lifford, which the latter immediately seized, and carried to the king,
who granted him the promised reward, together with a peerage. This
expedient was the shutting up of the exchequer and the retaining of all
the payments which should be made into it.

It had been usual for the bankers to carry their money to the exchequer,
and to advance it upon security of the funds, by which they were
afterwards reimbursed when the money was levied on the public. The
bankers by this traffic got eight, sometimes ten per cent., for sums
which either had been consigned to them without interest, or which they
had borrowed at six per cent.; profits which they dearly paid for by
this egregious breach of public faith. The measure was so suddenly
taken, that none had warning of the danger. A general confusion
prevailed in the city, followed by the ruin of many. The bankers stopped
payment; the merchants could answer no bills; distrust took place
every where, with a stagnation of commerce, by which the public was
universally affected. And men, full of dismal apprehensions, asked each
other what must be the scope of those mysterious counsels, whence the
parliament and all men of honor were excluded, and which commenced
by the forfeiture of public credit, and an open violation of the most
solemn engagements, both foreign and domestic.

Another measure of the court contains something laudable, when
considered in itself; but if we reflect on the motive whence it
proceeded, as well as the time when it was embraced, it will furnish a
strong proof of the arbitrary and dangerous counsels pursued at present
by the king and his ministry. Charles resolved to make use of his
supreme power in ecclesiastical matters; a power, he said, which was not
only inherent in him, but which had been recognized by several acts
of parliament. By virtue of this authority, he issued a proclamation,
suspending the penal laws enacted against all nonconformists or
recusants whatsoever; and granting to the Protestant dissenters the
public exercise of their religion, to the Catholics the exercise of it
in private houses. A fruitless experiment of this kind, opposed by the
parliament, and retracted by the king, had already been made a few
years after the restoration; but Charles expected that the parliament,
whenever it should meet, would now be tamed to greater submission, and
would no longer dare to control his measures. Meanwhile the dissenters,
the most inveterate enemie