The History of England, from the Accession of James II Volume IV Part 44

[Footnote 696: London Newsletter, May 21. 1696; Old Postmaster, June 25.; L'Hermitage, May 19/29.]

[Footnote 697: Haynes's Brief Memoirs, Lansdowne MSS. 801.]

[Footnote 698: See the pet.i.tion from Birmingham in the Commons'

Journals, Nov. 12. 1696; and the pet.i.tion from Leicester, Nov. 21]

[Footnote 699: "Money exceeding scarce, so that none was paid or received; but all was on trust."--Evelyn, May 13. And again, on June 11.: "Want of current money to carry on the smallest concerns, even for daily provisions in the markets."]

[Footnote 700: L'Hermitage, May 22/June 1; See a Letter of Dryden to Tonson, which Malone, with great probability, supposes to have been written at this time.]

[Footnote 701: L'Hermitage to the States General May 8/18.; Paris Gazette, June 2/12.; Trial and Condemnation of the Land Bank at Exeter Change for murdering the Bank of England at Grocers' Hall, 1696. The Will and the Epitaph will be found in the Trial.]

[Footnote 702: L'Hermitage, June 12/22. 1696.]

[Footnote 703: On this subject see the Short History of the Last Parliament, 1699; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; the newspapers of 1696 pa.s.sim, and the letters of L'Hermitage pa.s.sim. See also the pet.i.tion of the Clothiers of Gloucester in the Commons' Journal, Nov. 27. 1696.

Oldmixon, who had been himself a sufferer, writes on this subject with even more than his usual acrimony.]

[Footnote 704: See L'Hermitage, June 12/22, June 23/July, 3 June 30/July 10, Aug 1/11 Aug 28/Sept 7 1696. The Postman of August 15. mentions the great benefit derived from the Exchequer Bills. The Pegasus of Aug. 24.

says: "The Exchequer Bills do more and more obtain with the public; and 'tis no wonder." The Pegasus of Aug. 28. says: "They pa.s.s as money from hand to hand; 'tis observed that such as cry them down are ill affected to the government." "They are found by experience," says the Postman of the seventh of May following, "to be of extraordinary use to the merchants and traders of the City of London, and all other parts of the kingdom." I will give one specimen of the unmetrical and almost unintelligible doggrel which the Jacobite poets published on this subject:--

"Pray, Sir, did you hear of the late proclamation, Of sending paper for payment quite thro' the nation?

Yes, Sir, I have: they're your Montague's notes, Tinctured and coloured by your Parliament votes.

But 'tis plain on the people to be but a toast, They come by the carrier and go by the post."]

[Footnote 705: Commons' Journals, Nov. 25. 1696.]

[Footnote 706: L'Hermitage, June 2/12. 1696; Commons' Journals, Nov.

25.; Post-man, May 5., June 4., July 2.]

[Footnote 707: L'Hermitage, July. [3]/13 10/20 1696; Commons' Journals, Nov. 25.; Paris Gazette, June 30., Aug. 25.; Old Postmaster, July 9.]

[Footnote 708: William to Heinsius, July 30. 1696; William to Shrewsbury, July 23. 30. 31.]

[Footnote 709: Shrewsbury to William, July 28. 31., Aug. 4. 1696; L'Hermitage, Aug. 1/11]

[Footnote 710: Shrewsbury to William, Aug 7. 1696; L'Hermitage, Aug 14/24.; London Gazette, Aug. 13.]

[Footnote 711: L'Hermitage, Aug. [18]/28. 1696. Among the records of the Bank is a resolution of the Directors prescribing the very words which Sir John Houblon was to use. William's sense of the service done by the Bank on this occasion is expressed in his letter to Shrewsbury, of Aug. 24/Sept 3. One of the Directors, in a letter concerning the Bank, printed in 1697, says: "The Directors could not have answered it to their members, had it been for any less occasion than the preservation of the kingdom."]

[Footnote 712: Haynes's Brief Memoires; Lansdowne MSS. 801. Montague's friendly letter to Newton, announcing the appointment, has been repeatedly printed. It bears date March 19. 1695/6.]

[Footnote 713: I have very great pleasure in quoting the words of Haynes, an able, experienced and practical man, who had been in the habit of transacting business with Newton. They have never I believe, been printed. "Mr. Isaac Newton, public Professor of the Mathematicks in Cambridge, the greatest philosopher, and one of the best men of this age, was, by a great and wise statesman, recommended to the favour of the late King for Warden of the King's Mint and Exchanges, for which he was peculiarly qualified, because of his extraordinary skill in numbers, and his great integrity, by the first of which he could judge correctly of the Mint accounts and transactions as soon as he entered upon his office; and by the latter--I mean his integrity--he set a standard to the conduct and behaviour of every officer and clerk in the Mint. Well had it been for the publick, had he acted a few years sooner in that situation." It is interesting to compare this testimony, borne by a man who thoroughly understood the business of the Mint, with the childish talk of Pope. "Sir Isaac Newton," said Pope, "though so deep in algebra and fluxions, could not readily make up a common account; and, whilst he was Master of the Mint, used to get somebody to make up the accounts for him." Some of the statesmen with whom Pope lived might have told him that it is not always from ignorance of arithmetic that persons at the head of great departments leave to clerks the business of casting up pounds, shillings and pence.]

[Footnote 714: "I do not love," he wrote to Flamsteed, "to be printed on every occasion, much less to be dunned and teased by foreigners about mathematical things, or to be thought by our own people to be trifling away my time about them, when I am about the King's business."]

[Footnote 715: Hopton Haynes's Brief Memoires; Lansdowne MSS. 801.; the Old Postmaster, July 4. 1696; the Postman May 30., July 4, September 12. 19., October 8,; L'Hermitage's despatches of this summer and autumn, pa.s.sim.]

[Footnote 716: Paris Gazette, Aug. 11. 1696.]

[Footnote 717: On the 7th of August L'Hermitage remarked for the first time that money seemed to be more abundant.]

[Footnote 718: Compare Edmund Bohn's Letter to Carey of the 31st of July 1696 with the Paris Gazette of the same date. Bohn's description of the state of Norfolk is coloured, no doubt, by his const.i.tutionally gloomy temper, and by the feeling with which he, not unnaturally, regarded the House of Commons. His statistics are not to be trusted; and his predictions were signally falsified. But he may be believed as to plain facts which happened in his immediate neighbourhood.]

[Footnote 719: As to Gras...o...b..'s character, and the opinion entertained of him by the most estimable Jacobites, see the Life of Kettlewell, part iii., section 55. Lee the compiler of the Life of Kettlewell mentions with just censure some of Gras...o...b..'s writings, but makes no allusion to the worst of them, the Account of the Proceedings in the House of Commons in relation to the Recoining of the Clipped Money, and falling the price of Guineas. That Gras...o...b.. was the author, was proved before a Committee of the House of Commons. See the Journals, Nov. 30. 1696.]

[Footnote 720: L'Hermitage, June 12/22., July 7/17. 1696.]

[Footnote 721: See the Answer to Gras...o...b.., ent.i.tled Reflections on a Scandalous Libel.]

[Footnote 722: Paris Gazette, Sept. 15. 1696,]

[Footnote 723: L'Hermitage, Oct. 2/12 1696.]

[Footnote 724: L'Hermitage, July 20/30., Oct. 2/12 9/10 1696.]

[Footnote 725: The Monthly Mercuries; Correspondence between Shrewsbury and Galway; William to Heinsius, July 23. 30. 1696; Memoir of the Marquess of Leganes.]

[Footnote 726: William to Heinsius, Aug 27/Sept 6, Nov 15/25 Nov. 17/27 1696; Prior to Lexington, Nov. 17/27; Villiers to Shrewsbury, Nov.

13/23]

[Footnote 727: My account of the attempt to corrupt Porter is taken from his examination before the House of Commons on Nov. 16. 1696, and from the following sources: Burnet, ii. 183.; L'Hermitage to the States General, May 8/18. 12/22 1696; the Postboy, May 9.; the Postman, May 9.; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; London Gazette, Oct. 19. 1696.]

[Footnote 728: London Gazette; Narcissus Luttrell; L'Hermitage, June 12/22; Postman, June 11.]

[Footnote 729: Life of William III. 1703; Vernon's evidence given in his place in the House of Commons, Nov. 16. 1696.]

[Footnote 730: William to Shrewsbury from Loo, Sept. 10. 1696.]

[Footnote 731: Shrewsbury to William, Sept. 18. 1696.]

[Footnote 732: William to Shrewsbury, Sept. 25. 1696.]

[Footnote 733: London Gazette, Oct. 8. 1696; Vernon to Shrewsbury, October 8. Shrewsbury to Portland, Oct. 11.]

[Footnote 734: Vernon to Shrewsbury, Oct. 13. 1696; Somers to Shrewsbury, Oct. 15.]

[Footnote 735: William to Shrewsbury, Oct. 9. 1696.]

[Footnote 736: Shrewsbury to William, Oct. 11. 1696.]

[Footnote 737: Somers to Shrewsbury, Oct. 19. 1696.]

[Footnote 738: William to Shrewsbury, Oct. 20. 1696.]

[Footnote 739: Vernon to Shrewsbury, Oct. 13. 15.; Portland to Shrewsbury, Oct, 20, 1696.]

[Footnote 740: L'Hermitage, July 10/20 1696.]