so much of the capital
stock of the company as should then carry an interest of five per cent.
It was likewise provided, that, after Midsummer in the year one thousand
seven hundred and twenty-seven, the company should not be paid off in
any sums being less than one million at a time.

CHARTERS GRANTED TO THE ROYAL AND LONDON ASSURANCE OFFICES.

The heads of the Royal-Assurance and London-Assurance companies,
understanding that the civil-list was considerably in arrears, offered
to the ministry six hundred thousand pounds towards the discharge of
that debt, on condition of their obtaining the king's charter, with
a parliamentary sanction, for the establishment of their respective
companies. The proposal was embraced; and the king communicated it in a
message to the house of commons, desiring their concurrence. A bill
was immediately passed, enabling his majesty to grant letters of
incorporation to the two companies. It soon obtained the royal assent;
and, on the eleventh day of June, an end was put to the session. This
was the age of interested projects, inspired by a venal spirit
of adventure, the natural consequence of that warice, fraud, and
profligacy, which the monied corporations had introduced. This of
all others is the most unfavourable era for an historian. A reader of
sentiment and imagination cannot be entertained or interested by a dry
detail of such transactions as admit of no warmth, no colouring, no
embellishment, a detail which serves only to exhibit an inanimate
picture of tasteless vice and mean degeneracy.

TREATY OF ALLIANCE WITH SWEDEN.

By this time an alliance offensive and defensive was concluded at
Stockholm between king George and the queen of Sweden, by which his
majesty engaged to send a fleet into the Baltic to act against the czar
of Muscovy, in case that monarch should reject reasonable proposals of
peace. Peter loudly complained of the insolent interposition of king
George, alleging that he had failed in his engagements, both as elector
of Hanover and king of Great Britain. His resident at London presented
a long memorial on this subject, which was answered by the British and
Hanoverian ministry. These recriminations served only to inflame the
difference. The czar continued to prosecute the war, and at length
concluded a peace without a mediator. At the instances, however of king
George and the regent of France, a treaty of peace was signed between
the queen of Sweden and