSES PROFVKDO; PVLCHRIOR EVEN1T.' 
 
 AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 
 
 1887 
 
 [All rights reserved]
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 
 , 
 
 AMONG the materials which I have collected for 
 
 PQ 
 
 the fifth and sixth volumes of my History of 
 Agriculture and Prices, is a weekly register of the 
 price of Bank of England stock, from August 17, 
 1694, to September 17, 1703. The entries or quota- 
 
 (f) 
 
 t; tions are taken from a statistical paper published by 
 >. John Houghton, an apothecary who first lived near 
 g the Koyal Exchange, and next in Gracechurch Street. 
 -* Houghton's paper contains a short article on some 
 ? matter of public interest in art or science or trade, 
 a price list of corn and some other commodities, from 
 
 o 
 
 many English market towns, and a number of adver- 
 
 ^ tisements. The sheet is continued till the date given 
 
 S above, when the proprietor of the paper informs his 
 
 !E subscribers that his business has so increased that it is 
 
 no longer in his power to afford the time necessary in 
 
 order to enable him to digest the materials for his 
 
 weekly publication. Houghton was the friend of 
 
 many eminent persons in his day, notably of Halley 
 
 the astronomer and physicist. He must have had 
 
 a reputation of his own, for he was long a Fellow of
 
 vi Preface. 
 
 the Eoyal Society, as well as a very active man of 
 business. He is probably the person referred to in 
 Bishop Sprat's account of the Eoyal Society as the 
 tradesman whom the Society had elected, and for 
 whose presence they thought fit to apologise to 
 the King. Charles answered that he wished them 
 to elect many such persons, if they were equally 
 competent. 
 
 It is probable that not half a dozen perfect copies 
 of this remarkable work survive. Houghton's price 
 lists had only an ephemeral interest. His weekly 
 essays were indeed valued, and were reprinted long 
 after his death, the editor of this part of the col- 
 lections commenting on the excessive rarity of the 
 sheets from which they were extracted. The Bodleian 
 Library fortunately possesses a clean and perfect 
 copy. It is contained in the great collection of 
 newspapers given by the late Mr. Hope to the 
 University. I make no doubt that the British 
 Museum also possesses a copy, for I have seen 
 allusions to Houghton's paper in a work called 
 a History of Advertising. 
 
 As some of the expressions used to designate the 
 quotations of Bank stock were obscure, I enquired of 
 my friend Mr. Henry Grenfell, one of the Directors 
 of the Bank of England, whether I could get an 
 authoritative explanation in that institution. But I 
 found, on calling by his invitation at the Secretary's 
 office in the Bank, that the Bank had no knowledge
 
 Preface. vii 
 
 of the price of its stock before 1 705, and I inferred 
 that I had made a singular and curious discovery in 
 Houghton. I determined therefore that the register 
 should be published with a comment on it, because 
 it supplies a blank in the history of the Bank of 
 England, and indeed of the country, and this during 
 the time that this great institution, and very much 
 besides, were struggling for their very existence. 
 This was especially the case through the critical years 
 1695, ^96 and 1697. I fe^ that, if I could adequately 
 comment on the facts, I should make no slight con- 
 tribution to economical and financial history, and 
 should besides throw some light on the political 
 events which occurred during the last eight years 
 of William the Third's reign, and the first year and 
 a-half of Anne's. 
 
 The most necessary materials for illustrating the 
 facts are the Journals of the two Houses and the 
 Statute-book for the period. 
 
 The project of a public bank long preceded its 
 adoption by Parliament as a protected corporation. 
 Thus, for instance, in the beginning of the year 1658 
 John Lambe, a London merchant, drew up the scheme 
 of a bank which he submitted to Oliver, then Lord 
 Protector. But the confusion which followed on 
 Cromwell's death in the same year prevented any 
 steps being taken with the project, if indeed it was 
 seriously entertained. Then, towards the latter end 
 of Charles's reign, the importance of establishing a
 
 viii Preface. 
 
 bank in London, with branches in the largest towns, 
 was seriously discussed. Some writers suggested 
 that the bank should be under the management of 
 the corporation of the City, who should certify to its 
 credit, in imitation of the Bank of Amsterdam. 
 Others would have grafted it on one or the other of 
 the Companies which were then in existence and were 
 carrying on domestic manufactures and trade, just 
 as, long after this time, one of the Scotch banks was 
 based on a manufacturing company, and still bears 
 the name of the British Linen Company. 
 
 All persons indeed who were engaged in business 
 were alive to the possibility of circulating credit. 
 They had become familiar, in the City at least, with 
 such expedients by the circulation of goldsmiths' notes. 
 The difficulty was to find a security strong enough 
 to be trusted, and strong enough to be safe. Now 
 the goldsmith did not always satisfy the first con- 
 dition, for we are told that London merchants and 
 others had lost from two to three millions 1 through 
 the bankruptcy of goldsmiths, and the experiences 
 which had been endured in consequence of the action 
 of the Government must have made it manifest that 
 nothing but a really popular Government could give 
 adequate security to paper credit. Objectors were 
 not far wrong who said that a bank was incon- 
 sistent with monarchy, if by that they meant an 
 absolute one. 
 
 1 A Short Account of the Bank of England, 1695.
 
 Preface. ix 
 
 But even more important than these notices is Nar- 
 cissus Luttrell's Diary, a work preserved in All Souls 
 
 College Library. This collection was first used by 
 Macaulay for his History. It contains all the current 
 information which the writer could pick up and 
 chronicle, between 1678 and 1714. The work was 
 printed by the Oxford University Press at Macaulay 's 
 instance, and is simply invaluable for English history 
 and English opinion during the time which it covers. 
 Luttrell appears to have been a moderate Whig ; 
 but there is little direct political bias discoverable in 
 his diary. He frequently gives the price of Bank 
 stock, and I have incorporated his figures in the 
 text below. Many of these prices, I have reason to 
 believe, are time bargains, and not bona fide sales and 
 transfers of stock, as I believe Houghton's are. 
 
 Houghton's collections contain not only the price 
 of Bank stock, but those of many other funds, or 
 actions as they were then called. Of these the most 
 interesting are the prices of stock in the two East 
 India Companies, the African Company, and the 
 Hudson's Bay Company, and I have taken occasion 
 from time to time to compare the fluctuations of 
 East India Company's stock with that of the Bank. 
 Houghton gives also the rate of exchange, especially 
 with Amsterdam, then the centre of European finance. 
 I have been able to interpret this rate, essential in 
 order to comprehend the troubles of the Bank, in 
 the three important years referred to, from the rare
 
 x Preface. 
 
 and valuable work of Justice (1707) on the foreign 
 exchanges. I have procured, also from Houghton's 
 pages, the five Advertisements of Chamberlain's Land 
 Bank, a project which, concurrently with other 
 causes, gave that great shock to credit in 1696-7 
 which nearly destroyed the Bank, and all credit 
 with it. 
 
 The next source of contemporaneous information 
 is to be found in the pamphlets of the time. These 
 pamphlets are to the age in which they were 
 written what articles and essays in financial papers 
 are at the present time, except perhaps that they 
 were more carefully composed, because they had 
 to discuss very disputable subjects in very critical 
 times, and were frequently quoted years after they 
 were written. I think I may say, that they entirely 
 exhaust the contemporary aspect of the subject. 
 They are generally anonymous, but the authorship 
 of some has been revealed. Most are in the in- 
 terest of the Bank of England, though some of 
 them contain sharp but friendly criticisms on its 
 action. At the same time there are two or three 
 others which advocate the cause of the Land Bank. 
 One of these is I think written by Foley, some 
 time Speaker of the House of Commons, who with 
 Harley, long time Speaker, and afterwards Earl of 
 Oxford, was a patron of Chamberlain's absurdities. 
 A few are written by foes of the new institution. 
 
 In dealing with political events, which at an early
 
 Preface. xi 
 
 date affected Bank stock, especially after the Peace 
 of Byswick, I have mainly and continuously relied 
 on Sismondi's Histoire des Fran^ais, the best and 
 fairest History which as I think has ever been written. 
 I need hardly say, that during the long reign of 
 Louis XIV, or at least from the Restoration in 1660, 
 the history of France is the history of Europe. 
 But I have also taken into account the history of 
 Holland, whose career, from the War of Independence 
 to the Treaty of Utrecht, is the most instructive, as 
 well as the most splendid in the whole annals of 
 modern Europe. 
 
 I have also for the period contained in this volume 
 gone over the same ground, and used nearly the same 
 authorities, which Macaulay traversed and consulted. 
 And here perhaps I may be allowed to bear my 
 testimony to the exceeding fairness and cautious 
 accuracy of this great historian. The picturesque 
 character of Macaulay's style has perhaps induced 
 some dull persons to think that he strove after mere 
 effect, and that after all his realities are unreal. 
 I can only say that I have found him scrupulously 
 just. In many cases he could with perfect historical 
 honesty have pourtrayed persons, who played a con- 
 spicuous part in the financial history of the time, in 
 far darker colours than he thought proper to employ. 
 After going through the particulars of this period, I 
 feel, even though the facts are nearly two centuries 
 old, almost as much loathing towards Sir Charles
 
 xii Preface. 
 
 Duncombe, whose existence in London was a perpetual 
 conspiracy against the Bank of England and public 
 credit, as every right-minded person feels towards 
 Gates and Fuller. But Macaulay, who could have 
 shown him as he was, lets him off over-easily. 
 
 I think Macaulay over-rated the political genius of 
 William the Third, great as it was. I think he over- 
 rated the financial genius of Montague, great as it 
 was. I think he might have given greater credit to 
 those honest, God-fearing, patriotic men, who really 
 founded the Bank of England, watched over its 
 early troubles, relieved it, by the highest shrewdness 
 and fidelity, from the perils it incurred, and estab- 
 lished the reputation of British integrity. For in 
 point of fact, the history of the Bank of England 
 during its first years is in no slight degree the 
 history of the settlement of 1689, and of the new 
 departure which that great event makes in the politics 
 of the civilised world. 
 
 The principle which lies at the bottom of the 
 English Kevolution is, that while forms of govern- 
 ment may be retained without change and with 
 advantage, though King, Lords, and Commons, an 
 established Church, with toleration for other forms 
 of creed or discipline, and a constitution entirely 
 dependent on precedents for its continuity and its 
 authority, may be recognised as the essential and 
 invariable features in the new constitution, England 
 was the first of nations to insist that a totally new
 
 Preface. xiii 
 
 spirit should reside in these old forms. It broke 
 with the doctrine of legitimacy and indefeasible 
 right. It insisted that the sovereign and the 
 administration should be of the religion of the 
 people, and repudiated the ancient dogma that the 
 subject should follow the religion of the sovereign. 
 It resolved to make the crown dependent on the 
 discretion of Parliament. The experiment was full of 
 hazard, for it had to risk a collision with sentiments 
 which we may now hope are obsolete, to affirm 
 principles which had been passionately disputed, to 
 deal with men who were half-hearted or obstinate, to 
 use men who were shifty and doubtful, and to listen 
 to men whose evidence was suspicious, and might be 
 false or suborned. Hence it was expedient that as 
 few changes as possible should be made in the 
 traditions and forms of the Constitution. The enemies 
 of the new model were neither few nor weak, its friends 
 were timorous, dubious, interested, intriguing, while 
 a false step might bring about a serious reaction and 
 a formidable political danger. It is not wonderful that 
 the first twenty or thirty years of Parliamentary 
 government were marked by grave errors and great 
 risks, and that public men did not see for near a 
 century and a-half what was the necessary develop- 
 ment of the English constitution. 
 
 Nor is it remarkable that this great financial 
 experiment, the Bank of England, should have 
 needed incessant watchfulness, and the continual
 
 xiv Preface. 
 
 support of the Government it aided, in order to 
 maintain its credit and to baffle its enemies. Long 
 after it had got over the dangers of its earlier career, 
 its prudence and abstinence from doubtful ventures 
 were made the plea for severely criticising the ex- 
 tension or even the continuance of its privileges. 
 It had never engrossed trade, but it was credited 
 with the power and perhaps the purpose of doing so. 
 It had never claimed to supersede its old enemies, 
 the Lombard Street goldsmiths, afterwards the London 
 bankers, but it was charged with the intention. It 
 had been the main instrument in reducing the rate 
 of interest, and it was alleged that its beneficent 
 action merely concealed a sinister design, and that 
 when it had got all London business into its hands 
 it would become an universal and remorseless usurer. 
 Its dealings with Government had been under strict 
 Parliamentary control, and it was imputed to it that 
 it could and probably would make the administration 
 independent of the Constitution. It had never bought 
 an inch of land, even for carrying on its own busi- 
 ness, for it was the tenant of the Grocers' Company 
 till 1735, when it purchased the residence of its first 
 Governor, Sir John Houblon, and it was said to 
 have the design of engrossing all the landed estate 
 of the country 1 . 
 
 1 I have taken these arguments from a pamphlet of 1710, 
 entitled ' A Vindication and Advancement of our National Consti- 
 tution and Credit.'
 
 Preface. xv 
 
 The political and financial history of the Bank of 
 England has not been written, nor has any attempt 
 been made to show how it has brought about that 
 peculiarity in the English currency, that in this 
 country the efficiency of money, in the technical sense 
 of the word, has been developed to an extent which 
 cannot be paralleled in any other civilised community. 
 Now this was undoubtedly effected by the agency of 
 the Bank of England, and by it alone. I am indeed 
 only concerned with its earliest years, and to them 
 my reader will find that the quotation which I have 
 taken for my title-page emphatically applies. I 
 think however, if I have made my story at all clear, 
 that I have pointed out how an interpretation of the 
 market price of stock in a great instrument of credit 
 may assist in solving the most difficult of all econo- 
 mical problems, the relations of a subsidiary currency 
 to genuine industry and to genuine capital. Specu- 
 lative political economy has been a most dangerous 
 guide, nothing but inductive political economy is 
 to be trusted as an interpreter of facts. We are as 
 yet in the infancy of that phase of the science. 
 
 The Bank of England, during that part of its 
 career which I have striven to illustrate, undoubtedly 
 committed some exceedingly grave errors in its policy, 
 errors which the students of political economy and 
 finance, even though they have only got into the 
 elements of their science, can detect, errors which the 
 friendly and contemporaneous critics of the Bank's
 
 xvi Preface. 
 
 action did not fail to recognise. The directors 
 habitually confounded, to use the language of one of 
 these critics, ' the credit of their stock with the 
 credit of their cash.' No one believed that the Bank 
 was insolvent in 1697 and 1700, but every one knew 
 that the Bank could not honour its bills and notes, 
 even to the amount of regular or current demand. 
 In the earlier of these years there were great apolo- 
 gies to be made for the Bank, as I shall show below. 
 There was every disposition to support it when a 
 malicious run was made on its funds. But the Bank 
 under ordinary circumstances ought to have provided 
 that those who came to it, with genuine trade pur- 
 poses, for cash, should have the cash they needed. 
 Now those of my readers who care to examine the 
 Appendix which will be found below of the course of 
 exchange with Amsterdam, during the years 1698, 
 1699, and 1700, may with reason infer that the Bank 
 did not sufficiently strive after strengthening its cash 
 credit. 
 
 The privileges granted to the Bank of Eng- 
 land in 1697 (its first two and a-half years may be 
 treated as entirely experimental, though the experi- 
 ment was a fearful strain) were to be justified on 
 three grounds. The first, and that happily the most 
 transient, was the assistance it might render the 
 Government in times of peculiar pressure. In our 
 days, the good faith of the British Government is 
 absolute. Without giving a forced value to its public
 
 Preface. xvii 
 
 funds, as is done by the United States 1 , it has, by 
 yi unflinching integrity in times of the greatest trial, 
 and under plausible temptations, as for instance at 
 the resumption of cash payments, kept the highest 
 credit, because it has acted consistently with good 
 faith. But that good faith which has become habitual 
 in the public affairs of the United Kingdom was then 
 an unknown quantity. Governments before the Ke- 
 volution had, it has been justly said, created obliga- 
 tions in plenty, the Government of the Kevolution 
 was the first to honour its obligations. The solvency, 
 of the Bank was therefore based on the integrity of 
 the Government, and the vigour of the Government 
 was conditioned by the support of the Bank, for the 
 Government soon learnt that its power in the councils 
 of Europe depended on the punctual fulfilment of 
 its financial pledges. 
 
 The next justification for the Bank's privileges, 
 those I mean which it possessed for a century and a- 
 half after its foundation, was the assistance it gave 
 to currency and credit. It might be expedient to 
 supplement current cash with convertible notes, and 
 at a crisis, even with notes which were not instantly 
 convertible, to circulate during the time in which 
 the crisis was sharp. A generation and a-half ago, 
 such a power, lodged in the hands of reputable and 
 responsible people, was I am certain a financial 
 necessity, a condition for the continuity of genuine 
 
 1 I am referring to the Banking laws of the American Union. 
 
 b
 
 xviii Preface. 
 
 manufacture and trade, as I have been often told by 
 men who lived through times of solid business but a 
 straitened currency. But it was the duty of the 
 Bank to retire all paper which was not wanted for 
 special purposes, as soon as the special purpose had 
 ceased to be a matter of public concern. Now what- 
 ever apologies may be made for the Bank in 
 December 1696, and I think I have admitted them 
 to the full in the pages which follow, it was in the 
 last degree hazardous for it to put into circulation 
 nearly 1 1 million of notes, to have a reserve of less 
 than 36,000 in cash, and to have invested nearly 
 the whole of its funds in Government securities, 
 the liquidation of which was deferred, and owing to 
 the state of affairs at least precarious as to time. 
 I cannot but think that the Bank would have at- 
 tained its object, that of keeping the Government 
 account and fulfilling all the functions of the Ex- 
 chequer, if it had been more prudent in its earlier 
 years, and had kept a stronger cash balance. 
 
 The third justification of the Bank's privileges 
 was the effect which a wise and well-ordered institu- 
 tion would have on the foreign exchanges. Before 
 the foundation of the Bank, complaints were general 
 as to the exorbitant terms on which foreign bills 
 were discounted. The advocates of the Bank in its 
 early days, and again when its first troubles were 
 over, pointed with exultation to the way in which 
 the trade of the country had been freed from the
 
 Preface. xix 
 
 harpies of Lombard Street, who exacted the terms of 
 Shylock from those who dealt with them. But here 
 again, though the Bank may have transferred the 
 charge from its customers to itself, by undertaking 
 to discount foreign bills at reasonable rates, it cer- 
 tainly injured its own credit by the insufficient basis 
 of cash on which it traded. Here also, as its 
 friendly critic alleges, the Bank ' confounded the 
 credit of its stock with the credit of its cash,' and 
 this not at a crisis like that of 1696 and 1697, but 
 when the country was at peace, and the Bank was 
 beginning to make very large dividends. 
 
 There are few periods of English history which 
 are more interesting than the reign of William III. 
 I shall think myself fortunate if I have been able to 
 describe and expound one aspect of that instructive 
 epoch. 
 
 I have necessarily illustrated my sketch of the 
 Bank's early history by certain statistical tables. 
 They are five in number. The first, following this 
 Preface, is Houghton's weekly register of the price 
 of Bank stock. This is continuous, but in some 
 weeks there is no price, as Houghton expressly 
 states. It was this entry which led me to conclude 
 that my informant's register is of actual purchases, 
 for I cannot imagine that during these weeks there 
 were no time bargains, a mode of speculation which 
 Houghton is perfectly familiar with, and indeed 
 describes minutely. The second table, put with the 
 
 b2
 
 xx Preface. 
 
 rest in the Appendix, is of the Amsterdam ex- 
 changes from 1695 onwards. In this table only 
 the variations are given. Thus from February i 
 to March i, 1695, the exchange on Amsterdam was 
 32*6. The third table is Justice's interpretation of 
 these rates. The fourth is the discount on Bank 
 of England notes, taken from Houghton. The fifth 
 is the price of gold by the ounce, of silver by the 
 ounce, and of guineas, during the crisis, from the 
 same compiler. 
 
 JAMES E. THOROLD EOGEES. 
 
 OXFORD: February, 1887.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE GREAT EXPERIMENT. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Parliamentary Foundation of the Bank. Its Charter. 
 Capital of the Bank. Its first Governing Body. It 
 begins business. Its first place of business. Stock- 
 jobbing a fashion. Origin of the Goldsmiths' Banks. 
 English Banking. The Continental Banks. Their system 
 of Banking. The enemies of the Bank Jealousy of 
 the Bank. The hostility of the Tories. The political 
 situation. Stock-jobbing. Ignorance of the principles 
 of Banking prevalent. Attachment of Londoners to the 
 City. The Bank and its profits. Godfrey's account of 
 the Bank of England. Principles on which the Bank 
 was founded. Prices of Bank Stock in 1694. Prices of 
 Stock in 1695. The Directors at Namur. The English 
 currency. The crime of clipping. New penalties. The 
 Act ineffectual. The price of gold and silver in 1695. 
 The foreign exchanges. The exchange with Amsterdam. 
 Discounts of English bills. The recoinage. The policy 
 of Montague and Sommers. Criticism on the Recoinage 
 Act. The details of the Act . . . . . 1-49 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 v, THE LAND BANK. 
 
 Chamberlain and his supporters. Chamberlain's Advertise- 
 ments. The National Land Bank Act. Total failure 
 of the project. The effects of Chamberlain's project. 
 Efforts to keep the Land Bank going. The new coinage. 
 Reaction. The first Exchequer Bills. The defence of 
 the Land Bank. Some trouble caused by the Bank's 
 action. A proprietor's criticism of the situation in 
 which the Bank was placed. The assets of the Bank. 
 The causes of the crisis. Joint-stock rivalry illustrated 
 by the East India Companies. The discount of Bank 
 bills . 50-88 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE SECOND BANK ACT. 
 
 Provisions of the second Act. The incident of Duncomba 
 and the Exchequer Bills. The price of stock in 1698. Re- 
 payment of the loan capital of 1-697. Bank stock in the
 
 xxii Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 year 1699. The character of London merchants. Their 
 eagerness for City honours. The affair of the Spanish 
 Ambassador. Bank stock in 1700. Commercial pro- 
 sperity. Influence of foreign politics on stock. Dun- 
 combe's reputed projects. Death of the King of Spain. 
 Movements in Europe. War distasteful. The state of 
 the Finances. Excise and Customs. The income tax 
 and official gains. Public opinion on the situation. 
 Views of the moneyed men. The Parliament of 1701. 
 Quarrels between the Lords and the Commons. Public 
 opinion in Kent, &c. The meeting of Parliament. The 
 letter of Melfort. The action of the Commons. The 
 view taken by the Lords. The cause of the French 
 King's action. The impeachment of the four Lords. The 
 Kentish petition. The punishment of the Petitioners. 
 The Legion letter. The discredit in which William was. 
 The acknowledgement of the Pretender. The dissolution 
 and elections of 1701. Price of Bank stock. A run on 
 the Bank. Criticism on the Bank's action. Vote of 
 April i o, 1701. The good fortune of the Bank. Return 
 of William. The political situation. The New Parlia- 
 ment and Colepepper. The King's death and its cause. 
 The wars with France. France at the Revolution and its 
 foreign policy. Its domestic policy. Holland and England 
 the only formidable enemies of Louis XIV. William's posi- 
 tion. General freedom from corruption. The Occasional 
 Conformity Bill. Bank stock in 1702. Rumours in 
 1702. Renewal of the War. The success of the allies. 
 The new Parliament. Bank stock in 1703. The pro- 
 gress of trade. Price of East Indian stocks. The war 
 in 1703. The position of the Bank. The change of 
 1844 . 89-164 
 
 TABLES. 
 
 TABLE I. Weekly prices of Bank Stock, Aug. 17, 1694, to 
 
 Sept. 17, 1703 xxiii 
 
 II. Rates of Exchange on Amsterdam . . .165 
 III. Discount or Premium on Bills of Exchange, 
 
 London and Amsterdam . . . .169 
 IV. Discount of Bank Bills . . . . . 1 70 
 V. Changes in the value of gold, silver, and guineas . 171 
 
 LIST OF AUTHORITIES USED xxviii 
 
 THE FIRST DIEECTOKS xxx
 
 TABLE I. 
 
 WEEKLY PRICES OF BANK STOCK, 
 Aug. 17, 1694, to Sept. 17, 1703. 
 
 The blanks mean that no price was quoted or no transactions done. 
 
 1694. 
 
 Aug. 1*1 ., 
 
 IO2 
 IO2 
 101 
 IOO 
 IOO 
 IOO 
 IOI 
 101 
 
 103 
 103 
 103 
 
 57' 
 61 
 
 57 
 60 
 
 70 
 72 
 72 
 76 
 75 
 
 74 
 77 
 81 
 90 
 89 
 90 
 89 
 
 aid in. 
 
 Feb. 22 
 Mar. i 
 Mar. 8 
 Mar. 15 
 Mar. 22 
 Mar. 29 
 Apr. 5 
 Apr. 12 
 Apr. 19 
 Apr. 26 
 May 3 
 May 10 
 
 92 
 89 
 79 
 95 
 99 
 92 
 90 
 92 
 92 
 9i 
 9 1 
 9i 
 92 
 
 9i 
 92 
 92 
 93 
 97 
 99 
 96 
 
 97 
 97 
 95 
 97 
 96 
 
 94 
 95 
 95 
 98 
 
 97 
 97 
 
 this m 
 
 Sept. 2 7 
 Oct. 4 
 Oct. ii 
 
 98 
 93 
 94 
 95 
 95 
 95 
 94 
 94 
 94 
 94 
 97 
 
 IOO 
 IOO 
 IOO 
 
 IO2 
 
 108 
 
 107 
 107 
 107 
 
 93 
 
 83 
 84 
 88 
 86 
 84 
 82 
 84 
 87 
 
 Q paid 
 
 Aug. 24 
 Aug. 31 
 Sept. 7 
 Sept. 14 
 Sept. 21 
 Sept. 28 
 Oct * 
 
 Oct. 18 
 
 Oct. 25 
 Nov. i 
 Nov. 8 
 Nov. 15 
 
 Nov. 22 
 
 Oct. 12 
 
 Oct. 19 
 Oct. 26 
 Nov. 2 
 Nov. 9 
 Nov. 1 6 
 Nov. 23 
 Nov. 30 
 Dec. 7 
 Dec. 14 
 Dec. 21 
 Dec. 28 
 
 1695. 
 
 Jan. 4 
 Jan. ii 
 Jan 1 8 ... 
 
 Nov. 29 
 Dec. 6 
 
 Dec. 13 
 Dec. 20 
 Dec. 27 
 
 1696. 
 
 Jan. 7 . 
 
 Mav 1*7 . 
 
 May 24 
 
 May 31 
 June 7 
 June 14 
 June 21 
 June 28 
 
 Jan. 10 
 Jan. 17 
 
 July 5 
 July 12 
 July 19 
 July 26 
 
 Jan. 24 
 Jan. 31 
 Feb. 7 
 Feb. 14 
 Feb. 21 
 Feb. 28 
 Mar. 6 
 Mar. 13 
 Mar. 20 
 Mar. 27 
 Apr. 3 
 eans the actual sur 
 
 Aug. 2 
 Aug. 9 
 Aug. 16 
 Aug. 23 
 Aug. 30 
 Sept. 6 
 Sept. 13 
 Sept. 20 
 
 ' It appears that 
 
 Jan. 25 
 
 Feb. i 
 Feb. 8 
 Feb. 15 
 
 1 "The money j 
 by the subscribers.
 
 XXIV 
 
 Weekly Prices of Bank Stock. 
 
 Apr. 10 
 Apr. 17 
 
 Apr. 2% . 
 
 85 
 86 
 84 
 84 
 
 83 
 80 
 
 79 
 
 78 
 
 78 
 78 
 78 
 79 
 79 
 78 
 73 
 75 
 73 
 7i 
 70 
 
 69 
 69 
 
 69 
 69 
 
 7i 
 70 
 68 
 60 
 60 
 61 
 61 
 64 
 86 
 80 
 81 
 77 
 73 
 73 
 73 
 
 conti 
 . On 
 
 1697. 
 Jan. i 72 
 Jan. 8 73 
 Jan. 15 66 
 
 1 MONEY. BANK. 
 Jan. 22 .. 55 65 
 Jan. 29 .. 52! 631 
 Feb. 5 .. 51 6z 
 Feb. 12 .. 51 62 
 
 Sept. 3 
 Sept. 10 
 Sept. 1 7 
 Sept. 2 A, . 
 
 60 1- 
 82" 
 9 8 
 9 6 
 
 97i 
 951 
 951 
 93 
 9*1 
 90 
 
 88 
 89 
 86f 
 87f 
 
 9i 
 
 9o 
 89 
 
 86f 
 86 
 86J 
 
 87 
 88| 
 86 
 86| 
 86J 
 861 
 871 
 87 
 89i 
 
 9i 
 
 in (i) 
 
 May 2 
 May 8 
 
 May i . 
 
 Oct. i 
 Oct. 8 
 Oct. 15 
 
 Oct. 22 
 
 May 22 
 
 May 29 
 June 5 
 June 12 
 
 Oct. 29 
 Nov. 5 
 Nov. 12 
 Nov. 19 
 Nov. 26 
 Dec. 3 . 
 
 June 19 
 June 26 
 July q ., 
 
 Feb. 19 .. 55 69 
 Feb. 26 .. 54 68 
 Mar. 5 .. 54$ 68 
 Mar. 12 .. 53^ 67 
 Mar. 19 .. 53} 67 
 Mar. 26 .. 54 68 
 Apr. 2 .. 54 68 
 Apr. 9 .. 54 68 
 Apr. 16 .. 55 68 
 Apr. 23 .. 56 69 
 Apr. 30 .. 56 69 
 May 7 .. 56 69 
 May 14 .. 56 69 
 May 21 .. 56 69 
 May 28 .. 56 69 
 June 4 .. 6 1 74 
 June 1 1 .. 60^ 74 
 June 1 8 .. 6o| 74 
 June 25 .. 6oJ 74 
 July 2 .. 6o| 74 
 July 9 .. 6o| 74 
 July 1 6 .. 6o| 74 
 July 23 .. 6oi 74 
 July 30 .. 6o| 74 
 Aug. 6 .. 6o| 74 
 Aug. 13 .. 6o| 74 
 Aug. 20 .. 6o| 75 
 Aug. 27 .. 6o| 77 
 nued to August 27, is the 
 and after September 3 the 
 
 July 10 
 July 17 
 July 24 
 July 31 
 Aug. 7 
 Aug. 14 
 Aug. 21 
 Aug. 28 
 Sept. 4 
 Sept. ii 
 Sept.iS 
 Sept. 2 . 
 
 Dec. 10 
 Dec. 17 
 
 Dec. 24 
 Dec. 31 
 
 1698. 
 
 Jan. 7 
 Jan. 14 
 Jan. 21 
 
 Jan. 28 
 Feb. 4 
 Feb. ii 
 Feb. 18 
 Feb. 25 
 Mar. 4 
 Mar. ii 
 Mar. 18 
 Mar. 25 
 Apr. i 2 
 
 Oct. 2 
 
 Oct. 9 
 Oct. 16 
 Oct. 23 .. .. .. 
 Oct. 30 
 Nov. 6 
 Nov. 13 
 Nov. 20 
 Nov. 27 
 Dec. 4 
 Dec. n 
 Dec. 1 8 . 
 
 Apr. 8 
 Apr. 15 
 
 Dec. 25 
 
 1 This distinction, 
 money and (2) notes 
 2 ' No price.' 
 
 Apr. 29 
 
 price of the stock 
 price is money.
 
 AF 
 
 May 6 
 May 13 
 
 tefcly 
 
 95 
 
 91 
 9 ^"2" 
 
 Q 24- 
 
 9ii 
 
 92 
 
 94 
 94? 
 94! 
 
 97i 
 
 JrrtC5 Of n 
 Jan. 20 
 
 ink 
 102! 
 
 I0lf 
 IO2f 
 
 104 
 
 I3f 
 
 i4! 
 
 103 
 
 IO2f 
 
 104 
 104 
 104 
 104 
 104 
 104! 
 
 105 
 103! 
 
 J 
 
 I0 4 f 
 
 107 
 
 107 
 
 107 
 
 io8f 
 109? 
 
 "3 
 "3 
 119 
 
 1 1 62 
 
 stock. 
 
 Oct. 27 
 Nov. 3 
 Nov. 10 
 Nov. 17 
 Nov. 24 
 Dec. i 
 Dec. 8 
 Dec. 15 
 Dec. 22 
 Dec. 29 
 
 XXV 
 
 n6f 
 118 
 
 "5 
 
 126 
 126 
 130 
 
 I2 9f 
 129! 
 
 139^ 
 139* 
 143 
 148 
 
 M5 
 
 148^ 
 
 142 
 i38 
 '38* 
 139 
 130 
 141 
 
 141! 
 141} 
 
 138} 
 139 
 139 
 
 Jan. 27 
 
 Feb. 3 
 Feb. 10 
 Feb. 17 
 Feb. 24 
 Mar. 2 
 Mar. 9 
 Mar. 16 
 Mar. 23 
 Mar. 30 
 Apr. 7 . , 
 
 Mav 27 ., 
 
 June 3 
 
 Juneio 
 June i 7 
 
 July i 
 July 8 
 July 15 
 July 22 
 
 1700. 
 Jan. 5 
 
 July 29 
 Aug. 5 
 Aug. 12 
 Aug. 19 
 Aug. 26 
 Sept. 2 .. .... 
 Sept. 9 
 Sept. 16 
 Sept. 23 
 Sept. 30 
 Oct. 7 
 
 Apr. 14. . 
 
 Apr. 21 
 Apr. 28 
 Mav ^ . 
 
 Jan. 12 
 
 Jan. 19 
 
 May 12 
 May 19 
 May 26 
 
 Jan. 26 . . 
 
 97i 
 97i 
 
 90 
 90-i 
 
 93 I 
 91 
 
 94 
 
 9f 
 
 oo? 
 
 Feb. 2 
 Feb. 9 .. 
 
 June 2 
 
 Feb. 16 
 
 Feb. 23 
 Mar. i 
 Mar. 8 
 Mar. 15 
 Mar. 22 
 Mar. 29 
 Apr. 5 
 Apr. 12 .. .. .. 
 
 
 June 23 
 June 30 .. .. .. 
 Julv 7 .. 
 
 
 Oct. 21 
 Oct. 28 
 Nov. 4 
 Nov. ii 
 Nov. 18 
 Nov. 25 
 Dec. 2 
 Dec. 9 
 Dec. 16 
 
 Julv 14. . 
 
 
 July 28 
 Aug. 4 , 
 Aug. ii 
 Aug. 1 8 
 Aug. 25 
 Sept i . .. 
 
 
 Apr. 26 
 Mav 3 
 
 IO2 
 103 
 103 
 103 
 
 103 
 
 102} 
 
 May 10 
 May 17 
 
 Dec. 23 
 
 Sept. 8 
 Sept. 15 
 Sept. 22 
 Sept.29 
 Oct. 6 
 
 May 24 .. .. t. 
 May 31 
 June 7 
 
 1699. 
 
 Jan. 6 
 Jan. 13 
 
 June 21 .. : .. 
 June 28 
 July 5 
 
 Oct. 13 
 
 Oct. 20
 
 XXVI 
 
 Weekly Prices of Bank Stock. 
 
 July 12 
 July 19 
 July 26 
 
 i38f 
 
 i37l 
 iq6i 
 
 Mar. 28 
 Apr. 4 
 Apr. 1 1 
 
 123 
 123 
 
 IO3o 
 
 1702. 
 Jan. 2 
 
 I I4-S- 
 
 Aug. 2 
 Aug. 9 
 Auo 1 . 1 6 ... 
 
 136! 
 I4if 
 i4ol 
 
 Apr. 18 
 Apr. 25 
 May 2 
 
 107 
 107 
 TO 1 ? 
 
 Jan. 9 
 Jan. 16 
 Jan. 2 3 . 
 
 U4l 
 "3i 
 
 II3x 
 
 Aug. 23 
 Aujy. 30 . . 
 
 i38f 
 
 142 
 
 May 9 
 
 Mav 16 .. 
 
 Ill^f 
 106 
 
 Jan. 30 
 Feb. 6 
 
 H5 
 II? 
 
 Sept. f( . 
 
 14.2 
 
 May 23 . 
 
 1 06 
 
 Feb. 13 . 
 
 118 
 
 Sept. 13 
 Sept. 20 
 Sept. 27 
 Oct. 4 
 
 133 
 
 I q 2 3 
 
 May 30 
 June 6 
 June 13 .. .. .. 
 Tune 20 
 
 106 
 106 
 106 
 
 Feb. 20 
 Feb. 27 
 Mar. 6 
 Mar. 13 . .. 
 
 118 
 117 
 117! 
 
 II7 3 
 
 Oct. ii 
 Oct. 18 
 
 A O^4 
 
 i3i 
 
 I2O 
 
 June 27 
 July 4 . 
 
 1 06 
 
 1 12 \ 
 
 Mar. 20 
 Mar. 27 
 
 li / 4 
 
 Oct. 25 
 Nov. i 
 Nov. 8 
 Nov. 15 
 
 NOV. 22 
 
 129 
 129 
 129 
 129 
 I2Q 
 
 July ii 
 July 18 
 July 25 
 Aug. i 
 Ausr. 8 . 
 
 no 
 
 109! 
 107 
 
 iio| 
 io8| 
 
 Apr. 3 
 Apr. 10 
 Apr. 17 
 Apr. 24 
 Mav i . 
 
 H3 
 
 IJ 3^ 
 H4f 
 114! 
 
 I I4.T 
 
 Nov. 29 
 Dec. 6 
 Dec. 13 
 Dec. 20 
 Dec. 27 
 
 129 
 129 
 129 
 129 
 
 124.75- 
 
 Aug. 15 
 
 Aug. 22 
 
 Aug. 29 
 Sept. 5 
 Sept i 2 
 
 108! 
 
 II2| 
 US 
 H5| 
 
 n8 3 
 
 May 8 
 May 15 
 May 22 
 May 29 
 June 5 
 
 114 
 n5i 
 "Si 
 n? 
 118 
 
 1701. 
 
 
 Sept. 19 
 Sept. 26 
 Oct. 3 . 
 
 
 June 12 
 June 19 
 June 26 
 
 118 
 
 I2l 
 
 TT8f 
 
 Jan. 3 
 
 123 
 
 Oct. 10 
 
 iogi 
 
 July 3 
 
 118-1 
 
 Jan. 10 
 
 123 
 
 Oct. 17 
 
 ioo 
 
 July 10 
 
 Tl8| 
 
 Jan. 17 
 Jan. 24 
 Jan. 31 
 Feb. 7 
 Feb. 14 
 Feb. 21 
 Feb. 28 
 
 123 
 123 
 123 
 123 
 123 
 I2 3 
 123 
 
 Oct. 24 
 Oct. 31 
 Nov. 7 
 Nov. 14 
 Nov. 21 
 Nov. 28 
 Dec. 5 
 
 io8J 
 io8f 
 io8| 
 i7i 
 
 i7i 
 109! 
 
 TOO? 
 
 July 17 
 July 24 
 July 31 
 Aug. 7 
 Aug. 14 
 Aug. 21 
 Auf. 28 .. 
 
 ii8 
 ii8|- 
 
 122 
 
 I2l 
 I2l| 
 121^- 
 
 Mar. 7 
 Mar. 14 
 Mar. 21 
 
 123 
 123 
 123 
 
 Dec. 12 
 Dec. 19 
 Dec. 26 
 
 nof 
 no| 
 
 IIO-|- 
 
 Sept, 4 
 Sept. ii 
 Sept. 1 8 
 
 I2l| 
 1251
 
 Weekly Prices of Bank Stock. xxvii 
 
 Sept. 25 
 
 
 
 Jan. 15 
 
 126 
 
 May 21 
 
 Oct. 2 
 
 I20i 
 
 Jan. 22 
 
 126 
 
 May 28 
 
 Oct. 9 
 
 I2O 
 
 Jan. 29 
 
 I28 
 
 June 4 
 
 Oct. 16 
 
 119 
 
 Feb. 5 
 
 127? 
 
 June i i 
 
 Oct. 23 
 
 120\ 
 
 Feb. 12 
 
 I26f 
 
 June i 8 
 
 Oct. 30 
 
 120^ 
 
 Feb. 19 
 
 127! 
 
 June 2 5 
 
 Nov. 6 
 
 I2lf 
 
 Feb. 26 
 
 I28| 
 
 July 2 
 
 Nov. 13 
 
 I2lf 
 
 Mar. 5 
 
 129 
 
 July 9 
 
 Nov. 21 
 
 I2 3 
 
 Mar. 12 
 
 129 
 
 July 1 6 
 
 Nov. 28 
 
 I26f 
 
 Mar. 19 
 
 129 
 
 July 23 
 
 Dec. 4 
 
 1271 
 
 Mar. 26 
 
 
 
 July 30 
 
 Dec. n 
 
 129 
 
 Apr. 2 
 
 
 
 Aug. 6 
 
 Dec. 18 
 
 128 
 
 Apr. 9 
 
 1251 
 
 Aug. 13 
 
 Dec. 25 
 
 I28f 
 
 Apr. 16 
 
 I2 5i 
 
 Aug. 20 
 
 
 
 Apr. 23 
 
 I27f 
 
 Aug. 27 
 
 1703. 
 
 
 Apr. 30 
 
 128 
 
 Sept. 3 
 
 Jan. i 
 
 129 
 
 May 7 
 
 127 
 
 Sept. 10 
 
 Jan. 8 
 
 129 
 
 May 14 
 
 127 
 
 Sept. 17 
 
 1292 
 
 I2 9 f 
 
 133
 
 AUTHORITIES USED IN THE 
 FOLLOWING WORK. 
 
 HOUGHTOTST. Collections for Husbandry and Trade. 2 vols. fol. 
 1691-1703. 
 
 LUTTRELL. A Brief Relation of State Affairs. 6 vols. 8 vo. Oxford 
 University Press. 
 
 MACAULAY. History of England. 
 
 SISMONDI. Histoire des Franfais. 
 
 DAVIES. History of Holland. 
 
 MACPHEBSON. Annals of Commerce. 
 
 POSTLETHWATT. History of the English Revenue. 
 
 JUSTICE, ALEXANDER. General Treatise on Money and Ex- 
 changes. 1707. 
 
 LOCKE. Further Considerations concerning raising the value of 
 Money. 1696. 
 
 Journals of the Lords and Commons. 1694-1703. 
 
 Parliamentary History. Vol. V. 
 
 Seasonable Observations humbly offered to his Highness the Lord 
 Protector. By SAMUEL LAMBE, of London, Merchant. Jan. 19, 
 1658. 
 
 Corporation Credit. A Bank of Credit made current by the 
 Common Council in London more useful and safe than Money. 
 1682. 
 
 Bank Credit, or the Usefulness and Security of the Bank of Credit 
 examined. 1682. 
 
 An Account of the Constitution and Security of the General Bank 
 of Credit. 1683. 
 
 A Brief Account of the intended Bank of England. 1694. 
 
 * The Commission for taking subscriptions for 1,200,000 pur- 
 suant to Act of Parliament. 
 
 * A List of the Names of the Subscribers to the Bank of England. 
 
 * Rules, Orders, and Byelaws for the good government of tJie 
 Corporation and Company of the Bank of England. 
 
 * The above are undated, but they were of course published in 1694.
 
 Authorities. xxix 
 
 England s Glory, or tJie great improvement of trade in general by 
 a Royal Bank. By H. M. June 23, 1694. 
 
 Some Observations on the Bank of England. 1695. 
 
 A Short Account of the Bank of England. 1695. 
 
 A Proposal for a National Bank. 1695. By ROBERT MUEEAY. 
 
 An Answer to a late pamphlet, entitled Reasons offered against 
 the intended project commonly called the Land Bank. By JOHN 
 BBISCOE. 
 
 Remarks on the proceedings of the Commissioners for putting in 
 execution tlie Act passed last Session for establishing a Land Bank. 
 1696. 
 
 An Essay towards the settlement of National Credit. By JOHN 
 GARY. Jan. 5, 1697. 
 
 A Letter to a Friend concerning the credit of the Nation and with 
 relation to tlie present Bank of England as now established by Act 
 of Parliament. Written by a Member of tlie said Corporation for 
 the public good of the Kingdom. 1697. 
 
 Arguments and Reasons for and against engrafting on the Bank 
 of England with Tallies, as they liave been debated at a late 
 General Court of the said Bank. No date, but certainly 1697. 
 
 The Villainy of Stock-jobbers detected and the causes of the late 
 run upon the Bank and Bankers discovered and considered. 1701. 
 
 Remarks on the Bank of England, with regard more especially 
 to Trade and Government. 1706. 
 
 Remarks on the Bank of England concerning the intended 
 prolongation of the Bank. 1707. 
 
 Reasons against the, prolongation of tJie Bank. 1707. 
 
 A Vindication and Advancement of our National Constitution 
 and Credit. 1710. 
 
 The Directors of the Bank of England enemies to tlie great 
 interests of tl\& Kingdom. 1711.
 
 THE FIRST DIRECTORS. 
 
 Governor. 
 
 *Sm JOHN HOUBLON. L. M. 1696. Died Jan. 10, 1712. 
 
 Deputy-Governor, 
 
 * MICHAEL GODFBEY. Died July, 1695. 
 
 Directors. 
 
 * SIR JOHN HUBAND. 
 
 *Sm JAMES HOUBLON. M.P. for City. Died Oct. 26, 1700. 
 
 *Sm WM. GORE. L. M. 1702. 
 
 *SiB WM. SCAWEN. M.P. for Windsor. Died Jan. 20, 1708. 
 
 *SiB HENBT FUBNESE. Knighted Oct. 1691. 
 
 * SIB THOMAS ABNEY. L. M. 1701. 
 
 *SiB WILLIAM HEDGES. Died Aug. 1701. 
 
 * BROOK BRIDGES. 
 
 * JAMES BATEMAN. L. M. 1717. 
 
 * GEORGE DODDINGTON. 
 JEDWARD CLERKE. L. M. 1697. 
 I JAMES DENEW. 
 
 * THOMAS GODDARD. Died 1700. 
 *ABRAHAM HOUBLON. 
 
 * GILBERT HEATHCOTE. L. M. 1711. 
 
 * THEODOBE JANSEN. 
 *JOHN LORDELL. 
 
 J SAMUEL LETHULLIEB. Died Feb. 1710. 
 
 J WILLIAM PATEBSON. 
 
 * EGBERT RA WORTH. 
 
 *JOHN SMITH. 
 
 i 
 
 iOBADiAH SEDGWICK. 
 
 J NATHANIEL TENCH. 
 
 *JOHN WARD. L. M. 1719.
 
 Tke First Directors. xxxi 
 
 A list of the subscribers to the Bank was published immediately 
 on the subscription being completed. In the contemporary printed 
 list, all marked with an asterisk (*) qualified to be Governor, i.e. had 
 subscribed 4000 and upwards. Those marked t qualified to act as 
 Deputy Governor. Those marked J as Directors only. Sixty-three 
 of the subscribers qualified as Governor, and among these were the 
 Duke of Leeds, the Duke of Devonshire, the Earl of Portland, 
 the Countess of Carlisle, Lord Godolphin, Lady Ann Mason, Sir 
 Stephen Fox, and Sir John Trenchard. Thirteen qualified for the 
 post of Deputy Governor, i.e. subscribed 3000 and under 4000 ; 
 113 qualified as Directors only. Six hundred and thirty- three 
 were qualified to vote at the courts, i.e. held more than 500 and 
 under 1000. There are a great many women in the fourth 
 division. Montague qualified up to the place of Director." 
 Duncombe was not a subscriber. The subscriptions of Leeds and 
 Godolphin were probably in the name of the Queen, for Mary is 
 not in the list of subscribers. The total number of subscribers 
 was 1267, and the list is headed by the names of the King and 
 Queen, though with no subscription underwritten. The manuscript 
 subscription list is preserved among the archives of the Bank, 
 and the printed list was, without doubt, published under the 
 authority of the Directors.
 
 THE 
 
 FIRST NINE YEARS OF THE 
 BANK OF ENGLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE GREAT EXPEEIMENT. 
 
 THE Act of legislation, which gave a Parliamentary 1694. 
 foundation to the Bank of England and regulated 
 its powers, is a series of clauses in the Ways and 
 Means Bill of 1694, 5 William and Mary, cap. 20. The 
 Act levies divers customs and excises, some moderate 
 enough, as we should think, on consumable articles, 
 some unwise enough, and seeks to raise a loan of 
 a million and a-half. To such subscribers of this 
 loan as provide in the aggregate ; 1,200,000, 
 the Act promises a charter and a title. The title 
 is, The Governor and Company of the Bank of 
 England. The Act, putting very severe restrictions 
 on the attitude which it was feared the Bank might 
 assume towards the Government, and especially to- 
 wards the Whigs, permitted the Company to deal 
 in bullion and bills, to issue notes, and to make 
 advances on merchandise. But the Bank was 
 disabled from trading with its own securities 1 . 
 
 1 The Bill had the assent of the Commons in a very thin house. 
 It is said that only forty- two members were present. 'A Short 
 Account of the Bank of England,' 1695. 
 
 B
 
 2 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [i. 
 
 1694. The charter of the Bank was granted on July 24, 
 jfc~" 1694. The subscription of the capital had begun 
 charter. OQ Thursday, June 2 1, in the Mercers' Chapel ; and, ac- 
 
 Capital of , . T n i 
 
 the Bank, cording to Luttrell, the amount written down on the 
 first day was ,300,000, the Queen subscribing ;] 0,000. 
 To encourage capitalists, 2 los. per cent, rebate on 
 the amount subscribed was allowed on the first 
 three days, and 2 on the subscriptions of Monday, 
 June 25 ; after which the advantage was reduced by 
 five shillings per cent, for each of the successive 
 days *. More than ^"600,000 was subscribed on the 
 first three days, a result which constituted the 
 subscribers a corporation, as it satisfied the conditions 
 under which the charter was to be issued. By 
 Tuesday night, June 26, ,900,000 was subscribed; 
 and by noon of Monday, July 2, the whole sub- 
 scription was completed 2 . 
 
 its first On Tuesday, July 10, the subscribers chose Sir John 
 
 Governing 
 
 Body. Houblon to be the governor, and Michael Godfrey 
 to be the deputy governor; and on Wednesday the 
 first twenty-four directors were elected. Among 
 them were Paterson, who was credited with having 
 devised the undertaking 3 , but who soon disappears 
 from the management; and two other members of 
 
 1 ' These premiums were defrayed from the Civil List.' Postle- 
 thwayt's History of the Revenue. 
 
 2 Godfrey says that the whole was subscribed in ten days. The 
 signatures of the subscribers, or of their agents, and the amounts 
 which they underwrote, are preserved in the archives of the 
 Bank. 
 
 3 In 1695 Paterson was in Scotland, negotiating the Darien 
 scheme.
 
 I.] TJie Great Experiment. 3 
 
 the Houblon family 1 . Another was Sir Thomas Abney, 1694. 
 the leading Nonconformist of the city, the firm friend 
 and patron of Dr. Watts. Gilbert Heathcote, whose 
 evidence before the Committee of the whole House 
 of Commons extinguished the monopoly which the 
 charter of the old East India Company gave them, 
 and as Macaulay says, established the principle, that 
 * no power but that of the whole legislature can give 
 to any person or to any society an exclusive privilege 
 of trading in any part of the world,' was another 
 director. The rest were men of mercantile renown, 
 and we are informed that all belonged to the Whig 
 party. By the Act of Parliament, the privileges 
 of a Bank were secured to them for twelve years, 
 provision being made that the Government might, 
 in 1705, pay up the loan and extinguish the charter 
 by giving a year's notice to the Company. On this 
 loan Parliament agreed to pay 8 per cent, interest. 
 
 On August i, according to Luttrell, ' the new bank it begins 
 paid into the Exchequer 112,000, which they did 
 by their Bank Bills, sealed with the seal of their 
 corporation, being the Britannia sitting on a bank of 
 money 2 ,' from which we may infer that the instal- 
 
 1 James Houblon, the father of the governor and the two 
 directors, was descended from a Flemish refugee, who had escaped 
 from the persecution of Alva. He was born on July 2, 1592, 
 and died June 20, 1682. He was buried in St. Mary Wolnoth 
 church, June 28, and his funeral sermon was preached by Burnet. 
 He had become wealthy, but remained a member and office-holder 
 of the French congregation. Seven sons survived him, Peter, 
 James, John, Jacob, Isaac, Abraham, Jeremiah, and sixty grand- 
 children and great-grandchildren. 
 
 8 This is the original seal of the Bank, and is copied on the 
 
 B 2
 
 4 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [I. 
 
 1694 - merits to the Exchequer were paid gradually and 
 in part at least in paper. Indeed the same authority 
 tells us that on August 7 tallies were struck at the 
 Exchequer for a million sterling, in order to pay 
 the army, such tallies at the time answering some 
 of the ends of Exchequer Bills. On August 1 6 fif- 
 teen persons were chosen to draw up byelaws for 
 the Bank, lawyers and merchants, among the former 
 being Sir Bartholomew Shower, who had escaped 
 punishment for his doings in the time of the last 
 two Stuart kings only by William's own Act of In- 
 demnity. On August 17 I find the first quotation 
 of Bank Stock. It is 102. 
 its first I have thought it well to give a brief statement 
 
 -place of 
 
 business. o f the process by which the Bank was constituted. 
 It held, according to Luttrell, its first sittings in the 
 Mercers' Chapel, and continued there till September 
 28, when Sir John Houblon, the governor, informed 
 the shareholders at a general court, held in the chapel, 
 that they must needs remove out of the present 
 quarters, and that he had taken Grocers' Hall for 
 eleven years. Here they remained for forty years. 
 He also told the shareholders that the byelaws 
 had been framed and laid before Serjeant Levinz 
 (a lawyer whom I know from contemporary records 
 to have been retained in nearly all important cases), 
 and that the Bank was in a flourishing condition. 
 On September 28 x the Stock was quoted at 101. 
 
 earlier notes. In later times the ' bank of money ' was turned into 
 a beehive, and its position changed also from left to right. 
 
 1 My dates, taken from contemporary accounts, are of course 
 ' old style.'
 
 I.] The Great Experiment. 5 
 
 During the first few years after the Revolution 1694. 
 company-forming and stock-jobbing were rapidly 
 developed, and just about the time that the 
 was founded the passion for speculation was pecu- 
 liarly active. Houghton, the chronicler of commerce 
 and trade during the reign of William, gives in 
 the early part of the year 1694 a series of papers 
 in which he instructs his readers in the mysteries of 
 stock-jobbing and time-bargains. Among Montague's 
 financial expedients was the million lottery, the 
 fortunate drawers in these lotteries being entitled 
 to life annuities. The subscription was filled up 
 before the end of May, and the tickets soon rose 
 to a premium. The drawings did not take place 
 till October 8, and Luttrell notes that the largest 
 prize, that of 1000 a year, fell to four French 
 Huguenots who had left their country and forfeited 
 their estates for their religion. 
 
 There were private lotteries in plenty. There 
 were joint-stock companies for mining, for trading, 
 and for manufactures, some created by patent, some 
 by charter. Those which were in existence were 
 threatened with rivals, for projectors abounded. 
 Some of these companies survive, many have long 
 since been defunct and forgotten. 
 
 Old-fashioned people still kept their savings in Origin of 
 strong boxes in their own homes. Pope's father did, n*<A*' 
 years after the foundation of the Bank of England. 
 But most of those who saved looked out for a safe 
 jplace of deposit. In the time of Charles I the Mint 
 was the place, and the king ' borrowed ' 200,000
 
 6 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [I. 
 
 1694. of these deposits in I638 1 . Undeterred by this ex- 
 perience, the goldsmiths, after the Eestoration, de- 
 posited 1,328,526 in the Exchequer. They had 
 lent it at 8 per cent., the money being entrusted 
 to them by their customers. The king shut up the 
 Exchequer in 1672, and appropriated its contents. 
 The half of this sum was acknowledged by Parlia- 
 ment as a national obligation, and it forms, in origin 
 at least, the oldest part of the public debt, though it 
 was not formally recognised till 1701 (12 Will. 
 III. cap. 12). 
 English The goldsmiths of the Eevolution became the 
 
 Banking. 
 
 private bankers of the eighteenth century. They 
 were, at its inception, the foes of the Bank, and, as 
 is well known, brought it into serious straits by 
 their intrigues in the early years of its existence. 
 They had been attacked or criticised when their 
 custom of giving bills on deposits had become fa- 
 miliar, for the earliest system of English banking 
 treated the goldsmith's bill, as long as it was not 
 presented, as the equivalent of the money deposited 
 on it, and thus allowed the banker to make use 
 of so much of his customers' balances as experience 
 taught him was not necessary for the calls that were 
 made on him from day to day. It was this practice, 
 avowed and recognised, which distinguished the 
 theory and habit of banking in England from its earlier 
 types in foreign countries. But the goldsmiths, if 
 they made large profits, had suffered great wrongs. 
 
 1 Charles, unlike his son, paid the money back, but the Mint 
 never regained its reputation.
 
 I.] The Great Experiment. 7 
 
 There were at this time at least three great banks 1694 
 in Europe, those of Venice, Genoa, and Amsterdam. The ^ o 
 Of these, that of Venice was the most ancient. It ni * 1 
 
 Banks. 
 
 is said to date from a transaction as far back as 
 1171. The Bank of Genoa was founded in 1407. 
 The Bank of Amsterdam was established in 1609. 
 All these had a considerable history. The Bank of 
 Venice was a great instrument of commerce and 
 government through the middle ages. That of 
 Genoa was a republic within a republic. It founded 
 an empire, as our East India Company did, on 
 a small scale 1 , and was still in repute. But there 
 had been nothing like the Bank of Amsterdam. 
 Founded to be sure when the republic was just on 
 the point of concluding its first truce with the 
 Spanish king, it had weathered many a storm after 
 the early days of its being. Even in the days of 
 Adam Smith, when the Bank of England had been in 
 existence for more than eighty years, and had been 
 the financial agent of the Government during the 
 greater part of the time, that great economist was 
 more interested in the constitution and action of 
 the Bank of Amsterdam than he was in the similar 
 institution of his own country. He procured a 
 special report of this Bank from the pen of his 
 friend Mr. Hope, and inserted it as a valuable 
 digression in his Wealth of Nations 2 . 
 
 1 The Bank of Genoa, among its other possessions, had the Island 
 of Corsica, which it sold to the French a little before, or as some 
 have said after, the birth of Buonaparte. 
 
 2 Wealth of Nations, book iv. chap. 3.
 
 8 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [I. 
 
 1694. These banks differed fundamentally in their con- 
 ." stitution from that of the Bank of England. They 
 
 system of ^ere in their early days what they professed to 
 be throughout their career, banks of deposit, in 
 which the coins of all countries were taken from 
 merchants, assayed or valued, and held as the equi- 
 valent of the bills issued against them. In theory 
 the notes of these earlier banks were of the nature 
 of dock warrants, entitling the holder to claim not 
 only the sum which they expressed, but, theoretically 
 at least, the very coins which were deposited against 
 them. Hence the paper which they issued bore a pre- 
 mium, from which the first profit of the bank was 
 derived 1 . It was alleged by Davenant, an author 
 writing at the time when the Bank of England was 
 founded, that the Amsterdam Bank held regularly 
 36,000,000 sterling. In 1672, when Charles and 
 Louis, in pursuance of their secret treaty, made 
 sudden war on the Dutch, and the populace mur- 
 dered the De Witts, and there was a run on the 
 Bank, its treasure was found to be intact, the 
 marks on the pieces which had been scorched in the 
 Stadthaus fire long before being still plainly visible. 
 But when Holland was overrun by the French in 
 the early years of the great continental war, the 
 whole of the treasure was gone. It had been lent, 
 in defiance of the fundamental law of the Bank's 
 constitution, to the Dutch East India Company. 
 
 1 The State also enacted that all bills beyond a certain amount 
 should be negotiated at the Bank. Hence every considerable 
 merchant had to keep an account there.
 
 I.] The Great Experiment. 9 
 
 The Bank of England from its very beginning 1694. 
 went on a different course, that which the London 
 goldsmiths had already practised. It purported to give 
 in its bills the equivalent of what it had received, 
 but it never pretended to take the deposit for any 
 other purpose than that of trading with it. It never 
 professed to make its issues square exactly with its 
 coin and bullion, though of course it made its liabilities 
 square with its assets, plus the capital of its share- 
 holders, and in time, plus its rest or reserve also, i.e. 
 its accumulated and undivided profits. At first these 
 profits were derived from the dividends it received 
 from Government, and from the gains it made out of 
 the notes which it put into circulation, in exchange 
 for, or in addition to, the cash which it took. It 
 coined, in short, its own credit into paper money. 
 
 When the project was adopted by Montague, and The 
 
 1-1 PI TI i enemies of 
 
 the scheme ot the new .Bank was inserted in the the Bank. 
 Tonnage Act, it was assailed by three different classes 
 of persons with varied motives but with concurrent 
 bitterness. It was attacked by the old money-lenders 
 and bankers, by the dissentient Whigs and all the 
 Tories, and by the projectors of rival schemes. The 
 rancour of these people survived the grant of the 
 charter and the unquestionable services which the 
 Bank did, and the first great peril which the Bank 
 ran was from a rival projector, who had propounded 
 his scheme at least simultaneously with that of 
 Paterson and Godfrey, if not antecedently to it. 
 
 It was alleged that the Tonnage Bank, as it was 
 nicknamed, would absorb all the money of the
 
 io First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [i. 
 
 1694. country, and subject all trade to usurious exactions. 
 They who had been making twenty or thirty per cent, 
 on trade loans, affected to be alarmed at the risk 
 which honest merchants would run if they got into 
 the clutches of this harpy of Grocers' Hall. The pro- I 
 moters of the Bank, Godfrey and Paterson, put out 
 pamphlets to prove that the action of the Bank would 
 infallibly tend to lower rates of discount and interest, 
 because it would utilise to the utmost both capital 
 and credit. The morbid and bitter jealousy which 
 private institutions of credit feel towards those 
 modern forms of business in which publicity is 
 courted has survived to our own time, and expedients 
 for aiding a small note circulation and a system of 
 deposit in public institutions for the benefit of the 
 poorer classes have been angrily criticised and stu- 
 diously hampered. The private bankers of the 
 eighteenth century strove to ruin the reputation of 
 their hated rival by plotting against its credit. 
 Macaulay (chap, xxii.) has described one of the 
 earliest of these conspiracies, which was baffled within 
 two years of the Company's commencing business. 
 Jealousy of The dissentient Whigs and the Tories were united in 
 
 the Bank. . . e 
 
 distrusting Montague's scheme. The former affected 
 to believe that the Bank might neutralise that con- 
 trol over the public purse, and thereby over the policy 
 of the Sovereign, which it was the glory of the Revo- 
 lution to have established. They affected to dread that 
 the Whig merchants of the City would undermine the 
 Constitution, would risk their own money prodigally, 
 and further expedients which would make them
 
 I.] The Great Experiment. 1 1 
 
 certain to lose it. So a clause was inserted in the 1694. 
 Bill, under which the Bank was disabled from lending 
 to the Government, except with the consent of Par- 
 liament. The promoters of the undertaking must 
 have thanked them for the protection which their 
 jealous zeal accorded to the infant corporation. The 
 rule was violated wholesale by the younger Pitt, and 
 the Bank suffered one of the greatest risks of its 
 existence in February, 1797. 
 
 The dislike of the Tories to the new measure was The 
 of a far more intelligible kind. The success of the 
 Bank was the success of the moneyed interest, of the 
 dissenting, semi-republican, interest. They suspected, 
 or affected to suspect, a revival of the reign of the 
 Saints 1 . The country squires and the country 
 clergy had not suffered from the government of the 
 last male Stuart as much as the towns and town 
 clergy had, and the country was far more bitter 
 against non-conformity than the towns were 2 . In 
 fact, they had now to deal with a different kind of 
 dissent. At the end of the seventeenth century the 
 chief sectaries of town and country were the Congre- 
 gational or Independent body. In the counties, and 
 especially in the agricultural districts, the Quakers 
 were now exceedingly numerous, and their tenets 
 
 1 This is the meaning of the objection which was constantly 
 taken to the Bank at its inception, that banks had always existed 
 in republics only, and that a bank and monarchy were incompa- 
 tible. Cromwell and his army of Independents were still, and 
 long remained, a scare. 
 
 2 On the other hand, the country squires and the country 
 clergy had suffered far more from the charges and changes of the 
 Commonwealth than the towns had.
 
 1 2 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [i. 
 
 1694. were distasteful to the dignity and injurious to 
 the interests of the clergy, for they repudiated the 
 ordinances in which all other Christians were agreed, 
 and made a serious difficulty in paying tithes 1 . The 
 Land Bank of Chamberlain was to be a difficulty of the 
 future, but he and the projectors who acted with him 
 swelled the chorus of distrust. 
 
 Macaulay is I think right in saying that the pro- 
 ject of the Bank passed the Commons because, as 
 the House had already voted extraordinary supplies, 
 to the extent of four-and-a-half millions, it did not 
 seem obvious how to find money and repudiate the 
 Bank scheme. There was some danger from the 
 Lords, at that time peculiarly hostile to the moneyed 
 men. But Carmarthen, afterwards the Duke of Leeds, 
 who was always a sensible politician, and occasionally 
 a patriotic one, though marvellously self-seeking 
 and sordid, came to the rescue, and arguing in 
 the spirit, though not in the words of the famous 
 apophthegm, that the King's government must be 
 carried on, dissuaded the Lords from altering a money 
 bill. The Bank of England was saved in the Lords 
 by twelve votes. The minority did not protest. 
 The poim- It may be doubted, if the subscribers to the Bank of 
 
 cal situa- 
 tion. England had known what we now know, whether they 
 
 1 The earlier Quakers were country rather than town folk. I 
 have been told by old members of the Society of Friends, that the 
 change from town to country life was generally effected from two 
 to three generations ago, and was principally owing to the difficulty 
 of paying tithes. This tenet of the Quakers was made an argument 
 against giving relief to this sect in 1722. See Protests of the 
 Lords, for that year, January 1 7.
 
 I.] The Great Experiment. 13 
 
 would have thought the Government stable enough x 1694. 
 to be trusted. While Montague was seeking to sup- 
 port the King in the exertions which he was making 
 for the peace of Europe, Marlborough had betrayed 
 to St. Gerrnains and Versailles the intended attack on 
 Brest, and had brought about the death of Talmash, 
 and the entire failure of a promising adventure, which, 
 if successful, would have annihilated the remains of the 
 French Navy, and have checked French privateering. 
 It was generally believed that a new descent on the 
 English coast was in preparation. It was rumoured 
 that the Pope was on the point of granting consider- 
 able assistance in money to the exiled King. The 
 wants of the Treasury were pressing, and in March 
 of this year the Lord Keeper and the Lords of the 
 Treasury were begging for a small loan, according to 
 custom, from the Common Council of the City, who, / 
 we are told, assisted them for a commission 1 . The 
 storms of the spring had been exceptionally severe, 
 and one is said to have brought about a loss of 
 400,000, a great sum, when it is known that the 
 whole of the English mercantile marine was under a 
 quarter of a million tons burden 2 . Besides, the cur- 
 rency was in the most deplorable condition, worn and 
 clipped ; nor did the execution of coiners and clippers 
 by batches arrest the evil. This state of the 
 
 1 This is stated by the author of a pamphlet on the Land Bank : 
 ' Remarks on the proceedings of the Commissioners for putting in 
 execution the Act passed last Session for establishing a Land Bank.' 
 1696. 
 
 2 Even in January, 1702, the mercantile marine of England 
 amounted to only 261,222 tons. Macpherson. 

 
 14 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [i. 
 
 1694. currency was soon to intensify a serious crisis in 
 
 the history of the Bank 1 . 
 stock- I n the infancy of what we may call stock exchange 
 
 jobbing. _ ^ J 
 
 transactions, sudden and violent fluctuations in price 
 were normal and expected. But they did not deter 
 the public from trafficking in these securities, or 
 actions, as they were called 2 . Within a short time, a 
 year or two, a few months, even a few weeks, stocks 
 would vary enormously in value. Hudson Bay stock 
 in the space of two or three years fell from 250 to 
 80. East India stock, which was at 146 in the be- 
 ginning of the year 1693, stood at 37 in May 1697, 
 and rose again to 142 in April 1700. The stock of 
 the English East India Company, the rival of the old 
 Company, and subsequently amalgamated with it, 
 was at 46!- in March 1699, and rose to 219 in August 
 1703. In short, these investments were in the 
 highest degree speculative undertakings, though both 
 the stocks in question had a long and memorable 
 existence. I could give further illustrations from the 
 Guinea and the Levant Companies, engaged in foreign 
 trade ; from the Sword-blade, Lutestring, Paper and 
 Copper Companies, engaged in manufactures and 
 mining, and from a host of other trading associations, 
 which have now been long forgotten. The seven- 
 teenth century was one of great discovery and activity. 
 Men who were engaged in commerce had realised, 
 
 1 The harvest of 1693-4 was the worst which had been known in 
 England for over thirty years (average of wheat, 635. 5^.), and with 
 one exception (1661) the worst ever recorded since Elizabeth's reign. 
 
 2 The coffee-houses which the brokers and jobbers frequented 
 were Jonathan's and Garraway's.
 
 I.] The Great Experiment. 15 
 
 during the last quarter of that century, fortunes 1694. 
 which were gigantic by contrast with any previous 
 experience, and generally by the machinery of asso- 
 ciated or joint-stock enterprise. People were there- 
 fore prepared for similar successes, if they could only 
 discover the best means for trading in money and 
 goods. 
 
 The want of experience as to the basis on which a ignorance 
 
 i . -. . of the 
 
 subsidiary currency must rest, in order that depre- principles 
 
 . . , , , ., , of Banking 
 
 ciation or even bankruptcy may be avoided, was one prevalent. 
 intrinsic peril which the Bank of England ran in its 
 earlier days. The other peril of the same character 
 was the highly speculative character of all joint-stock 
 enterprise. On the other hand, the Bank was 
 strengthened by the confidence which was shown in 
 its directory, by the fact that the directors, customers, 
 and shareholders of the Bank contained most of the 
 moneyed men, and by the unwearied vigilance of those 
 who watched in the Bank's infancy over its fortunes 
 and solvency. The City magnates of this period 
 lived over their shops and warehouses. The rent of 
 a London shop, dwelling, and garden in the days of 
 William and Mary was by no means high. I find for 
 instance in my researches 1 , that in 1697 a 'good. 
 merchant's house,' close to the Koyal Exchange, with 
 warehouses and vaults, is offered at a rent of 60 
 a year ; that four new brick houses with shops in the 
 City are to be let at 20 a year each, and can be 
 leased at this rate for forty years ; that two houses 
 were to be let in Fleet Street at 44 a year each ; 
 1 All these examples are taken from Houghton's Advertisements.
 
 1 6 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [I. 
 
 1694. that an ale-house in the Strand, with three rooms on 
 each floor, could be had for from 20 to 30 a year ; 
 that a house in the Old Jewry was let at 40 a year ; 
 and that enquiries were made for a house between 
 Guildhall and Bread Street at from 30 to 50 
 a year according to accommodation. I could mul- 
 tiply these illustrations, for I have not taken more 
 than one year, and I have several more notes to the 
 same effect, even for this year. 
 
 Attach- At the end of the seventeenth century the Londoner 
 Londoners lived in London. There at least his treasures were 
 ^ y ' safe. He might count on being forcibly relieved of 
 them, if he journeyed five, even two miles, out of his 
 beloved city, with valuables in his possession, for 
 footpads haunted Islington and Chelsea. He was 
 on intimate relations with all those who were en- 
 gaged in commerce. In our days, the knowledge of 
 a trader's solvency is an art in which the best 
 instructed and most wary may be deceived. In 
 those times it was a habit which every man of busi- 
 ness had necessarily cultivated. We may depend on 
 it, that in the old days, before the Bank of England 
 existed, and the Lords of the Treasury went, cap in 
 hand, with the Lord Keeper to raise a loan among 
 the thriving citizens, there was no difficulty in learn- 
 ing where a full strong box was to be found. 
 
 There was good reason for the union of City 
 men. Outside London, the merchant and moneyed 
 man was heartily hated. He was generally a Whig, 
 and almost as generally a dissenter. But his rapidly 
 growing wealth made him especially hateful to the
 
 I.] The Great Experiment. 17 
 
 country gentlemen. John Briscoe, the literary ad- 1694. 
 vocate of Chamberlain's Land Bank, of which we, 
 shall hear something hereafter, called him a usurer, x 
 and thought he had sufficiently dealt with him when 
 he gave him this name. Perhaps the most bitter 
 and malignant sketch which the Tories ever made of 
 him is found among Davenant's works, under the 
 name of ' the true picture of a modern Whig 1 .' Ten 
 years before, he had gained the experience of how 
 his political foes would treat him when they had the 
 ascendancy, and his memory as well as his interest 
 made him resolute in defending the settlement of the 
 Be volution, and afterwards, of the Protestant suc- 
 cession. Up to the date of that E evolution, it had 
 been a tenet with princes that the subject should 
 conform to their religion. The Eevolution insisted 
 that the King should henceforth conform to the 
 religion of his subjects. Now no analysis of the 
 early fortunes of the Bank of England would be ac- 
 curate unless one took into account the political bias, 
 the religious convictions, and the exceptional resources 
 of those who founded it and guarded its infancy. 
 
 But, in point of fact, nothing could be less like the The Sank 
 principles of modern banking than the action of profits. 
 those who founded the Bank of England was. The 
 capital of the Bank was lent to the Government, and 
 
 1 Macaulay seems to think that the Member for Bedwin, who 
 was found in company with Poussin at the memorable Blue Posts 
 supper, was a different man from the economist. But this is 
 not the case. They are the same. Davenant's pamphlet went ^ 
 through many editions during Anne's reign. To me, it is the most 
 stupid libel I ever read. 
 
 C
 
 1 8 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [I. 
 
 1694. f to the last shilling. The security to the share- 
 holders was the good faith of Government, and only 
 two years had elapsed since the Government had 
 begun the public debt with the annuities. The 
 lottery loan of a million was an operation undertaken 
 simultaneously with that of the Bank of England, 
 and had been a rapid success. But it was to be 
 extinguished in sixteen years. The loan of the Bank 
 was the first permanent loan, for though provision 
 was made that the privilege of the Bank should cease 
 in 1 706, if its capital were repaid in 1 705, no man 
 of sense imagined that any Government would ever 
 extinguish so useful a corporation. 
 
 The first prospect of a dividend then which the 
 shareholders had was the eight per cent, which the 
 Government stipulated to pay on the loan, with 
 4000 a year for management. The other sources 
 were, the circulation of their own bills, which they 
 issued on the loan which they had made, and on 
 which they agreed to pay interest, and the profits 
 which they might make from the capital which their 
 customers deposited with them. J They invited these 
 deposits by the offer of four per cent, interest, and it 
 was one of the criticisms of Davenant 1 on the Bank 
 that this expedient of stimulating deposits by the 
 pledge of an income to the depositor was a hindrance 
 to energy and enterprise. But they did not take 
 precautions to secure the convertibility of their notes, 
 and when the pressure of the recoinage came, they 
 
 1 Discourses on the Public Kevenues and Trade of England, Part 
 I. page 265 (1698).
 
 I.] The Great Experiment. 19 
 
 were driven to the most desperate shifts in order to 1694. 
 support their credit. Nothing but the resolution of 
 the directors and shareholders to support the insti- 
 tution by any and every sacrifice could have saved 
 it from the obvious risks of the system which they 
 adopted. By their first charter they were permitted 
 to lend on pledges. But they do not appear to 
 have availed themselves of this power, though it 
 is probable that they required the deposit of dock 
 warrants when they made advances to some persons, 
 or on some kinds of goods 1 . 
 
 Bearing in mind then that the Bank was a Whig 
 institution, devoted to the Whig settlement of the 
 constitution and to the Whig administration which 
 had carried it through the House of Commons, its 
 difficulties were not slight when we look at the 
 events which occurred in the latter half of the year 
 1 694. Though no material gain had been made by 
 the allies in the war, yet, on the other hand, 1694 
 was the first year in which Louis XIV had gained 
 no substantial advantage. But, on the other hand, 
 the Government at home was discredited by the 
 scandal of the Lancashire trials, and the winter was 
 rendered gloomy by the sickness and death of the 
 Queen. This event occurred on Dec. 27, old style, 
 after an illness of only five days. 
 
 I find from a friendly pamphlet published in 1695, God f re y* 
 entitled * A Short Account of the Bank of England/ theBankof 
 
 that the directors had met their obligations to the 
 Government by a payment of 60 per cent, in cash, 
 1 They would not make advances on ' perishable goods.' 
 
 C 2
 
 2O First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [I. 
 
 1694. the remaining 40 having been satisfied by Bank bills. 
 The writer says : ' Some find fault with the Bank 
 because they have not taken in the whole 1,200,000 
 which was subscribed, for they have called in. but for 
 720,000, which is more than they now have occasion 
 for. They have paid into the Exchequer the whole 
 of the 1,200,000 before the time, and the less money 
 they have taken to do it, so much the more have they 
 saved the public. The rest is left to circulate in 
 
 \ 
 
 trade. There is 480,000 in the subscribers' hands, 
 ready to be called for when they want it.' It is 
 probable that this pamphlet was the work of Godfrey 1 . 
 The business of the Bank is described as follows 
 in the same pamphlet: 'They [the directors] lend 
 money on mortgages and real securities at five per 
 cent, per annum. If the titles of land were made 
 more secure, money would be lent on land at four 
 per cent, per annum, and in time of peace at three 
 per cent. 2 Foreign bills of exchange are discounted 
 -.at four and a-half per cent. ; inland bills and notes 
 for debts at six per cent. They who keep their cash 
 in the Bank have the first of these discounted at 
 three per cent., and the other at four and a-half. 
 Money is lent on pawns of such commodities as are 
 not perishable at five per cent., and on the Fund of 
 
 1 Since writing the above, in which I quote from the contem- 
 porary pamphlet, I have found from a reprint of this tract, a copy 
 of which is in the Bank of England, that the Account was written 
 by Michael Godfrey. 
 
 2 1 doubt whether they really lent money on mortgage, or indeed 
 on anything but mercantile bills and goods. They certainly never 
 established a pawnshop for the poor.
 
 I.] The Great Experiment. 21 
 
 the City of London Orphans at five per cent. 1 ' The 1694. 
 directors contemplate, for the ease of the poor, estab- 
 lishing a 'Lombard' (i.e. a pawnbroking establish- 
 ment) on small pawns at a penny per pound per 
 month. 
 
 The same writer estimates the loss which the 
 public had endured by the goldsmiths and scriveners 
 who had failed during the last thirty years at 
 between two and three millions, though he does 
 not state whether he includes in this sum the de- 
 posits left by them at the Exchequer and seized by 
 Charles in 1672, and to which reference has been 
 made before. But he hints, not obscurely, that the 
 state of the coinage, soon to be a trouble at the 
 Bank, if the trouble had not already begun at the 
 time this pamphlet was written, was traceable to 
 those persons. ' If the bulk of the money of the 
 nation which has been lodged with the goldsmiths 
 had been deposited in the Bank four or five years 
 past, it had prevented its being so scandalously 
 clipped, which one day or the other must cost the 
 nation one and a half million or two million to 
 repair it 2 / 
 
 1 The Orphans' Fund was not in a satisfactory state at the time, 
 the City having carried a bill dealing with the Fund in 1695, after 
 bribing Speaker Trevor, and Sheffield, Lord Normanby, to all ap- 
 pearance. See Protests of the Lords, April 18, 1695. 
 
 2 In an unfriendly pamphlet entitled ' Remarks on the pro- 
 ceedings of the Commissioners for putting into execution an Act 
 passed last Session for establishing a Land Bank' (1696) the 
 writer says, ' As for the goldsmiths, no one expects any reforma- 
 tion from them, or that anything will make them honest but 
 a catchpole.'
 
 22 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [I. 
 
 1694. ' Some think,' says the author, ' that a currency 
 of Bills or Tallies can be enforced. But nothing 
 makes Bank Bills current but only because all 
 those that desire it can go when they will, and fetch 
 their money for them ; and to force anything to pass 
 in payment but money would soon end in confusion.' 
 ' To make anything current in payment but specie 
 money would cause that nobody would trust any 
 Government on any loans whatever.' 
 
 The Bank allowed twopence a day interest on 
 Bank bills, and so drew money out of the goldsmiths' 
 hands, in exchange for bills, and this naturally 
 made the goldsmiths their enemies, as they allowed 
 no interest on deposits. The writer states that 
 'this allowance costs the Bank 36,000 a year, 
 a charge which they would gladly get rid of.' Of 
 course this means that they had issued bills to the 
 whole amount of the Government loan at three per 
 cent, interest on the bills or notes. But he also 
 asserts that this is a clear annual gift to the nation 
 out of the Bank's own fund, and on account of the 
 deposit of moneys, for which the owners had pre- 
 viously received nothing. 
 
 Principles I n a pamphlet published the year before 1 , and 
 the Sank probably written by Paterson, the writer gives an 
 
 was 
 
 founded, account of the principles on which the Bank of 
 England was projected. 'There is,' he says, 'a pre- 
 valent error, that the stamp or denomination gives 
 or adds to the value of money,' and that the fallacy 
 of this opinion was detected by those who, some 
 1 A Brief Account of the intended Bank of England, 1694.
 
 I.] The Great Experiment. 23 
 
 years before, had projected the Bank. ' It was then 1694. 
 proposed that a public transferable fund of interest 
 should be established by Parliament, and made con- 
 venient for receipts and payments in and about the 
 cities of London and Westminster, and to constitute 
 a society of moneyed men for the government thereof, 
 who should be induced by their interest to exchange 
 for money the assignments upon the fund at every 
 demand.' And he goes on to say that the promoters 
 of the Bank had seen that banking must be based 
 on the three following principles : 
 
 1. That all money, or credit, not having an 
 intrinsic value to answer the contents or denomi- 
 nation thereof, is false and counterfeit, and the loss 
 must fall one where or other. 
 
 2. That the species of gold and silver being ac- 
 cepted and chosen by the commercial world for the 
 standard or measure of other effects, everything else 
 is only counted valuable as compared with them. 
 
 3. Wherefore all credit, not founded on the uni- 
 versal specie of gold and silver, is impracticable, and 
 can never subsist neither safely nor long, at least 
 till some other species of credit be found out, and 
 chosen by the trading part of mankind, over and 
 above or in lieu thereof. 
 
 After describing the actual security of the Bank 
 and its prospects of successful trade, and stating 
 that no dividend will be paid without some months' 
 notice, in order to give the proprietors the choice of 
 keeping or disposing of their stock, he states, ' The 
 politicians distinguish between the interest of land
 
 24 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [I. 
 
 1694. and trade, as they have lately done between that of 
 a king and his people/ a hit at the rival project 
 which was soon to be before Parliament, and says, 
 'If the proprietors of the Bank can circulate their 
 own foundation of 1,200,000 without having more 
 than two or three hundred thousand pounds lying 
 dead at one time or another, this Bank will be in 
 effect as 900,000 or 1,000,000 of fresh money 
 brought into the nation/ 
 
 He then predicts, that so far from being an injury 
 to borrowers, whether they be landowners or traders, 
 it will lower the interest on money; and he points to 
 the Banks of Amsterdam and Genoa, as well as others, 
 to confirm his prediction, and concludes that the 
 enemies of the Bank are threefold : ( i ) the Jacobites, 
 who know what its effects will be on their patron 
 Louis of France ; (2) some few usurers and brokers 
 of money; (3) those who have not wherewith to 
 trade, unless it be, like Haman of old, for whole 
 nations or a people at once. By the last two classes 
 the writer appears to mean the goldsmiths, and 
 Chamberlain with his associates. 
 
 I have stated at some length, and by quotations 
 from these two important contemporary pamphlets, 
 what were the purposes and what were the hopes of 
 those who founded this institution and supported it 
 during the perils of its infancy. What these perils 
 "were, we shall soon have occasion to see. It is when 
 a rival project was attempted, and collapsed so 
 ludicrously, that the adverse criticism of the Bank 
 and its purposes begins, for the arguments alleged
 
 I.] The Great Experiment. 25 
 
 against it during the passage of the Tonnage Bill 1694. 
 are not worth discussing 1 . 
 
 The advocates of the new adventure constantly Prices of 
 allege, and the apologists of their rivals confirm the stock in 
 allegation, that the right of using their stock for 
 issue, for loans, and for discounts, in short of be- 
 coming a bank under charter, was a capital feature 
 in the project. Now the first note which LuttrelK 
 makes of the Bank's action is on August i , on which 
 day he states that the Bank had paid 112,000 into 
 the Exchequer by their own bills. It is plain, then, 
 that as soon as the subscription made it clear that 
 the project would be a success, they set to work to 
 engrave a plate, and to print their bills, and this 
 while they were occupying Mercers' chapel. Nor 
 do I conceive that they began the principal business 
 of their undertaking, the discount of commercial bills, 
 foreign and inland, for some weeks after the legal 
 existence of the company commenced. My reader 
 will see that for the first eleven weeks in my table 
 of the price of bank stock this price was slightly 
 above par, ranging from 100 to 103. These prices, 
 I am disposed to believe, are the average of the 
 week, and represent the prospects of the Bank as a 
 trading corporation before it began to trade and its- 
 policy was known. Luttrell, under date of October 25, 
 1694, says that Bank-stock was that day 105. 
 
 The next week's quotation, November 2, is a drop 
 to 5 7, with the heading ' The money paid in.' The 
 public had then learned that only 60 per cent, of the 
 1 See Macaulay, chap. xx.
 
 26 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [I. 
 
 1695. company's capital had been called up, and no doubt 
 found out that liabilities in the issue of 480,000 on 
 credit had been created. The stock, therefore, now 
 estimated on the actual capital paid by the pro- 
 prietors, was below par, and remained at or below 
 par for four weeks. I cannot but infer from this 
 that the public which traded in this new security 
 were not yet clear as to what would be the benefit 
 to the shareholder in venturing on the undertaking, 
 the proprietor in which was in the risk of a call, if 
 the project was found to be in difficulties, and subject 
 to the additional liabilities of an emission of bills, 
 based certainly on unpaid capital, but possibly on 
 deposits or commercial loans. The quotation I con- 
 fess of November 2, when compared with that of 
 October 26, staggered me at first. But I have no 
 doubt that the above is the true explanation of the 
 market. 
 Prices of Be this as it may, it will be seen that the company 
 
 Stock in J J 
 
 1695. rapidly gained public confidence. The stock goes up 
 to 70 on November 30, and though it suffers a check 
 after the event of the Queen's death on December 27 1 
 it goes on steadily rising, till on the 22nd of March, 
 1695, it stands in my register at 99 ; and according 
 to Luttrell, who says a dividend at the rate of six 
 per cent, for the last nine months was declared on 
 March 20, was on that day at 100. From this 
 
 1 Luttrell says. Jan. 26, 1695, 'Every 60 in the bank that was 
 paid in, in principal money, is now worth 90;' and on Feb. 2 
 he states that ' the bank has declared that so soon as the Parlia- 
 ment settles the funds, they will advance his majesty two millions 
 at 5 per cent., having 1,200,000 by them in old gold and silver.'
 
 I.] The Great Experiment. 27 
 
 date however the tendency is downwards, though 1695. 
 the stock keeps at 90 to 92, generally at the latter 
 figure till June 14, when it begins to rise, and on 
 June 28 is at 99 again. I find nothing to account 
 for this decline, beyond the general uncertainty of 
 a campaign in which William was commanding 
 in person, except it be the rumour that at a general 
 court on May 16, the Bank had determined to es- 
 tablish a branch at Antwerp, where they were to 
 coin money to pay the army in Flanders. 
 
 For this or for some other purpose the Bank The 
 sent three of their directors, Sir James Houblon, at 
 Sir William Scawen, and Michael Godfrey, to the 
 King's head-quarters. After their departure the 
 Bank made a temporary advance on June 15 of 
 150,000 to the Government, on the security of two 
 new taxes 1 . On July 25 the Bank had letters from 
 Sir James Houblon and Sir William Scawen an- 
 nouncing Godfrey's death in the trenches at Namur. 
 The readers of Macaulay will remember how he 
 has told the story. Luttrell, who is my authority, 
 says that ' the three Bank directors had dined with 
 the King in his tent, and had waited on him into 
 the trenches to view the same.' I am not quite 
 sure that Macaulay's informants were not unwilling 
 to set down the Whig money-man's death to 
 indiscreet and meddlesome curiosity. Luttrell says 
 that the news of Godfrey's death occasioned a fall of 
 two per cent, in the stock. This is confirmed by 
 my register. 
 
 1 Luttrell, June 15.
 
 28 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [I. 
 
 1695. It is not impossible that the scandalous bribery 
 of which the City of London and the East India 
 Company had been guilty and which was detected 
 in March, 1695, f which the first victims were 
 Guy and Craggs, the next Sir John Trevor, the 
 Speaker, who had to put the question to the House 
 that he was guilty of a high crime and misde- 
 meanour, and who was next day expelled, and the 
 grave suspicion that even more considerable people, 
 such as Seymour and Leeds 1 , were compromised, may 
 have produced a general feeling of distrust. For 
 though the Bank was a Whig corporation, and the 
 East India Company was a Tory association, the 
 discredit of one great trading company naturally 
 had its influence on other companies even at that 
 time 2 . 
 
 Under date of August 15 Luttrell informs me 
 that Mr. Charles Buncombe, of whom more will be 
 heard hereafter, ' sold all his effects (amounting to 
 80,000) in the Bank of England, and that Lord 
 Godolphin had done the same and transferred 
 them to the Orphans' Bank.' This action seems 
 like one of those attempts to discredit the repu- 
 tation of the Bank which were repeatedly made, 
 especially and on a large scale in the next year. 
 During this week, as my record informs me, Bank- 
 stock fell two per cent. But the news of the cap- 
 ture of Namur, which the friends of the Bank 
 
 1 Macaulay, chap. xxi. 
 
 2 According to Postlethwayt, the Bank advanced the Govern- 
 ment in 1695 a million and a quarter on the security of the 
 customs, the repayment being spread over four years.
 
 I.] The Great Experiment. 29 
 
 always ascribed to the promptitude with which the 1595. 
 directors supplied the wants of the King's army, 
 sent the stock up again, which nearly reached par in 
 the month of September. This is perhaps further 
 explained by the fact that on September 26 l the 
 directors declared a dividend of four per cent, on the 
 paid-up capital, i.e. sixty per cent., ' which is to be 
 made on Oct. 10, the second dividend since their 
 establishment.' But probably the news of Sept. 28, 
 ' that the Bank of England, not having their success 
 in the Mint at Antwerp for coining of money to 
 pay our army as they expected, have borrowed 
 200,000 of the Bank at Amsterdam at four per cent., 
 the King giving his word at the same time to see 
 them reimbursed, which money they have paid to 
 his majesty's army in Flanders without remitting 
 hence 2 ,' may account for the fall of five per cent, 
 between Sept. 27 and Oct. 4. * Sir John Houblon, a 
 lord of the Admiralty and governor of the Bank, was 
 chosen Lord Mayor this day 3 ' (Sept. 28). Scawen, 
 who had gone to Namur in the summer with Godfrey, 
 was made deputy governor a day or two before. 
 During October and November the stock was almost 
 stationary at 94. On October n the Parliament 
 was dissolved, and according to Luttrell, the Princess 
 of Denmark (Anne) bade her servants all vote for 
 Sir Stephen Fox and Charles Montague for West- 
 minster. Marlborough now saw that it was expedient 
 to be on good terms with the Bank and its political 
 patrons, and the order, no doubt, proceeded from him. 
 1 Luttrell, September 26. a Ibid., September 28. s Ibid.
 
 30 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [I. 
 
 1695. Between December 7, 1695, an( ^ January 31, 1696, 
 the stock of the Bank rose rapidly. It was 97 at the 
 first date, and 107 at the second, having stood at 108 
 in the week ending January 10. But a reverse was 
 at hand. The particulars of the situation require 
 a minute statement, for on February 7 the stock fell 
 fourteen, and next week another ten. Two circum- 
 stances contributed to this prodigious fall, which the , 
 public, as we shall see, fairly understood, for trouble, 
 the severest trouble the Bank ever suffered, was 
 coming on it. I am speaking of monetary, not of 
 political events, though the latter were of the gravest 
 and most alarming kind. The king of France had, to 
 his great chagrin, lost Namur ; and so he permitted, 
 was conscious of, and perhaps even encouraged, a plot 
 /for murdering William. 
 
 The two circumstances to which I refer were the 
 state of the currency and the scheme of the Land 
 : Bank. 
 
 The condition of the English currency had become 
 scandalous. It seems that much of it was clipped^ 
 to less than a third of its proper weight. If I can 
 rely on an exceedingly rare and valuable work 1 
 in the Bodleian Library, the study of which is es- 
 sential for the interpretation of the foreign ex- 
 changes during the period of which I am writing, 
 there were still in circulation in England coins 
 dating from the days of the Plantagenet kings, and 
 when in proper condition, these were taken at their 
 
 1 A General Treatise of Money and Exchanges, 1 707 (by Alex- 
 ander Justice).
 
 I.] The Great Experiment. 31 
 
 modern value. Even some of the base money of 1695. 
 Henry VIII and Edward VI had escaped Eliza- 
 beth's melting-pot, and was duly appraised by the 
 dealers in currency, for I find the coins of issues 
 in which half the metal was alloy, and others of 
 which two-thirds was base, in my author's list, 
 with their worseness accurately given. A vast quan- 
 tity of foreign coins also circulated in England ; 
 French pistoles, German dollars, Spanish pieces-of- 
 eight, Dutch florins, moidores and ducats, and others 
 whose very names are now forgotten. The English 
 Mint levied on the bullion coined a pretty heavy 
 seignorage to cover charges, for the coin had to carry 
 not only the fourteen pence per pound charged for 
 manufacture, but the cost of melting and refining. 
 Now such a seignorage and charge must have 
 led to a considerable importation of foreign coin, 
 which in the exchanges was estimated at its bullion 
 as opposed to its Mint value. A few years later 
 the Mint coined money free of charge, and provided 
 for the cost out of the general taxes. 
 
 It is difficult to understand why the crime of clip- The crime 
 
 -f 7 ' " 
 
 ping became so common at the end of the seventeenth 
 century. It was not due to the negligence of the 
 law, for clipping the coin was a capital felony, and 
 the Old Bailey witnessed the sentence of death on 
 clippers by the dozen, as Tyburn did their execu- 
 tion. Godfrey hints not obscurely that the gold- 
 smiths knew a good deal about it. But I imagine 
 that there is a fashion in crime, and I am sure 
 that the morals of the Court after the Eestoration
 
 32 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [I. 
 
 1695.- were an evil example to the public. Luttrell tells 
 us that men made fortunes by clipping, and men- 
 tions one person in particular who offered a large 
 sum for his life after the crime had been brought 
 home to him 1 . The men were hanged with the 
 formalities of the old treason laws, the women were 
 burnt. But the deterrents were ineffectual, and 
 clipping went on. The fact was that bullion was 
 becoming so much dearer than light coin, taken 
 by tale, that the temptation to clip, melt, and 
 export was almost irresistible, and turned a fashion 
 into a facility. The night smugglers of the south 
 coast, especially those of Koran ey Marsh, who were 
 called at that time ' owl ers,' were the agents by which 
 the bars were exported and sold. 
 
 New Parliament, as usual, tried penalties before it 
 
 undertook reform. The Act of 6 & 7 William III, 
 cap. 17, attempted to check these malpractices, and 
 the particulars of the measure are a striking illustra- 
 tion of that unwisdom and ignorance of monetary 
 laws which pervaded the legislature, of which in- 
 deed they were to give shortly a still more striking 
 proof. The second section of the Act inflicts a penalty 
 of ten pounds for every twenty shillings on persons 
 who sell undipped coin for more than it was coined 
 for ; the third puts a penalty of 500 on any one 
 who casts ingots or bars of silver ; the fourth pro- 
 vides that any person who buys or sells or has 
 in his possession clippings shall be branded on the 
 right cheek with a capital K, be fined 500, and be 
 
 1 Moor of Westminster, under date of July 13, 1695.
 
 I.] The Great Experiment. 33 
 
 imprisoned till it be paid. The fifth section disables 1695. 
 every person from transporting bullion, unless it 
 be stamped at Goldsmiths' Hall, and oath 1 be made 
 that it is not the produce of English coin ; and 
 the sixth that unstamped bullion may be seized and 
 confiscated by the Custom House; while by the 
 seventh section goldsmiths alone were allowed to 
 deal in bullion. The eighth section even allowed 
 the Warden with two assistants of the Goldsmiths' 
 Company, or two justices of the peace, to break into 
 and search any house for bullion, and if it be found 
 there, the owner of the house must prove that it 
 is not the product of melted coin or of clippings. 
 On and after May i, 1695, ^h e sheriff of counties 
 is to pay forty pounds to any one who procures the 
 conviction of a clipper, the informant being per- 
 mitted to sue the sheriff if he delays to satisfy 
 the claimant of the reward. He is to pay the re- 
 ward out of public moneys in his hands, and if he 
 has no sufficient fund, he is to issue a warrant, 
 which the Treasury has to honour. If a person 
 guilty of the crime can get two other clippers 
 convicted by his evidence, he is to be pardoned ; and 
 an apprentice who informs successfully against his 
 master is to be at once made a freeman of the City. 
 
 These provisions and penalties, some grotesque The Act 
 in their absurdity, some atrocious for their severity, e 
 
 1 Sworn-off bullion, i.e. bullion which was declared on oath not 
 to be the produce of English coin (a formality retained till the 
 resumption of cash payments), was about three half-pence an ounce 
 dearer than unsworn gold. Of course this meant that three half- 
 pence an ounce in gold was the price of perjury. 
 
 D
 
 34 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [I. 
 
 1695-6. and one, the eighth, subjecting private houses to 
 domiciliary visits, in the highest degree opposed 
 to English habit and sentiment, did nothing to 
 cure the evil which they pretended to deal with. 
 Regulations restraining the export or import even 
 of bulky commodities are rarely successful. In an 
 age when craft were light, harbours were easily 
 accessible, and the preventive service scanty and 
 inexperienced, they were easily evaded. But such 
 regulations were sure to be a total failure if the export 
 or import of the precious metals was in question. 
 It appears, as might have been expected, that some 
 men who were most zealous and active in searching 
 houses, but were clippers at the same time, exhibited 
 this energy in order to mask their own proceedings, 
 and were sometimes detected and punished because 
 they could not resist the temptation of robbing 
 the houses which they searched. 
 
 The price ^ Houghton has preserved a weekly register of 
 *iiier iT \ the price of sterling gold by the ounce, of sterling 
 silver by the ounce, and of guineas during the whole 
 year 1695. I have put this register at the end 
 of these pages. According to Godfrey, in his Short 
 Account of the Bank of England, written before 
 his unlucky journey into Flanders, and published, 
 as I should conclude from internal evidence, in June 1 , 
 1695, the Bank had only bought 12,000 worth 
 of bullion, all silver and all Spanish. During the 
 
 1 He deprecates the creation of another Bank ; and we learn 
 from Luttrell, under date of July 23, that 'the Bank for letting 
 out moneys at 3 los. per cent, upon land is now completed.' 
 This is of course Chamberlain's project.
 
 I.] The Great Experiment. 35 
 
 year 1694 the price of gold is from 8os. to 8 is. 6d., 1695-6. 
 of guineas from 2 is. lod. to 22s. 6d., while silver 
 oscillates between 55. 2c7. and 5s. $d. an ounce. These 
 prices I presume are of these metals and guineas 
 in silver coin, and the price of Bank-stock during this 
 time seems to confirm the statement that the Bank 
 abstained from bullion operations, and left them, 
 as the Act of the spring directed, to the goldsmiths. 
 
 In January, 1695, *^ e price of the precious metals 
 began to rise, silver being far less affected than gold \ 
 but sufficiently so to indicate a serious disturbance in 
 the foreign exchanges, the nature of which I shall 
 illustrate lower down. The price of gold on January 
 ii is 82s. 6d., of guineas 22s. 9^.; on January 18, 
 833. and 22s. lod. ; on January 25, guineas were 
 at 235., on February i at 235. 4d. On February 15 
 gold was 86s., and next week guineas rose to 2 5s. 
 On March 8 gold was 88s. ; on March 1 5, 90$. ; on 
 March 29, 918. ; on April 12, 925. On May 10 gold 
 and guineas were at 955. and 265. 6d. ; on May 17 at 
 98s. and 28s. ^d. ; on May 24 at 103$. and 295. ; on 
 June 7 at io6s. and 295. Sd. ; and on June 14 at 
 1095. and 305. This is the highest point for gold 
 bullion and coin which the chronicler registers in 
 
 1695- 
 On June 21 the prices are 1075. and 298. 6d., 
 
 1 Silver was virtually the currency of the country, and throughout 
 this crisis the Government was able, as Governments are able, to 
 regulate the price of the bullion which is the material of the 
 popular and nearly universal currency, by the coin which they 
 produce. It is quite another thing to try the regulation of two 
 kinds of bullion and two currencies, both equally universal. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [I. 
 
 1695-6. and next week guineas are at 295. jd. On July 5 
 they are at Toys. 6d. and 295. 9^.; on July 12, at 
 io8s. 6d. and 295. iod., guineas falling to 29$. gd. on 
 August 2. On August 30 they are at io8s. and 295. Sd. 
 On September 30 at 295. 6d. Gold is at io8s. till 
 October 1 1, when it falls to io6s. 6d., and remains 
 at this price till November 22. when it is again io8s.; 
 after which there are very few and at last no 
 quotations of bullion. But on October 1 8 guineas are 
 at 295. 4<l.; on November 15, 295. 5^.; on November 
 22, 295. 7^.; on November 29, 295. yd.; and on 
 December 13, 295. 6d. Quotations of guineas fail 
 for the first three months of 1696. On April 17 
 they are quoted at 22s., for by this time the new 
 milled money was getting into the hands of the 
 money-dealers arid bullion-merchants at least ; and 
 by July 10 of the same year gold is quoted as 823. 
 again, and silver at 55. zd. The normal relations of 
 gold bullion and coined silver of standard weight 
 and fineness were nearly restored, though the distress 
 had not ceased. 
 
 The I will now proceed to illustrate the same facts 
 
 exchanges, from the foreign exchanges. It will not be necessary 
 to trouble my reader with details of currencies 
 which, having long been superseded, cease to possess 
 any living interest, and I will merely take one example, 
 that of Amsterdam. I select this place, because at 
 this time Amsterdam and its bank were to the com- 
 mercial world what London and its bank were to 
 become at a later time. But besides this, during 
 the war which ended with the Peace of Kyswick,
 
 I.] The Great Experiment. 37 
 
 and indeed during the war which ended with the 1695-6. 
 treaty of Utrecht, at the beginning of which latter 
 war my enquiry is concluded, Amsterdam was the 
 place to which supplies granted by the English 
 Parliament for the use of the war, and transmitted 
 by bills or by money, were necessarily sent, so that 
 Amsterdam, more than any other place, dominates 
 the English exchanges 1 . 
 
 Now the par of exchange between Amsterdam 
 and London was designated in the jargon of the time, 
 but a jargon entirely understood by dealers at that 
 period, as 37-^ shillings Fleems gross. At this time 
 of day it signifies nothing to us what this phrase of 
 the exchange means. It is as obsolete and probably 
 as unintelligible to any practical man now, as 
 the books or rather clay tallies of the Babylonian 
 bankers which have been explained by Chaldaic 
 scholars are to Lombard Street Englishmen. But in 
 these figures lies the interpretation of the terrible 
 crisis through which England passed during the two 
 years 1695-1696. 
 
 I have appended to this book an interpretation of The 
 the figures which I have collected as to the rate of 
 exchange between London and Amsterdam which 
 ruled during these two years, and with them a table 
 which gives the rate of discount on English bills 
 drawn on Amsterdam. In using the second table, it 
 
 1 On this fact see Alexander Justice, General Treatise on 
 Moneys and Exchanges. The work is excessively rare, but it is 
 in Bodley, though the copy there says that there is none in the 
 British Museum. Works which are real handy books soon wear 
 out.
 
 38 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [T. 
 
 1695-6. will be seen that the amount which the exchange on 
 Amsterdam stood at represents the discount or 
 premium, the latter unfortunately rare, on which an 
 English bill on Amsterdam was to be negotiated and 
 met. For example, on June n, 1696, the Bank of 
 England drew 100,000 on the Bank of Amsterdam, 
 and put the bills to the King's credit. At that date, 
 the rate of exchange stood at from 30*6 to 30^4, and 
 on referring to the third table it will be seen that 
 this means that the transaction implied an adverse 
 rate of from 21*5 to 22*2 per cent., or that for every 
 100 the Bank of England drew they had to pay 
 the Bank of Amsterdam, when the bills reached 
 maturity, from 121 los. to 122 48. sterling. But 
 T must reserve my comment on this action of the 
 Bank of England till I deal with the position in 
 which they stood to the Government after the failure 
 of the Land Bank and the crisis which it involved. 
 Discounts The calculations of Mr. Justice in 1707, though at 
 bm s nff l that time a war was going on, which, compared with 
 William's war, was extraordinarily costly, do not con- 
 template a rate of exchange which is more adverse than 
 32*3 per cent. But on August 16, 1695, j us ^ before 
 the taking of Namur, the exchange on Amsterdam 
 fell to its lowest rate, 27, which means that the 
 discount of an English bill drawn on Amsterdam was 
 36^9 per cent. 1 The experience of modern times, 
 when commercial transactions are understood to be 
 
 1 The exchange on Amsterdam was always more unfavourable 
 than that on Rotterdam or Antwerp. The reason is obvious. 
 Amsterdam was the centre of commerce, and could control the 
 exchanges. The difference is generally '2.
 
 I.] The Great Experiment. 39 
 
 the life of industry, and when fractional, and to the 1695-6. 
 ordinary student, trivial changes, are significant, and 
 even portentous, may almost decline to believe that 
 business could be carried on under these tremendous 
 risks. It is the function of the historical economist 
 to state them, and as far as his individual powers go, 
 to interpret them. The founders of the Bank of 
 England understood and grappled with them, for 
 they saw how necessary it was that English trade, 
 i.e. English bills, should be relieved from these 
 recurrent risks and constant disadvantages, to say 
 nothing of the cost of the old system of goldsmiths' 
 discounts. 
 
 I conclude that the interpretation of the exchanges 
 during this eventful time is to this effect. The rate 
 between London and Amsterdam designates or 
 interprets the ease or the difficulty with which coin 
 or bullion was likely to be forthcoming in order to 
 meet bills when they come to maturity, such coin 
 being, for the purposes of exchange, considered as 
 bullion. All the moneyed men of course knew, that 
 whatever kings or parliaments might aver to be the 
 value of their currency, would be, if in error, nega- 
 tived the moment these coins got out of any parti- 
 cular jurisdiction, and would be discounted whenever a 
 commercial transaction was completed, and in view of 
 the above-named condition being satisfied. They also 
 knew that all hindrances and impediments which any 
 executive might put on the free circulation of the 
 metals of exchange between country and country tend 
 to exaggerate or accentuate adverse rates, and that
 
 4O First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [I. 
 
 1695-6. when William's government or Parliament was trying 
 to prevent by every effort of police or punishment the 
 exportation of these metals for the satisfaction of 
 obligations, they were increasing the financial diffi- 
 culties of William's military projects 1 . The fact is, 
 administrations constantly confound the power which 
 a government has of giving a factitious value to its 
 domestic currency, the extent of this power being a 
 very difficult question to determine, with the inter- 
 pretation which the commercial world, in so far as it 
 is out of their jurisdiction or authority, puts upon 
 the value of their issues. Now among the few men 
 of science at the time of the recoinage, Locke saw 
 this clearly 2 . 
 
 At the beginning of the year 1695, the discount 
 on English drafts on Amsterdam was 13*7 per cent. 
 This adverse tendency, never materially changed for 
 the better, continues up to the end of May, oscillating, 
 but always disadvantageously, between the rate given 
 above, the best, and 23*5 per cent., the worst, on 
 May 3 1 . During June and July, it will be seen that 
 
 1 Nothing I believe would be more instructive in the inter- 
 pretation of the struggle between the United Provinces and 
 Philip the Second in the sixteenth century, than information on 
 the rate at which Philip's bills were discounted at Genoa and 
 elsewhere. Of course I am aware that the Milanese and Tranche 
 Comte were part of Philip's dominions, and therefore aided the 
 machinery of transmission. 
 
 2 It must not be imagined that the high rate of discount on 
 English bills was due to the condition of the English currency. 
 The bills of course had to be met in coin interpreted as bullion. 
 If the English coins had been taken by tale at Amsterdam, the 
 discount would have been a premium, for we are told that the real 
 value of the coin was little more than half its nominal value.
 
 I.] The Great Experiment. 41 
 
 it ranges between 2 5 '4, the most favourable, and 30, 1695-6 
 the least. 
 
 During August and the greater part of September 
 the exchanges were most unfavourable, the lowest 
 point, as I have stated; having been that of August 
 1 6. Between the rate at this date (36*9) and the 
 highest during the three months, the fluctuations are 
 9 per cent., the highest being 27*9. Then the tide 
 begins to turn, though a sharp reverse occurs in 
 November, when the difficulties of the currency 
 became serious from the point of view of the foreign 
 exchanges, though the disadvantage of England is 
 never quite as great as it was on August 1 6. At the 
 end of the year, the adverse rate is 20*2 per cent. 
 .During the whole of 1695, the country was suffering 
 from the scandalous state of the currency. That was 
 an English, not a foreign interest, as Parliament was 
 forced to acknowledge. The Amsterdam banker 
 was not paid in clipped money. 
 
 The remedy was the Kecoinage Act, which became The Se- 
 law on January 21, 1 696, though practically the c 
 principles on which the process would be carried out 
 were affirmed on December 10, 1695. But f r the nrs ^ 
 seven months of 1696 the adverse condition of the ex- 
 change oscillated between 19*5, the best, on January 
 24, and 27'2 per cent., the worst, on July 24. On 
 July 3 1 English bills were for a week at a premium of 
 four per cent., but soon fell again to a discount of 1 2*2 
 to 15*7, and on August 21 they were even at 28*2 
 discount. Then they rapidly rose. On September 
 ii the discount was only 5*3, at which it kept till
 
 42 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [I. 
 
 1696. October 2, when it was 1*3. On October 9 it was 
 only one per cent., but during the last fortnight of 
 the month it was between 17 and 17 '6. In No- 
 vember, English bills were at par or at a premium ; 
 and as an interpretation of current but exceptional 
 difficulties, the record ceases to be instructive. 
 
 It is a curious illustration of the fact, that the 
 knowledge and interpretation of the facts and causes 
 attending a commercial crisis rapidly become obscure 
 and erroneous, that Justice, in the book from which I 
 have extracted the key which has enabled me to 
 understand the situation in the two years 1695 and 
 1696, though stating that the exchange between 
 London and Amsterdam was once as low as 2 7 \ and 
 therefore represented a discount of nearly 38 per 
 cent, on English bills, ascribes the calamity to the 
 recoinage. But this adverse state of things occurred 
 between the dissolution of one Parliament and the 
 sitting of another, when neither the purposes of the 
 Administration nor the inclination of Parliament 
 could have been foreseen. It is true that during 
 the recoinage the exchange was very adverse to 
 England. But the worst quotation of 1696, and 
 that only for a short time, is eight and a-half per 
 cent, better than the worst of 1695. 
 
 The policy I cannot but believe that this terrible condition of 
 ffue and the foreign exchanges must have precipitated the 
 conclusion at which Montague and Sommers arrived, 
 that the currency must be reformed at all hazards, 
 
 1 It is clear that the quotation of Aug. 16, 1695, must have 
 been remembered long afterwards.
 
 I.] The Great Experiment. 43 
 
 and could be reformed only on the condition that 1696. 
 faith must be rigidly kept with the public and 
 private creditors. Disastrous as was the condition 
 of the home trade under such a currency as then 
 circulated in England, great as the sufferings were 
 of those who lived by wages, severe as the straits 
 were of those who lived on fixed incomes, certain 
 as the shock to credit would be during the trouble 
 which was imminent, enormous as the gains were of 
 the goldsmiths and money-changers, many of whom, 
 like Buncombe, rose from moderate circumstances to 
 opulence during this crisis, these evils were small 
 by the fact that the aids granted for carrying on 
 a war on which wise men believed that the very 
 existence of England depended were constantly 
 mulcted to the extent of 30 to 20 per cent, in the 
 mere process of transmitting credits to the seat of 
 war. In this crisis the Bank ran its greatest perils, 
 did some of its best services, and established the 
 confidence which has made it so famous 1 . 
 
 A new Parliament met on November 22, 1695, an( i 
 made the reform of the currency its first business. 
 This capital measure is contained in 7 William III. 
 cap. i. As in ordinary collections of the statutes the 
 Act is omitted, because it expired with the operation 
 it was passed to effect, I have extracted its par- 
 ticulars from the printed copy which was issued 
 simultaneously with the royal assent by the king's 
 
 1 No one of course at that time knew, or if he knew had the 
 courage to say, that the best security against a monetary famine 
 is free trade in the precious metals, whether coin or bullion.
 
 44 First Nine Years of the Bank df England. [I. 
 
 1696. printers. The remedy was almost too late, for the 
 distress which continued during the first year of its 
 operations was great indeed. But the restoration of 
 the currency under William, the process occupying 
 nearly four years, was as capital a performance 
 as the restoration of the currency under Elizabeth. 
 It was, however, incomparably more costly. Ac- 
 cording to Kuding, our highest authority on the 
 subject, the recoinage was not completed till 1699, 
 the amount issued from the Mint was about seven 
 millions, and the cost to the country, in the difference 
 between the old clipped and the new milled money, 
 was no less than 2,703,164 55. io^d. The loss 
 was provided for by the house and window tax. 
 Criticism Every one knows that the Recoinage Act of 1696 
 Recoinage was the work of Montague, and arduous work it was. 
 He had to overcome two difficulties. One was the 
 provision of a charge so enormous for the times as the 
 loss stated above would be. It is probable that had the 
 liability been exactly anticipated, instead of being 
 vaguely conjectured, Montague would have reasoned 
 in vain. It is possible, if the Bank had foreseen 
 what straits it would have to go through, in the 
 depreciation of its stock, in the discount of its notes, 
 and in the suspension of its dividends, the high- 
 minded and honourable men who had guided its early 
 fortunes and given all their energies to its success, 
 while they had been the mainstay of William and 
 his armies, would not have had the courage to face 
 the formidable future, especially as they were already 
 threatened with the opposition of Chamberlain's
 
 I.] The Great Experiment. 45 
 
 Land Bank, which if it were successful would cripple 1696. 
 them, and if it failed might cripple all credit. Godfrey, 
 as I stated above, reckoned the loss of the recoinage 
 at from one to two millions. But the loss of nearly 
 three millions at a period when, if there had been no 
 debt as well as no war, such a sum was nearly equi- 
 valent to a year and a-half s ordinary revenue, was as 
 serious at the end of the seventeenth century as a public 
 loss of a hundred millions would be at the end of the 
 nineteenth. Undoubtedly a blessing came out of the 
 suffering, but when people suffer they are very dull 
 at discerning blessings. As it was, there can be no 
 doubt that Montague had the assistance of the 
 shrewd and far-seeing men who constituted the first 
 direction of the Bank of England, and whose conduct 
 during the perils of the next two years made the 
 Bank the acknowledged and sole centre of English 
 finance and the type of English public faith. 
 
 The other difficulty in Montague's way was 
 more subtle. The harvest had been unpropitious, 
 the price of food was high, and there was considerable 
 distress. Would it not be better to keep the same 
 names for the crown, the half-crown, the shilling and 
 the sixpence, but to coin an ounce of silver into 
 seven shillings instead of five ? There are people 
 who even now believe that Government can give an 
 intrinsic value to a coin which it does not possess in 
 bullion, quite apart from the value which the coin 
 possesses as an instrument of exchange and trade at 
 home 1 . But many more people believed in this 
 
 1 1 am of course referring to the metal which makes the standard
 
 46 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [I. 
 
 1696. theory in 1695. Parliament had fixed, and would 
 fix again for many a long day, the price of crown 
 pieces and guineas, of corn and salt, of labour and 
 of loan capital ; why should it not save the cost of 
 recoinage by lowering the quantity of silver in the 
 coin, and still calling the coin by its old name ? 
 The author of a Brief Account of the intended 
 Bank of England, quoted above, saw that there was 
 a prevalent error, 'that the stamp or denomination 
 gives or adds to the value of money/ and I make no 
 doubt that Paterson's colleagues (to him I am con- 
 fident the pamphlet of 1694 is to be assigned) still 
 remembered and clung to the sound principles which 
 the Scottish projector laid down. At the present 
 crisis Montague found effective help in Locke's 
 treatise, which is justly praised byMacaulay 1 . 
 
 That the expedient of lowering the weight of the 
 coins while they were still called by the old names, 
 which was advocated by Lowndes the Secretary to 
 the Treasury, would have given a shock to the credit 
 of Government, because it would have induced distrust 
 upon all public or parliamentary contracts, cannot I 
 think be disputed; and that a lessening in the weight 
 of the coins would have been a disguised repudiation, 
 and a simultaneous and undeserved spoliation of all 
 
 or even the coin. We take gold as the standard. We might go 
 farther and take the sovereign as the standard, and issue a half- 
 sovereign which should be a token only. The answer to Peel's 
 famous question, What is a pound ? is 1 1 3^| 7 grains of pure gold. 
 1 Chap. xxi. Locke's essay was called ' Further Considerations 
 concerning raising the value of Money.' It is addressed to Lord 
 Keeper Sommers.
 
 L] The Great Experiment. 47 
 
 creditors in the interest of all debtors, is equally 1696. 
 clear. Under these circumstances every powerful 
 interest should have been opposed to it. If the 
 fundholder and mortgagee would lose a portion of 
 their income, so would the landlord a portion of his 
 rent, and every one who had a pending contract 
 would have been similarly and proportionately 
 mulcted. It was only, I am persuaded, because many 
 persons believed that the name of a shilling would 
 carry the fact of a shilling, even though the coin 
 was clipped by law, that the resolution to keep up 
 the old standard of weight was carried by eleven 
 votes only. 
 
 On the resumption of cash payments in 1819, it 
 was again suggested that the standard should be 
 degraded, in this case under the disguise of * what 
 should hereafter be the price of gold.' There were 
 people, called statesmen, who thought it should be 
 taken at 4 15-. the ounce; there were others who 
 thought it should be, as their opinions varied, from 
 4 IQS. to 5 IQS. Now there was something 
 plausible at the time in the fact, that for some years 
 before the resumption prices of this kind had existed 
 for the bank note 1 . But better counsels prevailed, 
 and the old standard was restored 2 . It must surely 
 
 1 See Tooke's History of Prices, vol. ii. pp. 64 sqq. The 
 retention of the old standard was the work of Peel. His father, 
 a shrewd man enough, thought his son almost mad. 
 
 2 The argument that much of the deht was contracted in a de- 
 preciated currency, and that therefore the interest might justly be 
 paid in a clipped coin, was another plea for public fraud which was 
 frequently alleged in 1819.
 
 48 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [I. 
 
 1696. be the case that the precedent of Montague's re- 
 coinage and the good faith then kept with creditors 
 under circumstances of far greater difficulty and loss 
 was present to and swayed the minds of those who 
 directed the resumption of cash payments. 
 
 The debates in the country, in the Council, and in 
 Parliament as to the steps by which the currency 
 was to be reformed, and the motives by which the 
 Commons were induced to pass 7 William III. cap. i, 
 are described by Macaulay with such vigour, clearness 
 and accuracy, that it would be superfluous and im- 
 pertinent for me to restate the details. I pass to the 
 Act itself. 
 
 The details The preamble of the Act says that as the coins 
 ' had been diminished by the wicked and pernicious 
 crime of clipping, the coin is to be restored by a 
 public charge or contribution. It then provides that 
 after February i, 1696, the Commissioners of the 
 Treasury shall tell and weigh all clipped money and 
 even coins of coarser alloy into the Exchequer, and 
 while this is going on that all persons concerned 
 shall have reasonable access without payment to 
 the books ; that the origin of the money, whether it 
 comes from customs or excise or aid, or any other 
 source, shall be written down and recorded ; that the 
 clipped money shall be forthwith melted down 
 (refined, if need be, to the standard) and cast into 
 ingots, and coined anew under the usual rules in the 
 Tower. It then provides that a certain charge shall 
 be made for coining, beyond the cost of melting and 
 refining ; that ' it be brought back to the Exchequer,
 
 I.] The Great Experiment. 49 
 
 and be there placed to the account of the said branch 1696. 
 of revenue in such and like proportion as the clipped 
 money taken from that particular branch or fund 
 shall bear to the sum of the clipped money, and be 
 thereon paid out/ 
 
 The collectors of revenue are to take clipped 
 money up to May 4, and even coins of inferior alloy, 
 provided they include no copper or base metal ; the 
 Exchequer tellers are to take such money from the 
 receivers up to June 24, and also loans and pay- 
 ments payable to them ; these receipts being entered 
 separately and melted separately. Not less than four 
 country mints were to be erected. 
 
 Undipped hammered moneys are to be punched be- 
 fore Feb. 10, so that the hole made in them does not 
 diminish the weight, and are not to be current unless 
 they are so punched ; and if any of such punched 
 coins are clipped afterwards, they are not to be 
 current. The Act is not to extend to undipped six- 
 pences. Of every hundred pounds troy, forty pounds 
 is to be coined into shillings, ten pounds into six- 
 pences. Such was the great Kecoinage Act, to which 
 additions were made by 7 and 8 William III. cap. 10 
 and cap. 19, and 8 William III. cap. i and cap. 7, 
 these latter Acts being chiefly designed to facilitate 
 the acquisition of bullion.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE LAND BANK. 
 
 1696. THE price of Bank stock fell from 107 on Jan. 31, 
 
 Chamber- I ^9^> to &3 on -Feb. 1 4*. In this week the House 
 
 l Tsu n - d f Commons had agreed to carry into effect the 
 
 porters. p ro ject of Chamberlain's Land Bank. Chamberlain 
 
 had been an accoucheur, and was living at Essex 
 
 * O 
 
 Street, Strand, with an office in Lincoln's Inn. He 
 had written one or two books on medicine, and ac- 
 cording to Watt had published his scheme in 1695. 
 After the failure of his project he tried to revive it in 
 Scotland (Edinburgh, lyoo 2 ). Another pamphleteer 
 was John Briscoe, to whose essay I have already 
 made allusion. He had behind him Harley and 
 Foley, the former that sly and timid intriguer 
 who afterwards became Lord Oxford, the latter 
 
 1 Luttrell, Feb. 1 1 : ' The actions of the Bank of England have 
 fallen from 107 to 85.' 
 
 2 I do not feel quite certain that the Hugh Chamberlain, author 
 of the Manuale Medicum, is to be identified with the projector 
 of the Land Bank. If he is, he had been physician in ordinary 
 to Charles II, and was a Fellow of the Royal Society. Still, 
 Hugh Chamberlain of the Land Bank was summoned in 1692 to 
 attest the birth of Mary of Modena's second child. He had also 
 been retained for the event of June 1688, but was absent at 
 Gravesend on a similar errand, and arrived too late. See his 
 'Narrative of the birth of the Prince of Wales,' i.e. the 'Old 
 Pretender.'
 
 The Land Bank. 5 1 
 
 at this time Speaker of the House of Commons 1 . 1696. 
 It is not clear to me whether they believed 
 in him and his project, even when they sup- 
 ported him. But both were jealous of Montague, 
 and disliked that creature of Whig Nonconformity, 
 the Bank of England, though both Harley and 
 Foley still professed to be Whigs, and Harley had 
 been a dissenter. 
 
 Chamberlain believed that he could float a public 
 loan to an amount more than twice that which the 
 Bank of England had undertaken, on the security of 
 landed property, make the interest on the loan the 
 guarantee for the interest payable on the bills he 
 should issue on his company's stock, and at once 
 lend the money to Government and lend it at 3^ 
 per cent, to the landowner who pledged his land. 
 He had some other notions which he sedulously 
 inculcated, one of the most absurd being that a lease 
 for a hundred years was worth four times as much 
 as the fee simple. But where the money was to 
 come from with which to aid the Government and 
 to lend on mortgage at 3^ per cent, is not explained. 
 That any one should have believed in this project 
 was amazing, but it is more amazing still that the 
 King and his advisers should have staked the success 
 of a campaign on so monstrous and palpable an 
 absurdity. Some little explanation may be given 
 of the former, no defence, not even the defence of 
 despair, could justify the latter. The youngest clerk 
 in Grocers' Hall could have informed Councillors of 
 
 1 Foley died Nov. 13, 1699. 
 E 2
 
 5 2 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [ii. 
 
 1696. State and officers of the Exchequer that the Land 
 Bank would never get beyond a project, as Luttrell 1 
 saw when it was first brought out. 
 
 On Monday, February 10, 'the Commons were in 
 a Committee of the whole House upon ways and 
 means, for raising two millions in full for his Majesty 
 this session. Kesolved, that the Bank of England 
 should not raise it. Then Mr. Neal proposed to raise 
 it upon the Exchequer' (the form it finally took in 
 Exchequer Bills), * but that was rejected ; then a 
 national land bank was proposed, and to be set up 
 by subscription ; to which the Committee agreed, and 
 ordered that none concerned in the Bank of England 
 should have anything to do with it 2 .' The assent to 
 the Bill, of which I shall give a sketch presently, 
 was given on April 27. 
 
 The fact is, the landed men hated the moneyed 
 men with a bitterness in which envy, contempt, 
 pride, and religious bigotry were the strongest in- 
 gredients. They looked on their growing wealth 
 with envy, on their occupation with scorn, on their 
 birth with disdain, on their creed and discipline with 
 intolerant hate. Now in such a frame of mind such 
 people will believe anything, even such a quack as 
 Chamberlain was not the first adventurer who has 
 imagined himself a financier. Men will constantly 
 make loans at ruinous rates to carry out their own 
 projects ; can we wonder at the eagerness with which 
 they swallowed a project which offered them loans 
 at easy, at unheard-of easy, rates, and this with the 
 1 June 4, June 6. 2 Luttrell, Feb. 1 1.
 
 II.] The Land Bank. 53 
 
 prospect of ruining the canting puritan usurers of 1696. 
 Grocers' Hall ? But it is time to introduce the 
 ' doctor's ' advertisements to my readers. 
 
 FIRST ADVERTISEMENT, OCTOBER 25, 1695. 
 
 (Continued for five weeks.) 
 
 * Dr. Hugh Chamberlain (who was the first proposer ciamier- 
 of Banks of Credit on Land rents) hath lately revived verti*e- 
 his proposal, which was reported by a Committee of 
 the House of Commons to be both practicable and 
 profitable, and is taking subscriptions, and meets 
 already with so great encouragement from divers of 
 the nobility, gentry, and merchants, and others, that 
 he hath almost completed 50,000 per annum, with 
 which he proposes speedily to begin. The said pro- 
 posal lends the sum of 8000 on the security of 
 150 per annum for 150 years at the yearly interest 
 of only twenty-five shillings for every 100 to con- 
 tinue but 100 years, and never return the principal, 
 or five shillings interest and return the principal by 
 twenty shillings a year for every 100, or (which is 
 to the like purpose) the Bank gives 80 years' pur- 
 chase for a rent-charge of 100 for 100 years. 
 Though this may seem too much at the present rate 
 and value of Land and Money, yet such is the con- 
 trivance of the Bank, that it is equivalent to a new 
 discovered mine, whose proprietors (to supply the 
 want of money, to raise the value of land, and to 
 increase trade for the general good) are willing to 
 give so large a consideration on so easy terms, and 
 since the Bank is able and willing to give it, there
 
 54 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [ii. 
 
 1696. is no reason why any should be unwilling to receive 
 it. Subscriptions are taken every day at the Doctor's 
 house in Essex Street, near the Temple, and at 
 Mr. White's chambers in the New buildings in 
 Lincoln's Inn, where any person enquiring may 
 receive further satisfaction.' 
 
 SECOND ADVERTISEMENT, NOVEMBER 29, 1695. 
 (Inserted for a fortnight.) 
 
 ' Whereas Doctor Chamberlain, at his first taking 
 subscriptions for establishing an office of credit upon 
 land, did declare that so soon as 50,000 per annum 
 was subscribed to his undertaking, he would begin 
 to set the same on foot : Now the said Doctor doth 
 hereby give notice that the same sum and upwards 
 being subscribed, he is fixing the constitution of this 
 undertaking, and will give it all the dispatch which 
 may consist with the due and mature consideration 
 of so weighty an affair, and in the mean time, in order 
 to the speedier expediting of the same, it is desired 
 that all his said subscribers do bring to and leave 
 with Mr. Samuel White, agent to the said under- 
 taking, at his chambers, Number seven, in the new 
 building in Lincoln's Inn, a true and exact particular 
 of the lands by them intended to be settled, together 
 with their values, and further notice shall be speedily 
 given and a time appointed for all the said sub- 
 scribers to bring in an abstract of their writings 
 and titles.'
 
 II.] The Land Bank. 55 
 
 THIRD ADVERTISEMENT. 1696t 
 
 n 
 
 (Inserted for three weeks from December 20, 1695, 
 then for seven weeks from February 14, 1696, then 
 for four weeks from April 10.) It will be remem- 
 bered that on February 10, 1696, the House of 
 Commons resolved to establish the Land Bank. 
 
 ' A proposal for the encouragement of nionied men, 
 being an appendix to Dr. Chamberlain's office of 
 land credit ; whereas there is above 50,000 per 
 annum in land subscribed to Dr. Chamberlain's pro- 
 posal for establishing an office of land credit, and 
 whereas there are also many other freeholders willing 
 to become subscribers, who for want of money to pay 
 off their encumbrances and to advance the sum re- 
 quired to be exchanged into Bills according to the 
 Doctor's said proposal are incapacitated to receive 
 the benefit of the same : the Doctor is therefore willing, 
 in pursuance of his said proposal, and at the request 
 and for the benefit of such, as also for the advantage 
 of monied men (widows, orphans, and others), to 
 continue to take subscriptions for 50,000 per annum 
 in land more, and also to take subscriptions at the 
 same time for money, not exceeding 50,000 in the 
 whole. Such money to be applied as before, for 
 discharging the said incumbrances, and for circu- 
 lating of the Bills. 
 
 * Every one therefore who deposits 1000 in specie, 
 will secure an annuity of 350 per annum for four 
 years successively from the time of his payment of 
 the said money ; and so pro rata for greater or lesser
 
 56 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [ii. 
 
 1696. suras, which annuity, though a great benefit to the 
 monied man, and no less a convenience to the ]and 
 proprietors, is yet no burden upon the office ; and for 
 the security of such money, land shall be effectually 
 charged and obliged by legal settlements, on Trustees, 
 to the satisfaction of the monied persons, and further 
 the whole profits arising by the said office shall be 
 duly subjected to the payment of the said annuities, 
 which new and further subscriptions are not intended 
 to interfere with, or in any sort to retard and hinder 
 the proceeding and perfecting the issuing of credit 
 upon the 50,000 per annum already subscribed. 
 
 * Subscriptions of both sorts are daily taken at 
 the office, No. 6 in the New building in Lincoln's 
 Inn/ 
 
 It is difficult indeed to decide whether this third 
 advertisement is the offspring of infatuated stupidity 
 or of deliberate roguery; whether the projector 
 actually believed, apart from the inherent absurdities 
 of his scheme, that he could pay back a loan of 1000 
 by four instalments of 350 spread over four years, 
 after undertaking to lend money on landed estate at 
 three and a-half per cent., and this without trenching 
 on the profits of his undertaking ; or whether he 
 fancied that there were dupes who would trust him 
 with cash for this collateral undertaking, with which 
 he might abscond. Three years after this advertise- 
 ment, under date of March 21, 1699, Luttrell says, 
 'Dr. Chamberlain, the man-midwife, and sole con- 
 triver and manager of the land bank, is retired to 
 Holland, on suspicion of debt.'
 
 II.] The Land Bank. 57 
 
 The Act establishing the National Land Bank is 1696. 
 7 & 8 William III. cap. 31. It received the royal 
 assent on April 2 7, and it cannot be doubted that 
 the first advertisement, which is given above, must Bank Act ' 
 have been seen by Harley and Foley, as well as by 
 the country gentlemen, Whigs and Tories alike, who 
 carried the measure through the House. The fact is, 
 the scheme which was put forward in 1693, an( i was 
 voted by the House of Commons on that occasion to 
 be practicable and profitable, was literally reproduced 
 in 1696. That it was modified in debate is true 
 enough, and one clause in it, which enabled the 
 Government to issue notes on the Exchequer at a 
 fixed rate of interest, or, as people said at the time, 
 turned Chamberlain's proposal into an exchequer 
 bank, was introduced by Montague. But how 
 William and his Dutch advisers, who were the 
 teachers of finance to Europe, could have risked the 
 campaign of 1696 on this frantic project, is a matter 
 which I have never been able to understand, and 
 one which I cannot conceive capable of excuse. 
 
 The parts of the Act which deal with the Land 
 Bank are contained, as in that of two years before 
 constituting the Bank of England, in a Ways and 
 Means Bill. The object of the Bill was to raise 
 beyond the ordinary revenue 2,564,000 by way of 
 loan, and this Harley, Foley, and Chamberlain under- 
 took to do. The interest, to be provided at 7 per 
 cent., was 179,480 annually, and was to be secured 
 by a special salt tax. Most of the provisions of the 
 Bill are copied from the Act constituting the Bank
 
 58 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [II. 
 
 1696. of England. Only there seems to have been some 
 unwillingness to trust the conduct of the undertaking 
 to Chamberlain, Briscoe, and the mysterious agent in 
 the New Buildings or Serle's Court, Lincoln's Inn. 
 
 The King was empowered under the great seal to 
 appoint a body of Commissioners to take subscrip- 
 tions on or before August i, 1696, and voluntary 
 subscriptions of land. Only no director or pro- 
 prietor of the Bank of England was to be appointed, 
 and, under certain circumstances or conditions, letters 
 patent were to be issued incorporating the sub- 
 scribers under the name of the Governor and Company 
 of the National Land Bank. The conditions were 
 that half the sum must be subscribed before August 
 i, 1696, and the whole before January i, 1697. I n 
 case the moiety is not subscribed before August i 
 the letters patent are not to issue, and the Bank is 
 not to be. If the whole sum is not subscribed by 
 January i, the subscribers are to have 7 per cent, 
 on their subscriptions pro rata ; by which I conclude 
 is meant that the bank might exist if a moiety only 
 were subscribed. The interest and stocks in the 
 bank are to go to executors and administrators, and 
 not to heirs. 
 
 Then comes a clause which may have been in- 
 tended to take the project out of the range of stock- 
 jobbing operations, or to exclude the moneyed men 
 from dabbling in it. Every subscriber is at once to 
 pay a quarter of his subscription, and if he fails 
 to do so, the subscription is to be forthwith void 1 . 
 1 There is a similar condition in the Bank Act of 1694.
 
 IT.] The Land Bank. 59 
 
 The whole of the subscription is to be paid to 1696. 
 the Exchequer before January i, 1697. If default 
 is made the deposit is to be forfeited. Under 
 pain of forfeiture no person having an interest 
 in the Bank of England, either as director or pro- 
 prietor, shall possess stock or hold office in the 
 National Land Bank, and conversely, with the 
 same penalty, no director or proprietor of the Land 
 Bank shall have stock or office in the Bank of 
 England. 
 
 The Land Bank is not to trade with its stock in 
 buying or selling goods, wares, or merchandise, by 
 which I presume is meant that they are not to 
 negotiate bills of exchange or other instruments of 
 credit ; nor is ' the yearly sum to be charged with 
 more than the moneys paid into the Exchequer,' by 
 which I suppose is meant that their issues of bills 
 are to be limited. As the object of the incorporation 
 is to lend money on land at low interest, the Bank 
 shall lend at least 500,000 on land securities at 
 interest not exceeding three and a-half per cent, if it 
 be paid quarterly, or four per cent, if it be paid half- 
 yearly. The loans are to be charged on the lands, 
 and to be entered in a .register. This entry shall 
 charge the lands, and make the company liable to 
 an action of debt for the recovery of the advance. 
 All bills issued by the company shall entitle the 
 bearer to an action of debt against the company. 
 The company may sell lands on which interest 
 for two years is in arrear. The guardian of an 
 infant may advance half his trust funds to the
 
 60 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [ii. 
 
 1696. company. These are the main provisions of this 
 famous project. 
 
 How total and absolute the collapse of the scheme 
 was is well known, and has been described by 
 Macaulay with all his picturesque power. The books 
 were to be opened at Mercers' Hall, and at the 
 Eoyal Exchange, according to Luttrell, on or before 
 May 25. On May the 8th, and for four successive 
 weeks, the following advertisement is published : 
 
 ' Notice is hereby given, for a general meeting of 
 all the Land Subscribers to the office of Land credit 
 proposed by Doctor Hugh Chamberlain, in order to 
 the actual and speedy opening and setting on foot 
 the said undertaking. Such meeting to be held in 
 the Middle Temple Hall, London, on Tuesday, the 
 9th day of June next, at 8 of the clock in the fore- 
 noon, where to prevent the intrusion of persons un- 
 concerned, none are to be admitted but such as have 
 given or sent in the particulars of their contents, and 
 values of their respective subscribed estates, or such 
 as shall upon the said day of meeting bring their 
 said particulars with them, or send them by their 
 proxy. Dated the 3oth of April, 1696, at the office 
 of the Land Credit, No. ,6, in the New Buildings 
 or Serle's Court in Lincoln's Inn, where Mondays, 
 Wednesdays, and Fridays, from 6 to 9 in the evening, 
 attendance is given, to satisfy enquiries concerning 
 the benefit and practice of the said undertaking.' 
 Total Luttrell makes no allusion to this meeting, but 
 
 failure of 
 
 says, under date of June n, 'The Land Bank makes 
 but little progress.' After Harley and Foley had
 
 II.] The Land Bank. 61 
 
 gone through the farce of negotiating with the 1696. 
 Council of Regency, the whole thing collapsed, and 
 Chamberlain, Briscoe, and Co. disappear from the 
 English public. 
 
 But after the meeting of June 9, Chamberlain 
 strove to save his scheme by another expedient. On 
 June 12 he inserted the following advertisement, and 
 continued it for six weeks more, i.e. to July 24 : 
 
 ' Whosoever hath old clipped money that cannot be 
 passed away without loss, may dispose of the same 
 to much better advantage than elsewhere at the 
 office of Land Credit, Number 6, in the New Build- 
 ings in Lincoln's Inn. And there may also be had 
 at the same place the like advantage for guineas and 
 plate ; attendance being given daily/ 
 
 So ended the great delusion, from the success of 
 which, wide-spread misery and loss would inevitably 
 have come. For even in that day, men knew in 
 general terms that a paper currency can be issued 
 upon cash, and upon credit, though they did not 
 fully discern that the credit which can sustain such 
 a currency must be readily convertible into cash, the 
 conviction that it can be done serving the purpose of 
 the conversion being actually effected. But luckily 
 for the nation, the attempt to create a paper currency 
 upon debts founded on securities which are only 
 remotely cash and are not generally negotiable, as 
 in this case mortgages of real estate, entirely failed. 
 The King and his advisers were embarrassed, the 
 landed interest was disappointed, enraged, and pro- 
 bably thought that what they called 'crying down
 
 62 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [ii. 
 
 1696. the Land Bank' was some financial witchcraft or evil 
 eye on the part of the moneyed men, which cheated 
 them of their reasonable hopes. But the country 
 was saved from bankruptcy. Yet it would be an 
 error to believe that such an illusion as the Land 
 Bank, dispelled before it took a practical shape, did 
 no mischief. Such a project was sure to do harm, 
 even though the country at large escaped, by its own 
 good sense, from the projected injury. 
 
 The real sufferer was the Bank of England, which 
 was called on to bear sacrifices and undergo the 
 penalties of other people's folly and perversity, and 
 to make good as best it could the deficiencies caused 
 by the statesmen who heedlessly relied on this stupid 
 and abortive expedient. 
 
 The effects The first effect of the scheme was to send the 
 beriain's Bank shares down, as I have said, from 107 to 83. 
 Though shrewd men foresaw the failure of the new 
 project, it was, in the eyes of many, a rival, and a 
 dangerous rival, to the existing Bank. Besides, the 
 new coinage was progressing very slowly, and the want 
 of money was seriously felt. The clipped money 
 ceased to be current on May 4 1 , and the milled money 
 had not come out to take its place. Hence, on 
 May 6, there was a run on the Bank, the cash of 
 which was insufficient for the demand. Sir John 
 Houblon, who was at once Lord Mayor, Governor of 
 the Bank, and one of the Lords of the Admiralty, con- 
 
 1 As a matter of fact, since the fourth of May 1696 was a 
 Monday, the old coin ceased to be current on May 2. The 
 advertisement of June 12 (above, p. 61) appears to be illegal.
 
 II.] The Land Bank. 63 
 
 trived to reassure the applicants by offering them part 1696. 
 of their demand in coin, and by pledging the Bank 
 to supply the residue as soon and as fast as the Mint 
 could supply them. From this statement I conclude 
 that the Bank had been an active agent in collecting 
 the old money and depositing it in the Mint. On 
 May 2 the Lords of the Treasury gave notice that 
 they would take no subscriptions for the Land Bank 
 in clipped money, and on May 7 that whatever gold- 
 smiths' notes were lodged in the Exchequer for money 
 upon loans, would be returned to the depositors, 
 unless the money was forthwith supplied in specie. 
 It seems that the amount which the Bank paid out 
 during the first week was 15,000 only. On 
 Wednesday, May 13, the Directors held a general 
 court of the proprietors, who agreed to put off their 
 dividend, and to offer to such persons as distrusted 
 the notes of the Bank the tallies which they them- 
 selves held of the Government as security for their 
 loans. Meanwhile the Lords of the Treasury pledged 
 themselves to pay 60,000 a week in the new 
 money into the Bank till their whole stock was 
 recoined. 
 
 Some of the goldsmiths in Lombard Street ven- 
 tured to disobey the law, and paid in clipped money, 
 the only coins still legally current being, the new 
 silver, the punched old silver, if of full weight, and 
 sixpences, in which the ring was not invaded. On May 
 24, another general court was held, and a proposi- 
 tion was made that twenty per cent, more of the 
 original subscription should be called up. But as the
 
 64 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [II. 
 
 1696. Lords of the Treasury were paying or promising to 
 pay the Bank 25,000 a week, apart from making 
 them the agents for distributing the new money, the 
 proprietors did not think it necessary to take the step. 
 Meanwhile the Lord Mayor and Aldermen accom- 
 panied the Lords Justices round to the several city 
 companies, no doubt with a view of getting some aid 
 in this pressing emergency from them. At the same 
 time mints were being set up in the country. 
 Efforts to I n this crisis, the Commissioners of the Land Bank 
 LandBank were striving to vary the terms under which their 
 going. contingent charter was granted. They first wished to 
 pay in clipped money, then in guineas at a price above 
 the statute ; then they wanted a discount of twenty 
 per cent, on good money, and were told that they 
 might have five. On June 5 the Treasury, on behalf 
 of the King, subscribed 5,000 to the new project, 
 and as it spread its net in sight of the bird, on the 
 other hand the Bank of England advanced the 
 interest on their own bills from 2d. a day to 3^. 
 By June 1 1 the failure of Chamberlain's scheme 
 was almost manifest, even to statesmen like Harley 
 and Foley, and the Treasury was forced to have 
 recourse to the institution which the Land Bank was 
 striving to supersede, and which it had seriously 
 damaged. 
 
 The Bank of England did not make a fresh call. 
 It borrowed of its own subscribers, on June n 1 , 
 twenty per cent, of the capital, for six months, at 
 only six per cent., paid this over to the Treasury, and 
 
 1 Luttrell.
 
 II.] The Land Bank. 65 
 
 drew on the Bank of Amsterdam to 100,000 more, 1696. 
 supplying the Government with 340,000 at once. 
 It may be stated that they repaid these sums to their 
 shareholders, and were reproached with doing so. 
 
 Meanwhile the new coinage was progressing more The new 
 rapidly. By the end of June the Mint in the Tower 
 was coining at the rate of 80,000 a week 1 . But the 
 Treasury continued its solemn negotiations with the 
 Land Bank, offering to abate 300,000 if they could 
 only find the two and a-half millions 2 . So the Land 
 Bank made a final effort, offering to take plate and 
 clipped money at 6s. ^d. an oz., and the notes of its 
 rival by way of subscriptions. Unfortunately, the 
 Treasury postponed a payment of 80,000 to the Bank 
 of England, and thus, despite the services which the 
 Bank had done to the Government, discredited them, 
 by keeping them short of what they needed for their 
 current payments and for what was their due. It 
 may be added that the Council of the regency sat 
 pondering over the difficulty for days together in 
 the last fortnight of June. Apparently, beyond their 
 negotiations with Harley and Foley, the chief ex- 
 pedient of the Eegency was to attract plate and 
 clipped money, for which they offered 55. Sd. an 
 ounce and six per cent, interest. It was early in July 
 that the Government, at Montague's instance, and 
 
 1 According to Rtuling, the amount of money coined from 
 the accession of Elizabeth to the recoinage was silver, 
 20,355,651 7. 8^d., gold 14,669,949 o. gd. The recoinage 
 was silver 7,014,047 i6s. i%d., gold 2,975,550 i6s. i^d. 
 
 8 The negotiations are to be found in detail in the House of 
 Commons Journal.
 
 66 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [II. 
 
 1696. in pursuance of the clause which he had inserted in 
 the Ways and Means Act of the past session, fitted 
 up an office in the Exchequer for the issue of Ex- 
 chequer bills, to supply the lack of currency. By 
 this time about a million in new money had been 
 
 V 
 
 coined. 
 
 Macaulay tells us, on the authority of the Dutch 
 Envoy, that the goldsmiths attempted to ruin the 
 Bank by a run on May 4. This is probably that 
 which I have referred to above, as a panic appeased 
 by Houblon's promises ; that the two narratives of 
 Luttrell and the Envoy refer to the same event ; and 
 that the refusal of the Bank to honour malicious 
 demands is an historical fact, as well as the re- 
 assurance of the governor is. At any rate, the Lords 
 of the Treasury at last came to the rescue of public 
 credit and common sense on July 13, by issuing an 
 order that no public notary should enter a protest 
 upon any bill of the Bank of England for fourteen 
 days. In those days the protesting of a com- 
 mercial bill could only be effective when drawn up 
 by one of these functionaries. 
 
 Reaction. This order, or perhaps returning confidence, had its 
 effect on the credit of the Bank of England. During 
 the second week of July, according to Luttrell, 
 under date of July 1 6, ' the bills of the Bank of Eng- 
 land were at sixteen per cent, discount, but are now 
 at eight, and 'tis thought in the few days that they 
 will be taken in current payment (i.e. at par). Mean- 
 while the Bank offered six per cent, on any deposit 
 of 50 or upwards in gold or new silver, such
 
 II.] The Land Bank. 67 
 
 money to be at call/ According to my other 1696. 
 authority, Houghton, this desirable result of the note 
 being at par did not occur till September 17, 1697, 
 when a dividend, suspended for two years, of rather 
 more than twenty per cent, was declared. The amount 
 of clipped money paid into the Exchequer between 
 January 17 and June 24, 1696, was 4,706,003 
 1 8s. 6fcZ. nominal value. 
 Under date of July 23 I find the entry of the The first 
 
 f TIT in IT i T n Exchequer 
 
 nrst -Exchequer bills, and 1 presume that Luttrell suu. 
 copied them from a specimen which he saw. ' No. 
 411. Exchequer, July 18, 1696. By virtue of an 
 Act of Parliament passed in the 8th of his Majesty's 
 reign, this bill entitles the bearer to 10, with 
 interest at the rate of ^d. per diem, payable at the 
 receipt of the Exchequer on demand. Entered, John 
 Howard.' These bills were from the very first taken 
 in payment of taxes, and we hear that they were 
 very acceptable to persons in the public service, and 
 were issued down to sums of 5. On July 28 Bank 
 bills were at a discount of ten per cent., and the King 
 got the promise of an advance of 500,000 from the 
 Dutch Government and others, under conditions of 
 guaranty. Some considerable City men promised 
 their personal security for the advance. They chiefly 
 belonged to the Tory party 1 . On August i the 
 Land Bank, under the Act which erected it, came 
 
 1 The negotiation and the promise, we are told, broke down. 
 Among the guarantors were Godolphin, Sir Stephen Fox, Sir 
 Josiah Child, Sir Stephen Evans, Sir Joseph Heron, Sir John 
 Banks, Charles Duncombe, Henry Guy, and Peter Floyer Luttrell. 
 
 F 2
 
 68 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [II. 
 
 1696. to an end. Macaulay says that the whole public 
 subscription was 2,100. On August 15 the Bank, 
 at Portland's 1 urgent instance, lent the King another 
 200,000. This was the sum, the grant of which 
 is described by Macaulay. He does not seem to 
 have noticed the assistance which they gave on June 
 1 1 . Mints were now in work at York, Exeter, 
 Bristol, Chester, and Norwich. 
 
 Shortly after the final collapse of the Land Bank, 
 an anonymous pamphlet appeared, entitled * Eemarks 
 on the proceedings of the Commissioners for putting 
 into execution an Act passed last Session for estab- 
 lishing a Land Bank.' The writer is evidently still 
 unconvinced by the ill-success of his experiment. 
 Thede- He begins by arguing that traders are naturally 
 
 fence of the J , J 
 
 Land hostile to the interests of landed men, because had 
 
 Bank. i i 
 
 the Land Bank succeeded, interest would soon have 
 fallen to three per cent., and that therefore they cried 
 down the Land Bank, and defamed successfully what 
 might have been a most valuable institution. Besides, 
 an Exchequer Bank was invented against the Land 
 Bank, with a power of issue, this power having been 
 exercised while the books at Mercers' Hall were still 
 open for subscription. Another difficulty in the 
 way of the project was that the Act required that 
 1,282,000 should be subscribed and in part paid 
 before the subscribers could become a corporation. 
 Besides, it was argued that the creation of the Land 
 Bank was an act of bad faith, after the Bank of 
 England had been instituted on a loan. To this 
 
 1 Portland was a large subscriber of Bank stock.
 
 II.] The Land Bank. 69 
 
 there is the sufficient answer, that under the Act of 1696. 
 1 694 the Bank of England had no monopoly of issue 
 or of banking. 
 
 The rest of the pamphlet, though vindictive, is 
 contemporary criticism on the manner in which the 
 Bank carried on its business. ' The Bank of England/ 
 says the writer, * lent their own money, and every- 
 body's else they could lay hands on. And here it 
 will be said by the Directors of the Bank, that 
 although the consequence of the Toleration will be 
 the setting up of as many churches as there are 
 different opinions among mankind, yet the directors 
 of the Church of England put all other Churches 
 under contribution, and receive tithes from all, like 
 the City Council, who must be feed though you make 
 use of others.' It is very possible that some of the 
 City nonconformists may have used this simile, half 
 in jest. But the passage is very suggestive. 
 
 ' The Bank of England strained so hard as to 
 bankrupt themselves, rather than the Land Bank 
 should rise ;' a charge which seems to mean that the 
 Bank had put itself deliberately into difficulties in 
 order to neutralise the honest purposes of Chamberlain, 
 and to disappoint the reasonable hopes of the landed 
 men. The writer evidently thinks that the Bank of 
 England was bound to issue no more notes than their 
 capital of 1,200,000 amounted to, a charge which is 
 probably evidence that they issued notes not only on 
 their paid-up capital, but on their liabilities to their 
 customers. *They lent,' he says, '200,000 to the 
 king,' alluding to the transaction of August 1 5, when
 
 yo First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [ii. 
 
 1696. they paid but five per cent, of their debts. ' They 
 have lent other people's money, not their own. What 
 they have already called in for, they pay six per cent, 
 on to themselves, though they deny it to their 
 creditors.' This refers to the transaction of June n. 
 ' It is not to be imagined that any one will lend 
 upon land at the usual interest,' by which he means 
 Chamberlain's proffer of three per cent., 'when he 
 can have it on demand with four and a-half per cent, 
 running interest,' referring to the rate of ^d. a day 
 for Bank bills and Exchequer bills. 'There were 
 only two ways in which the Bank of England could 
 have raised the deficiency. They must either have 
 issued bills on their own credit,/ or by opening their 
 books for new subscriptions. But as their original 
 sixty was then valued at ninety, it might have 
 been stock-jobbed up to 150.' The writer con- 
 cludes with the allusion to the goldsmiths quoted 
 above. I think it not impossible that the gold- 
 smiths might have encouraged the promoters of the 
 Land Bank, with the view of ruining the credit of the 
 Bank of England, but without the slightest intention 
 of assisting the scheme they patronised by subscrib- 
 ing to it. This, I think, is the interpretation to be 
 given to the sudden withdrawal by Duncombe of 
 80,000 from the Bank of England. He was the 
 most conspicuous and, as events proved, the most un- 
 scrupulous among the goldsmiths, and was, during its 
 difficulties, the most bitter enemy the Bank had. It 
 was a long time before the Aldermen would allow 
 him to be Lord Mavor, though he offered bribes to
 
 II.] ^The Land Bank. 71 
 
 the citizens on a gigantic scale. He very much 1696. 
 increased his wealth during the time of the recoinage, 
 how, the public guessed, and Parliament soon knew. 
 
 The crisis was now almost over, though it was not 
 till the Peace of Kyswick was signed that the price 
 of Bank stock rose to anything like the rate at 
 which it stood before Chamberlain's scheme was 
 accepted by the legislature. It was almost simul- 
 taneously with the signature of the Peace that the 
 Bank declared its dividend of twenty per cent. odd. 
 
 Some of the trouble which the Bank underwent, Some 
 
 -i i trouble 
 
 trouble which continued to depress its paper even caused by 
 
 _ . . n nr> i the Bank's 
 
 alter the recoinage was practically enected, was action. 
 plainly its excessive use of the financial system 
 which it originated and developed, the rule for 
 working which had not yet obtained solidity from 
 the inductions of experience 1 . Paterson and his 
 associates saw that there was not and could not be 
 a subsidiary currency which, was not assured on a 
 basis of the precious metals. They saw that it was 
 possible to circulate such a paper currency, and this to 
 an amount which was considerably in excess of the 
 specie on which it was at any moment actually sup- 
 ported, in other words that it is possible and expedient 
 to circulate bills, payable on demand, without its being 
 necessary to assume that the demand for payment 
 
 1 One must not forget that, to commercial men, the chance of 
 diminishing the charge on the exchanges would have induced a 
 feeling of comparative indifference to a moderate depreciation of 
 .paper issues. The success of the former object was vital, the 
 latter risk could be met by raising the rate of interest on deposits 
 or on bills put into circulation by the Bank.
 
 72 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [ir. 
 
 1696. would become an immediate claim, and that this 
 suspended liability might be made an addition to 
 the currency, and a source of profit to those whose 
 credit enabled them to issue and float it. But they 
 were very much in the dark as to the amount which 
 they could put into circulation, and they naturally 
 erred on the side of excess. A search into the early 
 ledgers of the Bank of England, if they still exist, 
 and are preserved, as their earliest minutes are, might 
 reveal the actual amount of Bank notes and bills 
 in circulation in 1696 and 1697, together with 
 the cash in hand, and give fuller information 
 than a statement, which I shall presently refer 
 to, does. But the indirect evidence of contemporary 
 literature, the evidence from the price of the stock, 
 and the still more striking contrast between pay- 
 ments in money and payments in paper during the 
 first eight months of I697 1 , are sufficient to prove 
 that paper money in bills and notes had been issued 
 and was in circulation to a larger extent than the 
 amount of specie in the Bank's till or cellars would 
 justify 2 . These bills, it will be remembered, bore 
 interest at from 2d. to ^d. a day, and we have it 
 in evidence that they were looked on, not only as 
 currency, but as an investment. I do not indeed 
 think it could be said that, if the Bank had restricted 
 its issues by rules like those which were afterwards 
 
 1 These will be given in the Appendix. 
 
 2 Anthony Hammond, for several years Member for Huntingdon, 
 and a Whig, states in his papers that twenty millions of specie 
 ought to float eighty millions of notes. He lived through this 
 period, and long beyond the time of which I am writing.
 
 II.] The Land Bank. 73 
 
 incorporated into the Act of 1844, it would have 1696. 
 avoided the depreciation of its bills during the re- 
 coinage, unless these issues had been so contracted 
 as to have almost extinguished the new paper cur- 
 rency altogether, but I am quite clear that much of 
 the depreciation was due to an excessive issue, and 
 this at a time when the legislature was about to 
 confer or had conferred on the Company the exclusive 
 privilege of joint-stock banking, and the Bank had 
 become in many particulars what the Exchequer had 
 been, even during the time of which I am writing. 
 
 The condition of the Bank and the character of A P- 
 
 ' 11 i .p rt ' e ^ r '* 
 
 the crisis through which it was passing is illustrated criticism 
 
 by a remarkable anonymous pamphlet, published in 
 
 the year 1697, an( ^ professing to be written by & Bank was 
 member of this corporation or company. It p 
 
 almost certainly written at the end of 1696. The 
 writer begins by comparing the position of a private 
 banker with that of a public and national institu- 
 tion 1 . He observes that no person believes that 
 such a private banker has by him at any given 
 time all the cash on which the notes or bills 
 which he circulates are based ; for a moment's 
 reflection will point out that he could not defray 
 the expenses of his establishment if he did not 
 use his customers' money. He then quotes the 
 
 1 I am here condensing the writer's statements and reasonings. 
 The title of the pamphlet is, ' A Letter to a Friend concerning the 
 credit of the Nation, and with relation to the present Bank of 
 England, as now established by Act of Parliament. Written by a 
 member of the said Corporation for the public good of the King- 
 dom.' 1697.
 
 74 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [II. 
 
 1696. case of a private banker in Lombard Street, whose 
 liabilities to his several customers amounted to 
 1,100,000, which no man imagined he had at a 
 given time, not even a twentieth part of it, but 
 whose credit was so high, the confidence in his 
 judgement and integrity being so general, that as 
 his notes or bills were presented to him for payment 
 other customers paid their cash into his bank. 
 And on the contrary, if the banker is suspected of 
 carelessness or recklessness, of putting money into 
 hazardous ventures, or into remote and doubtful 
 funds, his credit soon becomes impaired, the con- 
 fidence of his customers, which is the life of his 
 business, lessens, the deposits hitherto left with him 
 are soon withdrawn, and his paper is suspected or 
 refused. 
 
 Now precisely the same conditions induce the 
 credit or discredit of a public or national institution. 
 Its fund must be inviolable, and neither king nor 
 parliament should tamper with it. Its management 
 must be in the hands of men whose reputation is 
 good, whose estate is ample, and whose prudence 
 is assured. The security of the bank must be as 
 complete as the security of a mortgage, and should 
 be as sacred. This is illustrated by loans which have 
 been made on what have afterwards proved to be 
 insufficient funds, and whose creditors have therefore 
 to wait for their interest. In such cases, in order to 
 preserve the reputation of the exchequer, it is above 
 all things essential that the deficiency should be made 
 good as soon as possible from the first funds in hand.
 
 II.] The Land Bank. 75 
 
 Now what is the state of things at present ? The 1696. 
 gold and silver of the country is, by a stroke as it 
 were, reduced to one-half of what it had been, when 
 the light and clipped money was taken by tale, and 
 this apart from the present void made by the re- 
 coinage. In the interval * all that which is commonly 
 called paper credit is sunk, lost, and become useless 
 in trade and public dealings. With that paper credit, 
 that is with goldsmiths' and bank notes, which 
 amounted to near as much as all our current coin, 
 the greatest part of the trade in and about this city of 
 London was formerly driven ; all foreign and inland 
 bills of exchange and all great payments were made in 
 these notes, and very seldom any considerable sum was 
 paid or received in money. Whilst these notes con- 
 tinued in esteem and par with money, they answered 
 all the ends and uses of money in trade, and money 
 was only needful in the markets, and for smaUer 
 payments, for which purpose a small quantity of it 
 was sufficient. Hence nothing but a long-continued 
 peace, and a well-managed foreign trade, can restore 
 that treasure this war hath drained from us, and 
 especially the damage which the French have done 
 us, which is at least computed to be twelve millions 
 sterling 1 / 
 
 But the question is, how can this credit be restored! 
 Only, the writer infers, by the Bank of England, and 
 by the grant of those privileges and encouragements 
 
 1 The writer refers to the losses which British commerce had 
 suffered from French privateers, to check which was the motive for 
 Talmash's expedition to Brest.
 
 76 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [IT. 
 
 1696. which would be of no injury to the public. In the 
 first place, no forcible or compulsory expedient will 
 succeed, for men will not trust their cash except for 
 natural reasons. Then the funds on which loans 
 are made, notes and bills are issued, must be de- 
 monstrably safe, sacred, sufficient, and regularly 
 paid. Then the Bank must be the single public 
 institution of the kind. Competition in this case 
 will inevitably cause distrust, and distrust will 
 contract instead of enlarging credit. We do not 
 propose that people should be forced to deposit 
 their cash with the Bank, but we wish to make it 
 the interest and convenience of moneyd men to use 
 it. The Bank of England, to be useful to the State, 
 must be the general cashier to all such persons in 
 or about the city of London. This policy has given 
 their strength and public utility to the Banks of 
 Venice, Amsterdam, and Hamburg. Now rivalry in 
 public institutions of the kind will frustrate the 
 main end of banking, ' which is to furnish the king- 
 dom with an imaginary coin to serve the uses of 
 that which is really so.' By conferring then on the 
 Bank this privilege, which it must use for the benefit 
 of the public, ' according to that observation of the 
 late excellent and never to be forgotten Deputy 
 Governor, Mr. Michael Godfrey, we are under these 
 happy circumstances, that we cannot do good to 
 ourselves, but by doing good to others.' 
 
 Another condition is that the several sums paid to 
 the account of the Exchequer should pass through 
 the Bank ; in other words, that the Bank of England
 
 II.] The Land Bank. 77 
 
 should be the banker of the Government. It is true 1696. 
 the proceeds of the taxes will not remain long with 
 it, but they will constantly flow through it, and 
 what is taken out by an order of the Treasury will 
 be replaced by a Treasury deposit. It is impossible 
 to discover any public injury in this expedient, and 
 the fact that some private persons derive benefit 
 from the use of these balances ought not to stand 
 in the way of the public good. And, says the writer, 
 'I know no man and no number of men who have 
 so well deserved of his Majesty and the Kingdom 
 as the Bank of England has/ It is necessary again 
 to extend the duration of its charter, to make all 
 foreign bills payable at the Bank, or at least de- 
 manded there before they can be protested. Further- 
 more, the notes and bills should be protected by the 
 enactment of severe penalties against forgery, and 
 the credit of the Bank should be further supported 
 by inflicting adequate punishments on officers or 
 receivers of the revenue who delay or obstruct pay- 
 ments into the Bank, for which the Government has 
 pledged its word as to time and amount. 
 
 If these privileges were granted, the Bank would 
 immediately and infallibly resume its former credit 
 and its former usefulness ; without them, the public 
 credit will be suspended for an indefinite time. 
 'We have,' says the writer, c a mighty engine to 
 move, and but very little water to move it with ; 
 and if the little water we have be divided into 
 different channels and not united, as far as possible, 
 into one, it can never stir the engine, which is our
 
 78 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [II. 
 
 1696. trade, and if that be stopped, or stand still, every- 
 one may guess what the immediate consequence will 
 be.' 'Till credit be restored, high interest will 
 continue, for it will be impossible by any laws to 
 hinder men from lending or borrowing money above 
 or below the natural interest. If I want money, 
 I shall find out ways to give ten per cent, interest, 
 when I cannot have it for less, although the law 
 forbids men to take more than six per cent.' But 
 such a necessity will ruin trade. ' He that trades 
 with money which he has borrowed at ten per cent, 
 cannot hold market with him that borrows his 
 money at four 1 / 
 
 It is indeed proposed that the stock of the Bank 
 should be increased (or, in the language of the time, 
 be engrafted on) : 'but this will prejudice the present 
 proprietors of stock, because the general credit of 
 the Bank will suffer as follows : i. It will lose its 
 specie, for this will be drawn out to purchase the 
 new stock ; 2. The million of sealed bills, for the 
 payment of the eight per cent, on which there are 
 at present no funds, owing to the present relations 
 of the Bank to the Government, will be speedily 
 demanded from the corporation ; 3. If distrust arises, 
 as may well be expected, Bank bills and notes will be 
 exchanged at still higher rates of discount, and credit 
 will be still more seriously impaired. It is besides 
 neither just nor wise to force a new stock on the 
 
 1 My readers will see from the facts given lower down that 
 this pamphlet, though published in 1697, must have been written 
 in 1696.
 
 II.] The Land Bank. 79 
 
 Bank ; not just, because the present managers and 1696. 
 proprietors of the Bank are entitled to the advan- 
 tages, whatever they may be, of their own forethought 
 and success ; not wise, for the future of the State's 
 credit depends on the fidelity with which it adheres 
 to its past engagements. Pressure has been put on 
 the Bank, and threats held out that our privileges 
 will be extinguished. To these threats some of the 
 proprietors were willing to yield. But with what 
 result ? We have suspended our dividend in the 
 interest of the Government, and to help it during 
 its difficulties and ours, the latter not of our own 
 making. If we are forced to abandon the Bank, and 
 the service it does the public, we shall still have the 
 eight per cent, on our capital fund, and the twenty 
 per cent, on what we have subscribed, and is actually 
 our own in undivided profits, which, though not at 
 present available, is a genuine asset. But the failure 
 of our Bank will be, for many a long year, a fatal 
 discouragement to any similar project.' 
 
 The writer then proceeds to complain of the supine- 
 ness which the Governor and Directors have shown in 
 not bringing these facts before Parliament, and 'the 
 services and sufferings of the Bank for the nation's 
 benefit and tranquillity/ One would have thought 
 that 'they would have been seen daily in the Lobby, 
 and in the Court of Requests, soliciting the honour- 
 able House of Commons in that behalf, proving to 
 every Member the reasonableness of their desires, and 
 the justice of their case ; that the many aspersions and 
 calumnies that are cast on them are all false, malicious
 
 8o First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [II. 
 
 1696. and groundless.' They ought to take example ' from 
 the Committees of the East Indian and African Com- 
 panies, who are indefatigable in a very bad cause, 
 while the Bank directors are remiss and backward 
 to seek for relief in a very good one;' and should 
 recall to their minds ' that their late worthy Deputy 
 Governour showed them a better example ; he never 
 knew anything proposed to the prejudice of the 
 Bank, but he laboured night and day to prevent it, 
 and sat not idle under desponding thoughts, that his. 
 endeavours would be vain and fruitless, but in imi- 
 tation of a great Philosopher, who said, He was not 
 born merely to serve himself, but for others, so I wish 
 these or any other considerations had roused them up 
 to imitate so brave a pattern and example of general 
 good for their country's service.' 
 
 He then comments on the fact, that while the first 
 twenty-six directors were well chosen, yet ' some of 
 them treat their office as a sinecure, since in two 
 years' time, for want of exercising a prudent conduct 
 in their trust, they have too apparently ruined not 
 only in great measure the general credit the Bank 
 had, to the infinite prejudice of trades, but the present 
 adventurers ; and 'tis too much to be feared, that the 
 project of engrafting five millions sterling on the 
 original capital, will be disastrous to the old cor- 
 poration, and fail to attract new subscriptions.' 
 
 The writer concludes : ' I have, for my true regard 
 
 . in serving the Government, lost a very considerable 
 
 estate by my stock in the Bank of England, which is 
 
 a very great part of my fortune, and my family will
 
 II.] The Land Bank. 81 
 
 feel the effects of it hereafter. But as the race is 1696. 
 neither to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, so I 
 submit all to the wise guidance of Providence.' It 
 is to be hoped that this writer, who so carefully de- 
 scribes and so usefully illustrates the terrible trouble 
 through which the Bank was passing, held on to his 
 stock, and reaped the benefit of those better times 
 which were at hand. Probably the directors of whom 
 he complains found in the private assurances of Mon- 
 tague more hope than they could have derived from 
 intriguing in the Lobby and the Court of Bequests. 
 
 The arguments contained in the pamphlet on 
 which I have just commented are reiterated and 
 amplified in another, entitled ' The Arguments and 
 Beasons for and against engrafting upon the Bank of 
 England tallies, &c., as they were debated in a late 
 general court of the said Bank, considered in a letter 
 to a friend.' My copy has no date, but it is clear 
 from internal evidence that the statement was written 
 and printed very early in the year 1697 l . 
 
 2 On December 4, 1696, the Governor and Company 
 of the Bank of England attended by order of the 
 
 1 Some persons, members of the Government and others probably 
 anxious to damage the Bank, had pressed on the General Court the 
 prudence and even the necessity, unless the Bank were willing to see 
 its business curtailed or extinguished, of acquiescing in the increase 
 of the stock to an enormous amount, chiefly by taking up the 
 Exchequer tallies. Some of the Proprietors appeared willing to 
 yield. I suspect, however, that several of the Directors knew that 
 other counsels had been adopted. The meeting appears to have 
 been held on January 2. Luttrell. 
 
 2 Journals of the House of Commons. The balance-sheet is 
 printed in the votes of the day. 
 
 G
 
 82 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [ii. 
 
 1696. House of Commons and presented two papers, one 
 a debtor and creditor account of the Bank, the other 
 a list of tallies on the Parliamentary funds which 
 
 / 
 
 were in their possession. 
 
 DK. 
 
 CB. 
 
 (I. 
 
 To sundry per- 
 
 
 By tallies on 
 
 
 sons, for 
 
 
 Parliamen- 
 
 
 sealed Bank 
 
 
 tary Funds, 
 
 
 Bills . . 
 
 893,800 o o 
 
 as by list an- 
 
 
 To ditto due 
 
 
 nexed, with 
 
 
 on Notes for 
 
 
 interest . 1,784,576 16 
 
 5 
 
 running cash 
 
 764,196 10 6 
 
 Half-a-year's 
 
 
 Monies bor- 
 
 
 deficiency of 
 
 
 rowed in 
 
 
 the fund of 
 
 
 Holland ' . 
 
 300,000 o o 
 
 i oo,oooZ. 
 
 
 Interest due on 
 
 
 per ann. in 
 
 
 Bank Bills 
 
 
 second year 50,000 o 
 
 o 
 
 standing out 
 
 17,876 o o 
 
 Mortgages, 
 
 
 Balance . 
 
 125,315 2 II 
 
 pawns, 
 
 
 
 
 other secu- 
 
 
 
 
 rities, and 
 
 
 
 
 cash . . . 266,610 17 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 ,101,187 13 5 
 
 2,101,187 13 
 
 5 
 
 Upon this, on December 5th, a Committee of fourteen, 
 with a quorum of five, was appointed to inspect 
 the books of the Bank of England, and on December 
 loth Sir John Bolles reported. As to the second 
 item on the debtor side, 66,669 6s. 2d. was for 
 what are called Specie Notes, which carried interest, 
 if of 20 and upwards, at the rate of six per cent., 
 about one-third of these notes being under 20, 
 and the residue was issued by notes which bore no 
 interest. As for the Dutch debt, the Dutch Am- 
 bassador had tallies in his custody as a security. 
 They reported as to the correctness of the credit side.
 
 II.] The Land Bank. 83 
 
 The cash held by the Bank was only 35,664 is. lod. 1696. 
 in money and 9,636 145. id. in goldsmiths' notes. 
 
 Between the date of this information given to the The assets 
 House of Commons and the 3rd of January, 1697, Bank. 
 when the Court of Proprietors assembled to take 
 into consideration the project of engrafting fresh stock 
 on the present capital of the Bank, the directors had 
 been pressed to accede to the scheme and threatened 
 with the loss of their privileges if they did not. From 
 the pamphlet just referred to we learn that, notwith- 
 standing the depreciation of notes and bills, 'the 
 transfers from one account to another in the Bank 
 books amounted to 300,000 a week ; that the depre- 
 ciation amounted to 1 6 or 1 7 per cent.; that in August 
 they had lent (the King) 200,000, when they could 
 not pay their debts, much less pay dividend, they 
 having resolved to postpone their dividend till their 
 notes were at par; that the debt to the Dutch was 
 borrowed at five per cent., and when the tallies come 
 to maturity, if they are duly honoured, that they will 
 be able, within six or seven months, to reduce their 
 debt to 500,000, a sum which cannot make a diffi- 
 culty to them, since they can circulate sealed bills up 
 to the amount of their capital, 1,200,000, and it is 
 probable that the Bank will continue to issue these 
 sealed bills till the time comes when they will be able to 
 fully satisfy every person who has a demand on them.' 
 
 The privileges which the Bank demands in order 
 that it may recover its credit, are the same as 
 those suggested in the pamphlet last referred to. 
 But the writer comments on the fact that when the 
 
 G 2
 
 84 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [ii. 
 
 1696. Bank began to work, tallies which had been at 25 to 30 
 per cent, discount rose to par, and that consequently 
 the Treasury made so much the better purchase 
 for stores ; that the goldsmiths used to .charge 12 to 
 14 per cent, for discounting foreign bills, which the 
 Bank did for three ; but that if the capital of the 
 Bank were enormously extended, no profit could be 
 made on a sum which would be far in excess of the 
 public wants in ordinary times. 
 
 Tiit causes The two pamphlets to which I have referred give 
 crisis. a vivid picture of the distress of the Government, of 
 the urgency of the situation, and of the dismay felt by 
 the shareholders of the Bank. The Government had 
 borrowed from them every shilling they could spare, 
 had induced them to pledge their credit in Holland, 
 had made them the agents for collecting the clipped 
 money for the recoinage, had promised to furnish them 
 with monthly payments of cash, had broken their 
 promise, and Parliament had threatened them with 
 a rival in the Land Bank. When this mischievous 
 scheme had totally failed 1 , they had again assisted 
 the Exchequer with their money and their credit, 
 and now an attempt was being made to swamp their 
 
 1 According to the Journals of the House of Commons, 1600 only 
 was subscribed by the public by June pth, 500 more by June ipth, 
 and no more between that and August ist. It should be added that 
 the project of the Land Bank was not the act of the Administration. 
 But during this period and for years afterwards Ministers who were 
 in a minority in the House clung to office, and were therefore con- 
 stantly constrained to carry into execution acts which they had 
 personally repudiated. The doctrine that a Government cannot 
 remain in office if it be put into a minority in the House of Commons 
 did not become an invariable rule till long after these times.
 
 II.] TJu Land Bank. 85 
 
 stock with an enormous addition to their capital, the 1696. 
 stock to be provided out of depreciated tallies. No 
 marvel that the proprietors were aghast at the pro- 
 posal, and, loyal as they were to the Revolution and 
 the King, that they flatly refused to acquiesce in a 
 project which their experience convinced them would 
 lead to an inevitable collapse, and to certain ruin. 
 
 I am persuaded that nothing but the courage and 
 firmness of the directors saved the institution during 
 this terrible crisis. They had to meet importunate 
 creditors, disappointed shareholders, and a needy and 
 desperate Administration. There was one thing to 
 help them in their resolution. Petitions came pour- 
 ing into Parliament, praying the House to devise 
 some means by which credit could be restored to the 
 paper currency, and alleging that this expedient only 
 could save the internal trade of the country from 
 collapse. The directors therefore did well to be 
 resolute, to refuse to be the instruments of their own 
 destruction, and to demand that, pending the restora- 
 tion of credit, the Government should concede that 
 which they required, and leave them to work through 
 the difficulty in their own way 1 . 
 
 The situation is further illustrated by the fact 
 that the discount of Bank bills and the depreciation 
 of Bank stock were greater in 1697, when rivalry was 
 extinguished, than they were when rivalry was not 
 only possible, but actual. And in saying this, I take 
 into account the issue of Montague's Exchequer bills, 
 
 1 Luttrell gives a good deal of information as to the pressure 
 put on the Bank by Parliament during the early part of 1697.
 
 86 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [I I. 
 
 J696. the popularity of which was I think due to the fact 
 that they were more easily negotiable, and were less 
 liable to discount than those Exchequer tallies in 
 which the Government was in the habit of meeting 
 its obligations and anticipating its revenues. But 
 for all that, these bills must have been to a consider- 
 able extent the rivals of the Bank paper, and unless 
 the issues of the latter were contracted, must have 
 tended to accentuate the depreciation. But the 
 rivalry of these bills must have been more than 
 counterbalanced by the sole privilege which was soon 
 after conferred on the Bank. 
 
 Joint- The effect of joint-stock rivalry at this time, or 
 
 rivalry rather a little later, is curiously illustrated from the 
 bytke l stocks of the old and new or English East India 
 Com- n M Companies. The stock of the old East India Com- 
 paiws - pany, which had stood at 158 at the beginning of 
 1692, had sunk in 1697 to 38, the lowest point it 
 ever touched, except in July 1698. Of course East 
 India Stock was more liable to fluctuations than any 
 other, for it was exposed to the risks of war, when 
 the country was at war, and to tempests always. 
 Beyond doubt the value of the security was greatly 
 lowered by the revelations made in the early part of 
 1695, when Guy, Craggs, and Trevor were punished, 
 and Seymour and Leeds were justly suspected to have 
 been bribed with them by the Governor of the Com- 
 pany. The old Company was essentially a Tory corpo - 
 ration, and money had been lavishly spent in securing 
 the protection of Parliament, by distributing much 
 cash among influential members of both Houses. Now
 
 II.] The Laud Bank. 87 
 
 in 1698, Montague determined at once to supply 1696. 
 the Crown with a new source of revenue, and to 
 secure for the Whigs of the City a new fortress, in 
 the foundation of the English East India Company. 
 On July 5, the Act, constituting the general Com- 
 pany, became law, and the stock of the old Company 
 fell to 33^. I am not discussing the fortunes of 
 these Companies, but I may add that in September 
 1703, when the stock of the old Company was at 
 134, that of the new had risen to 219. I refer to 
 the particulars of the case to show how seriously in 
 that time the price of a public stock was affected by 
 the prospect of rivalry. 
 
 Now Luttrell notices verv fully what this discount The <#- 
 
 * 
 of Bank bills was. Under his dates, in 1 696, the 
 
 Exchequer bills were issued on July 23. On July 
 28 the discount on Bank bills was ten per cent. ; 
 on August 25, when the Bank was negotiating the 
 terms on which it would assist the Government, on 
 which I shall comment, it was at 15 ; on September 
 12, at from 16 to 17; on October 10, at 20. On 
 October 22 the discount fell to 12, but by this time 
 the policy of the Government, to make the Bank of 
 England the sole Bank, was anticipated, a purpose 
 affirmed by Parliament on November 1 1 . But with all 
 this, on December 26 the discount was more than 1 7. 
 At the end of the year the Bank was debating the 
 question as to what assistance they could give the 
 Government, the House of Commons having proposed 
 that they should lend two-and-a-half millions, on the 
 security of that Salt Tax which was to be pledged to
 
 88 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. 
 
 1697. the Land Bank. On January 5th, 1697, the Bank 
 declared that, owing to the scarcity of money, they 
 could not pledge themselves to so large a loan, but that 
 they were willing to enlarge their stock, upon terms 
 which at first the Commons were indisposed to grant, 
 but to which the House yielded on January i4th. On 
 January i6th, 1697, the new subscription was made, in 
 bills and tallies, and amounted to 1,001,171 los. 1 
 
 On January 30, the discount was 1 9 per cent. ; on 
 February 18, 21 per cent.; on February 20, 24 per 
 cent.; on March 23, 23^ per cent.; on May 20, 18 
 per cent. ; during the first three weeks of June, 1 3 
 per cent. ; during the last week, 16 per cent. Be- 
 tween July 24 and September 20, it sinks gradually 
 from ten to one per cent. Of course the dividend of 
 August 28 had much to do with restored confidence, as 
 had also the Peace of Ryswick (September 20, 1697). 
 These enormous rates of discount on Bank bills, bearing 
 Af\ per cent, interest, with the certainty that large 
 profits were being made in the Bank's business, and 
 that there was the prospect of a considerable dividend, 
 and taking into account that Parliament had granted 
 the sole privilege of joint-stock banking to the Bank 
 of England, prove to me that the discount was greatly 
 due to over-issues of paper money. The excess of 
 issue may have been excusable, even necessary, but 
 it seems to me to be obvious. 
 
 1 This is almost exactly the difference between the original 
 capital and the liabilities on December 4, 1696. I have no doubt 
 that the original or existing proprietors subscribed the whole 
 amount.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE SECOND BANK ACT. 
 
 THE enemies of the Bank of England were discom- 1697. 
 fited or silenced by the failure of their own project, and Provisions 
 were clearly convinced that it was useless to resist s econ d 
 the determination of the Government to support the 
 credit of the Corporation. The Act for enlarging 
 the capital stock of the Bank is 8 & 9 William III. 
 cap. 20. The principal provisions of this Act are, 
 that on or before June 24, 1697, '^ ne common capital 
 and principal stock of the Governor and Company 
 shall be computed and estimated by the principal 
 and interest owing to them by the King, and by each 
 or any other effects whereof the said capital stock 
 shall then really consist over and above the value of 
 the debts which they shall owe at the same time 
 for the principal and interest to any other person 
 or persons whatsoever.' This provision appears to 
 imply that there shall be an audit of the Company's 
 assets, and that this should be assured to the original 
 proprietors. The new subscribers are to be repre- 
 sented on the Court. By August 24, the value of 
 the capital is to be made up to 1,200,000, and if it is 
 found to exceed that amount, the excess shall be 
 divided among the existing proprietors.
 
 90 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [III. 
 
 1697. Next the capital is to be enlarged. Then the legal 
 duration of the Bank is to be August i, 1710, at 
 which date the debt might be paid off; and a year 
 afterwards, if this expedient be adopted, the corpora- 
 tion's charter is to cease. No other corporation of 
 more than six persons is to be allowed to set up a 
 bank. The Bank is permitted to borrow beyond 
 1,200,000, but bills issued in excess of this amount 
 are to be expressed and distinguished. It was made 
 felony to forge Bank bills. The Exchequer bills 
 granted by the previous Act of this Parliament are to 
 bear interest at $d. a day, and to be received in pay- 
 ment of taxes. One of the effects, and that not a remote 
 one, of this legislation was, that the Bank bills which 
 bore interest became more valuable than cash, and 
 those which bore no interest equal to money, so that 
 soon the Bank was able to circulate notes payable on 
 demand without paying interest to the holders, 
 and the contingency which Godfrey hoped for was 
 realised. 
 
 The ind- At the beginning of the year 1 698, rumours were 
 Duncombe afloat that there had been a serious tampering with 
 
 and , r 
 
 Exchequer Exchequer bills, and Macaulay states that the rumour 
 was set on foot by Suriderland with the object of 
 ruining Montague, who had filled the Treasury with 
 his own nominees, and had thereupon displaced Dun- 
 combe, who was Sunderland's tool in the business. 
 An enquiry was instituted, and the accuser Duncombe 
 soon became the accused. He was guilty on his own 
 confession of using public money to buy Exchequer 
 bills, then at a considerable discount, and he admitted
 
 III.] Tlie Second Bank Act. 91 
 
 that he had paid them to the Exchequer on the plea 1698. 
 that they had been received as taxes, putting the differ- 
 ence into his own pocket. In order to give a colour 
 to his statements, he had induced a Jew to forge en- 
 dorsements on these bills. As at this time Exchequer 
 bills were at a discount of at least nine per cent. 1 , 
 Buncombe must have pocketed about 1,000, per- 
 haps much more. On January 25 Buncombe was 
 committed to the Tower and expelled the House. 
 The issue of this event is well known. The 
 Commons determined to subject Buncombe to a 
 bill of pains and penalties, and intended by their bill 
 to confiscate two-thirds of his estate ; but the Lords 
 very properly threw the bill out. 
 
 It appears that at the time of Buncombe's offence 
 the English law was silent as to the punishment of 
 ordinary forgery, and that it was doubtful whether the 
 Courts could even convict the culprit of embezzlement. 
 There is indeed an Act of Elizabeth which inflicted 
 mutilation with other penalties on the forgery of 
 certain documents, and recently the Legislature had 
 put the penalty of death on the forgery of Bank 
 notes. But these very punishments seemed to ex- 
 clude by implication all similar offences beyond 
 those which were prescribed in the statute. The 
 law therefore could not reach the criminal unless it 
 were stretched, a practice which could not be ex 
 pected from the Bench ; or Buncombe were brought 
 within an ex post facto law, i.e. by a bill of pains and 
 penalties. That the Lords were right in rejecting 
 
 1 Luttrell, January 15, 1698.
 
 92 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1698. the bill cannot I think be doubted, but to judge 
 from the temper of the two Houses at the time, to 
 say nothing of the bare majority for rejecting the Com- 
 mons' bill, it seems plain that the Lords were quite 
 as much influenced by the desire to put the Commons 
 in the wrong, as they were by the higher motive of 
 vindicating the principles of English jurisprudence. 
 Duncombe was none the worse for the exposure and for 
 the action of the House of Commons. He was soon 
 made Sheriff and knighted, became at length Lord 
 Mayor of London, and eventually but indirectly 
 founded a noble family. It is just possible, nay even 
 probable, that the condemnation of Duncombe might 
 have involved some awkward revelations. I think I 
 may assign the cause of a fall in Bank stock during 
 the months of January and February to the distrust 
 which the evidence of these malpractices induced 1 . 
 The price The price of Bank stock goes slowly but almost 
 
 of stock in . 
 
 1698. without a break upwards during the year 1698. 
 During the greater part of April there is no price, 
 i.e. there are no transactions on the Stock Exchange 
 in Bank stock. On May 6 it suddenly rises to 95. 
 I know nothing which can explain the fact, except 
 that just at this date the Commons were debating 
 Montague's proposals for establishing the new East 
 India Company, and that the stock of the old 
 Company was rapidly verging to its lowest price. 
 It is possible therefore that the stock of the East 
 India Company was being sold, and the stock of the 
 
 1 The forging of Exchequer bills was at once made a capital 
 felony.
 
 HI.] The Second Bank Act. 93 
 
 Bank was thereupon exceptionally m demand. Again, 1699. 
 on September 2 1 the Directors of the Bank declared 
 a dividend of seven per cent. This announcement, 
 it will be seen, was followed by a fall in the stock. 
 The last dividend had been on August 28, 1697. 
 But before the end of October the stock rose again, 
 and continued to rise till the end of the year. 
 
 At this time however the bank had begun an 
 
 operation, which they steadily continued till they the loan 
 had completed it. This was the repayment to the 1697. 
 subscribers of the 1,001,171 IDS. which had been 
 subscribed, I conclude entirely by the old body of 
 proprietors, in January, 1697. The first payment 
 was on September 10, 1698, and for ten years the 
 Bank paid a dividend and a bonus out of their 
 profits, for they extinguished the stock of 1697 on 
 March 25, 1707, though still treating it as part of 
 their capital. I conclude too that the loans of 
 240,000 of June n, 1696, and the 200,000 of 
 August 15, had been repaid to the lenders, from 
 whom the Bank had borrowed them. The difficulty 
 is to know whether this operation was generally 
 known, for if it had been published at the time it is 
 not easy to see why the price of the stock was not 
 much more considerably exalted. 
 
 The year 1699 was uneventful for the Bank. A.t San ^ 
 
 J f . stock in 
 
 the beginning of it, under date of January 1 9, * year 
 Luttrell says that several persons withdrew their 
 accounts from the Bank, and that its stock thereupon 
 fell two per cent. I do not find this statement 
 verified by my register. A considerable change had
 
 94 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1699. indeed come over popular feeling, and the elections 
 in July to the new parliament were by no means so 
 favourable to the Whigs as they had been in that 
 one which had now, under the Triennial Act, been 
 dissolved by the efflux of time. In particular, the 
 influence of Montague in the City was waning. This 
 is curiously illustrated by the career of Dnncombe, 
 who had escaped the serious consequences of his own 
 confession only by a majority of one in the Lords, 
 when the Pains and Penalties Bill went to the Upper 
 House. But he was tried on June 1 7 for his offence 
 at the King's Bench, and was acquitted, the jury not 
 leaving their box. The grateful scrivener, we are told 
 by Luttrell, entertained the jury at a sumptuous 
 repast at Lockett's ordinary, and presented them 
 with five guineas each, alleging that the prosecution 
 to which he had been subjected had cost him 10,000. 
 That day week he was chosen Sheriff of the City, 
 and in the course of the year, October 20, was 
 knighted. He instantly began to intrigue for the 
 place of Lord Mayor, and made the most liberal 
 offers to the citizens if they would elect him, in 
 particular promising to build the City a Mansion 
 House. As an earnest of his public spirit, he paid 
 the debts of all who had been imprisoned for five 
 pounds and under. Meanwhile, Montague was 
 practically deposed from his place in the House of 
 Commons, and Harley was taking it. In 1700 
 Buncombe continued his benefactions, and on the 
 eve of a contest for the mayoralty, offered to lay out 
 40,000 for the good of the City, if he were elected,
 
 III.] The Second Bank Act. 95 
 
 besides setting up the King's statue in Cheapside. 1699. 
 At a poll these promises had their effect ; Buncombe 
 got 2,752 votes, and Sir Thomas Abney 1,919. But 
 on reference to them the court of aldermen, by a 
 small majority, elected Abney. Whatever the livery- 
 men might do, the aldermen could not make up their 
 minds to elect the forger, who did not reach the 
 dignity he coveted till 1708, when his promised 
 festivities were interrupted by the death of the 
 Queen's husband, Prince George of Denmark 1 . 
 
 The commercial world of London, keen after gain The cha- 
 racter of 
 and ambitious as it was, had withal a tolerably good London 
 
 . , . .. merchants. 
 
 character lor commercial integrity, and understood 
 its importance to the growing reputation of the 
 metropolis. This integrity has had, as it has been pro- 
 gressively, and at last universally acknowledged, not 
 a little to do with the reputation which the United 
 Kingdom has long possessed, of unblemished honour 
 in satisfying its public obligations. I am well aware 
 that commerce in those days, and indeed for a long 
 time subsequently, was unscrupulous and timid, 
 ferocious when offended, and impatient of rivalry at 
 all times. I do not set so very much store on the 
 adroitness of Montague in passing the English East 
 India Company Act. The old Company was tainted 
 by the vices of its management, by the bribery which 
 its officials had practised, by the saltpetre which it 
 had sold to Seymour, and by the guineas to which the 
 immaculate Leeds had merely given house-room. But 
 
 1 Prince George died on October 28, 1708. Lord Mayor's Day 
 was then October 29.
 
 96 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [ill. 
 
 1699. on the other hand, it traded under a royal charter 
 quite as good in English eyes as the papal charters 
 which were the only genuine title to the foreign 
 possessions of Spain and Portugal, and except from 
 the fact that the ransom was paid to the public 
 Exchequer, I see no material difference between a 
 monopoly granted by Parliament and a monopoly 
 granted by the Crown. The parliamentary charter 
 of 1698 proved, in the end, even more mischievous 
 than the Elizabethan charter, then nearly a century 
 old. Again, the transports of passion which con- 
 vulsed the cities of Westminster and London, when 
 the facts of the Darien expedition became known, 
 were as unfounded as the reasons were which led 
 Paterson to project that unlucky scheme. Even the 
 Spaniards must have known that the colony was 
 doomed to failure 1 . 
 
 Their But in the London of the seventeenth, and great 
 
 for city part of the eighteenth centuries, the merchant 
 princes vied with each other for civic honours. The 
 city knight was, I admit, already a theme of satire. 
 But for the matter of that, all men who raised them- 
 selves by honest intelligence, and honest dealing, 
 still aimed at the highest civic dignity, and as long 
 as they traded or dealt in the City, added .to its 
 wealth, or administered its finances, were eager to 
 fill its municipal offices. No doubt the mayoralty, 
 like all other securities in the City, was a speculation. 
 
 1 I find many allusions in Luttrell to this famous and unfor- 
 tunate project. See, for example, June 22; July 4, 15; August 
 3, 10, 26, 29, &c.
 
 III.] The Second Bank Act. 97 
 
 The gains of the Lord Mayor were the sale of the 1699. 
 offices which fell vacant, disposed of, as I find in 
 Luttrell, for about seven years' purchase. If the year 
 was barren in official deaths, the Lord Mayor lost by 
 the transaction 1 . If really rich men were elected or 
 nominated to the office of Sheriff, it was again a loss, 
 for no little part of the official gains of the City 
 aldermen were derived from the fines of those who 
 declined the honour 2 . I cannot indeed pretend to 
 follow the history of the Mansion House and its 
 occupants, but I am sure that the loyalty of London 
 trade and finance to its municipal institutions had a 
 good deal to do with the making of one part in 
 the English character. 
 
 One event occurred during the recess of 1 699 The affair 
 (June i -November 16), in which I find that Luttrell Spanish 
 states that which my record does not confirm. The 
 Spanish Ambassador, the Marquis Conzales, was 
 instructed to remonstrate on the second Partition 
 Treaty, which William and the other European 
 powers were negotiating with the French Court, after 
 the death of the Electoral Prince. The remonstrance 
 did not take the form of a diplomatic minute, but of 
 a manifesto addressed to Parliament and the public. 
 On September 30 the Ambassador was ordered to 
 leave England, and Luttrell says that the King's 
 
 1 See Luttrell, October 31, 1699. 
 
 a When Duncombe and Jeffreys were elected Sheriffs in 1699, 
 the aldermen were greatly disappointed, 'who thought to have 
 gained 3000 or 4000 by fines.' Buncombe's duty was to 
 superintend the hanging of those who had committed the crime 
 from the consequences of which he had escaped. Luttrell, June 27. 
 
 H
 
 98 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1700. message (he was still in Holland) was, * For your 
 seditious memorial, your house is your prison while 
 you stay, and in eighteen days you are to depart 
 this kingdom.' On this we are told, under date of 
 October 5, that ' the bank and other public stocks in 
 this city have fallen five per cent, since the Spanish 
 Ambassador was ordered to leave the kingdom.' I 
 do not find this in the price of Bank stock, or indeed 
 of any other stock. On the contrary, they are all 
 rising. At the very end of the year, Newton, not yet 
 Sir Isaac, was raised from the post of Warden of the 
 Mint to that of Master. The new coinage was now 
 completed, and the great mathematician was fitly 
 rewarded for his honest work. It is good to see 
 that Montague's nominee was not disparaged by 
 his patron's fall. 
 
 Bank The year 1 700 opened with a great rise. At the 
 
 1700. end of December Bank stock was at 1 1 7^, and by the 
 mwciai middle of March it rose to 1485-, the highest price 
 
 j h ave found during the whole nine years. 
 The harvest of 1699 had been abundant, and the 
 crops of the year 1700 were uniformly good. The 
 rise is noted by Luttrell, who gives the prices for 
 several days in the first quarter of the year. Thus 
 he states that it was 142 on February 3 and February 
 20, 150 on February 29, 149 on March 2, about 143 
 on March 5, that on March 20 a dividend of 5 55. 
 per cent, was declared, and that on April 23 it was 
 141. My record states that there was no price 
 between March 22 and April 26. It will be seen 
 that Luttrell's figures do not materially vary from
 
 III.] The Second Bank Act. 99 
 
 those of Houghton, and may be only the difference 1700. 
 between sellers and buyers. 
 
 There can be no doubt that this upward movement 
 is due in great part to commercial activity and 
 prosperous trade. The fact is to be found in the 
 rapid rise in the stocks of the two East India Com- 
 panies, notwithstanding the increased taxation to 
 which the goods which they imported were subjected 
 by Parliament. This is confirmed by a return of 
 the customs received at the several English ports 
 for the fifteen years 1700-1714, the average being 
 1,352,764 *. But both the years 1700 and 1701 were 
 in excess of the average, though during the War of 
 the Spanish Succession new duties were laid on. 
 
 The character of the rise is further illustrated by influence 
 the effect which the capital item of foreign politi 
 
 at that time had on the prices of stocks. I mean * 
 the ill-health and probable death of the last King of 
 Spain of the elder Austrian family. It was known, 
 for a long time before this event actually happened, 
 that Charles II was in a most deplorable condition, 
 that he had no hope of posterity, and very little of 
 life. Now, as is well known, the diplomacy of 
 Europe was busied in settling the succession to the 
 vast dominions of the Spanish monarchy, and in 
 maintaining the balance of power in Europe. Philip 
 the Second of Spain had arrogated to himself on one 
 plea or the other a universal monarchy, either in his 
 own person or in that of divers members of his 
 family, and had ruined Spain in the struggle. Louis 
 
 1 Macpherson's History of Commerce, iii. 45. 
 H 2
 
 ioo First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1700. XIV of France .had transferred the tradition to him- 
 self, and the war which ended with the Peace of 
 Eyswick was waged for the sole purpose of defeating 
 this object. 
 
 Immediately after the treaty of Ryswick, William 
 employed all his diplomatic skill in securing the 
 succession for the Electoral Prince of Bavaria. But 
 the Prince died, and the second Partition Treaty was 
 negotiated, with the view of putting the younger 
 son of the Emperor on the Spanish throne. This 
 seems to have had the approval of Louis, who would 
 have agreed to it for a consideration ; and might have 
 been acceptable to Charles of Spain, had he not been 
 influenced by his minister Portocarrero. Besides, 
 while the negotiation was going on, the unfortunate 
 Darien expedition was undertaken, and Spain was 
 rendered distrustful and hostile towards England. 
 
 On a rumour, under date of March 5, that the 
 King of Spain had suffered a relapse, Bank stock fell 
 to about I43 1 . My record gives a fall of three, from 
 148 to 145. It soon recovered again, and to the 
 highest point which it reached, but it gradually re- 
 lapsed, till at the beginning of May it was ten per 
 cent, lower than it was in March. This was pro- 
 bably due to the rumours of a collision between the 
 Swedish and Danish Governments, and to the risk of 
 a serious interruption to the Baltic trade. 
 
 The illness of the Duke of Gloucester, and his 
 early death on July 30, seem to have had an effect 
 on Bank stock, which, having fairly recovered the 
 
 1 Luttrell.
 
 ill.] TJte Second Bank Act. 101 
 
 fall of three and a-half in May, fell two and a- 1700. 
 quarter at the end of July and the beginning of 
 August. But at the end of this month it had risen 
 to 142. Then it fell to 130^ in the second week of 
 October. This Luttrell tells us, who quotes the 
 stock at 130, was due to rumours about the con- 
 dition of the Spanish King, and the risks which all 
 commerce ran, in the event of his death, while the 
 succession was unsettled, though it was generally 
 believed that he had bequeathed his crown to 
 Charles of Austria. 
 
 Besides this we learn, under date of Oct. 5, that a 
 
 -rk i 11 combe's 
 
 project was set on loot by Duncombe and others, to reputed 
 advance money to the Government at five per cent., 
 and as a first instalment of their operations, to raise 
 four millions at this rate, with a view of paying off 
 the Bank and the new East India Company. Now 
 the stock of the new or English East India Company 
 (the old Company had been chartered this year by 
 Act of Parliament) was two millions, that of the 
 Bank twelve hundred thousand pounds. The differ- 
 ence then of 800,000 must be a rough estimate of 
 the amount still due from the Government to the 
 Bank on loans which had been contracted, but which 
 do not appear in the capital of the Bank. There is / 
 nothing more said about this project, attributed by 
 Luttrell to Duncombe, but it is indirect evidence of 
 how commercial prosperity and rapidly accumulating 
 capital were reducing the rate of interest in London. 
 Even if it were a mere rumour, it must have been 
 a probability in order to have been circulated at all.
 
 IO2 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1700. Two years before, the Government, giving great 
 privileges to the new East India Company, borrowed 
 of them at seven per cent. 1 It should however on 
 the other hand be remembered that Duncombe had 
 just been returned at the head of the poll for the 
 office of Lord Mayor, and that his name and that of 
 Abney were now before the Court of Aldermen. 
 Death of On November i, old style, came the news of the 
 
 the King 
 
 of Spain. King of Spain's death, which happened on the same 
 day, new style, and with it the information, hitherto 
 kept a secret, that he had bequeathed his kingdom 
 and possessions to the Duke of Anjou, the French 
 King's second grandson, and next in the succession to 
 the French throne, after his brother. But the news, 
 having been already anticipated and discounted, pro- 
 duced no effect on Bank stock, which remained at 
 the same price, 129, without variation, till the last 
 week of the year, when it suddenly fell to 124^, and 
 next week to 123. 
 
 Movements j think there can be no doubt as to the cause of 
 
 ^n Europe. 
 
 this. Louis of France, as every one knows, accepted 
 the crown of Spain for his grandson, and the whole 
 of Europe became uneasy with the feeling that the 
 war, which every one wished to avert, was inevitable. 
 
 1 That a rumour of this project of lending the Government money 
 at five per cent, was circulated is a proof of the great service 
 which the Bank had done the country and commerce by lowering 
 the rate of interest. The statement as to the new East India 
 Company being included in the project is evidence of the Whig 
 character of its administration. The object of the project was 
 not to annul the Bank's charter, which was secured till 1710, 
 but to put the Company into a difficulty with regard to its 
 capital. See Davenant, vol. iii. p. 326.
 
 III.] 77ie Second Bank Act. 103 
 
 The King of France began to raise forty more 1700., 
 regiments ; the English navy, which Parliament 
 had not stinted, was being rapidly provisioned ; the 
 Dutch ordered an increase in their navy ; the 
 Emperor was protesting that the King of Spain 
 was incapable of making a will, and was threatening 
 to send an army of 50,000 men into the Duchy of 
 Milan, though he had not the means for putting in 
 motion a single regiment ; a new pope was hurriedly 
 elected, Clement XI, who was only fifty years old, 
 and occupied the papal throne nearly twenty-one 
 years, the longest reign with the exception of Urban 
 the Eighth's for well nigh a thousand years ; and the 
 lesser German states were looking forward to a renewal 
 of English subsidies. The English were in the turmoil 
 of a general election. Montague, now Halifax, had 
 gone to the Lords, and there was every prospect 
 that the new Parliament would have a Tory majority. 
 The indefatigable Duncombe 1 was a candidate for the 
 City of London, but the electors chose Whigs, the 
 polling having lasted four days 2 . Still there were 
 
 1 Buncombe was returned for Ipswich. There is a pamphlet 
 of 1701 entitled 'The Liveryman's Reasons why he did not give 
 his vote for a certain Gentleman, either to be Lord Mayor, or 
 Parliament Man for the City.' The reasons confirm what I have 
 said above. During this time, a society had been founded for ' the 
 Reformation of Manners,' some of the patrons of which were said 
 to have been scandalously profligate. A satire, probably by Defoe, 
 was published about this time. The following is its allusion to 
 Duncombe, one of the society : 
 
 ' Duncombe, the modern Judas of the age, 
 Has often tried in vain to mount the stage, 
 Profuse in gifts and bribes to God and man 
 To ride the city horse, and wear the chain.' 
 8 The most important elections were those of London and
 
 IO4 First Nine Years of the Bank of England- [in. 
 
 1700. 150 new men in the Parliament, and some of the 
 worst among the old members were returned. Harley 
 was chosen Speaker by nearly two to one *. 
 Wardts- The House of Commons was certainly unwilling 
 ls e f u ' to go to war. The dislike to the renewal of hos- 
 tilities was not confined to the Tory party. Neither 
 was it, from the point of view which the House 
 took, unreasonable, as events conclusively proved 2 . 
 There were personal motives to influence men in 
 hesitating to take the step of resisting the quiet 
 acceptance of Philip by the Spaniards, and there 
 were reasons of policy, by which the English House 
 of Commons concluded that the balance of power 
 would not be injuriously compromised, if England 
 were to remain at peace. 
 
 The state Even though the war concluded at the Peace of 
 Finances. Byswick had been followed by three years of peace, 
 the settlement of the debts contracted in that war 
 had not been effected, nor was this settlement arrived 
 at till after Anne had been reigning for some years 
 and a new war had been undertaken. It is true that 
 the peace expenditure of the country was not more 
 than half that incurred annually during war. But 
 the floating and the permanent debt had been raised 
 
 Westminster. On this occasion Ashurst, Heathcot, Clayton, and 
 Withers were elected ; Buncombe, Fleet, Child, and Pritchard were 
 defeated. Vernon (whose correspondence, mainly with Shrewsbury, 
 has been printed) and Crosse were elected for Westminster. 
 
 1 Onslow had 125 votes, Harley 249. 
 
 2 I have found these views in many pamphlets of the time. 
 During this period 'public opinion' can be found in pamphlets 
 only.
 
 III.] The Second Bank Act. 105 
 
 at high rates of interest, and war taxes remained a 1700. 
 necessity even after the war was over. Besides, 
 the executive was exceedingly weak. Parliament 
 exercised to the full its right of criticising public 
 affairs, and even of initiating votes of expenditure 
 and schemes of taxation. The Government was in a 
 permanent minority in the House of Commons, and 
 though, one after the other, ministers of ability and 
 character were displaced, because they were assailed 
 by the House of Commons, no one seems to have 
 seen that the true remedy was to throw the duty of 
 administration on the malcontent majority \ It was 
 therefore impossible that any bold and compre- 
 hensive scheme of finance could be undertaken by 
 the Ministry. The great measures of Montague 
 were loans at high rates of interest, negotiated on 
 the basis of a commercial monopoly, and the issue of 
 a paper currency, redeemable from the produce of 
 future taxes. 
 
 The excise was never popular and, though freely Excise and 
 used after the Revolution, was constantly resented, 
 not only because it was vexatious, but because it 
 strangled industries which were just beginning to be 
 
 1 This was the principal, but by no means the only reason why 
 the House of Commons was so demoralised and disorderly for 
 nearly the whole of William's and all Anne's reign. The Triennial 
 Act was a blunder. The reform really wanted was some repre- 
 sentative system like that which Cromwell ordained with his 
 Council in 1654, under which the amount of representation was 
 made to square roughly with the amount of taxation, and the 
 franchise was conferred on those who had 200 worth of property. 
 I am of course comparing this scheme with that which it super- 
 seded, not defending its details, or even criticising them.
 
 io6 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1700. profitable. If one studies the finance of the time, 
 one sees how disappointing and how irritating many 
 of these excises were, and how they had to be 
 abandoned. And if excises were unpopular and 
 unproductive, increased customs' duties were con- 
 stantly unfruitful. The owler, or smuggler, was 
 always in advance of the revenue officer, and could 
 generally evade him. Macaulay has preserved a 
 saying of this time, that if a row of gibbets had been 
 erected along the south coast, they would not have 
 seriously checked the smuggling, which was of 
 course carried on, not only with profit, but with 
 impunity. In Scotland, during the century which 
 follows the period on which I am commenting, the 
 cost of collecting the customs' revenue was regularly 
 in excess of the revenue collected 1 . Hence the 
 dealers at the large ports, who paid the duties, were 
 handicapped by those who provided themselves with 
 the same article but evaded the tax. 
 Theincome There was no remedy then, except that of raising 
 
 tax, and e . . 
 
 official extraordinary supply by an income tax. The in- 
 come tax of William's reign was a levy of twenty 
 per cent, on all sources of revenue, the capital of 
 chartered companies being statutably exempt from 
 the charge. In the first years of its imposition, that 
 assessment which has survived to our time under 
 the name of the land tax was really an ad valorem 
 income tax, and the financiers of the time did not 
 shrink from taxing the labourer's wages as well as 
 the landlord's rent, and the merchant's gains or 
 
 1 Macpherson, jjassim.
 
 III.] Tlie Second Bank Act. 107 
 
 investments. It is probably true that the valuation 1700. 
 being in the first instance and subsequently a volun- 
 tary one, or at the most a parochial or municipal 
 assessment, the actual percentage was not so high 
 as it was theoretically, but the burden must have 
 been very great. Besides, the proceeds of the tax 
 were so greatly reduced by the percentages taken 
 from it by those officials through whose hands it 
 passed, that the taxpayer had the grievance of 
 seeing that his sacrifices only tended to enrich 
 officials 1 . The patent offices charged on the revenue 
 were numerous, the duties of the officers were light 
 or nominal, the income secured by the fortunate 
 possessors enormous, when compared with those 
 obtained by genuine industry. So much did the 
 system influence people, those people at least who 
 profited by it, that Gregory King, one of the acutest 
 observers of the time and himself a placeman, 
 reckoned that the only persons who added to the 
 wealth of the country were those who were able to 
 save money by planting themselves on the public 
 service, or who received rents ; and conversely, he set 
 all those down, whose labour produced wealth, as 
 unproductive members of the social system 2 . Now 
 
 1 Apart from his percentages, the official could speculate with 
 the money up to the time when his audit was due. Up to 
 thirty years ago, the salary of the Oxford Vice-Chancellor was 
 the profit he could make by dealing with the University balances 
 during his term of office. 
 
 8 The whole of King's statistics and comments are given in 
 Eden's History of the Poor, from Davenant. I have referred to it 
 in detail in my Six Centuries of Labour and Wages, p. 463.
 
 io8 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1700. war meant a twenty per cent, income tax on rent, 
 wages, and some profits. It is no wonder that 
 Englishmen were alarmed at the cost of war, and 
 doubted whether the nation could bear a load of 
 debt and a war expenditure as well. 
 Public And then for what object 1 Many people at that 
 
 opinion 
 
 on the time saw, and affirmed, that if Philip of Anjou 
 
 situation. . , . . . ,, , . , , 
 
 remained in quiet possession ot the bpanisn throne, 
 the country over which he ruled would not be more 
 likely to shape its policy on French lines, than it 
 would be if a prince of the house of Austria ruled 
 over it. ' So far,' they argued, ' will it be from being 
 the case that the accession of the French King's 
 grandson will affect the balance of power, that it 
 will certainly and speedily assist in maintaining it. 
 The abler the new King of Spain is, and he can- 
 not be so feeble as the poor creature whom he suc- 
 ceeds, whose life was one long death, the more 
 must he study Spanish interests. And even while 
 Charles was living, his subjects saw in him the 
 impersonation of the Spanish Empire, and of a 
 Spanish policy, and made war on Louis for both 
 objects. It is absurd to think that these Spaniards 
 will submit to be the tools of Louis, allow Spain to 
 be a province of France, and their king to be a viceroy 
 for his grandfather. If Spanish interests run counter 
 to French ones, no tie of blood or alliance will 
 prevent a collision between Spain and France. If 
 France presumes to dictate to Spain, there will be 
 either a rupture between grandfather and grandson, 
 or the Duke of Anjou will soon be driven from his
 
 ill.] The Second Bank Act. 109 
 
 throne. The power of monarchs even in an age 1700. 
 more despotic than the present had very intelligible 
 limits. A century ago, nothing served Henry of 
 Navarre better than the relations which Philip the 
 Second established with the Guises, and the purposes 
 which he was known or suspected to have formed 1 .' 
 
 ' What interest,' they asked, * has England in the 
 question as to whether Philip of Bourbon or Charles 
 of Austria shall reign in Spain ? The Spanish 
 Empire may be ready to fall to pieces, but we want 
 none of it. Very likely the Emperor of Germany 
 longs to recover those Italian provinces over which 
 his predecessors exercised a precarious rule. Very 
 possibly the French King cherishes the dreams of 
 Charles the Eighth and Francis the First. He will 
 certainly be less able to turn them into realities if 
 he is to be hampered with the defence of his grand- 
 son's inheritance, still less if he tries to make spoil of 
 it. Nothing is more costly than a protectorate over 
 a country which is intensely jealous of its inde- 
 pendence, but which wiU readily accept the money 
 and arms which it cannot provide from its own 
 resources. This is the experience which Louis has 
 had with the Spaniards and with the Austrians. 
 By the Peace of Kyswick the French King sub- 
 mits to the English Kevolution. We are no longer 
 in fear that France will attempt a descent on 
 England, or even on Ireland, in order to restore a 
 King, who is already broken in health, or a minor, 
 to the English throne, especially one whom even 
 
 1 I am again condensing the political pamphlets of the time.
 
 no First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [ill. 
 
 1700. the more respectable non-jurors believe to be sup- 
 posititious. If his grandson is allowed to keep quiet 
 possession of Spain, the Emperor and Louis may 
 fight out their quarrel without our meddling in the 
 matter/ I find that this was the way in which the 
 country party reasoned, even those who had received 
 none of the pistoles which M. Tallard was reported 
 to have distributed from his strong box among 
 members of Parliament, in such large quantities, 
 that current opinion set down an issue of 100,000 
 guineas to the conversion of base French bribes into 
 good English money \ 
 
 ' There is no doubt,' such persons would go on to 
 argue, ' that the Dutch have some reason to be alarmed. 
 Part of the Spanish king's inheritance is the Low 
 Countries, and even Holland, in the eyes of so sensi- 
 tive a person as a beggarly Spanish grandee, ought 
 to be part of the Spanish empire. Very possibly 
 however Spanish king and Spanish grandee may 
 be content to pledge Flanders for present help. But 
 are w r e to be everlastingly spending our money and 
 our lives for the sake of the Hollanders \ They are 
 our rivals in trade, unscrupulous rivals. They have 
 been our enemies. The only creditable part in the 
 old usurper's career was his having put these Dutch- 
 men down, and the only respectable part of his 
 
 1 Tindal makes this statement. It is said that this was the 
 first election in which the candidates bribed the electors, corruption 
 having been previously the privilege of members. The funds 
 were found by the old and new East India Companies. 'The 
 Tories used to call bribery " giving alms." ' In December, 1 700, 
 the old was at an average of 121, the new at 143!-.
 
 III.] The Second Bank Act. 1 1 1 
 
 legislation was the act under which he crippled 1700. 
 their trade. We spent money enough in the late 
 war, and the Dutch took heavy toll on our expendi- 
 ture. Are we forsooth to begin anew, and of our 
 own free-will, the experiences of the past, and to 
 have honest English taxes, wrung from us to main- 
 tain our own soldiers, discounted in the bills we 
 have to draw and the cash we have to send on 
 the Amsterdam exchange to the extent of from 
 twenty-five to thirty-five per cent. \ We admit that 
 the King has been a powerful instrument for our 
 good. On his mother's side he is an Englishman. 
 But on his father's he is a Dutchman, and the 
 father's blood overpowers the mother's. He slights 
 us when he can. Directly he has got our cash 
 he is off to the Hague. He quarters on us his 
 Dutch favourites. He can hardly be civil to an 
 Englishman, unless he be one of those upstarts who 
 have carved out for themselves vast fortunes from 
 the English taxes or the crown estates. We all 
 know that he does not care for the Church, and 
 that in his heart he favours the sect which made 
 havoc of monarchy and of the Church too/ Such 
 reasonings were current, not in Jacobite clubs only, 
 or in nonjuring conventicles, but among men who 
 had no hankering for the exiled family, who believed 
 that the Pretender was a fraud from his birth, 
 and were furious with Fuller for affecting to prove 
 to them what they believed *. 
 
 1 Fuller more than once published what he called an exact 
 account of the birth of the Pretender and of the way in which
 
 ii2 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1700. The moneyed men, who had founded and pro- 
 ~^ tected the Bank, and had subscribed the loan for the 
 meyed new East India Company, dreaded, as we shall 
 M ' soon see, the risk of another war. The profits 
 of trade during the three years' peace had greatly 
 increased, as the customs would prove. 'We/ they 
 might say, ' are reaping the fruits, the just fruits 
 of our confidence in the Eevolution, and of our 
 reliance on the King's advisers. Are we to go 
 back to the risks of another war, when privateering 
 will be the natural resource of an enemy who 
 cannot meet our fleets, but can prey on our property ? 
 We are beginning to put down piracy, shah 1 we put 
 ourselves within peril of privateering, of which 
 piracy in the Indian seas is the inevitable conse- 
 quence 1 Look at the case of Captain Kidd. With 
 the best intentions honest men sent this fellow at 
 their own cost to crush out piracy, and he became 
 the terror of all nations. We shall have Kidds by 
 the dozen if we go to war. It is our interest to 
 keep out of it, and protect the trade which we have 
 already created 1 .' 
 
 his mother was made away with by Louis and Mary of Moclena. 
 He got pilloried for his pains, as a 'notorious cheat and impostor.' 
 Another pamphlet of the same time was widely circulated, in 
 which it was alleged that Louis XIV was not the son of Louis 
 
 XIII but of one Le Grand, and was therefore naturally interested 
 in defending the interests of another spurious claimant of royal 
 rank. The title-page has the attractive advertisement, that Louis 
 
 XIV offered 5000 pistoles for the capture of the author. 
 
 1 It would be superfluous to quote all the pamphlets of 1701 
 from which this description of public opinion has been con- 
 densed.
 
 ni.] The Second Bank Act. 113 
 
 The dissolution of December 19, 1700, led to the 1701. 
 election of a Parliament, which was more factious and The " 
 more mischievous than any of which William ever had 
 experience 1 . It was unluckily presided over, as the 
 last was, by Harley, who aggravated its misconduct. 
 And yet it does not seem to have had Jacobite 
 tendencies, or to have been designedly negligent of 
 public interests. That it hated and distrusted the 
 King's late advisers, Sommers, Halifax, Orford and 
 Portland, and believed that they had dishonestly 
 enriched themselves at the expense of the nation, is 
 stated over and over again in the copious literature 
 of the period, and was certainly believed by many. 
 It is equally certain that many men, who had been 
 and remained sincerely attached to the principles 
 of 1688, were now in the ranks of the opposition, 
 entirely distrustful of William's foreign policy, sus- 
 picious of his councillors, and averse to any war 
 whatever on behalf of the German Emperor and 
 the States General. Nor can I think William's ad- 
 visers had done him and the public good service in 
 leaving the finances of the country in that suspicious 
 confusion, on which k the Parliament of 1701 deter- 
 mined to report. 
 
 The unfortunate quarrel between the two Houses, Quarrel* 
 a chronic trouble, which had lasted from the last the Lord* 
 quarter of the seventeenth century till the passage common*. 
 of the Septennial Act, was now at its height. The 
 
 1 Sommers was dismissed from office on April 17, 1700, and 
 Sir Nathan Wright made Lord Keeper, after the office had been 
 refused by Holt and Trevor, (not the old Speaker). 
 
 I
 
 1 1 4 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1701. Commons interpreted Parliamentary privilege with 
 such, exaggerations that there was some reason in 
 the concluding sentence of the Legion letter that 
 ' Englishmen are no more to be slaves to Parliaments 
 than to kings.' At one time there were no less than 
 thirty-seven persons committed to various prisons 
 by direction of the House. The Lords were not less 
 tenacious of their own privileges. They resented 
 any comment on the conduct of any among their 
 Order, however justifiable the comment might be, and 
 they claimed for themselves and exercised an appel- 
 late jurisdiction, in which their decisions were not 
 above the suspicion of party feeling and even of per- 
 sonal interest 1 . There were in short two oligarchies 
 in existence at once, mutually jealous and equally 
 aggressive. The counties and a few large towns 
 did send representatives, but in the division lists 
 the proprietors of Grampound, Old Sarum, Gatton 
 and St. Mawes, with more than a hundred other 
 nominal boroughs, might override the deliberate 
 voice of all that was really representative 2 . And 
 
 1 Peers who were quite ignorant of law voted on appeals. The 
 lawyers avenged themselves by not reporting cases in the Lords. 
 At last the custom of lay lords voting on legal points ceased, I be- 
 lieve in consequence of some strong remonstrances in the Douglas 
 Peerage Case, 1769. 
 
 2 Among the pamphlets of 1701, there may be found a scheme 
 of representative reform, called ' the free state of Noland,' in 
 which the writer proposes a plan under which there should be 
 a progressive system of local government and limited legislation, 
 from the parish, through the hundred and county, up to a central 
 and united Parliament, each of these assemblies having a certain 
 amount of legislative authority, and the whole representation 
 being based on numbers and property.
 
 ill.] The Second Bank Act. 115 
 
 neither House was under any effective control. 1701. 
 There was no real discipline in the Commons, and 
 the later practice of Parliament, under which the 
 initiative in administration, in supply, and in legis- 
 lation became the business of a responsible govern- 
 ment, was as yet unknown. I know nothing which 
 better illustrates the difference between these times 
 and our own than the language in which Speaker 
 Harley is criticised. * If such a person as the Speaker 
 happens to be a man of crooked designs, notorious 
 for falsehood and insincerity, as well as other im- 
 moralities, and engaged in all the interests of 
 a Party,' such and such conduct is to be expected. 
 And on the other hand, the Tory party raked up 
 a story about Sommers, who, when he was an 
 attorney, some twenty-five years before, had been 
 taken into custody by order of the House, on sus- 
 picion of advising malpractices. 
 
 I have found it necessary to dwell a little on 
 domestic affairs, because owing to the early death 
 of the great historian who undertook to narrate 
 the reign of William, and performed his task, in 
 so far as he was able to complete it, with such ex- 
 haustive fairness about fifteen months of the story, 
 between the prorogation of the parliament in June, 
 1700, and the death of James in September, 1701, are 
 left untold. This period comprises the anxieties which 
 preceded and the alarms which followed the death 
 of the King of Spain, the resumption of hostilities 
 between France and the German Empire, consequent 
 on the acceptance of the Spanish King's bequest 
 
 I 2
 
 1 1 6 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1701. by the Duke of Anjou, to which Louis resolved 
 on giving effect, in spite of his repudiation of all 
 claims on the Spanish monarchy for himself and 
 his descendants in the treaty of the Pyrenees, and 
 of his similar avowals in the first Partition Treaty 
 and in the guarantees of the United Provinces. 
 The latter had much reason to be alarmed. Since 
 the Peace of Westphalia, now more than sixty years 
 old, but still the settlement to which the advocates 
 of the balance of power constantly referred in all 
 their wars and all their negotiations, Spain had 
 taken no direct part in the administration of the 
 Spanish Netherlands, though Spanish statesmen still 
 insisted on the fact that these provinces were an 
 integral part of the Spanish empire. The Dutch 
 had indeed nothing to fear from the scanty and 
 bankrupt finances of Spain. But it was a totally 
 different thing when Louis, the most powerful and 
 the most despotic monarch in Europe, the resources 
 of whose kingdom, both in men and money, seemed 
 inexhaustible, and who was not dependent on distant 
 mines and sea-borne tributes, but on the internal 
 resources of France herself, could in the name of his 
 grandson claim the inheritance of Flanders, and give 
 effect to that claim by his armies, by his generals, 
 and by the wealth of his dominions. The Peace 
 of Byswick had really left him stronger than before. 
 It had acknowledged some of his conquests, such as 
 Strasbourg ; it had, concurrently with the partition 
 treaties, enabled him to claim a dominant position 
 in Lorraine. It was really a truce negotiated in his
 
 III.] The Second Bank Act. 117 
 
 interests, and giving him time, during which, after 1701. 
 a short respite, he could collect the means by which 
 to give effect to the designs of Henry his grand- 
 father, and of Richelieu, whose European policy was 
 a tradition with Frenchmen up to our own times. 
 
 It is plain that during the early part of the year Public 
 
 , . opinion in 
 
 1701 the southern counties in England were greatly Kent, &c. 
 alarmed at the French King's preparations, and at the 
 policy of the Parliament in 1 700, which had insisted 
 on disbanding the army. The men of Kent did not 
 share the opinion of the country party, constantly 
 asserted, that it was far easier to collect an army 
 than to disband one, and they were seriously afraid 
 that the French King was meditating a descent on 
 unguarded and unarmed England, and that Kent 
 of course would be the point of attack. They be- 
 lieved that the security of Holland was the safety of 
 England, that Amsterdam was an outlying fortress 
 on the English frontier, and that self-interest as well 
 as justice and the faith of treaties bound us to defend 
 the United Provinces. The majority of the House 
 of Commons did not share these alarms, and was 
 bent on other objects. They were under the in- 
 fluence of Seymour, of Shower, of t Howe, 'the 
 impudent scandal of Parliaments,' as he is described 
 in the famous Legion letter, of Hammond, and 
 of Harcourt. Every one of these men but the last 
 had a scandalous record. Seymour had been bribed 
 by the East India Company and detected, Shower 
 had been concerned in the worst acts of the late 
 reign, and was Seymour's nominee at Exeter ; Howe
 
 1 1 8 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1701. had been the most venomous libeller of the King, 
 
 and was currently said to have called his sovereign 
 
 a felon ; and Hammond, member for Cambridge 
 
 University, was notoriously in the pay of France. 
 
 We This Parliament met on February n, 1701, when 
 
 meeting 
 
 ofPariia- the King told them 'that the death of the King 
 of Spain, and the acceptance of the throne by Philip, 
 Duke of Anjou, had made so great an alteration 
 in affairs abroad, that he must desire them very 
 maturely to consider their present state.' He added, 
 * that these things were of such weight that he 
 thought them most proper for the consideration of 
 a new Parliament, so as to have the more immediate 
 sense of the kingdom in so great a conjuncture.' 
 Harley had been re-elected Speaker the day before. 
 
 The Lords reported on the King's speech at once ; 
 the Commons on the I5th resolved, 'that they will 
 stand by and support his majesty and his govern- 
 ment, and take such effectual measures as may best 
 conduce to the interest and safety of England, the 
 preservation of the Protestant religion, and the 
 peace of Europe ; ' the last four words being carried 
 on a division by a majority of 22, a pretty clear 
 proof of how averse the House was to war, and how 
 much their foreign policy was to be subordinated 
 to personal and domestic considerations. They in- 
 stantly proceeded to discuss financial matters, ranging 
 their enquiry over the last ten years, and requested 
 the King to lay before them all treaties and alli- 
 ances made since the Peace of Byswick. They then 
 took to receiving petitions and expelling members,
 
 III.] TJie Second Bank Act. 119 
 
 their principal victims being the Whigs; and if 1701. 
 one can believe their contemporary critic, Tindal 1 , 
 what they denounced as bribery in the minority 
 they termed almsgiving in the case of the Tories. 
 The same author avers that the custom of bribing 
 the electors began with this Parliament, the previous 
 practice having been to bribe the members, and that 
 the two East India Companies supplied the funds. 
 
 On February 1 7 the King communicated copies The letter 
 (translated from the French) of a letter which pur- 
 ported to be written by Melfort to his brother, the 
 Earl of Perth, and governor to the so-called Prince 
 of Wales. It was said to have been found in the 
 French mail which had lately arrived from Paris, 
 and was forwarded to the King by the Postmaster- 
 General. The Lords thanked the King for the 
 communication ; the Commons seem to have taken 
 no notice of it. Of course, as it was a communica- 
 tion from the Crown, it is entered on the journals 
 of both Houses. 
 
 The Commons it is clear considered the letter 
 to have been a forgery. It is, unlike most of 
 Mel fort's letters, couched in moderate language, 
 though it insists that the King should be restored 
 without conditions. The most suspicious part of 
 the letter is that in which the writer dwells on the 
 unarmed state of the kingdom, on the ease with 
 
 1 Tindal was a Whig, and a pretty strong partisan. But the 
 facts bear out his criticism. Long after this time, election petitions 
 were mere party contests, in which very scanty evidence satisfied 
 the majority, even if they listened to it.
 
 I2O First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1701. which the discarded soldiers could be induced to 
 declare for the old King, on the strength which the 
 nonjuring party would have in the event of a counter- 
 revolution, and on the importance of Perth's putting 
 himself in communication with the Earl of Arran, as 
 Melfort calls the Duke of Hamilton. The Commons 
 too might have suspected that the emphasis with 
 which the supposed writer dwells on the unarmed 
 state of the country, may have been intended to 
 stimulate them into restoring the whole or great part 
 of the army which was disbanded the last year 1 . 
 The action On February 25 the Commons granted 30,000 
 Commons, men for the summer service of the navy. Bat 
 during the greater part of this and the next month 
 they were engaged with elections, many of which had 
 been presented, and invalidated the return, and we 
 are told with the greatest partiality, of many Whigs. 
 They then came to a series of resolutions as to the 
 succession, now rendered more than ever necessary 
 by the death of the Duke of Gloucester, resolutions 
 which were afterwards engrafted on the Act of 
 Settlement. Their other business was the discussion 
 of the treaties which had been laid before them, and 
 the preparation for the impeachment of the four 
 lords. The resolution to proceed against them was 
 taken on April I, and on the I5th of this month 
 
 1 I confess to feeling grave suspicions as to this letter. Of 
 course, if it was a forgery, William had been imposed on, probably 
 by an over-zealous partisan. It was an age of political forgeries, 
 and a man might have fancied himself justified in disinterestedly 
 doing that in a good cause, which too many men were willing 
 enough, and for their own gain, to do in a bad one.
 
 III.] The Second Bank Act. 121 
 
 they addressed the King with a request that he 1701. 
 would exclude the whole four from his counsels for 
 ever. The Lords, on the other hand, approached the 
 King with a prayer that he would take no step till 
 the impeachments were over. 
 
 It must not be imagined that the Lords approved The view 
 of the treaties, the particulars of which were now the Lords. 
 put before them. They evidently imagined that the 
 King was influenced by other than English interests, 
 that he had not consulted his council, that negoti- 
 ations subsequent to these treaties were dangerous 
 to the peace and safety of Europe, and that Louis 
 could be trusted in nothing, unless he conceded 
 what was a real security. They plainly thought 
 that William, with all his experience and acuteness, 
 had been taken in, and that there was now more 
 risk of a long war, and a general war, than there 
 would have been if William had declined to treat 
 with Louis at all, after the flagrant violations of his 
 promises and pledges. They saw, or thought they 
 saw, that Louis had never been sincere in his 
 engagement on behalf of the Electoral prince, or in 
 the second set of stipulations, and that he merely 
 desired to gain time, in order to hoodwink his 
 neighbours, while he was carrying out all that he 
 had secretly resolved to do. 
 
 What neither House saw was that Parliament The cause 
 was really the cause of the breach of faith of which 
 Louis was guilty. The King of France had never 
 affected to consider anything binding which interfered 
 with his purpose of making himself the arbiter
 
 122 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1701 - of Europe, or, as he phrased it, of promoting the 
 glory of France. He knew that the Emperor was 
 poor, that Spain was helpless, that Holland alone, 
 however resolute, was no match for him, and that 
 England had deliberately disarmed herself. At one 
 time, England could have taken the field with an 
 efficient army, and could have paralysed France at 
 sea. To be sure, it was still important, that England 
 and Holland were the only two European states which 
 could maintain armies. On the other hand, the re- 
 sources of Louis were abundant, his army in a high 
 state of efficiency, his ascendancy unquestioned, and 
 his maxim, that the last pistole wins, was likely 
 to be illustrated by his own success. The prize he 
 sought for himself was the Low Countries, and it 
 was for this region, as far as Louis and the allies 
 were concerned, that the War of the Spanish Suc- 
 cession was actually fought 1 . 
 
 The vexation, the humiliation, the despair of Wil- 
 liam, who saw this clearly, must have been extreme. 
 He believed, and with justice, that he had at any rate 
 checked the career of Louis, and had shown what 
 England might be, if she were only resolute and true 
 to herself. And now his policy, his own reputation, 
 his country were at stake, and the stake seemed lost. 
 He had done his best to avert the mischief ; and the 
 action of the House of Commons had made Louis 
 
 1 He intended to make the Duke of Bavaria, who declared for 
 him, after his own son's death, the nominal ruler of the Spanish 
 Netherlands. Still, the House of Commons shared the sentiments 
 of Arbuthnot's famous pamphlet, ' Law is a bottomless Pit.'
 
 HI.] The Second Bank Act. 123 
 
 audaciously triumphant. He was assured that if the 1701. 
 late Parliament had not paralysed his action, the hand 
 of Louis would have been stayed. He saw that the 
 struggle must come, and that what he had striven to 
 effect had been wrecked by the jealousy, the timidity, 
 the factions of the men whom he had to use. The Par- 
 liament of 1701 was the death of William, for when 
 the reaction came, it was too late. Whatever were 
 the errors of William as an English King, no English 
 King was ever so malignantly thwarted. I am not 
 prepared to accept all that Macaulay says of him in 
 his praise, but I am sure that he was the worst-used 
 sovereign who ever sat on the English throne. But 
 some of the best work which William did was his 
 foreign policy in 1701. It was of infinite service to 
 the allies. 
 
 The story of the impeachment is well known, and The 
 
 . . . i i i impeach- 
 
 has no importance in connection with the object mentof 
 before me. But it is noteworthy that Marlborough 
 was among the peers who were willing to condemn 
 Sommers 1 . I cannot but think that this astute 
 personage saw clearly enough that war was in- 
 evitable, and that his services would certainly be 
 needed as soon as war was declared. But he was 
 not willing to quarrel with a party which was, for 
 the time being at least, in the ascendancy, and was 
 
 1 Most of the protests on the abandonment of the impeachment 
 were published, though some were quickly expunged. In the 
 pamphlets of the time the peers who voted at each stage of the 
 proceedings against the four lords are given. I recovered some of 
 these expunged protests with great difficulty. See my Protests of 
 the Lords.
 
 124 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1701. even getting powerful in the City, for when Heath- 
 cote, a Whig, was expelled the House, Fleet, a Tory, 
 was elected in his room. And on the other hand, 
 Marlborough knew perfectly well that if the English 
 nation felt that their liberties were in danger, and 
 even if their pride were affronted, they would 
 effectually resent an insult. He therefore trimmed 
 cautiously, for he must have been well aware, that if 
 definite charges of bad faith could be brought home 
 to Louis, though the proof would not weaken him in 
 France, it would strengthen the alliance against him 
 elsewhere. As he must have foreseen that war was in- 
 evitable, so he was perfectly alive to his own military 
 abilities, and quite aware, whether the King lived or 
 died, that he must be employed in high command. 
 TU Between the time in which the impeachments 
 
 Kentish i i i -111 
 
 petition, were resolved on, and the abortive trial took place, 
 occurred the presentation of the Kentish petition 
 and the episode of the Legion letter. The grand jury 
 of Kent having met at Maidstone, as we learn from 
 the comments on the action of the House of Com- 
 mons, was pervaded by the Kentish feeling that Louis 
 of France had resolved on the invasion of England, 
 and that Kent would be the first victim 1 . It was a 
 common saying, we are told, among the country 
 folk of Kent ; ' We have sown the corn, and the 
 French are coming to reap it.' 
 
 The five persons who had signed the petition, all 
 gentlemen of estate and magistrates, determined 
 
 1 See among a host of pamphlets, Jura Populi Anglicani, or 
 the Subject's Right of Petitioning.
 
 III.] The Second Bank Act. 125 
 
 that their petition should be presented. They 1701. 
 applied to Sir Thomas Hales, the senior Knight for 
 the county. He hesitated and asked for a sight of 
 the petition. They were willing to show it him, but 
 begged him to keep it secret, till it was presented. 
 He promised, so we are told, to reserve it for his own 
 inspection only, carried it into the House, and showed 
 it freely. It roused those who saw it to fury, and 
 Hales came back to the petitioners, advised them to 
 withdraw it before it was too late, and flatly refused 
 to present it. They then sent for the other county 
 member, Mr. Meredith, who was induced to present 
 it, though he did so without committing himself to 
 its prayer or to its contents. It was read at the 
 table, and the petitioners were summoned to the bar \ 
 They were examined as to their signatures, and 
 their responsibility for the contents of the petition by 
 Harley the Speaker, in language, if we can trust 
 some narratives, which recalled to memory the brow- 
 beating of Jefferies, and then were ordered to with- 
 draw. 
 
 The presentation of the petition was followed by 
 a debate of five hours, in which Seymour and Howe 
 were the most conspicuous and violent speakers. 
 Alluding no doubt to the name of Colepepper (and 
 two persons of this family were among the five), 
 Seymour said that the petition smelt of forty-one. 
 
 1 At this time a member might move that the petition he 
 presented be read, and make a motion on it. It is only within 
 living memory that this part of the procedure of the House of 
 Commons has been altered.
 
 126 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1701. Jack Howe outdid himself in the violence and inso- 
 lence of his talk. It appears that the Speaker took 
 part in the fray, as did also Shower and Hammond. 
 Both the other Harleys spoke against the petition, 
 as did the Foleys, St. John, Wilmington of Bewdley, 
 Barnardiston, Eandyl of Guilford and Hampden of 
 Wendover, some of these being men who had hitherto 
 been reckoned as Whigs. 
 
 The House of Commons ruled that the petition 
 was scandalous, insolent and seditious, tending to 
 destroy the constitution of Parliaments, and to subvert 
 the established government of these realms. It is 
 noteworthy that in the next Parliament, the com- 
 plexion of which was very different from that of its 
 predecessor, the vote was re-affirmed. It seems that 
 the electors of Kent were not entirely sympathetic 
 with the petitioners, for in the next Parliament 
 Sir Thomas Hales was re-elected, and Mr. Meredith 
 lost his seat. The words in the petition which seem 
 to have caused this tempest in the House were a 
 request that the Commons ' would turn their loyal 
 addresses into Bills of Supply.' 
 The pun- The unlucky petitioners were sent to the Gate- 
 
 ishment of t -i ...... 
 
 thepeti- house, and subjected to great indignities, the 
 
 tioners. ~ r i 
 
 oerjeant-at-Arms, 11 we can trust their narrative, 
 having grossly and coarsely insulted them, and levied 
 black mail on them. They certainly commenced a 
 prosecution against him, after their release, which of 
 course occurred on June 23, when the House was 
 prorogued. When they came out of prison, they 
 were entertained in Fishmongers' Hall (some say
 
 JIT.] The Second Bank Act. 127 
 
 the Mercers'), and were received in Kent with enthu- 1701. 
 siasm 1 . The Commons memorialised the King to 
 strike their names out of the Commission of the 
 Peace, and the King, who for all the loyal addresses 
 presented to him was really at the lowest ebb of his 
 popularity in England, agreed to the humiliation of 
 proscribing those who had defended his policy and 
 justified his fears. 
 
 If the House was angry with the Kentish petition, The Legion 
 
 . . . letter. 
 
 they were infuriated by the Legion letter. On May 1 5 
 this celebrated letter came by post to the Speaker, 
 being addressed to him at the House of Commons. 
 It criticises severely the conduct of Parliament, and 
 particularises the Speaker and Howe as the most 
 factious, insolent, and disloyal of the whole party. 
 It accuses the majority of leaving the country de- 
 fenceless in a crisis of its fortunes, of having pre- 
 tended to quarrel with the concessions which the 
 treaties had made to France, while they were permit- 
 ting Louis to take more than was conceded to him ; it 
 twitted them with breaking treaties which honour 
 and interest equally urged them to maintain, and 
 with repudiating allies to whom the country owed 
 much in the past, and whose independence and 
 strength was the best guarantee to England of her own 
 stability. It urges the expulsion of Howe, whom it 
 calls 'the impudent scandal of Parliaments,' de- 
 nounces the new authority which the House had 
 usurped over other than its own members, and in 
 
 1 The narrative is to be found in Parliamentary History, 
 vol. v, Appendix XVII.
 
 128 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1701. particular the persecution of the Kentish petitioners 
 for an act which was in itself legal and constitutional, 
 and the unfairness with which it had used its power of 
 deciding on election petitions against those who were 
 opposed to the policy of the dominant party. It threat- 
 ened the House with something more than criticism 
 unless it mended its ways and attended to the busi- 
 ness for which it was elected, assured Harley and his 
 party that Englishmen would no more bear the tyranny 
 of Parliaments than they had borne the tyranny of 
 kings, and was signed ' Legion, for we are many.' 
 
 It was in vain that the pamphleteers on the Tory 
 side pointed out how happily the writer of the libel 
 and his associates had identified themselves with the 
 devils in the herd of swine, and the chiefs of the 
 party offered a reward for the discovery of the 
 author. The Legion letter was printed and circu- 
 lated widely, and undoubtedly had an influence 
 wherever political literature could be studied and 
 be effective. It was supposed to be the work of 
 Defoe, but its authorship has not been distinctly 
 traced to any one. During the year 1701 anonymous 
 pamphlets are accordingly numerous, though even 
 the largest collections cannot be supposed to contain 
 all the fugitive pieces of the year. 
 
 The di- The credit of William with the foreign powers and 
 which wn- his authority among his own people were at the lowest 
 ebb during the first six months of the year 1 701 . The 
 House of Commons insulted him with loyal addresses 
 and tricked him with promises which he knew to be 
 insincere, pretended to examine and scrutinise the
 
 III.] The Second Bank Act. 129 
 
 accounts of his administration, without either making 1701. 
 an adequate provision for even an armed neutrality or 
 for consolidating the public debt, and resolved on 
 prosecuting William's most attached friends and 
 most faithful servants. Nothing but the fact that 
 the King's influence with his Parliament was almost 
 gone, can explain the bitterness with which his late 
 ministers were assailed and impeached. Portland 
 and Sommers had resigned their appointments, the 
 latter under circumstances which show how great 
 had been the pressure put on the King the year 
 before. Halifax, whose schemes had restored credit 
 when it seemed almost destroyed, who had founded 
 the Bank, restored the currency, invented a new 
 and successful instrument of finance ; who had by 
 creating the new East India Company procured a 
 welcome supply, and had stinted the means, as was 
 thought, by which the old Company had so long 
 practised corruption, was out of office, and could 
 hardly be employed again ; while Orford, the victor 
 of La Hogue and the instrument by which the naval 
 power of France was effectually broken and English 
 commerce was relieved from swarms of privateers, 
 was in retirement. I cannot but believe that the sole 
 motive which the Commons had in the prosecution of 
 the four lords was a desire to humiliate the King, 
 and that they abandoned the impeachment, under 
 the pretence of a quarrel with the Lords, either 
 because they had effected that purpose, or because 
 they saw signs of a reaction 1 . 
 
 1 I draw these inferences, as before, from contemporary pamphlets. 
 
 K
 
 130 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1701. It was not long before the reaction came. Louis 
 Theac- acknowledged the son of James as King of England 
 mentof Ite after the death of the old King on September I6 1 . 
 reten er. j nee( j no re p ea t the reasons which should have dis- 
 suaded him from the act, or discuss the manner in 
 which the news was received in England, or the anger 
 which it excited, or the immediate rupture of diplo- 
 matic relations with France, or the recall of Man- 
 chester and the dismissal of Poussin, or the discomfiture 
 of the Tories and Jacobites and the elation of the 
 Whigs, or the entire conversion of Marlborough to 
 loyalty, and the enormous strength which the event 
 gave to William's position. The story is told with 
 picturesque fidelity by Macaulay. It is true that 
 William was too much broken by disease to profit 
 by the new situation. The House of 1701 had done 
 its work only too well. The King survived his father- 
 in-law and uncle for less than six months. 
 
 The dissolution (Nov. u, 1701) was not so much 
 
 lution and , / i vr-n 
 
 elections of followed by the victory of the Whigs, as by the re- 
 cognition of their principles 2 . Some of the leading 
 Tories and malcontents disappear for a time, as Howe, 
 Hammond, and Davenant 3 . Cambridge University for 
 once sent its most honoured son to Parliament, in the 
 
 1 I cannot but think that the conduct of the House of Commons 
 induced Louis to think that he could put this affront on William 
 with impunity. 
 
 2 This is, I suppose, proved by the election of Harley as Speaker 
 over Littleton 216 to 212. 
 
 3 Davenant threatened an action against one of the Masters in 
 Chancery for calling him in various ways a traitor. Luttrell, 
 December 4,
 
 III.] The Second Bank Act. 131 
 
 person of Isaac Newton. The City of London again 1701. 
 sent four Whigs, and by large majorities. Again some 
 of the Tories were forced from boroughs where there 
 was an electorate, to take refuge in boroughs where 
 there was only the pretence of an electorate. Thus 
 Seymour had to go from Exeter to Taunton. Howe 
 was probably over-confident and failed to secure a 
 retreat, for Luttrell tells us that he would have been 
 returned for Newton in Lancashire, only that the two 
 seats were filled by the Leighs before the news of his 
 defeat became known 1 . The reverse which the worst 
 men in the Tory party suffered must have given a 
 keen pleasure to William. But of course the pro- 
 prietary boroughs only represented the persons who 
 owned them, and it would seem from the divisions 
 that, except under the compulsion of a call of the 
 House, many members never or rarely came to St. 
 Stephen's. 
 
 Having touched in this manner on domestic politics, 
 only because this particular period, from June 170x3 
 to September 1701, has hardly been handled by any 
 modern writer, I now turn to the main object before 
 me, the effect which events domestic and foreign had 
 on the fortunes of the Bank of England, and on the 
 price of its stock in 1701. They are exceedingly 
 marked, and suggestive of how foreign occurrences 
 as well as home politics affected this security. And 
 here I may observe that, in contemporaneous accounts, 
 one does not find any record of what we should call 
 
 1 The fiction of the Chiltern Hundreds was not yet invented. 
 
 K 2
 
 132 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1701. the price of the funds, but only the price of stocks 
 
 in public institutions of credit and trade. 
 Price of The price of Bank stock in Houghton's register is 
 stock. entirely unchanged from January 3, 1 701, to April 1 1, 
 when it suddenly fell nineteen and a-half per cent. 
 The figures in Luttrell, however, do not at all agree 
 with this record, and I do not see how to reconcile 
 the discrepancy, for the difference seems too great, 
 even in a speculative time like that, for one to 
 conclude that Luttrell's prices are time bargains at 
 Garra way's or Jonathan's, while Houghton's are notes 
 of bona fide purchases and sales. But I should men- 
 tion that pamphlets bearing on time bargains and 
 on the mischief of these transactions are common 
 during this period and are very outspoken, and as is 
 well known Sir Samuel Barnardiston had given effect 
 to this dislike and distrust of stock-jobbers by an Act 
 of Parliament 1 making their bargains void. 
 
 Now, according to Luttrell, the price of Bank stock 
 on January^ 1701, was 122; on January 23, 1 19, owing 
 he says 'to the discourse of war'; on January 28 at 
 117; on January 30 at 113,' owing to the news that 
 the French had taken Newport and Ostend' ; on Feb- 
 ruary i at 1 06; on February 8 at no; on March 4 
 at 103; on March 6 at 97; on March 15 at 104; on 
 March 20 at 108; on April 17 and April 29 at no; 
 on July 5 at 1 1 1 ; on August 12 at 1 1 1 ; on August 
 19 at 112; on August 23 at 113; on September 4 at 
 117; on October 23 at 108; and on November 18 at 
 109. These are ah 1 the prices noted by him in the 
 
 1 8 & 9 William III, cap. 32.
 
 III.] The Second Bank Act. 133 
 
 year 1 70 1 . It is clear that Luttrell's informant derived .1701. 
 his information from other sources than Houghton did, 
 who represents the Bank stock as wholly unaffected 
 by the events of the first three months of 1 701. The 
 discrepancy of the later period is comparatively 
 unimportant. I can give no explanation of the 
 difference, except that mentioned above, that Luttrell 
 has a time bargain price, Houghton a genuine pur- 
 chase price. And here I will bring forward the 
 facts which bear on the crisis. 
 
 Among the pamphlets of the year 1701 is one 
 (the copy I have consulted is the second edition) 
 entitled, ' The villainy of Stock-jobbers detected, and 
 the causes of the late run upon the Bank and Bankers 
 discovered and considered.' From internal evidence it 
 is plain that the pamphlet was written in February. 
 
 'As soon,' says the author, 'as the election of A run on 
 Parliament men in the City 1 was over, or so far over 
 as that it plainly appeared on which side it inclined, 
 
 1 The election (the polling lasted four days) was over on 
 January 23, 1701, Ashurst, Heathcote, Clayton, and Withers being 
 returned against Buncombe, Fleet, Child, and Pritchard. Heath- 
 cote was subsequently expelled, as holding office under the Crown, 
 and Fleet returned in his room. There was a scrutiny, and the 
 lists of the liverymen in the fifty-six Companies then existing 
 were printed. The copy which exists in the Bodleian Library 
 has evidently been used for the scrutiny. The number of livery- 
 men in the fifty-six registers is 7547. The largest Company is 
 that of the Merchant Taylors, the next the Haberdashers, then the 
 Goldsmiths. In the scrutiny 437 votes were found to be bad, for 
 various reasons. The largest quota of the bad votes was Duncombe's, 
 who polled all the sick and dead men. Sir Thomas Abney was 
 Lord Mayor, and issued the precept for the return of the livery 
 lists. The copy which I have consulted has been corrected from 
 the poll books.
 
 1 34 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1701. a certain party prepared to bring about this very 
 design, which we now see is broke out upon us.' 
 My author then says that the directors of the old 
 East India Company, whose intrigues and jobs, he 
 avers, had made the stock of their own Company 
 fluctuate between 300 and 37, collected cash as far as 
 possible in order to bring about a scarcity of it, and 
 it is alleged by some that they have a million in 
 hand. Then he adds, others (he names Duncombe 
 as one of the conspirators) collected Bank bills. 
 * Now it is impossible to imagine that two or three 
 men should lay by Bank notes to the tune of 
 300,000 which had no running interest upon them, 
 and have no design in it.' By these devices, he says, 
 they pushed down the price of stock, and made a run 
 on the Bank. ' But the Bank returned them in kind, 
 and pushed at their capital banker, and run him 
 down presently.' This I conclude is illustrated by a 
 fact narrated by Luttrell under date of February 4. 
 ' This morning Mr. Shepherd, a noted banker of Lom- 
 bard Street, having great sums of money drawn from 
 him, occasioned by the fall of the public stocks, was 
 forced to stop payment at present.' They next 
 attacked Exchequer bills, and presented 50,000 of 
 them at once. This probably explains an order of 
 the House of Commons of February 25, under which 
 old Exchequer bills were cancelled and new ones 
 ordered to issue. But this fact also helps to give 
 the date of the pamphlet, for the writer continues, 
 ' they will probably be defeated, this new corporation 
 of Hell, the Stock Jobbers/
 
 in.] The Second Bank Act. 135 
 
 But the Bank had another expedient. On Feb- 1701. 
 ruary 6 it gave notice that it would allow six per 
 cent, on those who took its 'sealed bills' of ioo 
 (and upwards) and held them till Michaelmas, and 
 would allow threepence a day for deposits of cash on 
 demand. The expedient was successful, for the next 
 day, according to Luttrell, these bills were taken to 
 the amount of 50,0x30. That the Bank effectually 
 demolished the project of Duncombe and his asso- 
 ciates is proved by the fact that no more is heard 
 of it. 
 
 This expedient is criticised by the otherwise kindly Criticism 
 pamphleteer, and the criticism is so sound and Bank's 
 weighty, that it may well be quoted. 'The Bank of 
 England is to be blamed for allowing interest on 
 their sealed notes. It is a begging of credit.' 'It 
 should have stood boldly and not have increased their 
 interest to double.' And then he illustrates the wise 
 policy of brag by an account of what the practice of 
 merchants was, who take the money of a scrivener's 
 client at a high rate of interest, and finding they 
 cannot at a crisis employ it advantageously, may by 
 offering to repay it at once, obtain a renewal on more 
 favourable terms. 
 
 * The Bank is apt to confound the credit of their 
 stock,' he says, ' with the credit of their cash/ The 
 former is decidedly unassailable. We all know that 
 every shilling of the Bank's issues is covered by con- 
 vertible securities, or by saleable goods, to say nothing 
 of what the Bank may have in reserve. But no 
 institution of credit can safely neglect to fortify its
 
 136 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1701. reserve of cash. You may get cash, and that speedily, 
 by a sacrifice, as the Bank has done. But the very 
 operation, though it does not damage your intrinsic 
 credit, proclaims your weakness. You may not injure 
 your schemes by what you have done, but you suggest 
 that you have not that foresight which men of business 
 should possess, and should prove that they possess to 
 the mercantile world. With such precautions, this 
 intelligent writer concludes, ' The Bank will outlive 
 the designs of all the Sir C 's and Sir L 's 1 in 
 England.' 
 
 Vote of On April 10 the House of Commons voted, ' That 
 1701. the restraining of the Bank of England from borrow- 
 ing money at interest, upon any security that is not 
 under their corporation seal, will be a great en- 
 couragement to trade, and a support to the public 
 credit.' This is evidently a hostile resolution, and 
 one intended to cripple the business in which the 
 Bank was profitably engaged. It would, for example, 
 prevent the Bank from accepting tallies on the 
 Exchequer and similarly deferred payments by the 
 public treasury, and making these securities the 
 basis of an issue of notes, not bearing interest, to the 
 depositor, or in the language of the time, lender, 
 such notes being payable on demand. No action was 
 taken on this resolution, in which we may probably 
 see the hand of Duncombe. But in point of fact, the 
 alliance of the Tory landowners and the Lombard 
 
 1 Sir C. is of course Duncombe ; I do not know who Sir L. is. 
 He is not a liveryman of the City, for I do not find any Sir L. 
 in a list of all the liverymen in all the fifty-six Companies in 1701.
 
 III.] The Second Bank Act. 137 
 
 Street stock-jobber and scrivener was only temporary, 1701. 
 and was always hollow l . 
 
 It has been the peculiar fortune of the Bank of The good 
 
 -n-iii TIT T fortune of 
 
 .England, that all the conspiracies against its credit the Bank. 
 have not only been foiled, but have raised the repu- 
 tation which the conspirators intended to undermine. 
 This has been the characteristic of its later history, 
 and it can be shown to have been equally the fact in 
 its earlier years, when it had to learn experience, and 
 was exposed to the attacks of watchful and rancorous 
 foes, whose personal antipathies were stimulated by 
 party malevolence. And as this is the fact, M'e cannot 
 but conclude that, though the management of the 
 Bank was occasionally mistaken, its general course of 
 action must have been marked with such integrity, 
 that it roused and maintained towards itself an 
 affectionate and loyal attachment which continued, 
 through long and trying times, unbroken and un- 
 shaken. That the early directors of the Bank of 
 England wished to make money was natural. That 
 they made it is notorious. That they incurred the 
 enmity of rivals is certain. But they never forfeited 
 their reputation. This reputation was constantly 
 made the plea for hard bargains on the part of the 
 Treasury when the renewal of the Bank charter was 
 imminent. That they overvalued the advantage of 
 their charter is true enough, but the defence of their 
 charter lies in the fact that, in a country where all 
 kinds of banking are not regulated by law, a monopoly 
 
 1 See, for example, a Tory pamphlet of 1701, 'The Freeholder's 
 Plea against Stock-jobbing Elections of Parliament Men.'
 
 138 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1701. under Parliamentary checks is better than free trade 
 in instruments of credit, which has often been justly 
 characterised as free trade in swindling. 
 
 It is probable that the hostile resolution of April 
 10 had something to do with the fall of 19^ per cent, 
 which Houghton records under April 1 1 . But there 
 were other causes at work. The war of the Spanish 
 Succession commenced in Italy, the prize being the 
 possession of Milan. On April 3, little more than 
 rumours, but these rumours adverse to the French 
 King's prospects, reached England. But the news 
 also came of the late King's first apoplectic seizure, 
 and its serious character. Bank stock remained low 
 till the end of June, when it rose 6^ per cent. 
 Within a week or ten days it fell again, new rumours 
 of an impending and serious war gaining consistency. 
 On September 12 it rose to the highest point in the 
 last nine months of 1701. In October it was de- 
 pressed again, owing to the vigorously hostile attitude 
 of William, after Louis XIV had recognised the 
 banished family, and war with France became certain, 
 for the step towards an alliance against France was 
 taken on September 18. 
 Setumof William landed in England on November 4, and 
 
 William. & 
 
 was instantly met by loyal addresses and entreaties 
 to dissolve Parliament. He hesitated, because time 
 was pressing. But the old Parliament was so factious 
 and untrustworthy, that he resolved on a dissolution, 
 and proclaimed it on November 1 1. In this policy, 
 if we can rely on the language of the addresses, 
 William was entirely in accordance with public
 
 III.] The Second Bank Act. 139 
 
 opinion. It was noticed in the publications of the 1701. 
 time that addresses praying the Crown to dissolve 
 Parliament had been rare. Now the counties and 
 the large towns were almost unanimous in their 
 prayer that he would rid himself of the factious, 
 unruly, captious, insolent, disloyal and, as was cur- 
 rently thought, corrupt gang who had the ascendancy 
 in the last session, in which some of the leading 
 spirits, who had been detected in close intercourse 
 with the French envoy, Poussin, and thereafter nick- 
 named Poussineers, were held up to the execration 
 of the freeholders, as knaves in the pay of France 
 and traitors to their country. 
 
 The reaction in public opinion came too late for 
 
 immediate action. The anxieties and affronts which tion. 
 William had suffered during the earlier part of the 
 past year, his consciousness that the action of his 
 Parliament had made the kingdom powerless in the 
 councils of Europe, and had left the King of France 
 an opportunity to so far strengthen himself as to 
 practically occupy the Spanish Netherlands and to 
 obtain the recognition of his grandson as King of 
 Spain from every European court except Germany, 
 had made William at fifty years of age an aged and 
 broken man. So violent had been the action of the 
 House of Commons, that it was believed on the Con- 
 tinent that a counter-revolution was imminent. But 
 there was nothing which gave Louis such satisfaction 
 as the news of William's declining health. He be- 
 lieved that the Grand Alliance, which had been 
 successfully revived in the autumn of 1 701, depended
 
 1 40 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1701. for its very existence on William's health and life. 
 He imagined that Anne, the heir to the throne, would 
 abandon William's policy. But in June 1701, the 
 King, who had become conscious that his physical 
 powers were unequal to the fatigues of active military 
 operations, stifled his just resentments, and appointed 
 Marlborough, whose great capacity for war was known 
 to few, but fully recognised by William, as commander- 
 in-chief of all the English forces, and ambassador to 
 the States General. It is very likely that Louis did 
 not know how unbounded was the influence which 
 the Churchills exercised over Anne. It was as com- 
 plete, but was not so mischievous, as that which 
 Madame de Maintenon wielded over him 1 . 
 
 William knew that his days were numbered. He 
 had even consulted the French King's physician, under 
 a feigned name, about his symptoms, and had received 
 an unfavourable answer. When Fagon knew who his 
 correspondent was, it was not for long a secret from 
 Louis. Now William was well aware of the com- 
 munications which Marlborough had kept up with 
 St. Germain s during the early years of the Kevolution. 
 He did not indeed know all, as for instance the 
 betrayal of Talmash's purpose in the expedition to 
 Brest. But though he could not trust Marlborough, 
 he knew that he could trust Marlborough's ambition 
 and greed, and, what was more, that he could rely on 
 Marlborough's abilities. Whether it were wise or 
 unwise (and William conceived it to be entirely wise 
 
 1 See for the situation from the French point of view, Sismondi, 
 Histoire des Franfais, vol. 15. chap, xxxviii.
 
 ill.] The Second Bank Act. 141 
 
 and supremely necessary) that England should again 1701. 
 incur the losses of a war in order to curb the ambition 
 and chastise the bad faith of Louis, it was perfectly 
 certain to him that Marlborough could be relied on to 
 support a policy which would prove him to be the 
 greatest general, would constitute him the most 
 powerful statesman, and would rapidly make him 
 the richest subject in Europe. 
 
 Parliament met on December 30, and the King 1702. 
 addressed them next day, pointing out to them that 
 war was inevitable. The House assured him on 
 January 2 that they would defend his title against 
 the son of James, and all his open and secret abettors 
 and adherents, as well as all his other enemies, that 
 they would enable him to show his just resentment at 
 the affront put upon him by the recognition of his 
 rival ; assured him of their determination to maintain 
 the Protestant succession, and declared that they would 
 make good the alliances that he had made or might 
 make for the curtailment of the exorbitant power 
 of France and for preserving the liberties of Europe. 
 They then proceeded to bring in bills to attaint the 
 exiled prince and his mother, Mary of Modena. The 
 King received the address very graciously. 
 
 But though the Commons were far more willing to 
 carry out the King's policy than their predecessors 
 were, and voted taxes and troops readily enough, they 
 inherited and exercised the same violent temper 
 towards those who offended them which their pre- 
 decessors had exhibited. One of the Kentish peti- 
 tioners, Thomas Colepepper, had at the general
 
 142 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1702. election been a candidate for Maidstone. He was 
 unsuccessful, and, most rashly, petitioned the House 
 for the seat. The Committee however reported by 
 a great majority that the sitting member was duly 
 elected, as they would have reported that a corrupt 
 Poussineer was, as against a Kentish petitioner, and 
 that Colepepper had been guilty of bribery and 
 indirect practices by endeavouring to get himself 
 elected. The politics of Captain Bliss, the member 
 whom they seated, are made clear by the fact, 
 that two days after the decision of the Committee, 
 this personage, an obscure imitator of Jack Howe, 
 gave security at the King's Bench upon an informa- 
 tion brought against him for words reflecting on the 
 King. 
 
 The decision of the Committee was endorsed by the 
 House on February 7 by the following resolutions: 
 (i) That Captain Bliss is duly elected for Maidstone, 
 and that Thomas Colepepper, Esq., who was one of 
 the instruments for promoting and presenting the 
 scandalous, insolent, and seditious petition, commonly 
 called the Kentish petition, to the last House of 
 Commons, hath been guilty of corrupt, scandalous 
 and indirect practices, in order to procure himself to 
 be elected a burgess for Maidstone. (2) That the 
 aspersing of the last House of Commons, or any 
 member thereof, with receiving French money, or 
 being in the interest of France, was a scandalous, 
 villainous and groundless reflection, tending to sedi- 
 tion, and to create a misunderstanding between the 
 King and his people. (3) That Mr. Colepepper is
 
 III.] The Second Bank Act. 143 
 
 guilty thereof, and is to be committed to Newgate, 1702. 
 and to be prosecuted by the Attorney-General. 
 
 Ten days later, they sat in a Committee of Privi- 
 leges, and resolved: (i) That to assert that the House 
 of Commons is not the only representative of the 
 Commons of England, tends to the subversion of the 
 rights and privileges of the House of Commons and 
 the fundamental constitution of the government of 
 this kingdom. (2) That to assert that the House of 
 Commons have no power of commitment but of their 
 own members, tends to the subversion of the consti- 
 tution of the House of Commons. (3) That to print 
 and publish any books or libels reflecting on the pro- 
 ceedings of the House of Commons or on any member 
 thereof, for or relating to his service therein, is a high 
 violation of the rights and privileges of the House of 
 Commons. Colepepper absconded from the custody of 
 the Serjeant-at-Arms, and a reward was offered for his 
 apprehension. He petitioned the next Parliament that 
 proceedings against him might be dropped, and died 
 in August 1 703. The Commons were more reasonable 
 on February 26, in reference to the impeachments of 
 the last session, and affirmed that it was the undoubted 
 right of the subject to petition the King for the dis- 
 solution and the sitting of Parliaments. The accident 
 which proved fatal to the King had occurred on the 
 twenty-first. Macaulay says that it happened at 
 Hampton Court. Luttrell however states that the 
 King was hunting near Kingston-on-Thames. He 
 died on Sunday, March 8. 
 
 The report of the physicians and surgeons who
 
 1 44 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1702. made an examination of the King's body proves that 
 The Kind's ^ ne accident hastened, but did not cause his death. 
 The 7 stated indeed that the fracture had already 
 united, but that the body was greatly emaciated, and 
 that the cause of death was inflammation of the 
 lungs 1 . Shortly before his death he said, that 'when 
 he was in his grave, the people of England could have 
 no reason to say that he aimed at anything but their 
 good.' He had certainly proved that England, which 
 after the days of Oliver and before William's accession 
 had been of no account in the councils of Europe, 
 was now a first-rate power. But the vindication of 
 William's memory was not to come for some time. 
 On December 15, when the Queen had sent a message, 
 which was to be sure rather premature, requesting 
 the Commons to make a settlement of 5,000 a year on 
 Marlborough for his services in the campaign in 
 Flanders 2 , though they had affirmed that he had re- 
 trieved the honour of the English nation, and refused 
 to use the words ' maintained' or 'advanced,' yet on 
 December 1 5 they declined to accede to the Queen's 
 request that they would make permanent and 
 attach to his peerage (he had been made a duke) 
 the sum just mentioned, which she had granted 
 to him for her life out of the post office, on the 
 ground that the 'revenue of the Crown had been 
 so much reduced by exorbitant grants in the late 
 reign/ When it was proposed to omit the last 
 
 1 The report of these physicians and surgeons is to be found 
 in the Bodley pamphlets. 
 
 2 Parliament (a new one) met on October 20.
 
 ill.] The Second Bank Act. 145 
 
 four words, the Commons carried their insertion by 1702. 
 200 to 89. 
 
 If we assume that the war which ended with the The wan 
 Peace of Kyswick was absolutely necessary for the France. 
 settlement of the Kevolution, and that the acceptance 
 of the throne of Spain by Louis on behalf of his 
 grandson was so serious a menace to the peace of 
 Europe that England was bound to resist it by arms, 
 it is impossible to over-estimate the diplomatic 
 abilities of William, whether we consider the diffi- 
 culties of his position in England, or the power 
 against which he had to contend. The only strength 
 he had was what he could obtain from the resources 
 and continue by the taxation of the English and the 
 Dutch, for he could not get the aid of a single German 
 state, except by a Dutch or English subsidy. From 
 the beginning of his reign the Dutch accused him of 
 sacrificing their interests to those of England, and the 
 English reproached him with lavishing English money 
 on Dutch objects and the revenues of the Crown on 
 Dutch favourites. The Council of Amsterdam tried 
 to thwart him 1 , as much as the Seymours and the 
 Howes in Parliament, and the Jacobites and Non- 
 jurors out of it intrigued against him ; and William, 
 though by the theory of the Dutch constitution his 
 powers were far more limited than those of a British 
 king, was able to take sharper measures against 
 Dutch malcontents than he could against English 
 opposition and Parliamentary rancour. 
 
 At the time of the English revolution, France was 
 1 See for example Davies' History of Holland, vol. iii. p. 218. 
 
 L
 
 146 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [ill. 
 
 1702. the richest and most densely peopled kingdom in 
 France at Europe. It probably contained fifteen millions of 
 iutionand inhabitants, possibly twenty millions 1 . Its manu- 
 \ S oiicy? 9n factures had been developed by Colbert with the 
 greatest care, at the expense no doubt of agriculture, 
 but up to the highest efficiency. It had appropriated 
 the silk industry, once the glory of Genoa and Italy. 
 It had succeeded in acclimatising those other textile 
 fabrics, notably the lighter woollen textures, for which 
 Flanders had once been famous. It had for a century 
 carried out the tyrant's policy of the Greek philo- 
 sopher in the other European states, of making them 
 poor, disunited, hopeless. It assisted in the ruin of 
 the Low Countries, and in 1672 had almost succeeded 
 in destroying Holland. It had prolonged, for inter- 
 ested reasons, the horrible Thirty Years' War, which 
 arrested the progress of the German race for more 
 than two centuries. It wasted what remained to 
 Spain in the wars which it waged with Philip IV 
 and Charles II. It insulted and humiliated the Pope. 
 The kings of England were bribed into complicity 
 with its designs. In 1679 the glory of Louis XIV 
 and the supremacy of France were at their height. 
 its domes- The French King had succeeded, as no French king 
 had succeeded before him, in subduing his nobles. 
 All the difficulties of his predecessors had arisen from 
 insurrections of the French nobility, and hardly a 
 reign was free from them. Even Louis, in his youth, 
 had a taste of their turbulence. But he had entirely 
 
 1 The resources of France are fairly calculated in Davenant's 
 essay on Public Debts and Engagements, 1698.
 
 III.] The Second Bank Act. 147 
 
 vanquished them, and they were now as docile as the 1702. 
 French peasantry were. The French King had at 
 last become absolute. So had the Spanish King, but 
 he had destroyed all that makes a nation in the pro- 
 cess. So had the German Emperor in his hereditary 
 dominions. But the beggary of Austria was nearly 
 as complete as the beggary of Spain. Italy had 
 become a shadow, a geographical expression, a 
 political fiction. But France was rich, powerful, 
 united under an able and ambitious monarch, who 
 wished that his people should be as prosperous as 
 was consistent with his purposes and principles of 
 government. Louis had an army which was trained 
 under his own eye. He selected his generals with 
 rare judgment, and up to this period of his long reign 
 had been rarely deceived in his choice. Those whom 
 he chose, served him with unshaken fidelity and with 
 complete self-abnegation. The French army was the 
 one school of military science, just as the Dutch army 
 under Maurice of Orange had been more than half a 
 century before. Louis, in the prime of his career, was 
 as vigilant and careful in details as he was farseeing 
 and unscrupulous in his plans. He had the best 
 cavalry, the best infantry officers, the best parks of 
 artillery, the most scientifically constructed fortresses, 
 the most complete commissariat. And all this ma- 
 chinery of war was so nicely adjusted, that it could 
 be set in motion at once, and as the King willed. 
 Its discipline, from the Marshal of France to the 
 private, was so perfect, its obedience so unhesitating, 
 its confidence so high, that the King could reckon on 
 
 L 2
 
 enemies. 
 
 148 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [ill. 
 
 1702. it to the uttermost. After the disasters of Blenheim 
 and Kamillies, the French consoled themselves that 
 their conqueror learned the art of war under their 
 great commander, Turenne 1 . 
 
 Holland The only possible enemies whom this great 
 England monarch dreaded were England and Holland. Every 
 
 Ms only /ir i 
 
 formidable motive of self-preservation and self-interest should 
 have united the English and the Dutch in a firm 
 and unbroken alliance. Unhappily the rivalries of 
 trade, in a world wide enough for both, made them 
 frequently hostile to, and always suspicious of each 
 other. Unhappily the habit of buccaneering, which 
 had become almost a virtue during the long Spanish 
 wars, had made the trade of a pirate more profitable 
 than that of a merchant, and only a little less re- 
 putable. Some people said that Paterson, the founder 
 of the Bank of England, had been a missionary, 
 some said he had been a pirate, and many people 
 thought that he might have been both in turns. 
 Years after the time of which I am writing, an 
 English archbishop is said to have been a buccaneer 
 in his youth. The statement may have been false, 
 it may have been a calumny, but it would not have 
 been made had it not seemed a possibility. At last, 
 and not too soon, civilised governments began to 
 take steps against these practices, and Kidd in 1701 
 was hanged for those offences against the law of 
 nations which secured the honour of knighthood 
 and heroism for Drake little more than a century 
 before. The mutual jealousy of England and Holland 
 1 See Sismondi.
 
 III.] The Second Bank Act. 149 
 
 was a serious hindrance to their united political 1702. 
 action. Both took commercial monopoly for commer- 
 cial wisdom. 
 
 Unhappily too for this necessary concert, faction 
 was dominant in both countries. In the great 
 city of Amsterdam, at that time the commercial 
 centre of the world, the burghers were unfriendly to 
 the Prince of Orange. He had been persistently 
 commended to them by the English Court, and 
 though William's affection and devotion to his 
 country had been incontestably proved, there were 
 memories stih 1 green of the perfidy of his uncle, 
 who had forced him upon them, and of the murdered 
 De Witts, by whose care he had been educated, by 
 whose slaughter he had profited. The outrage was 
 worse than the tragedy of Barneveldt, who had also 
 shielded and brought up that Orange prince who 
 afterwards effected his judicial murder. But by the 
 force and integrity of his character, aided perhaps, 
 as William himself said, by the gentleness and grace 
 of his wife, he had won the Dutch as no prince since 
 Father William had won them. 
 
 In England the case was different. He had gained 
 
 11 t* i position. 
 
 his throne by the misfortunes ot a near kinsman, 
 who had done him no personal wrong. His position 
 was worse than that of Henry the Fourth, for the 
 first Lancastrian King had been exiled and plundered 
 by his cousin, and might have been justified for 
 avenging a feud. William had to be sure saved the 
 nation from what was abhorrent to them, from 
 what they saw no means of saving themselves ; but
 
 1 50 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1702. nations, like individuals, are rarely grateful to those 
 who have put them under overwhelming obligations. 
 He foresaw from the very first what would be his 
 lifelong experience, when he commented on the 
 plaudits with which the public welcomed the com- 
 mencement of his reign. ' It is, Hosanna, to-day,' 
 he said, ' it may be, Crucify him, to-morrow/ And, 
 in fact, during his whole reign he was exposed to 
 malignant slander, to the plots of assassins, to the 
 conspiracies of men whom he was obliged to trust, 
 and to the rancour of a free parliament, in which 
 Churchill alternately caressed both parties and de- 
 ceived both. Now William did not embroil his 
 people with France in order to keep his throne, 
 though it was a maxim in those days that English- 
 men are most manageable and most steady when 
 they are at war, for he was constantly on the point of 
 resigning his uneasy, his almost intolerable dignity. 
 
 It is easy for us, in our own day, when we have 
 had experience of, and can study how an ever- 
 grasping ambition defeats its own ends, to criticise 
 the action of our forefathers, when they joined the 
 Grand Alliance of 1689, and renewed it in 1701. 
 There were men at the time who saw that Louis 
 had taken upon himself a task beyond his strength, 
 great as it was, when he strove to secure the whole 
 Spanish succession to his grandson after the death of 
 Charles II. But to the mass of men Louis was 
 in Europe at the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century what the Turk was in the middle of the 
 fifteenth, what Charles V was after the battle of
 
 III.] The Second Bank Act. 151 
 
 Pavia, what Napoleon was after the day of Jena. 1702. 
 He owed his greatness to the folly of a divided 
 and disunited Europe, and the people as usual had 
 to pay for the faults of their rulers. 
 
 With the exception of a few literary hacks, from General 
 
 freedom 
 
 Davenant to Mrs. Manley, few Englishmen were, from cor- 
 I believe, bribed by French pistoles. But it was 
 notorious that leading and ennobled Englishmen had 
 been bribed wholesale, less than a generation ago, 
 from Charles on his throne to Chiffinch at the back- 
 stairs. Greedy as Marlborough was, greedy as 
 Eussell was, covetous as Leeds was, I do not believe 
 that after the Revolution they handled French gold, 
 though the first of them trafficked for a pardon by 
 the promise of perfidy, and gulled his dupe, the 
 exiled king, after one shameful act, by perfidy 
 which was even more shameful. But there were 
 two classes who were entirely stainless. The mass 
 of the country party was unquestionably honourable. 
 It was stupid, prejudiced, hating William and the 
 Dutch only less than it hated Louis and the French, 
 and daily justifying its distrust of James by its 
 indignation at the miscreants about his court, and 
 by its conviction, which they reiterated, that a sup- 
 posititious child had been palmed on the King 1 . 
 The other class were the Whig merchants of London 
 and the other great cities, who founded the Bank, 
 
 1 People far more trustworthy than Fuller (who got some of 
 his deserts in 1702) believed in the story of the warming-pan. 
 After the death of James, many of the nonjuring clergy conformed. 
 They did not therefore believe in the legitimacy of Mary of 
 Modena's son.
 
 152 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1702. watched over its credit by the best of their lights, 
 and with it over the credit of the State. The debt 
 which the Eoman poet says the State owed to the 
 house of Claudius Nero at Metaurus may be paral- 
 leled by the debt which the English constitution, 
 and indeed human liberty and progress, owes to the 
 merchants who sat in the parlour of the Mercers' 
 Chapel or the Grocers' Hall during those eventful 
 years. 
 
 The Occa- The Lords, who had a deeper stake in the Kevolu- 
 form/Uy tion than the Commons, whom the Triennial Act, and 
 the frequent elections, even under that Act, had greatly 
 strengthened, were not disposed to yield to the 
 country party in their passionate determination to 
 pass the Occasional Conformity Bill. ' There was no 
 reason/ the Lords argued, 'why the Dissenters should 
 be harassed. The State has resolved to give pre- 
 eminence to one ritual and one hierarchy. We 
 cannot indeed endure the chaos of the Common- 
 wealth again. But this provided against, if a man 
 obeys the law and satisfies the conditions which 
 qualify him for public office, who should be curious 
 as to the residue of his devotions 1 Even Kochester 
 and Nottingham, though of these orthodox persons 
 the former is often drunk and the other is always 
 dismal, do not want to curtail the Toleration Act or 
 revive the Clarendon Code. In this crisis of our 
 affairs it is not wise to affront our best friends, the 
 capitalist Dissenters, who find the funds for this 
 just and necessary war.' It is noteworthy that the 
 abortive Act against Occasional Conformity was passed
 
 III.] The Second Bank Act. 153 
 
 when Englishmen had got weary of the war, when 1702. 
 its ends were obtained by the manifest exhaustion of 
 France, and when another dynastic difficulty had 
 arisen, the union of the claims of Austria and Spain 
 in the person of Philip's rival, and when a party was 
 greedily anxious to retain the gains of office. 
 
 I must here give a brief account of those political 
 
 events which affected the fortunes of the Bank in 1702. 
 1702. It is remarkable that Luttrell, so interested 
 in the career of this institution, or, as I think, 
 in the time bargains or wagers laid on its future value, 
 gives only one price during the year. This is on 
 June 9, 1702, when he states that its price was 122. 
 This may well be, as the stock was plainly rising. 
 One fact in the history of the Bank is now clear. 
 It was resting at last on a solid foundation of credit, 
 and had become a regular instrument of Govern- 
 ment, as well as a centre of trade. The result is 
 patent ; the process by which it gained in so short 
 a time so unassailable a position as to be not 
 only commercially trustworthy but to be the finan- 
 cial fortress of England during the long and costly 
 war which she was about to undertake, is not and 
 cannot be discoverable. For of all the difficulties 
 which the analyst of economical problems encounters, 
 none is greater than that of interpreting the process 
 by which honest men correct their errors of judg- 
 ment and strengthen their position by avoiding 
 for the future what they discover to have been 
 a mistake or a danger in the past. On the other 
 hand, it is comparatively easy to find how knaves
 
 154 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1702. and fools are disappointed of their aims. Their 
 cipher can be successfully interpreted. We may not 
 be able to tell how it was that the Bank of England 
 escaped the perils of their Great Experiment ; but 
 we can easily discover why Chamberlain, Law, and 
 the projectors of the South Sea Scheme brought 
 shame or ruin on their dupes. 
 
 Rumours The price of Bank stock rose, with some slight 
 fluctuations, from January to March, by about seven 
 and a-quarter per cent., though at this time war was 
 imminent, and the Grand Alliance on one hand and 
 Louis on the other were engaged in making pre- 
 parations for the ensuing conflict. On December 26, 
 1701, it stood at noj, on March 13, 1702, at ii7f. 
 There are no prices for the next two weeks. On 
 April 3 it is at ii 3^. I conclude that this fall 
 was due to the King's death, and the natural un- 
 certainty which prevailed as to what Anne's policy, 
 or rather that of Lady Marlborough, would be. 
 It would not seem that a resolution of the House 
 of Commons in Committee of Ways and Means on 
 February i4th, 'that a duty of one per cent, should 
 be levied on all shares in the capital of any Corpora- 
 tion or Company which shall be bought, sold, 
 bargained, or contracted for,' had any depressing 
 influence on the stock, or that the declaration of 
 a six months' dividend on March 26 of 4f per cent., 
 along with the rumour that Philip, the new King of 
 Spain, had been poisoned at Barcelona 1 , had the 
 effect of arresting the fall. It is possible also that 
 1 Luttrell says that the Jews started this rumour.
 
 III.] The Second Bank Act. 155 
 
 there may have been a doubt whether the States 1702. 
 General would confirm the appointment of Marl- 
 borough, made by the late King, for it was rumoured 
 in London on March 1 7 that they had resolved to 
 make the Landgrave of Hesse their commander-in- 
 chief. There also came news in the same month 
 of an outbreak in Ireland. Another rumour early 
 in April was that the Dutch had chosen the Queen's 
 husband as commander-in-chief, a story which would 
 certainly, had there been any truth in it or had any 
 one believed it, have had a very adverse effect on 
 the public stocks. 
 
 War was declared against France simultaneously Renewal 
 on May 15 by Great Britain, the United Provinces, War. 
 and the Emperor of Germany, and on May 2oth 
 Marlborough sailed for Holland, and put an end 
 to all doubts by the fact that the Dutch republic 
 forthwith made him their commander-in-chief. Par- 
 liament was prorogued on May 26, and dissolved 
 on July 4. On September n the stock rose to 
 125^, probably in consequence of news coming that 
 the English fleet under Kooke had been doing great 
 things on the Spanish coast, especially at Cadiz, 
 and was on the look-out for the Spanish treasure 
 fleet. In the same month the public was informed 
 of Marlborough's successes in Flanders, and of the 
 number of strong places which he had captured. 
 On October 3 the Bank declared a dividend of ;J 
 per cent. ' out of principal and interest/ but the 
 stock had more than lost the rise of September 1 1 , 
 probably because the public were now informed that
 
 1 56 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [ill. 
 
 1702. the attack on Cadiz had been unsuccessful. On 
 October 20 the new Parliament met, and re-elected 
 Harley. The price of Bank stock remained steady 
 up to the latter end of November, when it rose 
 five per cent. The bullion taken at Vigo 1 was just 
 about this time brought to the Mint, and the news 
 had arrived that the King of Portugal had joined 
 the Grand Alliance. The general satisfaction felt 
 at the position of foreign affairs is reflected in the 
 price of Bank stock for the rest of the year, for it 
 was at I28f on the last quotation in December, 
 a rise of 14^ from the beginning of the year. 
 
 The successes of the allies, small when compared 
 
 Allies. with what they were to be a short time after the 
 conclusion of the period to which I have restricted 
 myself, were mainly due to that which many persons 
 had foreseen in William's days, that the resources of 
 France, great as they were, and the power of Louis, 
 despotic as it was, and thoroughly as it was obeyed, 
 were unequal to the task of defending the enormous 
 and impoverished dominions of the King of Spain. 
 Every one of his generals, Boufflers, Vaudemont, 
 Catinat, Villars, complained of the inadequacy of the 
 forces which were placed at their disposal and at the 
 total absence of assistance from the provinces over 
 which Spain claimed an indisputable sovereignty. 
 By the end of the year Louis was left with no ally 
 but the Elector of Bavaria, for the King of Portugal 
 
 1 The news of the destruction of the fleet at Vigo came to 
 London on October 31, i>jo2. People already began to say, that 
 what the fleet captured, the Queen was giving to Marlborough.
 
 III.] The Second Bank Act. 157 
 
 had deserted him, and the Duke of Savoy had con- 1702. 
 eluded a secret treaty with the Emperor. 
 
 In the new Parliament, which met on October 20 The new 
 
 Parlia- 
 
 and sat till February 27, the Tories had a majority, 
 The City reversed its decision of the previous year, 
 when Clayton, Ashurst, Abney, and Heathcote were 
 returned by great majorities. Only one of these 
 was returned in July 1702. Vernon and Colt dis- 
 appear from Westminster, and are succeeded by 
 Clarges and Cross, the latter of whom had stood in 
 the previous November. Howe recovered his seat 
 for Gloucestershire, though not without a contest 
 and a petition, and Newton no longer represented 
 Cambridge University, though that learned body did 
 not entrust its suffrages to Hammond again. But 
 Parliament did not flinch from the pledges of its 
 predecessor, or hesitate to vote large supplies for the 
 war. 
 
 The chief object of this Parliament seems to have 
 been to pass an Act against Occasional Conformity, to 
 which reference has already been made. The 
 measure was practically rejected by the Lords 1 , and 
 the proceedings in Parliament were rendered more 
 interesting by the energy with which the Lords 
 resented an attempt to carry bills by tacking them 
 on to money bills, and by the wrath of the Commons 
 
 1 The Lords took the novel step of printing this bill, the 
 amendments, the reasons for the amendments, the reasons of the 
 Commons, and the report of the free conference, in order it 
 seems to enlighten the public. This resolution called forth a 
 protest from Nottingham and the extreme Tories, February 24, 
 1703.
 
 158 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [m. 
 
 1702. with the famous work of Defoe, A Short Way with 
 Dissenters, a pamphlet the irony of which the Tories 
 did not at first discern. They fell again on William's 
 old servants, expelled Lord Ranelagh, who had been 
 for many years Paymaster of the Forces, and attempted 
 to revive the prosecution of Halifax by alleging mal- 
 feasance against him in connexion with his office of 
 Auditor of the Exchequer. It was in vain, for the 
 Lords voted that Halifax had satisfied all the require- 
 ments of the statute under which the duties of his 
 office were defined. 
 
 Sank On January i, 1703, Bank stock stood at 129 ; on 
 
 in 1703. September 17 it was at i38f. There were only two 
 occasions on which it suffered a fall. One was in 
 the third week of January, the other in the second 
 week in April. On the former occasion it fell three, 
 on the other three and three-quarters. The origin 
 of the former fall appears to be the news of the ill 
 success of Admiral Benbow's encounter with the 
 French squadron in the West Indies, a result which 
 was ascribed to the cowardice and disobedience of 
 four captains in his fleet. The latter fall seems to 
 be due to the alarm felt at the time about the French 
 privateers from Dunkirk, which were protected there 
 by the French admiral, Ponty. At the same time 
 certain reinforcements were being sent to Holland, 
 about the safe arrival of which London was anxious 1 . 
 The pro- In point of fact, the success of the war, however 
 
 gress of 
 
 trade. great were the military abilities of Marlborough, 
 depended on the success of trade. The two maritime 
 1 Luttrell under dates of April 13 and April 15.
 
 III.] The Second Bank Act. 159 
 
 powers levied the taxes and raised the loans with 1703. 
 which to support their own armies and fleets, and 
 the subsidies by which their allies in Germany, 
 in Italy, and in Portugal were enabled to put their 
 forces on the field. So keenly alive were the Dutch 
 to the absolute necessity of commerce, that it was a 
 tradition of theirs from the days of the War of In- 
 dependence, to trade even with that country which 
 was seeking to subdue them. When Drake attacked 
 Cadiz, though he no doubt inflicted severe injuries 
 on Philip, he ruined many a Dutch merchant who, 
 with the complete approval of the States General, 
 was trading with the public enemy. Hence the 
 Commons, at the beginning of the year, addressed 
 the Queen, praying her not to assist the Dutch with 
 paid English troops till they prohibited all trade and 
 correspondence with France and Spain, by stopping 
 all posts, letters, bills, &c., with those countries 1 . 
 The Dutch agreed to this, though sorely against 
 their will, by prohibiting all traffic for a year. I 
 suspect that they did not very vigorously enforce 
 their prohibition. It is doubtful indeed, if they had 
 been ever so sincere, whether they would have been 
 successful in their efforts, for at the very time when 
 the English executive and Parliament were pressing 
 these conditions on the Dutch, they were prosecuting 
 London merchants for exporting English wool to 
 France, and importing French silks into England. 
 The fact is great progress had been made in trade. 
 
 1 Luttrell, January 5. See on this Davies' History of Holland, 
 iii. 270.
 
 160 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. [III. 
 
 1703. The old East India Company's stock, which ranged 
 Price of from 41 to 59 in 1699, from 58^ to 135! i n * 7> from. 
 Indian 1 19 to 71 in 1701, from 78! to 117! in 1702, had 
 stocks. g 0ne steadily up to 1 34 in September 1 703. The rise in 
 the new Company was as marked. Its lowest price 
 in 1699 was 46f, its highest 109. In the following 
 year, it gradually rose from 126 to 143!, at which 
 it stood on December 20, having been at 153^ 
 in June. In 1701 it was less prosperous. Its lowest 
 price was 100 ; its highest, towards the end of the 
 year, 120. In 1702 it fell to 116^, in July, the 
 lowest price; and was at 161, the highest, at the 
 end of December. In 1703, it started at 159^ in 
 January, and without a single reverse reached 219 
 in September. These figures, of course, are indi- 
 cative of prosperous trade 1 . According to Luttrell, 
 however, stocks were affected this year by the 
 revolution in Constantinople, the news of which 
 came on Sept. 2, to the effect that, owing to French 
 intrigues, the Sultan had been deposed, and his 
 brother substituted, and that all the deposed prince's 
 ministers had been bowstrung. Such news suggested 
 trouble to the German Emperor on the eastern side 
 of his dominions. 
 The War It only remains that I should deal with the 
 
 i/fi 1 70 ^ . 
 
 actual facts of the war in 1703. The Emperor 
 Leopold had contrived to detach from Louis his 
 
 1 The figures in the above statement are taken from Houghton, 
 who gives a weekly price of the stocks in both companies, of the 
 old from the beginning of his series (1691), of the new from 
 January 1699.
 
 ill.] The Second Bank Act. 161 
 
 only two allies, and this by offering to each part of 1703. 
 that indivisible inheritance which Louis, to satisfy 
 Spanish pride and even to maintain his grandson 
 on the Throne, was bound to guarantee and protect. 
 He had won over Victor Amadeo of Savoy, by a 
 promise of Montferrat and certain parts of the 
 Milanais. He had conciliated Pedro of Portugal, 
 who was a good deal alarmed at the naval demon- 
 strations of the English and Dutch fleets off the 
 Spanish coasts, by the promise of parts of Es- 
 tremadura and Galicia, and of the province of Bio 
 de la Plata in South America. It was fairly well 
 known that the finances of France were already in 
 an almost desperate condition, and that expedients 
 for raising fresh revenue were nearly exhausted. 
 It was known that the French King had nothing to 
 expect from Spain, and that he would have to find 
 the means even for maintaining his grandson's 
 domestic expenditure in the country of his adoption. 
 Still Louis showed no signs of flinching. He directed 
 Vend6me to carry on the campaign in Italy, he 
 sketched out a plan of operations in Lower Germany 
 for Villars and Tallard, and committed the troops 
 in the Spanish Netherlands to Villeroi and Boufflers. 
 But at the time at which my record closes these 
 armies had done nothing, and though at the latter 
 end of the year Villars defeated the Imperialist 
 generals at Hockstett, and Tallard had routed the 
 forces of the Prince of Hesse at Spire, this news had 
 not reached England. Meanwhile Marlborough had 
 captured Bonn, and other places in Flanders. 
 
 M
 
 1 62 First Nine Years of the Bank of England, [in. 
 
 1703. By this time, however, the Bank of England had 
 - become the financial agent of the British Govern- 
 ment, and public credit was firmly established. 
 During its long history it has occasionally been 
 imperilled by panic, as in 1708, 1711, 1714, and 
 1745. Once it nearly fell into the trap of that 
 gigantic speculation, known as the South Sea 
 scheme, and wag only wise in time. Once it was con- 
 strained by the incessant drains which Pitt made on it 
 to submit to a suspension of cash payments, though for 
 several years after that step was taken, its notes, 
 owing to the prudence with which the Bank restrained 
 its issues, through inconvertible paper, were at par. 
 The change At last, 150 years after the time in which it was 
 instituted, Peel, under the advice of some men, eminent 
 for their financial reputation, and against the 
 opinion of others who were quite as eminent, turned 
 the Bank of England from what it was originally, 
 a bank of issue, the amount of whose notes was left 
 to the sagacity and experience of the Directors, into 
 a bank of deposit, whose issues were henceforward 
 to be regulated automatically. On this change, as 
 is well known, the discussion and criticism is well 
 nigh a library in itself. But I will not even enter on 
 the tempting question as to whether the Legislature 
 was justified in extinguishing the goodwill of the 
 Bank, by which I mean the reputation which it had 
 accumulated by unstained probity, unwearied dili- 
 gence, unvaried public spirit, and traditional acute- 
 ness during a century and a-half. This reputation 
 of the Bank in 1 844 was as much its property as its
 
 III.] The Second Bank Act. 163 
 
 rest and its profits were. Now the Bank Act took 1703. 
 away from the Directors the power of circulating the 
 Bank's credit. Nor do I attempt to discuss here the 
 far larger question, whether the Act of 1844 was 
 wise. After all, the policy of the Bank had been 
 the policy of the nation, for the Bank management 
 was one of those forces in Commerce which act on 
 that which it was intended from the beginning to 
 work with in a real partnership and from which it 
 gained, by long experience of mutual benefit, a 
 healthy reaction. This partnership was tested by re- 
 ciprocal advantages, and was justified by marvellous, 
 by unprecedented progress. It is something to have so 
 exceptional a history of successful harmony between 
 competing interests, and to recognise what honest 
 Michael Godfrey said, that 'in this business one 
 cannot do good to oneself, without doing good to 
 others.' I will assume that the Act of 1844 was 
 just and wise, or allow that the change was then, 
 perhaps, inevitable and imperative. Least of all 
 can I discuss, whether, after an interval of forty- 
 three years, the old situation could be renewed. It 
 is possible to destroy, by an instantaneous act, that 
 which cannot be restored. A change in commerce, 
 like a change in society and in politics, may be 
 irrevocable. 
 
 But two things have clearly ensued from the 
 change. One, and the most obvious, is that the 
 constitution of the Bank of England was funda- 
 mentally altered by the Act of 1844. The other 
 is (whether the change was necessary or whether 
 
 M 2
 
 164 First Nine Years of the Bank of England. 
 
 1703. it was unwise), that the well- won and deserved place 
 of the Bank of England in the financial counsels 
 of Europe is totally changed from what it was, 
 when its fiats on the rate of discount were watched 
 for with impatient interest, in all the monetary 
 centres of the world, as eagerly indeed as the 
 watchers in Argos looked out for the beacon fires 
 of the Egean.
 
 TABLE II. 
 
 BATES OP EXCHANGE ON AMSTERDAM. 
 PAB OF EXCHANGE, 37^7-. 
 
 Those entries only are given in which a change occurs ; e.g. from 
 February i, 1695, to March i, the rate is 32-6. 
 
 1695. 
 
 
 Oct. 4 
 
 . 20 
 
 Jan. 1 8 
 
 
 Oct. u 
 
 . 28-4. 
 
 Feb. i 
 
 . 32'6 
 
 Oct. 2< 
 
 28 
 
 Mar. i 
 
 . 32-4. 
 
 Nov. i 
 
 . 2'7'8 
 
 Mar. i 
 
 . 3I-IO 
 
 Nov. 8 
 
 . 2*7-6 
 
 Mar. 22 
 
 . 3I-I 
 
 Nov. 15 
 
 . 27-fJ 
 
 Apr. 
 
 . 31-3 
 
 Nov. 22 
 
 . 27-8 
 
 Apr. 1 2 
 
 . 31-2 
 
 Nov. 29 
 
 . 28-4. 
 
 Apr. i Q 
 
 . 31-4. 
 
 Dec. 6 
 
 . 28-3 
 
 Apr. 2 6 
 
 . 31-2 
 
 Dec. 13 
 
 . 20 
 
 May 2 
 
 . 31-6 
 
 Dec. 20 
 
 
 May 17 
 May 24 
 
 TVf Q V O T 
 
 3 I>2 -3 
 3010 
 
 QO 
 
 1696. 
 Jan. 3 
 
 
 June 7 
 
 o" 
 
 2O-I 
 
 Jan. 10 
 
 . 3O 
 
 June 14 
 June 21 
 June 28 
 
 *y * 
 29-4 
 29-2-3 
 . 20-2 
 
 Jan. 24 
 Feb. 7 
 Feb. 14 
 
 31 
 30 
 
 . 20-6 
 
 Tnlv d. 
 
 200 
 
 Feb. 21 
 
 29-10 
 
 July 1 2 
 
 ^y D 
 
 29-2 
 
 Feb. 28 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 Mar. 20 
 
 . 2O-3 
 
 July 26 
 
 ^y 
 
 28-* 
 
 Mar. 27 
 
 . 2Q-8 
 
 AllCf 2 
 
 2'7-(i 
 
 Aur. 3 
 
 . 3O-IO 
 
 Aug. 9 
 Auff 1 6 
 
 ^ / u 
 27-2 
 
 . 2 1 ? 
 
 Apr. 10 
 Apr. 21? 
 
 29-8 
 . 3O-3 
 
 Auff 23 
 
 . 2*7-4. 
 
 May 2 
 
 . 30- 1 
 
 ""& *o 
 Sept. 6 
 Sept. 13 
 Sent. 20 
 
 28-1 
 28-3 
 . 28-7 
 
 May 15 
 June 12 
 June IQ 
 
 3'6 
 3'4 
 
 . 30-2
 
 1 66 Rates of Exchange on Amsterdam. 
 
 Julv q 
 
 
 qo 
 
 July 1 6 
 
 q<v2 
 
 July 1 7 
 
 
 
 July 2q 
 
 
 July 24 
 
 
 2Q-2 
 
 Aug. 6 
 
 ql 
 
 July 31 
 
 
 
 Aug. 27 
 
 Q 
 
 Auer. V 
 
 
 
 Sept. q 
 
 O.PT.Q 
 
 Aug. 21 
 
 
 28-10 
 
 Sept. 17 
 
 
 Sept. ii 
 
 
 
 Sept. 24 
 
 OFj.'T 
 
 Oct. 2 
 
 
 36-5 
 
 Oct. i 
 
 q-6 
 
 Oct. 9 
 
 
 q6-8 
 
 Oct. 8 
 
 
 Oct. 2 3 
 
 
 qi-8 
 
 Oct. 1 5 
 
 
 Oct. 30 
 
 
 qi'6 
 
 Oct. 22 
 
 3 
 
 Nov. 6 
 
 
 37-4 
 
 Nov. 5 
 
 qe-.S 
 
 Nov. 13 
 
 
 
 Nov. 12 
 
 OO 
 Q e;.n 
 
 Nov. 20 
 
 
 37*0 
 
 Nov. 19 
 
 oo y 
 
 o TO 
 
 Nov. 27 
 
 
 q7-7 
 
 Dec. 3 
 
 
 Dec. 4 
 
 
 37-8 
 
 Dec. 10 
 
 oo y 
 
 
 MONEY. 
 
 BANK. 
 
 Dec. 24 
 
 qcT.TG 
 
 Dec. 25 
 
 - - 37-8 
 
 
 Dec. qi 
 
 
 1697. 
 Jan. i 
 Jan. 8 
 
 - 37-8 
 37-2 
 
 31-2 
 
 1698. 
 
 Jan. 5 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 o u 4 
 
 Mar. 1 8 
 
 
 Feb 5 
 
 3 * 
 
 29-8 
 
 Apr. 8 
 
 
 Feb 19 
 
 ofi-2 
 
 20- 1 
 
 Apr. 20 
 
 
 Feb 26 
 
 
 
 May 6 
 
 3<v6 
 
 Mar. 5 
 Mar. 12 
 Mar. 19 
 Apr. 2 
 Anr. o 
 
 .. .. 3^'5 
 .. .. 36-8 
 .. .. 36-6 
 .. .. 36-5 
 
 29-2 
 29-1 
 2 9 
 29-2 
 28-6 
 
 May 13 
 May 20 
 May 27 
 June 3 
 June 10 
 
 35-4 
 35-3 
 35-5 
 35-7 
 
 Apr. 1 6 
 
 6 
 
 2Q 
 
 June 17 
 
 . 
 
 Apr. 2 q 
 
 6 
 
 20-q 
 
 June 24 
 
 
 May 14 
 May 28 
 
 - 3 6 '3 
 
 29-2 
 
 July 15 
 
 July 2 2 
 
 35-3 
 
 June 4 
 June ii 
 June 25 
 
 - 35-8 
 35-7 
 
 30 
 29-11 
 
 q i-i 
 
 July 29 
 Aug. 19 
 Sept. 1 6 
 
 35-4 
 35-3 
 
 July 2 
 July 9 
 
 .. .. 35-10 
 35-7 
 
 30 
 30 
 
 Sept. 23 
 Oct. 7 
 
 35-7 
 35-4
 
 Rates of Exchange on Amsterdam. 167 
 
 Nov 1 8 
 
 iz-z 
 
 Oct. 4 
 Oct. ii 
 Oct. 1 8 
 Oct. 25 
 Dec. 13 
 
 1701. 
 
 Jan. 24 
 Feb. 14 
 Feb. 21 
 Mar. 7 
 Mar; 14 
 Mar. 21 
 Mar. 28 
 Apr. ii 
 Apr. 1 8 
 Apr. 25 
 May 2 
 May 9 
 May 1 6 
 June 13 
 July 4 
 July ii 
 July 1 8 
 July 25 
 Aug. i 
 Aug. 8 
 Aug. 22 
 Aug. 29 
 Sept. 5 
 Sept. 12 
 Sept. 19 
 Sept. 26 
 Oct. 3 
 Oct. 10 
 Oct. 17 
 Oct. 24 
 Dec. 12 
 Dec. 19 
 
 . 3<>-7 
 
 Nov 2^ 
 
 ix-6 
 
 35-8 
 
 Dec. 9 
 
 . 3<V ( 1 
 
 35-7 
 35-6 
 . 35-8 
 
 1699. 
 
 35.5 
 
 OE'.'T 
 
 
 . 3 "5-3 
 
 Jan. 27 .. 
 
 SS- 2 
 
 Feb. 10 .. 
 
 35-3 
 
 35 7 
 
 ofi-fi 
 
 Feb. 17 .. 
 
 35-4 
 
 
 Feb. 24 .. 
 
 35-5 
 
 
 Mar. 2 .. 
 
 35-4 
 
 37 z 
 
 Qfi.fi 
 
 Mar. 30 .. 
 
 35-3 
 
 
 May 19 .. 
 
 35-2 
 
 olT 
 
 May 26 .. 
 June 9 . . 
 June 30 .. 
 July 14 .. 
 July 21 .. 
 Auer 1 1 
 
 35-3 
 35-2 
 35-i 
 35-3 
 35-6 
 35-5 
 
 . 37-6 
 
 . ^6'2 
 
 TJ-IO 
 
 35-n 
 3 6 ' 1 
 36-3-4 
 
 ofi A 
 
 Aug. 2j .. 
 
 35-6 
 
 Oct 20 
 
 . 3 r v ( > 
 
 3 6 ' 2 
 36-2-1 
 36-4-3 
 36-4-5 
 . 9,6-t; 
 
 Dec i 
 
 . 3<y6 
 
 Dec. 15 .. 
 Dec 29 
 
 35-8 
 35-9 
 
 1700. 
 
 ToTl tf 
 
 3<v8 
 
 . 36-6 
 
 36-5 
 
 
 ^7 
 
 36-5-4 
 
 "F A V| n 
 
 <*<? 
 
 36-6 
 
 
 q-7 
 
 36-11-37 
 
 ~\Tor T tf 
 
 3<v8 
 
 36-10 
 
 May 3 .. 
 
 35-7 
 
 qe 8 
 
 36-8-7 
 
 36-6 
 
 June 7 
 
 35.7 
 
 36-6-7 
 . 16-7 
 
 June 21 .. 
 July 19 .. 
 Sept, 5 .. 
 Sept. 30 .. 
 
 35-6 
 35-7 
 
 36-7-6 
 36-7-8 
 36-7 
 
 35-6 
 35-5
 
 1 68 Rates of Exchange on Amsterdam. 
 
 1702. 
 
 
 Nov. 21 
 
 . 34*0 
 
 Jan. i 6 
 
 . 36-6 
 
 Dec. 4. 
 
 34'IO 
 
 Jan. 23 
 
 36-5 
 
 Dec. 18 
 
 . Q4.-IO O 
 
 Jan. 30 
 
 .. . . 36-2 
 
 Dec. 25 
 
 34-Q 8 
 
 Feb. 6 
 Feb. i 3 
 
 36 
 
 . 3^-11 
 
 1703. 
 
 
 Mar. 5 
 
 . 3^'IC) 
 
 Jan. i .... 
 
 34-Q 
 
 Mar. 13 
 
 . 3^-0 
 
 Jan. 15 
 
 . 34-^ 
 
 Mar. 20 
 
 . 3<v8 
 
 Jan. 22 
 
 
 Mar. 27 
 
 . 3^.7 
 
 Jan. 29 
 
 
 Apr. 3 
 
 . 3<v7-8 
 
 Feb. 5 , 
 
 . 34-^ 
 
 Apr. 10 
 
 . 3<v8 
 
 Feb. 12 
 
 . 34-^6 
 
 Apr. 1 7 
 
 . 3'IO II 
 
 Feb. 19 
 
 . 34-7 
 
 May i 
 
 . 3<vIO 
 
 Feb. 26 
 
 . 34-6 
 
 May 8 
 
 . qe.8 
 
 Mar. , 
 
 04-6 
 
 May K 
 
 . 3 -8 Q 
 
 Mar. 12 
 
 . 34- 
 
 May 20 
 
 . 3<v8 
 
 Mar. 19 
 
 
 June 
 
 . 3^-7 
 
 Mar. 26 
 
 . 34-1 
 
 June 19 
 
 . 3 ( v c > 
 
 Apr. 9 . 
 
 
 Auer. 7 
 
 . 3<vl 2 
 
 Apr. 23 , 
 
 
 Aug. 1 4 
 
 . 3*v2 
 
 Apr. 30 . 
 
 . 34-4 
 
 Sept. it 
 
 . 3^'I2 
 
 May 24 , 
 
 . 34-'* 
 
 Sept. 1 8 
 
 . ^fJ-2 3 
 
 June ii 
 
 . 34-34 
 
 Sept. 2% 
 
 . ^^-^ 
 
 June 25 
 
 
 Oct. 2 
 
 . ^^-^4. 
 
 July 2 . 
 
 
 Oct. 9 
 
 . 3^-1 1 
 
 July o . 
 
 . 34-25 
 
 Oct. 1 6 
 
 . qtf 
 
 July 16 
 
 
 Oct. 31 
 
 . 3<vII 
 
 July 23 . 
 
 . 34-32 
 
 Nov. 6 
 
 . ^4-IO 
 
 July 30 . 
 
 . 34-2
 
 TABLE III. 
 
 DISCOUNT OB PREMIUM ON BILLS OF EXCHANGE, 
 LONDON AND AMSTERDAM. 
 
 From 'A General Treatise on the Reduction of the Exchanges, 
 Moneys, and Real Species of most places in Europe.' ALEXANDEK 
 JUSTICE. 1707. 
 
 The use of this table is as follows. On July 3, 1696, the rate 
 of exchange between London and Amsterdam was 30, i.e. it took 
 (see under 30 below) 123 IQS. in London to honour a draft on 
 Amsterdam from London forioo. On April n, 1701, the rate 
 was 37-6; in this case a draft on Amsterdam from London could 
 be met by 98 165. 
 
 28. 
 
 ..3 2 -3 
 
 31.11 
 
 .. .. 16 
 
 34 
 
 8-9 
 
 36.1 
 
 .. .. 2-7 
 
 29. 
 
 .. ..27-7 
 
 32. 
 
 .. -I5-7 
 
 34.1 .. .. 
 
 8-6 
 
 36.2 
 
 .. .. 2-4 
 
 30. 
 
 .. ..23-5 
 
 32.1 
 
 .. ..15-4 
 
 34.2 .. .. 
 
 8-4 
 
 36.3 
 
 .. .. 2-2 
 
 30.1 
 
 .. ..23-2 
 
 32.2 
 
 .. ..15-1 
 
 34-3 
 
 8-i 
 
 36-4 
 
 .. .. 2 
 
 30.2 
 
 .. ..22-8 
 
 3 2 -3 
 
 .. .. 14-8 
 
 34-4 
 
 7-9 
 
 36.5 
 
 .. .. 1-7 
 
 30-3 
 
 .. ..22-5 
 
 3 2 -4 
 
 .. ..14-5 
 
 34-5 
 
 7-6 
 
 36.6 
 
 .. .. i-5 
 
 30-4 
 
 .. .. 22-2 
 
 32.5 
 
 .. .. 14-2 
 
 34.6 .. .. 
 
 7-3 
 
 36.7 
 
 .. .. i-3 
 
 30-5 
 
 .. ..21-8 
 
 32.6 
 
 .. -I3-9 
 
 34-7 
 
 7 
 
 36.8 
 
 .. .. i 
 
 30.6 
 
 .. ..21-5 
 
 3 2 -7 
 
 .. ..13-7 
 
 34.8 .. .. 
 
 6-9 
 
 36-9 
 
 .. .. -8 
 
 30-7 
 
 .. .. 21-2 
 
 32.8 
 
 .. ..13-4 
 
 34-9 
 
 6-6 
 
 36.10 
 
 .. .. -6 
 
 30.8 
 
 .. .. 20-8 
 
 32-9 
 
 .. ..13-1 
 
 34.10 .. .. 
 
 6-3 
 
 36.11 
 
 .. .. -3 
 
 3-9 
 
 .. ..20-5 
 
 32.10 
 
 .. ..12-8 
 
 34.11 .. .. 
 
 6-1 
 
 37- 
 
 .. .. ! 
 
 30.10 
 
 .. .. 2O-2 
 
 32.11 
 
 .. ..12-5 
 
 35 
 
 5-8 
 
 37*V 
 
 .. .. Par 
 
 30.11 
 
 .. ..19-8 
 
 33- 
 
 .. .. 12-2 
 
 35-1 
 
 5-6 
 
 37-i 
 
 .. .. 'i 
 
 31- 
 
 ..IP'S 
 
 33- 1 
 
 ,. .. II-9 
 
 35-2 .. .. 
 
 5-3 
 
 37-2 
 
 .. .. -3 
 
 3i-i 
 
 .. .. I9-2 
 
 33-2 
 
 .. .. n-6 
 
 35-3 
 
 5-i 
 
 37-3 
 
 .. .. -6 
 
 31.2 
 
 .. .. 18-9 
 
 33-3 
 
 .. .. u-4 
 
 35-4 
 
 4-8 
 
 37-4 
 
 .. .. -8 
 
 3i-3 
 
 .. ..18-6 
 
 33-4 
 
 .. .. i i-r 
 
 35-5 - 
 
 4-6 
 
 37-5 
 
 .. .. i 
 
 31-4 
 
 .. .. 18-2 
 
 33-5 
 
 .. .. 10-8 
 
 35-6 .. .. 
 
 4-3 
 
 37-6 
 
 .. .. 1-2 
 
 3i-5 
 
 .. ..17-9 
 
 33-6 
 
 .. .. 10-5 
 
 35-7 - 
 
 4-1 
 
 37-7 
 
 .. .. i-5 
 
 31.6 
 
 ....17.6 
 
 33-7 
 
 .. .. 10-3 
 
 35-8 .. .. 
 
 3'9 
 
 37-8 
 
 .. .. 1-7 
 
 3i-7 
 
 .. ..17-3 
 
 33-8 
 
 .. .. 10 
 
 35-9 
 
 3.6 
 
 37-9 
 
 .. .. x-9 
 
 31-8 
 
 .. ..17 
 
 33-9 
 
 .. .. 9-7 
 
 35.10 .. .. 
 
 3'4 
 
 37.10 
 
 .. .. 2-1 
 
 3i-9 
 
 .. .. 16-7 
 
 33-i 
 
 .. .. 9-4 
 
 35-n .. .. 
 
 3' 1 
 
 37." 
 
 .. .. 2-4 
 
 31.10 
 
 .. ..16-3 
 
 33-" 
 
 .. .. 9-2 
 
 36 
 
 2-9 
 
 38. 
 
 .. .. 2-6
 
 TABLE IV. 
 DISCOUNT OP BANK BILLS. 
 
 From Houghton. 
 
 1696. 
 
 Dec. 16. 
 
 1697. 
 
 Jan. i . 
 
 Jan. 8 . 
 Jan. 15 . 
 Jan. 22 . 
 Jan. 29 . 
 Feb. 5 . 
 Feb. 12. 
 Feb. 19 . 
 Feb. 26 . 
 Mar. 5 . 
 JiLar. 1 2 , 
 Mar. 19 . 
 Mar. 26 . 
 Apr. 2 . 
 Apr. 9 . 
 Apr. 1 6 . 
 Apr. 23. 
 Apr. 30 . 
 May 7 . 
 May 14 . 
 May 21 . 
 May 28 , 
 June 4 , 
 June ii 
 June i 8 
 
 17 
 
 16^ 
 
 16 
 
 16 
 
 21 
 21 
 
 22 
 
 21 
 21 
 
 19 
 21 
 21 
 21 
 21 
 21 
 21 
 21 
 
 June 25 
 
 
 
 July 2 
 
 i5 
 
 July 9 
 
 Ml" 1 
 
 July 16 
 
 !3 
 
 July 23 
 
 ii 
 
 July 30 
 
 10/9! 
 
 Auer. 6 .. 
 
 7/ 
 
 Ausf. 13 .. 
 
 7/. 
 
 Aug. 20 
 
 I / 
 
 7A 
 
 Au2T. 2*7 .. 
 
 / / 
 
 Sept. q .. 
 
 i 
 
 Sept. 10 
 
 4 
 
 Sept. 17 
 
 o 
 
 Sept. 24 
 
 I 
 
 Oct. i 
 
 I 
 
 Oct. 8 
 
 I 
 
 Oct. 15 
 
 I 
 
 Oct. 22 
 
 I 
 
 Oct. 29 
 
 I 
 
 Nov. p; .. 
 
 I 
 
 Nov. 12 
 
 I 
 
 Nov. 19 
 
 I 
 
 Nov 26 
 
 I 
 
 Dec. 3 
 
 I 
 
 Dec. 10 
 
 I 
 
 Dec. 17 
 
 I 
 
 Dec. 24 
 
 I 
 
 Ceases 
 

 
 TABLE V. 
 
 CHANGES IN THE VALUE OP GOLD, SILVER, 
 AND GUINEAS. 
 
 
 Gold. 
 
 SUv. 
 
 Gs. 
 
 
 Gold. 
 
 Silv. 
 
 Gs. 
 
 1693. 
 
 oz. 
 
 oz. 
 
 
 
 oz. 
 
 oz. 
 
 
 Dec. 22 .. 
 
 .. 8i/ 
 
 5/3 
 
 2I/IO 
 
 Feb. 22 .. 
 
 .. 
 
 
 25/ 
 
 
 
 
 
 Mar. 8.. 
 
 .. 88/ 
 
 5/6 
 
 
 1694. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Mar. 15 .. 
 
 9O/ 
 
 
 
 Jan. 5 .. 
 
 .. 
 
 5/3* 
 
 21/11 
 
 Mar. 29 .. 
 
 .. 9i/ 
 
 5/8 
 
 
 Jan. 12 .. 
 
 .. 8o/ 
 
 5/2* 
 
 22/IO 
 
 Apr. 12 .. 
 
 92/ 
 
 5/7 
 
 
 Jan. 19 .. 
 
 .. 80/6 
 
 5/3 
 
 2I/IO 
 
 May 10 .. 
 
 - 95/ 
 
 5/6 
 
 26/6 
 
 Jan. 26 .. 
 
 .. 80/10 
 
 6/2 
 
 
 May 17 .. 
 
 
 5/3 
 
 28/4 
 
 Feb. 2 .. 
 
 .. 80/6 
 
 5/3 
 
 
 May 24 .. 
 
 I0 3/ 
 
 4/2 
 
 
 Feb. 23 .. 
 
 : 
 
 
 21/11 
 
 / 
 
 June 7 .. 
 
 .. io6/ 
 
 5/6 
 
 29/8 
 
 Mar. 2 .. 
 
 
 
 
 22 / 
 
 June 14 .. 
 
 .. I09/ 
 
 5/9 
 
 
 Mar. 23 .. 
 
 
 
 5/ 2 * 
 
 
 June 21 .. 
 
 .. io7/ 
 
 5/10 
 
 29/6 
 
 Mar. 30 .. 
 
 .. Si/ 
 
 5/3 
 
 
 June 28 .. 
 
 
 
 29/7 
 
 July 20 .. 
 
 " 
 
 6/2 
 
 
 July 5- 
 
 .. 107/6 
 
 
 29/9 
 
 July 27 .. 
 
 - 
 
 5/2* 
 
 
 July 12 .. 
 
 .. 108/6 
 
 6/ 
 
 29/10 
 
 Aug. 3.. 
 Aug. 31 .. 
 Sept. 14 .. 
 Sept. 28 .. 
 Oct. 5 .. 
 Nov. 23 .. 
 Dec. 7 .. 
 
 .. Si/6 
 .. Si/ 
 
 .. 81/6 
 
 5/3 
 5/4 
 5/4* 
 5/4 
 5/4* 
 5/5 
 5/4 
 
 22/3 
 
 July 19 .. 
 Aug. 2 .. 
 Aug. 30 .. 
 Sept. 13 .. 
 Sept. 20 .. 
 Sept. 27 .. 
 Oct. ii .. 
 
 .. io8/ 
 .. 1 06/6 
 
 6/1 
 
 6/2 
 
 6/4 
 6/5 
 
 6/2 
 
 29/9 
 29/8 
 
 29/6 
 
 Dec. 21 .. 
 
 
 
 
 22/6 
 
 Oct. 18.. 
 
 .. 
 
 
 29/4 
 
 1695. 
 
 
 
 
 Oct. 25.. 
 
 .. 
 
 
 29/3 
 
 Jan. ii .. 
 
 .. 82/6 
 
 5/4 
 
 22/9 
 
 Nov. 8.. 
 
 .. 
 
 6/3 
 
 29/4 
 
 Jan. 1 8 .. 
 
 .. 8 3 / 
 
 5/4* 
 
 22/10 
 
 Nov. 15 .. 
 
 .. 
 
 
 29/5 
 
 Jan. 25 .. 
 
 
 5/5 
 
 23/ 
 
 NOV. 22 .. 
 
 .. io8/ 
 
 6/4 
 
 29/7 
 
 Feb. i .. 
 
 .. 
 
 
 23/4 
 
 Nov. 29 .. 
 
 .. 
 
 6/5 
 
 29/9 
 
 Feb. 15.. 
 
 .. 86/ 
 
 
 
 Dec. 13 .. 
 
 
 
 
 29/6
 
 172 
 
 Changes in the Value of Gold, etc. 
 
 Gold. Silv. Gs. 
 
 Gold. 
 
 Foreign 
 
 1696. oz. oz. 
 
 1698. 
 
 oz. 
 
 silver oz. 
 
 Jan. 10 .. .. 5/1 1 
 
 Aug. 26 .. .. 
 
 81/2 
 
 5/3 
 
 Apr. 17 .. .. 22/ 
 
 Sept. 2 .. .. 
 
 
 5/2 
 
 July 10.. .. 82/ 5/2 
 
 Sept. 9 .. .. 
 
 81/4 
 
 
 
 Sept. 23 .. .. 
 
 8i/ 
 
 5/3 
 
 1697. 
 
 Sept. 30 .... 
 
 81/2 
 
 5/2 
 
 Jan. 29 .. .. 8o/ 5/ 22/ 
 
 Oct. 21 .. .. 
 
 81/4 
 
 
 
 Nov. 25 .. .. 
 
 8 1/6 
 
 
 
 1699. 
 
 
 
 
 Feb. 24 .. .. 
 
 ' uncertain.' 
 
 
 Mar. 2 .. .. 
 
 79/8 
 
 
 
 Mar. 16 .. .. 
 
 79/6 
 
 
 There are no quotations of either of the three for nearly the first quarter of 1696.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Abney, Sir Thomas, one of the first 
 
 directors, 3. 
 elected Lord Mayor, 95. 
 
 Acts of Parliament, 5 "William 
 
 and Mary, cap. 20, i. 
 12 "Will. Ill, cap. 12, 6. 
 
 Addresses, to dissolve Parliament 
 in 1701, 139. 
 
 Advertisements, Chamberlain's, 
 53 sqq. 
 
 Aldermen, London, contingent 
 gains of, 97. 
 
 Ambassador, the Spanish, his con- 
 duct and William's action, 
 
 97- 
 
 Amsterdam, factions in, 149. 
 Bank of, origin of, 7 ; its 
 loan to Bank of England, 
 29. 
 exchange of English bills at, 
 
 38. 
 
 exchange with London ex- 
 plained, 37. 
 loan from, in 1696, 65. 
 
 Anjou, Duke of (Philip V), made 
 King of Spain, 102. 
 
 Antwerp, projected branch of 
 Bank of England at, 27. 
 
 Archbishop, an English, said for- 
 merly to have been a buc- 
 caneer, 148. 
 
 Armies, could be maintained by 
 England and Holland alone 
 against Louis, 122. 
 
 Army, French, its reputation, 
 147. 
 
 Assessments, to property or in- 
 come taxes, 107. 
 
 B. 
 
 Bank, a national, how its funds 
 
 should be protected, 74. 
 Bank Act of 1844, its character, 
 162. 
 
 the second, 89. 
 
 Bank Bills, discount of, in 1696-7, 
 87. 
 
 first printing of, 25. 
 
 forgery of, made felony, 90. 
 
 interest on, in 1694, 22. 
 Bank of England, business of, 
 described by Godfrey, 20. 
 
 bye-laws of, 4. 
 
 constitution of, changed in 
 1844, 163. 
 
 criticism on, by an unfriendly 
 writer, 69. 
 
 deceived by promises of Govern- 
 ment, 65. 
 
 early enemies of, 9. 
 
 enemies of, 24. 
 
 essentially aWhiginstitution, 19. 
 
 excluded from the scheme of 
 the Land Bank, 58 ; from 
 "Ways and Means scheme in 
 1696, 52. 
 
 first Act creating it, I. 
 
 first payments of, to Govern- 
 ment, 3. 
 
 friendly criticism on, in 1697,73. 
 
 Governor and Directors of, 
 summoned to House of 
 Commons, 81 ; their balance 
 sheet, 82. 
 
 how the first Act was carried 
 in the Lords, 12. 
 
 its action in June, 1696, 64; 
 in May, 1696, 63.
 
 174 
 
 Index. 
 
 Bank of England (continued}. 
 its career for a century and a 
 
 half, 162. 
 its early way of doing business, 
 
 17- 
 
 its expedients in 1701, 134-5- 
 
 its good fortune and its repu- 
 tation, 137. 
 
 its interest in getting the ex- 
 changes favourable. 39. 
 
 its position in 1702 assured, 
 
 153; 
 
 its resistance to the schemes of 
 the House of Commons in 
 1696-7, 85. 
 
 its sacrifices on behalf of the 
 Government stated, 79. 
 
 its stock affected by foreign 
 occurrences, 131. 
 
 loan to, by Bank of Amster- 
 dam, 29. 
 
 privileges necessary for, in 
 1696-7, 75- 
 
 purchased little bullion at first, 
 
 34- 
 
 purposes of the founders of, 22. 
 
 rapid solvency of, if Govern- 
 ment tallies were paid, 83. 
 
 sufferer by the Land Bank, 62. 
 ' Bank of England, A Short Ac- 
 count of the,' published in 
 1695, 19. 
 
 Bank Stock, price for first eleven 
 weeks, 25 ; in 1699, charac- 
 ter of price of, 93 ; in 1703, 
 158; in 1701, 132; in 1702, 
 
 154. 
 proposal to increase greatly, 
 
 deprecated, 78. 
 rates of, in the early part of 
 
 1700, 98. 
 rise of, in December, 1695, and 
 
 January, 1696, 30 ; in 1698 
 
 (May 6), explained, 92. 
 Banker, private, character of his 
 
 issues, 73. 
 Bankers, private, views of, on the 
 
 Bank of England, 10. 
 
 Banking, English, character of, 
 6. 
 
 Banks, continental, principal, 7. 
 
 Barnardiston, Sir S., his Stock- 
 jobbers' Act, 132. 
 
 Barneveldt, judicial murder of, 
 149. 
 
 Base money, of Henry and Ed- 
 ward, still in circulation, 31. 
 
 Benbow, Admiral, his failure, 
 158- 
 
 Bill, goldsmith's, origin of, 6. 
 
 Bills, Exchequer, form of, 67. 
 
 Bliss, Captain, elected for Maid- 
 stone, his political bias, 142. 
 
 Bolles, Sir John, chairman of 
 committee on Bank of Eng- 
 land, 82. 
 
 Borrowers, the Bank a benefit to, 
 24. 
 
 Boufflers, with Villeroi in the 
 Netherlands, 161. 
 
 Brest, expedition against, 13. 
 
 Bribes, French, few persons pro- 
 bably took them, 151. 
 
 Briscoe, John, an associate of 
 
 Chamberlain, 50. 
 on the moneyed men, 17. 
 
 Britannia, on the Bank seal, 3. 
 
 Buccaneering, long a profession, 
 148. 
 
 Bullion, 'sworn off,' 33 note. 
 
 C. 
 
 Cambridge, University of, returns 
 
 Newton, 130. 
 Carmarthen (Duke of Leeds), his 
 
 action on the Bank Act, 
 
 12. 
 
 Cash, amount of, in Bank of Eng- 
 land, December 10, 1696, 83. 
 Cash payments, resumption of, 
 
 proposal to degrade currency 
 
 at the, 47. 
 Chamberlain, his project and 
 
 antecedents, 50. 
 note of, in 1699, 56-
 
 Index. 
 
 175 
 
 Charles I and the deposits in the 
 
 Mint, 5. 
 Charles of Austria, expected to 
 
 succeed the King of Spain, 
 
 101. 
 Charter of Bank of England, its 
 
 first duration, 3. 
 its defence, 137. 
 Churchills, the, their influence 
 
 over Anne, 140. 
 Circulation, paper, ignorance of 
 
 what its extent might be, 
 
 72. 
 
 City, magnates of, lived in Lon- 
 don, 15. 
 
 City of London, bribery by, 28. 
 election of, in January, 1701, 
 
 particulars of, 133 note. 
 Civic honours, desired in London, 
 
 96. 
 Clement XI, his election as pope, 
 
 103. 
 Clippers and coiners, hangings of, 
 
 !3- 
 
 Clipping, prevalence of crime of, 
 
 3i- 
 
 Clipping and Coining Act (6 & 7 
 
 Will. Ill, cap. 1 7), provisions 
 
 of, 32. 
 
 Clipping of coin and the gold- 
 smiths, 21. 
 Coin, state of, and its relation to 
 
 goldsmiths, 21. 
 
 Coins, foreign, circulation of, 30. 
 Colbert, his success with French 
 
 manufactures, 146. 
 Colepepper, Thomas, treatment of, 
 
 by the House of Commons, 
 
 141. 
 Colepeppers, the, comments on, 
 
 by Seymour, 125. 
 Companies, joint stock, numerous 
 
 in 1694, 5. 
 Competition, in banking, effects 
 
 of, in early times, 76. 
 Constantinople, revolution at, 
 
 1 60. 
 Continental banks, character of, 8. 
 
 Conzales, Marquis, the Spanish 
 Ambassador, sent out of Eng- 
 land, 97. 
 
 Council, Common, of City, their 
 commissions on loans, 13. 
 
 Craggs, bribed and expelled, 28. 
 
 Credit, must be based on specie, 
 
 2 3- 
 
 Credit of stock, compared with 
 
 credit of cash, 135. 
 Cromwell, a scare in 1694, n 
 
 note. 
 Currency, a forced, cannot be 
 
 entertained, 22. 
 condition of, in 1694, 13. 
 English, its state in 1695-6,30. 
 in 1696-7, described by a con- 
 temporary, 75. 
 paper, basis of, 61. 
 proposal to degrade the, 45. 
 rules for a paper, 23. 
 subsidiary, principles of, not 
 
 known, 15. 
 Customs, large in 1700 and 1701, 
 
 99- 
 unfruitful, and why, 106. 
 
 D. 
 
 Danish Government, risks of a 
 collision between it and the 
 Swedish, 100. 
 
 Darien, expedition to, its effects 
 on European diplomacy, 100. 
 unpopularity of the, 96. 
 Davenant, Charles, his ' modern 
 
 Whig/ 17. 
 
 on bank deposits bearing in- 
 terest, 1 8. 
 
 on Bank of Amsterdam, 8. 
 Defoe, his ' Short Way with Dis- 
 senters/ 158. 
 supposed to be the author of 
 
 the Legion letter, 128. 
 Denmark, Princess of (afterwards 
 Queen Anne), makes her 
 servants vote for Fox and 
 Montague, 29.
 
 176 
 
 Index. 
 
 Deposit, banks of, principle of, 9. 
 Deposits, attracted by interest 
 
 in 1694, 18. 
 De Witts, the, murder of, 8, 
 
 149. 
 Discount, of Bank of England 
 
 bills in 1696, 66. 
 of English bills at Amsterdam, 
 
 explained, 38. 
 
 rates of, watched eagerly, 164. 
 Discounts, history of, in 1795-6, 
 
 40. 
 of bank paper, greatest in 
 
 1697, 85. 
 Dissolution, the, of 1700, its 
 
 effects, 113. 
 
 of 1701, its effects, 130. 
 Dividend, sources of, to the Bank, 
 
 18. 
 
 first, of the Bank, 26. 
 second, of the Bank, 29. 
 of August 28, 1697, 88- 
 Duncombe, Charles, afterwards Sir 
 C., a candidate for the City 
 of London, 103. 
 a reputed project of, in 
 
 October, 1700, 101. 
 chosen Lord Mayor, but re- 
 jected, 94. 
 his dealings with Exchequer 
 
 bills, 90. 
 his gains during the crisis of 
 
 1695-6, 43. 
 his intrigues against the Bank 
 
 of England in 1701, 134. 
 resistance of Aldermen to, 70. 
 sells out from the Bank, 28. 
 tried, acquitted, made Sheriff 
 
 and knighted, 92. 
 Dutch, their criticism of William's 
 
 policy, 145. 
 
 policy of, in trade, 159. 
 public opinion on, in 1700, 
 
 no. 
 Dutch East Indian Company and 
 
 Bank of Amsterdam, 8. 
 Dutch Government, negotiations 
 for cash from, 67. 
 
 E. 
 
 East India Companies, rise in 
 
 stocks of, 99. 
 stock of, 1 60. 
 East India Company, bribery by, 
 
 in 1695, 28. 
 criticised, 80. 
 monopoly of, 3. 
 
 stock of, fluctuations of, 14, 86. 
 the old, credited with a run on 
 
 the bank in 1701, 134. 
 Election of June, 1699, unfavour- 
 able to Whigs, 94. 
 Elections of 1702, character of, 
 
 157- 
 
 England, disarmed by the Parlia- 
 ment of 1700, 122. 
 feeling of, towards William, 149. 
 England and Holland, their 
 
 rivalries, 148. 
 English East India Company, 
 
 foundation of, 87. 
 stock of, fluctuations of, 14. 
 European Powers, preparations 
 of, after Philip of France 
 accepted the crown of Spain, 
 103. 
 Examination of William's body, 
 
 report of, 144. 
 
 Exchange, rates of, a table of, 37. 
 
 Exchanges, foreign, in 1695-6, 36. 
 
 Exchequer, deposits in, in 1672, 6. 
 
 first payment to, 25. 
 
 payments to, should pass 
 
 through the Bank, 77. 
 Exchequer Bills, effects of, on 
 
 Bank paper, 86. 
 first issue of, 66. 
 origin of, 57. 
 run on, in 1701, 134. 
 Excise, unpopular, and why, 105. 
 Exports and imports, restraint 
 on, generally ineffectual, 34. 
 
 F. 
 
 Fagon, consulted by William, 
 140.
 
 Index. 
 
 177 
 
 Finances, state of the, in 1700, 
 
 104. 
 Flanders, Maryborough's successes 
 
 in, in 1702, 155. 
 Fleet, Sir John, his election in the 
 
 place of Gilbert, 124. 
 Foley, Mr. Speaker, an advocate 
 
 of the Land Bank, 50. 
 Footpads, near London, numbers 
 
 of, 1 6. 
 Foreign bills, rate of discount of, 
 
 by goldsmiths, 84. 
 should be paid through the 
 
 Bank of England, 77. 
 Forgery, punishment of, only on 
 
 certain forms of, 91. 
 Fox, Sir Stephen, candidate for 
 
 "Westminster, 29. 
 France, finances of, in 1703, 161. 
 its resources compared with 
 
 those of Spain, 116. 
 wealth and population of, in 
 
 1702, 145. 
 French privateers, damage done 
 
 by the, in the war of 1689- 
 
 1697, 75- 
 Fuller, Thomas, his frauds, in. 
 
 G. 
 
 Genoa, Bank of, origin of, 7. 
 Gloucester, Duke of, political 
 
 effects of his death, 120. 
 and its effect on Bank stock, 
 
 100. 
 Godfrey, Michael, an adage of, 
 
 76. 
 
 at Namur, his death, 27. 
 Deputy Governor of the Bank, 
 
 2. 
 his ' Short Account of the Bank 
 
 of England,' 19. 
 on clipping, 31. 
 on purchases of bullion by 
 
 Bank, 34. 
 Godolphin, Lord, sells out of the 
 
 Bank, 28. 
 Gold, price of, in 1694-5-6, 35. 
 
 Goldsmiths, failures of, 21. 
 the, and the Land Bank, 70. 
 their disobedience to the law, 63. 
 the, private bankers, 6. 
 Government, the good faith of the, 
 the capital and assets of the 
 Bank, 18. 
 
 the position of, in 1700, 105. 
 Governor and Company of the 
 Bank of England, title of the 
 undertaking, i. 
 
 Governor and Directors of Bank 
 of England, reproached with 
 supineness, 79. 
 
 Guineas, price of, in 1694-5-6,35. 
 Guy, bribed and expelled, 28. 
 
 H. 
 
 Hales, Sir Thomas, his action on 
 
 the Kentish petition, 125. 
 Halifax, again attacked by the 
 House of Commons in 1702, 
 158. See also Montague, 
 Charles. 
 
 superseded in 1701, 129. 
 Hammond, member for Cambridge, 
 
 in the pay of France, 118. 
 Harley, Robert (Earl of Oxford), 
 an advocate of the Land 
 Bank, 50. 
 elected Speaker in Parliament 
 
 of 1700, 104. 
 his behaviour to the Kentish 
 
 petitioners, 125. 
 language used about, when 
 
 Speaker, 1 1 5. 
 
 Speaker again in 1701, 113. 
 Harvests, of 1694 bad, 14 note ; 
 of 1699 and 1700 good, 98. 
 Heathcote, Gilbert, one of the 
 first directors, his previous 
 action, 3. 
 his expulsion from the House 
 
 of Commons, 124. 
 Holland, importance of, in a mili- 
 tary sense, to England, 117. 
 natural alaims of, in 1701, 116.
 
 7 8 
 
 Index. 
 
 Holland (continued). 
 
 occupation of, by French, in 
 
 the Continental Wars, 8. 
 Hope, Mr., on Bank of Amster- 
 dam, 7. 
 
 Houblon, Sir James, at Namur, 2 7 . 
 Houblon, Sir John, first Governor, 
 
 2. 
 
 gives notice of new premises, 4. 
 his action on May 4, 1696, 62. 
 Lord Mayor in 1695, 29. 
 Houghton, John, his register of 
 
 bullion prices, 34. 
 on mysteries of stock-jobbing,5. 
 House of Commons, numbers in, 
 at passage of Bank Act, i 
 note. 
 feeling of, in relation to war in 
 
 1700, 104. 
 
 its interpretation of privilege, 
 
 114. 
 its resolution on the Land 
 
 Bank, 50. 
 its votes on February 17, 1702, 
 
 143- 
 
 no effective discipline in, 115. 
 of October, 1702, its vote on 
 
 December 15, 144. 
 practice of, in 1700, 105. 
 resolution of, on February 15, 
 
 1701, how carried, 118. 
 their action on the Kentish 
 
 petition, 126. 
 
 their address to the Crown on 
 the Dutch trade, 159; to the 
 King about the four lords, 
 
 121. 
 
 vote of, on April 10, 1701, 
 
 136. 
 votes in, solicited by trading 
 
 companies, 79. 
 House of Lords, its tenacity about 
 
 its privileges, 114. 
 rejection of Bill of Pains and 
 
 Penalties (Duncombe's) by 
 
 one vote, 92. 
 their views about the Partition 
 
 Treaties, 121. 
 
 Howe, John, how described in 
 
 the Legion letter, 117. 
 rejected in Gloucestershire, 
 
 131- 
 
 Hudson's Bay, stock of, its fluc- 
 tuations, 14. 
 
 Huguenots, the four, who got 
 the highest prize in 1694, 5. 
 
 I. 
 
 Impeachment, the, of the four 
 
 lords, probable motives of, 
 
 129. 
 Income-tax, the, of William's 
 
 time, 1 06. 
 Independents, generally in towns, 
 
 u. 
 Interest, rate of, Government 
 
 cannot control, 78. 
 Issues, excessive, effects of, 7 1 - 
 
 J. 
 
 Jacobites, enemies of the Bank, 
 29. 
 
 Joint-stock companies, rivalry of, 
 illustrated, 86. 
 
 Justice, Alexander, on the cur- 
 rency, 30. 
 on the discounts of 1695, 42. 
 
 K. 
 
 Kent, men of, their alarms in 
 
 1701, 117. 
 Kentish petition, story of the, 
 
 124. 
 
 Kidd, Captain, piracies of, re- 
 membered in i7> 112. 
 hanged in 1701, 148. 
 
 King, Gregory, on the productive 
 classes, 107. 
 
 King of Spain, Charles II, death 
 of, 1 02. 
 
 Kingston-on-Thames, place where 
 William fell from his horse, 
 M3-
 
 Index. 
 
 179 
 
 L. 
 
 Lancashire trials, discredit of, 
 19. 
 
 Land, loans on, by Land Bank 
 Act, 59. 
 
 Land and trade, interests of, 23. 
 
 Land Bank, Commissioners of, 
 
 their negotiations, 64. 
 defence of the, after its failure, 
 
 68. 
 
 scheme of, its intrinsic ab- 
 surdity, 51. 
 
 Land Bank Act, particulars of, 
 
 57-. 
 Landed interest, disappointment 
 
 of, in 1696, 6 1. 
 Landed men, views of, on moneyed 
 
 men, 52. 
 Lease of lands, Chamberlain's 
 
 view of, 51. 
 Leeds, Duke of, suspected of 
 
 being bribed, 28. 
 Legion letter, its criticism on 
 
 Parliament, 114. 
 its presentation, and its lan- 
 
 ^guage, 127. 
 Levinz, Serjeant (Sir Cresswell), 
 
 his revision of the Bank's 
 
 bye-laws, 4. 
 Loan, public, that to the Bank 
 
 the first permanent, 18. 
 of four millions, projected by 
 
 Buncombe in 1700, 101. 
 Loans, negotiated in City, 13. 
 Locke, John, his knowledge of the 
 
 meaning of money, 40. 
 his serviceable treatise on the 
 
 recoinage, 46. 
 Lombard, proposal to establish a, 
 
 by Bank of England, 21. 
 Lombard Street, a private banker 
 
 in, 74. 
 London, commercial world of, in 
 
 1699, 95. 
 City of, returns Whigs in 1701, 
 
 Londoner, lived in London, and 
 
 why, 1 6. 
 Lords, House of, their reasoning 
 
 about the Conformity Bill, 
 
 152. 
 hostile to moneyed men ; their 
 
 action on the Bank of Eng- 
 land Act, 12. 
 Lords Justices beg a loan, 1696, 
 
 64. 
 
 Lottery loan, duration of the, 18. 
 Louis XTV, accepts throne of 
 
 Spain for his grandson, its 
 
 effects, 1 02. 
 attack on Holland by, in 1672, 
 
 8. 
 desires universal monarchy, 
 
 100. 
 
 feeling of Europe towards, 1 50. 
 his acknowledgment of the old 
 
 King's son, 130. 
 his attempts to conciliate the 
 
 King of Portugal and the 
 
 Duke of Savoy, 161. 
 his hopes in the decline of 
 
 William's health, 139. 
 his policy and his success, 
 
 146. 
 strengthened by the English 
 
 Parliament, and his objects, 
 
 122. 
 
 Low Countries, the prize of the 
 War of the Spanish Succes- 
 sion, 122. 
 
 Lowndes, Secretary to the Trea- 
 sury on the recoinage, 46. 
 
 M. 
 
 Macaulay, his description of the 
 
 Recoinage Act, 48. 
 on Godfrey's death, 27. 
 on the first Bank Act, 12. 
 on the run on the Bank, May 
 
 4, 1696, 66. 
 
 the gap in his History, 115. 
 Marine, mercantile, amount of, 
 13- 
 
 N 2
 
 i8o 
 
 Index. 
 
 Marlborough, appointed by Wil- 
 liam commander -in -chief, 
 140. 
 
 captures Bonn, 161. 
 his action during the impeach- 
 ment of the Lords, 123. 
 his treason in 1694, 13. 
 made commander-in-cldef of the 
 
 Dutch forces, 155. 
 settlement of pension on, pro- 
 posed by Anne in her first 
 year, 144. 
 
 Mayor, Lord, the contingent gains 
 of, 97. 
 
 Mayoralty of London, a specula- 
 tion, 96. 
 
 Melfort, letter of, and criticism 
 on it, February 17, 1701, 
 119. 
 
 Mercers' chapel, first home of the 
 Bank, 2. 
 
 Merchants of London and civic 
 honours, 96. 
 
 Meredith, Mr., M.P. for Kent, his 
 action on the Kentish peti- 
 tion, 125. 
 
 Million Lottery, the, in 1694, 5. 
 
 Mint, the, and Charles I, 5. 
 money coined at, from Elizabeth 
 to the recoinage, 65 note. 
 
 Mints, country, in 1696, 68. 
 
 Money, free circulation of, hind- 
 rances to the, and its effects, 
 
 39- 
 
 new, issue of, irregular, 62. 
 Moneyed men, generally Whigs 
 and dissenters, 16. 
 
 the, on the situation in 1700, 
 112. 
 
 views of landed men on, 52. 
 Montague, Charles (Lord Hali- 
 fax), candidate for "West- 
 minster, 29. 
 
 difficulties of, in recoinage, 
 44. 
 
 financial schemes of, 105. 
 
 goes to Peers as Lord Halifax, 
 103. 
 
 Montague, Charles (continued}. 
 his policy in founding the New 
 
 East India Company, 95. 
 his resolution on the recoinage, 
 
 42. 
 
 influence of, waning in 1699, 94. 
 precedent of, in 1696, useful in 
 
 1819, 48. 
 Moor, of Westminster, made a 
 
 fortune by clipping, 32 note. 
 
 N. 
 
 Navy, grant for, in 1701, 120. 
 
 Neal, Mr., on Ways and Means in 
 1696, 52. 
 
 Newton, Isaac, made Master of 
 
 the Mint, 98. 
 
 returned for Cambridge Uni- 
 versity, 131. 
 
 Newton, Lancashire, a pocket 
 borough of the Leighs, 131. 
 
 Nobility, the French, subdued by 
 Louis XIV, 146. 
 
 ' Noland, the free state of/ a 
 scheme of parliamentary re- 
 form, 114 note. 
 
 Notary, public, and the protesting 
 of bills, 66. 
 
 Notes, convertibility of, not se- 
 cured at first by the Bank, 1 8. 
 
 O. 
 
 Occasional Conformity Bill, at- 
 tempts to carry the, 157. 
 
 Officials, percentages of, 107. 
 
 Oligarchies, the two Houses rival, 
 114. 
 
 Opinion, public, on the situation 
 in 1700, 108. 
 
 Opposition, the, recruited from 
 some Whigs in 1701, 113. 
 
 Orford, Lord (Edward Eussell), 
 had retired in 1701, 129. 
 
 Orphans' Fund, loans on, 21 and 
 note. 
 
 Owlers, smugglers so called, 32. 
 baffled the revenue officers, 106.
 
 Index. 
 
 181 
 
 p. 
 
 Pains and Penalties, Bill of Com- 
 mons against Duncombe, 91. 
 Parliament, dissolution of, in 
 
 1695, 29. 
 the, of 1701, its character, 
 
 the cause of the aggressions of 
 
 Louis, 121. 
 the, of December, 1701, its 
 
 action, 141. 
 
 tries penalties before it under- 
 takes reforms, 32. 
 
 Parliamentary reform of Crom- 
 well, its character, 105 note. 
 
 Partition Treaty, the second, and 
 its reception in Spain, 97. 
 
 Patent offices, numerous, with 
 high pay and nominal duties, 
 107. 
 
 Paterson, "William, one of the first 
 
 directors, 2 and note. 
 a pamphlet probably by, 22. 
 said to have been once a buc- 
 caneer, 148. 
 
 Peel, Sir R., and the Bank Act, 
 
 162. 
 
 answer to his question, What is 
 a pound 1 46 note. 
 
 Penalties against clipping ineffec- 
 tual, 34. 
 
 Percentages of officials, 107. 
 
 Petitioners, Kentish, their treat- 
 ment, 126. 
 
 Petitions in favour of the Bank 
 and the paper currency, 85. 
 
 Philip II, his claims to a universal 
 monarchy, 99. 
 
 Pitt, his action in 1797, n. 
 his suspension of cash payments, 
 162. 
 
 Pledges, loans on, permitted to the 
 Bank, 19. 
 
 Politicians, a maxim of theirs about 
 land and trade, 23. 
 
 Pope, father of, his savings, 5. 
 
 Portland, Earl of (Bentinck), his 
 
 influence with the Bank, 
 
 68. 
 had resigned his appointments 
 
 in 1701, 129. 
 Portocarrero, his influence with 
 
 Charles II, 100. 
 Portugal, King of, joined the 
 
 Grand Alliance, 156. 
 Poussineers, nickname of, 139. 
 Premiums on early subscription to 
 
 Bank stock, 2 and note. 
 Public debt, oldest part of, 6. 
 
 Q. 
 
 Quakers, generally country farm- 
 ers, ii. 
 
 Quarrels, the, between the Houses 
 incessant, 113. 
 
 Queen, death of the, in 1694, 19. 
 
 R. 
 
 Ranelagh, Lord, expulsion of, 
 
 158. 
 Eecoinage, Act for (7 William 
 
 III. cap. i), provisions of, 
 
 43> 48. 
 cost of, 44. 
 rate of, 65. 
 
 the remedy for the adverse ex- 
 change, 41. 
 
 Regency, Council of, its negoti- 
 ations, 65. 
 
 Religion of Sovereign to be that 
 of the people, after the Re- 
 volution, 17. 
 
 Representation, absurdity of, in 
 1701, 114. 
 
 Revenue officers delay payments 
 to the Bank, 77. 
 
 Richelieu, his policy a tradition in 
 France, 117. 
 
 Romney Marsh, smugglers or 
 owlers of, 32. 
 
 Rooke, Admiral, rumours about, 
 155-
 
 182 
 
 Index. 
 
 Rumours, disquieting, in the spring 
 
 of 1701, 138. 
 numerous in 1702, 154. 
 Ryswick, Peace of, and Bank 
 
 stock, 71. 
 
 left Louis stronger than ever, 
 116. 
 
 S. 
 
 Savoy, Duke of, makes a treaty 
 
 with the Emperor, 157. 
 Scawen, Sir W., at Namur, 27. 
 deputy governor after Godfrey's 
 
 death, 29. 
 Scotland, customs' duties of, less 
 
 than the cost of collecting 
 
 them, 1 06. 
 
 Scriveners, losses by, 21. 
 Seignorage at Mint in 1695, 
 
 3i- 
 
 Seventeenth century, great dis- 
 coveries in the, 14. 
 
 Seymour, Sir C., his reputation, 
 
 117. 
 
 on the Kentish petition, 125. 
 rejected at Exeter, 131. 
 suspected of being bribed, 28. 
 
 Shepherd, Mr., a banker, his 
 failure, 134. 
 
 Sheriffs of London, when nomi- 
 nated liable to fine on re- 
 fusal, 97. 
 
 Shops in London, rent of, 15. 
 
 Shower, Sir Bartholomew, his 
 character, 117; his previous 
 career, 4. 
 
 Smith, Adam, on Bank of Am- 
 sterdam, 7. 
 
 Sommers, Lord, a story about, 
 
 raked up, 115. 
 had been deprived of office in 
 
 1701, 129. 
 on the recoinage, 42. 
 
 Sovereign, religion of, after the 
 Revolution, 17. 
 
 Spain, King of, Charles II, his 
 condition, 99. 
 
 Spanish monarchy, problem of 
 
 succession to, 99. 
 Spanish succession, public opinion 
 
 on, in 1700, 1 08. 
 Specie, the foundation of credit, 
 
 23- 
 
 notes, amount of, 82. 
 Stamp on money does not add to 
 
 value of, 22. 
 
 Standard, old, carried with diffi- 
 culty in 1696, 47. 
 Stock-jobbers, not liked by the 
 
 Tory landowners, 136. 
 run of, on the Bank, alleged, in 
 
 ifoi, 133- 
 
 Stock-jobbing, passion for, 5. 
 Stocks, fluctuations of, illustrated, 
 
 M. 
 
 rise of, in the two East India 
 Companies in 1700, 99. 
 
 Subjects, religion of, to be that of 
 the Sovereign, 17. 
 
 Subscription of 1697, gradual re- 
 payment of, 93. 
 
 Sunderland, Earl of, his collusion 
 with Duncombe, 90. 
 
 Swedish and Danish governments, 
 a collision expected between, 
 100. 
 
 T. 
 
 Tallard, M., campaign of and 
 
 victory in 1703, 161. 
 his reputed bribes, no. 
 
 Tallies, serious depreciation of, 
 and improvement in, 84. 
 
 Talmash, his death, and the cause, 
 
 1* 
 
 1 The money paid in,' meaning of, 
 25. 
 
 Time bargains, Houghton's de- 
 scription of, 5. 
 
 Tindal, Matthew, on the Parlia- 
 ment of 1701, 119. 
 
 Tonnage Act. nickname of, 9. 
 
 Tories, views of, on Bank of Eng- 
 land, it.
 
 Index. 
 
 Tory pamphleteers on the Legion 
 
 letter, 128. 
 Trade, success of, the origin of 
 
 the resources of England and 
 
 Holland, 158. 
 
 Trade and land, interest of, 24. 
 Trader, solvency and wealth of, 
 
 well known in 1694, 16. 
 Transfers, amount of at the Bank 
 
 in 1696, 83. 
 Treasury, the, its straits in 1696, 
 
 64. 
 
 wants of, in 1694, 13. 
 Trevor, Sir John, the Speaker, 
 
 bribed and expelled, 28. 
 Turenne, said by the French to 
 
 have been the teacher of 
 
 Marlborough, 148. 
 
 U. 
 
 Usurers, a few, enemies of the 
 Bank, 24. 
 
 V. 
 
 Venice, Bank of, 7. 
 
 Vigo, bullion captured at, 156. 
 
 Villars, campaign of, in 1703, his 
 
 victory, 161. 
 Villeroi, campaign of, in 1703, 
 
 161. 
 
 W. 
 
 War. declaration of, on May 15, 
 1702, 155. 
 
 "Watts, Dr., Sir Thomas Abney a 
 
 patron of, 3. 
 Whigs, dissentient, views of, 10. 
 
 four chosen for London in 1 700, 
 
 103. 
 
 William III, broken health of, 
 due to the action of the 
 House of Commons, 139. 
 
 cause of death of, after autopsy, 
 144. 
 
 his acceptance of the Land 
 Bank inexplicable, 57. 
 
 his comments on his reception 
 in 1688, 150. 
 
 his judgement of Marlborough, 
 140. 
 
 his partition treaties, 100. 
 
 his position with foreign powers 
 in 1701, 122, 128. 
 
 his return to England in No- 
 vember 1701, 138. 
 
 his speech to Parliament on 
 February n, 1701, 118. 
 
 ill-advised as to the settlement 
 of the finances, 113. 
 
 ill-usage of, by English Parlia- 
 ments, 123. 
 
 obliged to strike the Kentish 
 petitioners out of the com- 
 mission of the peace, 127. 
 
 policy of, thwarted by theories 
 about the export of money, 
 40. 
 
 popular criticism of, 1 1 1 . 
 
 the accident which led to his 
 death, the place of, 143. 
 
 THE END.
 
 Clarenbon press, yforb. 
 
 SELECT LIST OF STANDARD WORKS. 
 
 DICTIONARIES Page i. 
 
 LAW 2. 
 
 HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, ETC. ... ,,3. 
 
 PHILOSOPHY, LOGIC, ETC. .... ,,6. 
 
 PHYSICAL SCIENCE . ... . . ,,7. 
 
 1. DICTIONARIES. 
 
 A New English Dictionary on Historical Prin- 
 ciples, founded mainly on the materials collected by the Philological 
 Society. Edited by James A. H. Murray, LL.D. Imperial 4to. 
 
 Vol. I, A and B, and Vol. II, C, half-morocco, 2l. I2s. 6d. each. 
 Vol. Ill, D and E. 
 
 D. Edited by Dr. Murray. [In the Press.'] 
 
 E. Edited by Henry Bradley, M.A. 
 
 E EVERY, las. 6d. [Published.'] 
 EVEKYBODY EZOD, 53. [Published.] 
 
 An Etymological Dictionary of the English 
 
 Language, arranged on an Historical Basis. By W. W. Skeat, Litt.D. 
 Second Edition, ^to. 2l. 43. 
 
 A Middle-English Dictionary. By F. H. Stratmann. 
 
 A new edition, by H. Bradley, M.A. 4to, half-bound, il. us. 6d. 
 
 An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, based on the MS. col- 
 lections of the late Joseph Bosworth, D.D. Edited and enlarged by 
 Prof. T. N. Toller, M.A. Parts I-III. A-SAR 4to, stiff covers, 15*. 
 each. Part IV, i, SlR-SWiDRIAN. Stiff covers, 8s. 6d. 
 
 An Icelandic-English Dictionary, based on the MS. 
 
 collections of the late Richard Cleasby. Enlarged and completed by 
 G. Vigfiisson, M.A. 4to. $1. 75. 
 
 A Greek-English Lexicon, by H. G. Liddell, D.D., 
 
 and Robert Scott, D.D. Seventh Edition, Revised and Augmented. 410. iL i6s. 
 
 A Latin Dictionary. By Charlton T. Lewis, Ph.D., and 
 
 Charles Short, LL.D. 4to. il. 53. 
 
 Oxford : Clarendon Frees. London : HENRY FKOWDE, Amen Corner, E.G.
 
 ENGLISH AND ROMAN LA W. 
 
 A Sanskrit-English Dictionary. Etymologically and 
 
 Philologically arranged. By Sir M. Monier- Williams, D.C.L. 4to. 
 Al, 145. 6d. 
 
 A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old 
 
 Testament, with an Appendix containing the Biblical Aramaic, based 
 on the Thesaurus and Lexicon of Gesenius, by Francis Brown, D.D., 
 S. R. Driver, D.D., and C. A. Briggs, D.D. Parts I-III. Small 4to, 
 2s. 6d. each. 
 
 Thesaurus Syriacus : collegerunt Quatremere, Bernstein, 
 
 Lorsbach, Arnoldi, Agrell, Field, Roediger: edidit R. Payne Smith, 
 S.T.P. Vol. I, containing Fasc. I-V, sm. fol. 5?. 53. 
 
 Fasc. VI. il. is. ; VII. iZ. us. 6d. ; VIII. iZ. i6s. ; IX. iZ. 55. 
 
 2. LAW. 
 
 Anson. Principles of the 
 
 English Law of Contract, and of Agency 
 in its Relation to Contract. By Sir W. 
 R. Anson, D.C.L. Seventh Edition. 
 8vo. IDS. 6d. 
 
 Law and Custom of the 
 
 Constitution. 2 vols. 8vo. 
 
 Part I. Parliament. Second 
 
 Edition. 12s. 6d. 
 Part II. The Crown. 145. 
 
 Baden-Powell. Land-Systems 
 
 of British India ; being a Manual of 
 the Land-Tenures, and of the Sys- 
 tems of Land-Revenue Adminis- 
 tration prevalent in the several 
 Provinces. By B. H. Baden-Powell, 
 C.I.E. 3 vols. 8vo. 3?. 35. 
 
 Land-Revenue and Ten- 
 ure in British India. By the same 
 Author. With Map. Crown 8vo, 55. 
 
 Digby. An Introduction to 
 
 the History of the Law of Real Property. 
 By Kenelm E. Digby, M.A. Fourth 
 Edition. 8vo. las. 6d. 
 
 Greenidge. Infamia;itsplace 
 
 in Roman Public and Private Law. By 
 A. H. J. Greenidge, M. A. 8 vo. i os. 6d. 
 
 Grueber. Lex Aquilia. The 
 
 Roman Law of Damage to Pro- 
 perty : being a Commentary on the 
 Title of the Digest 'Ad Legem 
 Aquiliam' (ix. 2). ByErwin Grue- 
 ber, Dr. Jur., M.A. 8vo. los. 6d. 
 
 Hall. International Law. 
 
 By W. E. Hall, M.A. Third Edition. 
 8vo. 22s. 6d. 
 
 A Treatise on the Foreign 
 
 Powers and Jurisdiction of the British 
 Crown. By W. E. Hall, M.A. 8vo. 
 i os. 6d. 
 
 Holland and Shadwell. Select 
 
 Titles from the Digest of Justinian. By 
 T. E. Holland, D.C.L., and C. L. 
 Shadwell, B.C.L. 8vo. 145. 
 
 Also sold in Parts, in paper covers : 
 Part I. Introductory Titles. 2s. 6d. 
 Part II. Family Law. is. 
 Part III. Property Law. 2s. 6d. 
 Part IV. Law of Obligations (No. i ), 
 35. 6d. (No. 2). 43. 6d. 
 
 Holland. Elements of Juris- 
 prudence. By T. E. Holland, D.C.L. 
 Sixth Edition. 8vo. los. 6d. 
 
 Oxford : Clarendon Preaa.
 
 HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, ETC. 
 
 Holland. The European Con- 
 cert in the Eastern Question ; a Collection 
 of Treaties and other Public Acts. 
 Edited, with Introductions and 
 Notes, by T. E. Holland, D.C.L. 
 Svo. I2s. 6d. 
 
 Gentilis, Alberici, De 
 
 lure Belli Libri Tres. Edidit T. E. 
 Holland, I.C.D. Small 4to, half- 
 morocco, 2 IS. 
 
 The Institutes of Jus- 
 tinian, edited as a recension of 
 the Institutes of Gaius, by T. E. 
 Holland, D.C.L. Second Edition. 
 Extra fcap. 8vo. 55. 
 
 Markby. Elements of Law 
 
 considered with reference to Principles of 
 GeneralJurisprudence. By Sir William 
 Markby, D.C.L. Fourth Edition. 8vo. 
 I2s. 6d. 
 
 Moyle. Imperatoris lus- 
 
 tiniani Institutionum Libri Quattuor ; 
 with Introductions, Commentary, 
 Excursus and Translation. By J. B. 
 Moyle, D.C.L. Second Edition. 2vols. 
 Svo. Vol. I. i6s^ Vol. II. 6s. 
 
 Contract of Sale in the 
 
 Ciril Law. By J. B. Moyle, D.C.L. 
 8vo. i os. 6d. 
 
 Pollock and Wright. An 
 
 Essay on Possession in the Common Law. 
 By R Pollock, M.A., and R. S. 
 Wright, B.C.L. Svo. 8s. 6d. 
 
 Poste. Gaii Institutionum 
 
 Juris Civilis Commentarii Quattuor ; or, 
 Elements of Roman Law by Gams. 
 With a Translation and Commen- 
 tary by Edward Poste, M.A. Third 
 Edition. 8vo. i8s. 
 
 Raleigh. An Outline of the 
 
 Law of Property. By Thos. Raleigh, 
 M.A. 8vo. 73. 6d. 
 
 Sohm. Institutes of Homan 
 
 Law. By Rudolph Sohm, Professor 
 in the University of Leipzig. Trans- 
 lated by J. C. Ledlie, B.C.L. With 
 an Introductory Essay by Erwin 
 Grueber, Dr. JUT., M.A. 8vo. iSs. 
 
 Stokes. The Anglo-Indian 
 
 Codes. By Whitley Stokes, LL.D. 
 Vol. I. Substantive Law. Svo. 305. 
 Vol. II. Adjective Law. Svo. 359. 
 
 First and Second Supplements to 
 
 the above, 1887-1891. Svo. 6s. 6d. 
 
 Separately, No. i, 25. 6d. ; No. 2,45. 6rf. 
 
 3. HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, ETC. 
 
 Arbuthnot. The Life and 
 
 Works of John Arbuthnot, M.D. By 
 George A. Aitken. Svo, cloth, with 
 portrait, i6s. 
 
 Bentham. A Fragment on 
 
 Government. By Jeremy Bentham. 
 Edited with an Introduction by 
 F. C. Montague, M.A. Svo. 7s. 6d. 
 
 Boswell's Life of Samuel 
 
 Johnson, LL.D. Edited by G. Birk- 
 beck Hill, D.C.L. In six volumes, 
 medium Svo. With Portraits and 
 Facsimiles. Half-bound, 3^. 35. 
 
 Carte's Life of James Duke of 
 
 Ormond. 6 vols. Svo. il. 3. 
 
 London : HENRY FBOWDE, Amen Corner, E.C.
 
 HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, ETC. 
 
 Casaubon (Isaac). 1559-1614. 
 By Mark Pattison. 8vo. i6s. 
 
 Clarendon's History of the 
 
 Rebellion and Civil Wars in England. 
 Re-edited from a fresh collation of 
 the original MS. in the Bodleian 
 Library, with marginal dates and 
 occasional notes, by W. Dunn 
 Macray, M.A., F.S.A. 6vols. Crown 
 Svo. 2l. 53. 
 
 Earle. Handbook to the Land- 
 
 Charters, and other Saxonic Documents. 
 By John Earle, M.A., Professor of 
 Anglo-Saxon in the University of 
 Oxford. Crown 8vo. i6s. 
 
 Finlay. A History of Greece 
 
 from its Conquest by the Romans to the 
 present time, B.C. 146 to A. D. 1864. 
 By George Finlay, LL.D. A new 
 Edition, revised throughout, and in 
 part re-written, with considerable 
 additions, by the Author, and edited 
 by H. F. Tozer, M.A. 7 vols. 8vo. 
 
 Fortescue. The Governance 
 
 of England: otherwise called The 
 Difference between an Absolute and 
 a Limited Monarchy. By Sir John 
 Fortescue, Kt. A Revised Text. 
 Edited, with Introduction, Notes, 
 &c., by Charles Plummer, M.A. 
 8vo, half-bound, I2s. 6d. 
 
 Freeman. The History of 
 
 Sicily from the Earliest Times. 
 
 Vols. I. and II. 8vo, cloth, 2l. 2s. 
 Vol. III. The Athenian and 
 
 Carthaginian Invasions. 8vo, 
 
 cloth, 243. 
 
 - History of the Norman 
 
 Conquest of England; its Causes 
 and Results. By E. A. Freeman, 
 D.C.L. In Six Volumes. 8vo. 
 5?. 95. 6rf. 
 
 Freeman. The Reign of Wil- 
 liam Rufus and the Accession of Henry 
 the First. 2 vols. 8vo. il. i6s. 
 
 A Short History of the 
 
 Norman Conquest of England. Second 
 Edition. Extra fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 French Revolutionary Speeches. 
 
 (See Stephens, H. Morse.) 
 
 Gardiner. TheConstitutional 
 
 Documents of the Puritan Revolution, 
 1628-1660. Selected and Edited 
 by Samuel Rawson Gardiner, M.A. 
 Crown 8vo. 98. 
 
 Greswell. History of the 
 
 Dominion of Canada. By W. Parr 
 Greswell, M.A. Crown 8vo. With 
 Eleven Maps. 7*. 6d. 
 
 Geography of the Do- 
 minion of Canada and Newfoundland. 
 Crown 8vo. With Ten Maps. 6s. 
 
 Geography of Africa 
 
 South of the Zambesi. With Maps. 
 Crown Svo. 75. 6d. 
 
 Gross. The Gild Merchant; 
 
 a Contribution to British Municipal 
 History. By Charles Gross, Ph.D. 
 2 vols. Svo. 245. 
 
 Hastings. Hastings and the 
 
 Rohilla War. By Sir John Strachey, 
 G. C.S.I. Svo, cloth, i os. 6d. 
 
 . Hodgkin. Italy and her In- 
 vaders. With Plates and Maps. By 
 T. Hodgkin, D.C.L. Vols. I-IV, 
 A.D. 376-553. Svo. 
 
 Vols. I. and II. Second Edition. 
 
 2l. 2S. 
 
 Vols. III. and IV. xi. i6s. 
 
 The Dynasty of Theo- 
 
 dosius; or, Seventy Years' Struggle 
 with the Barbarians. By the same 
 Author. Crown Svo. 6s. 
 
 Hume. Letters of David Hume 
 
 to William Strahan. Edited with 
 Notes, Index, &c., by G. Birkbeck 
 Hill, D.C.L. Svo. i2s. 6d. 
 
 Oxford : Clarendon Press.
 
 HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, ETC. 
 
 Johnson. Letters of Samuel 
 
 Johnson, LL.D. Collected and edited 
 by G. Birkbeck Hill, D.C.L., Editor 
 of Boswell's ' Life of Johnson ' (see 
 Boswell). 2 vols. half-roan, a 8s. 
 
 Kitchin. A History of France. 
 With Numerous Maps, Plans, and 
 Tables. By G. W. Kitchin, D.D. 
 In three Volumes. Second Edition. 
 Crown 8vo, each los. 6d. 
 Vol. I. to 1453. Vol. II. 1453- 
 
 1624. Vol. III. 1624-1793. 
 Ludlow. The Memoirs of 
 
 Edmund Ludlow, Lieutenant-General of 
 the Horse in t'rte Army of the Common- 
 vxalth of England, 1625-1672. Edited, 
 with Appendices and Illustrative 
 Documents, by C. H. FIRTH, M.A. 
 2 vols. 8vo. il. 1 6s. 
 
 LuttrelTs (Narcissus) Diary. 
 
 A Brief Historical Relation of State 
 Affairs, 1678-1714. 6 vols. il. 45. 
 
 Lucas. Introduction to a 
 
 Historical Geography of the British 
 Colonies. By C. P. Lucas, B.A. 
 With Eight Maps. Crown 8vo. 
 45. 6d. 
 
 - Historical Geography of 
 
 the British Colonies : 
 
 Vol. I. The Mediterranean and 
 Eastern Colonies (exclusive of 
 India). With Eleven Maps. 
 Crown 8vo. 53. 
 
 Vol. II. The West Indian Colo- 
 nies. With Twelve Maps. 
 Crown 8vo. 73. 6d. 
 
 Vol. III. West Africa. With 
 Five Maps. Crown 8vo. 75. 6d. 
 
 Machiavelli. II Principe. 
 
 Edited by L. Arthur Burd, M.A. 
 With an Introduction by Lord 
 Acton. 8vo. Cloth, 143. 
 
 Prothero. Select Statutes and 
 
 other Constitutional Documents, iliustra- 
 tive of the Reigns of Elizabeth and 
 
 James I. Edited by G. W. Prothero, 
 Fellow of King's College, Cam- 
 bridge. Crown 8vo. los. 6d. 
 
 Ralegh. Sir Walter Ralegh. 
 
 A Biography. By W. Stebbing, 
 M.A. 8vo. IGS. 6d. 
 
 Ramsay (Sir J. H.). Lancaster 
 
 and York. A Century of English 
 History (A.D. 1399-1485). By Sir 
 J. H. Ramsay of Bamff, Bart., M.A. 
 With Maps, Pedigrees, and Illus- 
 trations. 2 vols. 8vo. 365. 
 
 Ranke. A History of Eng- 
 land, principally in the Seventeenth 
 Century. By L. von Ranke. Trans- 
 lated under the superintendence of 
 G. W. Kitchin, D.D., and C. W. 
 Boase, M.A. 6 vols. 8vo. 3*. 33. 
 
 Rawlinson. A Manual of 
 
 A ncient History. By George Rawlin- 
 son, M.A. Second Edition. 8vo. 143. 
 
 Rhys. Studies in the Ar- 
 thurian Legend. By John Rhys, 
 M.A. 8vo. I2s. 6d. 
 
 Ricardo. Letters of David 
 
 Ricardo to T. R. Malthus (1810-1823). 
 Edited by James Bonar, M. A. 8vo. 
 I os. 6d. 
 
 Rogers. History of Agricul- 
 ture and Prices in England, A.D. 1259- 
 1702. By James E. Thorold Rogers, 
 M.A. 6 vols., 8vo. ^l. 28. 
 
 First Nine Years of the 
 
 Bank of England. 8vo. 8s. 6d. 
 
 Protests of the Lords, in- 
 cluding those which have been expunged, 
 from 1624 to 1874 ; with Historical 
 Introductions. In three volumes. 
 8vo. il. 2s. 
 
 Smith's Wealth of Nations. 
 With Notes, by J. E. Thorold Rogers, 
 M.A. 2 vols. 8vo. 2 is. 
 
 London : HENRY FROWDE, Amen Corner, B.C.
 
 PHILOSOPHY, LOGIC, ETC. 
 
 Stephens. The Principal 
 
 Speeches of ike Statesmen and Orators of 
 the French Revolution, 1789-1795. 
 With Historical Introductions, 
 Notes, and Index. By H. Morse 
 Stephens. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. 2 is. 
 
 Stubbs. Select Charters and 
 
 other Illustrations of English Constitu- 
 tional History, from the Earliest Times 
 to the Reign of Edward I. Arranged 
 and edited by W. Stubbs, D.D., 
 Lord Bishop of Oxford. Seventh 
 Edition. Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d. 
 
 The Constitutional His- 
 tory of England, in its Origin and 
 Development. Library Edition. 3 vols. 
 Demy 8vo. 2l. 8s. 
 
 Also in 3 vols. crown 8vo. price 
 i2s. each. 
 
 Stubbs. Seventeen Lectures on 
 
 the Study of Medieval and Modern 
 History. Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d. 
 
 Registrum Sacrum 
 
 Anglicanum. An attempt to exhibit 
 the course of Episcopal Succession 
 in England. By W. Stubbs, D.D. 
 Small 4to. 8s. 6d. 
 
 Swift (P. D.). The Life and 
 
 Times of James the First of Aragon. 
 By F. D. Swift, B.A. 8vo, I2S. 6d. 
 
 Vinogradoff. Villainage in 
 
 England. Essays in English Medi- 
 aeval History. By Paul Vinogradoff, 
 Professor in the University of 
 Moscow. 8vo, half-bound. i6s. 
 
 4. PHILOSOPHY, LOGIC, ETC. 
 
 Bacon. The Essays. With In- 
 troduction and Illustrative Notes. 
 By S. H. Reynolds, M.A. 8vo, half- 
 bound. i2s. 6d. 
 
 Novum Organum. 
 
 Edited, with Introduction, Notes, 
 &c., by T. Fowler, D.D. Second 
 Edition. 8vo. 1 55. 
 
 Novum Organum. 
 
 Edited, with English Notes, by 
 G. W. Kitchin, D.D. 8vo. 95. 6d. 
 
 Berkeley. The Works of 
 
 George Berkeley, D.D., formerly Bishop 
 of Cloyne ; including many of his writ- 
 ings hitherto unpublished. With Pre- 
 faces, Annotations, and an Account 
 of his Life and Philosophy. By 
 A. Campbell Fraser, Hon. D.C.L., 
 LL.D. 4 vols. 8vo. 2l. i8s. 
 The Life, Letters, &c., separately, i6s. 
 
 Bosanquet. Logic; or, the 
 Morphology of Knowledge. By B. 
 Bosanquet, M.A. 8vo. 2 is. 
 
 Butler's Works, with Index to 
 
 the Analogy. 2 vols. 8vo. us. 
 
 Fowler. The Elements of De- 
 ductive Logic, ' designed mainly for the 
 use of Junior Students in the Universities. 
 By T. Fowler, D.D. Ninth Edition, 
 with a Collection of Examples. 
 Extra fcap. 8vo. 33. 6d. 
 
 The Elements of Induc- 
 tive Logic, designed mainly for the use of 
 Students in the Universities. By the 
 same Author. Sixth Edition. Extra 
 fcap. 8vo. 6s. 
 
 Fowler and Wilson. The 
 
 Principles of Morals. By T. Fowler, 
 D.D., and J. M. Wilson, B.D. 8vo, 
 cloth, 145. 
 
 Green. Prolegomena toEthics. 
 By T. H. Green, M.A. Edited by 
 A. C. Bradley, M.A. 8vo. 125. 6d. 
 
 Hegel. The Logic of Hegel. 
 
 Translated from the Encyclopaedia 
 of the Philosophical Sciences. With 
 
 Oxford : Clarendon Press.
 
 PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 
 
 Prolegomena to the Study of Hegel's 
 Logic and Philosophy. By W. Wai- 
 lace, M.A. Second Edition, Revised 
 and Augmented. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. 
 i os. 6d. each. 
 
 Hegel's Philosophy of Mind. 
 
 Translated from the Encyclopaedia 
 of the Philosophical Sciences. With 
 Five Introductory Essays. By Wil- 
 liam Wallace, M.A., LL.D. Crown 
 8vo. i os. 6d. 
 
 Hume's Treatise of Human 
 
 Nature. Edited, with Analytical 
 Index, by L. A. Selby-Bigge, M.A. 
 Crown 8vo. 95. 
 
 Hume's Enquiry concerning 
 
 the Human Understanding, and an 
 Enquiry concerning the Principles of 
 Morals. Edited by A. Selby-Bigge, 
 M.A. Crown 8vo. 75. 6d. 
 
 Locke. An Essay Concern- 
 ing Human Understanding. By John 
 Locke. Collated and Annotated, 
 
 with Prolegomena, Biographical, 
 Critical, and Historic, by A. Camp- 
 bell Fraser, Hon. D.C.L., LL.D. 
 
 2 Vols. 8VO. ll. 12S. 
 
 Locke's Conduct of the Under- 
 standing. Edited by T. Fowler, D.D. 
 Third Edition. Extrafcap.Svo. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Lotze's Logic, in Three Books ; 
 
 of Thought, of Investigation, and 
 of Knowledge. English Translation ; 
 Edited by B. Bosanquet, M.A. 
 Second Edition. 2 vols. Cr. 8vo. 123. 
 
 Metaphysic, in Three 
 
 Books ; Ontology, Cosmology, and 
 Psychology. English Translation ; 
 Edited by B. Bosanquet, M.A. 
 Second Edition, 2 vols. Cr. 8vo. 1 2s. 
 
 Martineau. Types of Ethical 
 
 Theory. By James Martineau, D.D. 
 Third Edition. 2 vols. Cr. 8vo. 153. 
 
 A Study of Religion: 
 
 its Sources and Contents. Second Edition. 
 a vols. Cr. 8vo. 158. 
 
 5. PHYSICAL 
 
 Chambers. A Handbook of 
 
 Descriptive and Practical Astronomy. 
 
 By G. F. Chambers, F.R.A.S. Fourth 
 
 Edition, in 3 vols. Demy 8vo. 
 
 Vol. I. The Sun, Planets, and 
 Comets. 2 is. 
 
 Vol. II. Instruments and Prac- 
 tical Astronomy. 2 is. 
 
 Vol. III. The Starry Heavens. 145. 
 
 De Bary. Comparative Ana- 
 tomy of the Vegetative Organs of the 
 Phanerogams and Ferns. By Dr. A. 
 de Bary. Translated by F. O. 
 Bower, M.A., and D. H. Scott, M.A. 
 Royal 8vo. il. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Comparative Mor- 
 phology and Biology of Fungi, Mycetozoa 
 and Bacteria. By Dr. A. de Bary. 
 Translated by H. E. F. Garnsey, 
 M.A. Revised by Isaac Bayley 
 Balfour, M. A., M.D. , F.RS. Royal 
 8vo, half-morocco, il. 2s. 6d. 
 
 SCIENCE. 
 
 DeBary. Lectures on Bacteria. 
 
 By Dr. A. de Bary. Second Im- 
 praved Edition. Translated by H. 
 E. F. Garnsey, M.A. Revised by 
 Isaac Bayley Balfour, M.A., M.D., 
 F.RS. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 Fisher. A Class Book of Ele- 
 mentary Chemistry. By W. W. Fisher, 
 M.A., F.C.S. Second Edition. Crown 
 8vo. 43. 6d. 
 
 Chemistry in Space. By Van 't 
 Hoff. Translated and edited by J. E. 
 Marsh, B.A. Crown 8vo. 43. 6d. 
 
 Goebel. Outlines of Classifi- 
 cation and Special Morphology of Plants. 
 By Dr. K. Goebel. Translated by 
 H. E. F. Garnsey, M.A. Revised by 
 Isaac Bayley Balfour, M.A., M.D., 
 F.RS. Royal 8vo, half-morocco, 
 iL is. 
 
 London : HENRY FROWDE, Amen Corner, E.G.
 
 8 
 
 PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 
 
 Sachs. Lectures on the Phy- 
 siology of Plants. By Julius von 
 Sachs. Translated by H. Marshall 
 Ward, M.A., F.L.S. Royal 8vo, 
 half-morocco, il. ns.6d. 
 
 A History of Botany. 
 
 Translated by H. E. F. Garnsey, 
 M.A. Revised by I. Bayley Balfour, 
 M.A.,M.D.,F.R.S. Crown 8vo. IDS. 
 
 Fossil Botany. Being an In- 
 troduction to Palaeophytology from the 
 Standpoint of the Botanist. By H. 
 Graf zu Solms-Laubach. Translated 
 by H. E. F. Garnsey, M.A. Revised 
 by I. Bayley Balfour, M.A., M.D., 
 F.R.S. Royal 8vo, half-morocco, i8s. 
 
 Annals of Botany. Edited by 
 Isaac Bayley Balfour, M.A., M.D., 
 F.R.S., Sydney H. Vines, D.Sc., 
 F.R.S., D. H. Scott, M.A., Ph.D., 
 F.LS., and W. G. Farlow, M.D.; 
 assisted by other Botanists. Royal 
 8vo, half-morocco, gilt top. 
 
 Vol. I. Parts I-IV. il. i6s. 
 
 Vol. II. Parts V-VIII. 2!. 2s. 
 
 Vol. III. PartsIX-XII. il.i2s.6d. 
 
 Vol. IV. Parts XIII-XVI. 21.53. 
 
 Vol. V. Parts XVII-XX. *l. los. 
 
 Vol. VI. Parts XXI-XXIV. 27.45. 
 
 Vol. VII. Parts XXV-XXVIII. 
 
 2l. I OS. 
 
 Vol. VIII. Parts XXIX, XXX. 
 I2s. each. 
 
 Biological Series. (Transla- 
 tions of Foreign Biological Memoirs. ) 
 
 I. The Physiology of Nerve, of Muscle, 
 
 and of the Electrical Organ. 
 Edited by J.Burdon-Sanderson, 
 M.D., F.R.SS. L. & E. Medium 
 8vo. il. is. 
 
 II. The Anatomy of the Frog. By 
 
 Dr. Alexander Ecker, Professor 
 in the University of Freiburg. 
 Translated, with numerous 
 Annotations and Additions, 07- 
 G. Haslam,M.D. Med. 8vo. 2 is. 
 
 IV. Essays upon Heredity and 
 Kindred Biological Problems. 
 By Dr. A. Weismann. Trans- 
 lated and Edited by E. B. Poul- 
 ton, M.A., S. Schonland, Ph.D., 
 and A. E. Shipley, M.A. Second 
 Edition. Crown 8vo. fs. 6d. 
 
 Vol. II. Edited by E. B. Poulton, 
 and A. E. Shipley. Crown 
 8vo. 55. 
 
 Prestwich. Geology, Chemi- 
 cal, Physical, and Stratigraphical. By 
 Joseph Prestwich, M.A., F.R.S. 
 In two Volumes. 
 
 Vol. I. Chemical and Physical. 
 
 Royal 8vo. il. 55. 
 Vol. II. Stratigraphical and 
 Physical. With a new Geo- 
 logical Map of Europe. Royal 
 8vo. il. 1 6s. 
 
 V COMPLETE CATALOGUES ON APPLICATION. 
 
 jforfc 
 
 AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 
 LONDON: HENRY FROWDE 
 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, AMEN CORNER, E.C. 
 
 UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA
 
 University of California 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 
 
 Return this matori-j *- - library
 
 DC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A 000172705 6 
 299U 
 R63f