th needy foreigners
at a time when there was a great scarcity of provisions. A cry was raised
that the price of corn and bread was being enhanced by the action of
forestallers, and the lord mayor was instructed by letter from Sunderland
(3 Oct., 1709) to put the law in force against all engrossers,
forestallers and regraters of corn. The mayor in reply assured the
secretary of state that there were no such engrossers in the city, but
that the present dearness was caused by the exportation of large
quantities of corn and grain to foreign countries. The city authorities
had, moreover, been informed that wheat was selling in the north of
England at 40_s._ a quarter and less. They therefore suggested that
government should furnish a sufficient convoy for the purpose of bringing
it to London.(1947) The representation as to the evils arising from
exportation of corn had the desired effect, for a Bill was shortly
afterwards passed limiting such importation,(1948) whilst another Bill was
passed for regulating the assize of bread.(1949)

(M965) (M966)

The bitter feeling against the Whigs engendered by their overbearing and
dictatorial conduct whenever in power was increased by a sermon preached
at St. Paul's on the 5th November before the lord mayor and aldermen by
Dr. Sacheverell, a high church Tory. Taking for his text the words of the
Apostle, "In perils among false brethren" (2 Cor., xi, 26), the preacher
advocated in its entirety the doctrine of non-resistance, condemned every
sort of toleration, and attacked with much bitterness the Dissenters. Sir
Samuel Garrard, who had but recently entered on his duties as lord mayor
(having been elected in place of Sir Jeffery Jeffreys, who had been
excused from office on the ground of ill-health),(1950) was himself also a
high Tory, and as such was greatly pleased with the sentiments put forth
by Sacheverell. He congratulated the preacher on his sermon, and is said
to have expressed a hope that it would be printed. If so, it would appear
to betoken some doubt in his mind as to his brother aldermen consenting to
print such a polemical discourse. As a rule all sermons preached on state
occasions before the mayor and aldermen were ordered by the court to be
printed as a matter of course, the sum of forty shillings being voted
towards the expense. Two sermons recently preached before them, one at St.
Paul's and the other in the church of St. Lawrence Jewry, were so ordered
(8 Nov.) to b