, a scurrilous party-writer in very
little estimation. They would not, however, deign to take notice of it
in the house; but a complaint being made of endeavours to raise tumults
and seditions, a committee was appointed to draw up an address to his
majesty, informing him of those seditious endeavours, and beseeching him
to provide for the public peace and security.

The house, however, perceiving plainly that they had incurred the
odium of the nation, which began to clamour for a war with France, and
dreading the popular resentment, thought fit to change their measures
with respect to this object, and present the address we have already
mentioned, in which they promised to support him in the alliances he
should contract with the emperor and other states in order to bridle the
exorbitant power of France. They likewise proceeded in earnest upon the
supply, and voted funds for raising about two millions seven hundred
thousand pounds to defray the expense of the ensuing year. They voted
thirty thousand seamen, and resolved that ten thousand troops should be
transported from Ireland to Holland, as the auxiliaries stipulated in
the treaty of 1677 with the states-general. The funds were constituted
of a land-tax, certain duties on merchandise, and a weekly deduction
from the excise, so as to bring down the civil list to six hundred
thousand pounds, as the duke of Gloucester was dead, and James' queen
refused her allowance. They passed a bill for taking away all
privileges of parliament in legal prosecutions during the intermediate
prorogations; their last struggle with the lords was concerning a bill
for appointing commissioners to examine and state the public accounts.
The persons nominated for this purpose were extremely obnoxious to the
majority of the peers, as violent partizans of the tory faction; when
the bill, therefore, was sent up to the lords, they made some amendments
which the commons rejected. The former animosity between the two houses
began to revive, when the king interrupted their disputes by putting
an end to the session on the twenty-fourth day of Juno, after having
thanked the parliament for their zeal in the public service, and
exhorted them to a discharge of their duties in their several counties.
He was, no doubt, extremely pleased with such an issue of a session that
had began with a very inauspicious aspect. His health daily declined;
but he concealed the decay of his constitution, that his allies migh