nce of provisions, by an excise; and do conclude that no
other tax is proper for England but a pound-rate, or excise upon the
expence of provisions. He showed me every particular sort of payment
away of money, since the King's coming in, to this day; and told me,
from one to one, how little he hath received of profit from most of
them; and I believe him truly. That the L1,200,000 which the Parliament
with so much ado did first vote to give the King, and since hath been
reexamined by several committees of the present Parliament, is yet above
L300,000 short of making up really to the King the L1,200,000, as by
particulars he showed me.

[A committee was appointed in September, 1660, to consider the
subject of the King's revenue, and they "reported to the Commons that
the average revenue of Charles I., from 1637 to 1641 inclusive, had
been L895,819, and the average expenditure about L1,110,000. At
that time prices were lower and the country less burthened with navy
and garrisons, among which latter Dunkirk alone now cost more than
L100,000 a year. It appeared, therefore, that the least sum to
which the King could be expected to 'conform his expense' was
L1,200,000." Burnet writes, "It was believed that if two millions
had been asked he could have carried it. But he (Clarendon) had no
mind to put the King out of the necessity of having recourse to his
Parliament."--Lister's Life of Clarendon, vol. ii., pp. 22, 23.]

And in my Lord Treasurer's excellent letter to the King upon this
subject, he tells the King how it was the spending more than the revenue
that did give the first occasion of his father's ruine, and did since
to the rebels; who, he says, just like Henry the Eighth, had great and
sudden increase of wealth, but yet, by overspending, both died poor; and
further tells the King how much of this L1,200,000 depends upon the
life of the Prince, and so must be renewed by Parliament again to
his successor; which is seldom done without parting with some of the
prerogatives of the Crowne; or if denied and he persists to take it of
the people, it gives occasion to a civill war, which may, as it did in
the late business of tonnage and poundage, prove fatal to the Crowne. He
showed me how many ways the Lord Treasurer did take before he moved the
King to farme the Customes in the manner he do, and the reasons that
moved him to do it. He showed the a very excellent