tminster Hall and
mobbed the members. A new duty on salt was imposed, and finally resort
was had to the lottery, whereby one million sterling was raised. All
these resources were not sufficient for the growing wants of the
Government, and the plan of the Bank of England was devised to furnish
immediate relief to the finances. Montague brought the measure forward
in Parliament, and 'he succeeded,' as Macaulay remarks, 'not only in
supplying the wants of the state for twelve months, but in creating a
great institution, which, after the lapse of more than a century and a
half, continues to flourish, and which he lived to see the stronghold,
through all vicissitudes, of the Whig party, and the bulwark, in
dangerous times, of the Protestant succession.'

The birth of the bank and the birth of the English national debt were
both in King William's time. In 1691, when England was at war with
France, the national debt unfunded was L3,130,000, at an annual interest
of L232,000. In 1697, at the Peace of Ryswick, this debt had swollen to
L14,522,000. At the Peace of Utrecht, in 1713, it had reached
L34,000,000. The war with Spain in 1718 brought it up to forty millions
sterling. And here it might have rested, had the advice of Shakspeare
been followed:

'Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace.'

But England went to war with Spain 'on the right of search.' From 1691
to this time the debt had increased on an average about a million
sterling per year. As early as 1745 the credit of the bank was so
identified with that of the state, that during the invasion of the
Pretender, whose forces were at Derby, only one hundred and twenty miles
from London, the creditors of the bank flocked in crowds to its counter
to obtain specie for its notes. The merchants intervened and signed an
agreement to make the bank's notes receivable in all business
transactions.

The war of the Austrian succession followed in 1742, and at the Peace of
Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, 'forever to be maintained,' the English were
saddled with a debt of L75,000,000.

'Peace hath her victories,
No less renowned than war.'

It was early in the last century that the abuse of paper money gave a
lasting and unfavorable impression against such issues. The scheme of
John Law and the South Sea Bubble about the same time broke and
scattered their fragments over both England and France. It was in the
latter scheme or folly that Pope lost a large portion of his earni