the intention which the commons discovered of retrenching
his prerogative.

This law brought great distress for some time upon the Irish; but it has
occasioned their applying with greater industry to manufactures, and has
proved in the issue beneficial to that kingdom.

CHAPTER LXV.

[Illustration: 1-802-hyde-park.jpg HYDE PARK]

CHARLES II.

{1668.} Since the restoration, England had attained a situation which
had never been experienced in any former period of her government,
and which seemed the only one that could fully insure, at once, her
tranquillity and her liberty: the king was in continual want of supply
from the parliament, and he seemed willing to accommodate himself
to that dependent situation. Instead of reviving those claims of
prerogative, so strenuously insisted on by his predecessors, Charles had
strictly confined himself within the limits of law, and had courted,
by every art of popularity, the affections of his subjects. Even
the severities, however blamable, which he had exercised against
nonconformists, are to be considered as expedients by which he strove to
ingratiate himself with that party which predominated in parliament.
But notwithstanding these promising appearances, there were many
circumstances which kept the government from resting steadily on that
bottom on which it was placed. The crown, having lost almost all its
ancient demesnes, relied entirely on voluntary grants of the people; and
the commons, not fully accustomed to this new situation, were not yet
disposed to supply, with sufficient liberality, the necessities of the
crown. They imitated too strictly the example of their predecessors in a
rigid frugality of public money; and neither sufficiently considered
the indigent condition of their prince, nor the general state of Europe,
where every nation, by its increase both of magnificence and force, had
made great additions to all public expenses. Some considerable sums,
indeed, were bestowed on Charles; and the patriots of that age,
tenacious of ancient maxims, loudly upbraided the commons with
prodigality; but if we may judge by the example of a later period, when
the government has become more regular, and the harmony of its parts has
been more happily adjusted, the parliaments of this reign seem rather to
have merited a contrary reproach.

The natural consequence of the poverty of the crown was besides feeble,
irregular transactions in foreign affairs, a con