d clear the debt it was engaged for. The intermediate accruing
interest was to be paid by the treasurer of the navy; and, as a farther
advantage to the creditors, they should be erected into a company for
trading to the South Seas, and for encouragement of fishery. When all
this was fully prepared and digested, he made a motion in the House of
Commons (who deferred extremely to his judgment and abilities) for
paying the debts of the navy, and other unprovided deficiencies, without
entering into particulars, which was immediately voted. But a sudden
stop was put to this affair by an unforeseen accident. The chancellor of
the exchequer (which was then his title) being stabbed with a penknife,
the following day, at the Cockpit, in the midst of a dozen lords of the
council, by the Sieur de Guiscard, a French papist; the circumstances of
which fact being not within the compass of this History, I shall only
observe, that after two months' confinement, and frequent danger of his
life, he returned to his seat in Parliament.[15]

[Footnote 15: See the particular account in "The Examiner." [ORIGINAL
NOTE.] The reference is to Nos. 33, 41, and 42 of that paper (see vol.
ix, of this edition). [W.S.J.]]

The overtures made by this minister, of paying so vast a debt, under the
pressures of a long war, and the difficulty of finding supplies for
continuing it, was, during the time of his illness, ridiculed by his
enemies as an impracticable and visionary project: and when, upon his
return to the House, he had explained his proposal, the very proprietors
of the debt were, many of them, prevailed on to oppose it; although the
obtaining this trade, either through Old Spain, or directly to the
Spanish West Indies, had been one principal end we aimed at by this war.
However, the bill passed; and, as an immediate consequence, the naval
bills rose to about twenty _per cent_., nor ever fell within ten of
their discount. Another good effect of this work appeared by the
parliamentary lotteries, which have been since erected. The last of that
kind, under the former ministry, was eleven weeks in filling; whereas
the first, under the present, was filled in a very few hours, although
it cost the government less; and the others, which followed, were full
before the Acts concerning them could pass. And to prevent incumbrances
of this kind from growing for the future, he took care, by the utmost
parsimony, or by suspending payments, where they seemed l