in which it had, two
years before, been brought under the consideration of the House of
Commons, but in a form much less shocking to common sense and less
open to ridicule. Chamberlayne indeed protested loudly against all
modifications of his plan, and proclaimed, with undiminished confidence,
that he would make all his countrymen rich if they would only let
him. He was not, he said, the first great discoverer whom princes and
statesmen had regarded as a dreamer. Henry the Seventh had, in an evil
hour, refused to listen to Christopher Columbus; the consequence had
been that England had lost the mines of Mexico and Peru; yet what were
the mines of Mexico and Peru to the riches of a nation blessed with an
unlimited paper currency? But the united force of reason and ridicule
had reduced the once numerous sect which followed Chamberlayne to a
small and select company of incorrigible fools. Few even of the squires
now believed in his two great doctrines; the doctrine that the State
can, by merely calling a bundle of old rags ten millions sterling, add
ten millions sterling to the riches of the nation; and the doctrine
that a lease of land for a term of years may be worth many times the fee
simple. But it was still the general opinion of the country gentlemen
that a bank, of which it should be the special business to advance money
on the security of land, might be a great blessing to the nation.
Harley and the Speaker Foley now proposed that such a bank should be
established by Act of Parliament, and promised that, if their plan
was adopted, the King should be amply supplied with money for the next
campaign.

The Whig leaders, and especially Montague, saw that the scheme was a
delusion, that it must speedily fail, and that, before it failed, it
might not improbably ruin their own favourite institution, the Bank of
England. But on this point they had against them, not only the whole
Tory party, but also their master and many of their followers. The
necessities of the State were pressing. The offers of the projectors
were tempting. The Bank of England had, in return for its charter,
advanced to the State only one million at eight per cent. The Land
Bank would advance more than two millions and a half at seven per cent.
William, whose chief object was to procure money for the service of the
year, was little inclined to find fault with any source from which two
millions and a half could be obtained. Sunderland, who generally
exe