? Seven or eight per cent,
was given for anticipations in King William's time, though no new fraud
had been offered, only because the old debts were unpaid; and how hard
was it to get any one to lend money at all!

But, after by a long series of just and punctual dealing, the Parliament
making good all the deficient funds, and paying even those debts for
which no provision was made, and the like, how is the credit restored,
the public faith made sacred again, and how money flows into the
Exchequer without calling for, and that at three or four per cent.
interest, even from foreign countries as well as from our own people!
They that have credit can never want money; and this credit is to be
raised by no other method, whether by private tradesmen, or public
bodies of men, by nations and governments, but by a general probity and
an honest punctual dealing.

The reason of this case is as plain as the assertion; the cause is in
itself; no man lends his money but with an expectation of receiving it
again with the interest. If the borrower pays it punctually without
hesitations and defalcations, without difficulties, and, above all,
without compulsion, what is the consequence?--he is called an honest
man, he has the reputation of a punctual fair dealer. And what
then?--why, then, he may borrow again whenever he will, he may take up
money and goods, or anything, upon his bare words, or note; when another
man must give bondsmen, or _mainprize_, that is, a pawn or pledge for
security, and hardly be trusted to neither. This is credit.

It is not the quality of the person would give credit to his dealing;
not kings, princes, emperors, it is all one; nay, a private shopkeeper
shall borrow money much easier than a prince, if the credit of the
tradesman has the reputation of being an honest man. Not the crown
itself can give credit to the head that wears it, if once he that wears
it comes but to mortgage his honour in the matter of payment of money.

Who would have lent King Charles II. fifty pounds on the credit of his
word or bond, after the shutting up the Exchequer? The royal word was
made a jest of, and the character of the king was esteemed a fluttering
trifle, which no man would venture upon, much less venture his money
upon.

In King William's time the case was much the same at first; though the
king had not broken his credit then with any man, yet how did they break
their faith with the whole world, by the deficiency of