than his accustomed freedom. But
it cannot be said that the king's debauchery was ever approved of even
in London. Both the mercurial Pepys and the grave Evelyn alike deplore
it. The misfortune clearly attributable to the king's return was the
substitution of a corrupt, inefficient, and unpatriotic administration
for the old-fashioned servants of the public whom Cromwell had gathered
round him.

Parliament was busy with new taxes. In November 1666 Marvell writes:--

"The Committee has prepared these votes. All persons shall pay one
shilling per poll, all aliens two, all Nonconformists and papists
two, all servants one shilling in the pound of their wages, all
personal estates shall pay for so much as is not already taxed by the
land-tax, after twenty shillings in the hundred. Cattle, corn, and
household furniture shall be excepted, and all such stock-in-trade as
is already taxed by the land-tax, but the rest to be liable."

Stringent work! Later on we read:--

"Three shillings in the pound for all offices and public employments,
except military; lawyers and physicians proportionate to their
practice."

Here is the income-tax long before Mr. Pitt.

The House of Lords, trembling on the verge of a breach of privilege,
altered this Poll Bill. Marvell writes in January 1667:--

"We have not advanced much this week; the alterations of the Lords
upon the Poll Bill have kept us busy. We have disagreed in most.
Aliens we adhere to pay double. Nonconformists we agree with them
_not_ to pay double (126 to 91), to allow no exemptions from patents
to free from paying, we adhere; and we also rejected a long clause
whereby they as well as the Commoners pretend distinctly to give to
the King, and to-day we send up our reasons."

The Lords agreed, and the Bill passed.

Ireland supplied a very stormy measure. I am afraid Marvell was on the
wrong side, but owing to his reserve I am not sure. An Irish Cattle Bill
was a measure very popular in the House of Commons, its object being to
prevent Ireland from sending over live beasts to be fattened, killed,
and consumed in England. You can read all about it in Clarendon's _Life_
(vol. iii. pp. 704-720, 739), and think you are reading about Canadian
cattle to-day. The breeders (in a majority) were on one side, and the
owners of pasture-land on the other. The breeders said the Irish cattle
were bred in Ireland for nothing and transport