re, whole
streets, whole market towns, had been bestowed on courtiers was greatly
to be lamented. Nothing could have been more proper than to pass a
prospective statute tying up in strict entail the little which still
remained of the Crown property. But to annul by a retrospective statute
patents, which in Westminster Hall were held to be legally valid, would
have been simply robbery. Such robbery must necessarily have made all
property insecure; and a statesman must be short-sighted indeed who
imagines that what makes property insecure can really make society
prosperous.

But it is vain to expect that men who are inflamed by anger, who are
suffering distress, and who fancy that it is in their power to obtain
immediate relief from their distresses at the expense of those who have
excited their anger, will reason as calmly as the historian who, biassed
neither by interest nor passion, reviews the events of a past age.
The public burdens were heavy. To whatever extent the grants of royal
domains were revoked, those burdens would be lightened. Some of the
recent grants had undoubtedly been profuse. Some of the living grantees
were unpopular. A cry was raised which soon became formidably loud. All
the Tories, all the malecontent Whigs, and multitudes who, without
being either Tories or malecontent Whigs, disliked taxes and disliked
Dutchmen, called for a resumption of all the Crown property which King
William had, as it was phrased, been deceived into giving away.

On the seventh of February 1698, this subject, destined to irritate
the public mind at intervals during many years, was brought under the
consideration of the House of Commons. The opposition asked leave to
bring in a bill vacating all grants of Crown property which had been
made since the Revolution. The ministers were in a great strait; the
public feeling was strong; a general election was approaching; it was
dangerous and it would probably be vain to encounter the prevailing
sentiment directly. But the shock which could not be resisted might be
eluded. The ministry accordingly professed to find no fault with the
proposed bill, except that it did not go far enough, and moved for leave
to bring in two more bills, one for annulling the grants of James the
Second, the other for annulling the grants of Charles the Second. The
Tories were caught in their own snare. For most of the grants of Charles
and James had been made to Tories; and a resumption of those grants