The history of England, from the accession of James the Second (1914) (14780024341)

Identifier: historyofenglandm05macauoft (find matches)
Title: The history of England, from the accession of James the Second
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron, 1800-1859 Firth, C. H. (Charles Harding), 1857-1936
Subjects: Great Britain -- History James II, 1685-1688 Great Britain -- History William and Mary, 1689-1702
Publisher: London : Macmillan
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN



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Montagues plan was complete. It wasthen at least as difficult to raise a million at eight per cent as it wouldnow be to raise forty millions at four per cent. It had been supposedthat contributions would drop in very slowly : and a considerable timehad therefore been allowed by the Act. This indulgence was notneeded. So popular was the new investment that on the day on whichthe books were opened three hundred thousand pounds were subscribed:three hundred thousand more were subscribed during the next fortyeight hours ; and, in ten days, to the delight of all the friends of thegovernment, it was announced that the list was full. The whole sumwhich the Corporation was bound to lend to the State was paid into theExchequer before the first instalment was due.^ Somers gladly putthe Great Seal to a charter framed in conformit\ with the terms ^ See the Lords Journals of April 23, 24, 25. 1694, and the letter of LHermitage to theStates General dated A^^ 2 Narcissus Luttrells Diary, June 1694.
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ON oa: z ►Jo = J. z U o <X CJ o 2438 HISTORY Ol- KNGLAND chap xx prescribed 1)\- r.uii;iinciit ; and llie Hank o\ Iuiy;land commenced itsoperations in the house of the Company t Grocers. There, duringman\- \ears, directors, secretaries, and clerks mii;ht be seen labouringin dilTerent parts of one spacious hall. The persons employed by theliank were originall)- onK- fifty ft)ur. The) are now nine hundred.The sum paid yearl) in salaries amounted at fir.st to only four thousandthree hundred and iifty pounds. It now exceeds two hundred and tenthousand pounds. We may therefore fairly infer that the incomes ofcommercial clerks are, on an average, about three times as large in thereign of Victoria as the> were in the reign of William the Third.^ It soon appeared that Montague had, b) skilfully availing himselfof the financial difficulties of the country, rendered an inestimableservice to his party. During several generations the Bank of Englandwas emphatically a Whig bod). It