small knot of lanes, surrounded by the mansions of the
greatest nobles of a flourishing and enlightened kingdom.

At length, in 1697, a bill for abolishing the franchises of these places
passed both Houses, and received the royal assent. The Alsatians
and Savoyards were furious. Anonymous letters, containing menaces of
assassination, were received by members of Parliament who had made
themselves conspicuous by the zeal with which they had supported the
bill; but such threats only strengthened the general conviction that
it was high time to destroy these nests of knaves and ruffians. A
fortnight's grace was allowed; and it was made known that, when that
time had expired, the vermin who had been the curse of London would be
unearthed and hunted without mercy. There was a tumultuous flight to
Ireland, to France, to the Colonies, to vaults and garrets in less
notorious parts of the capital; and when, on the prescribed day, the
Sheriff's officers ventured to cross the boundary, they found those
streets where, a few weeks before, the cry of "A writ!" would have drawn
together a thousand raging bullies and vixens, as quiet as the cloister
of a cathedral. [790]

On the sixteenth of April, the King closed the session with a speech,
in which he returned warm and well merited thanks to the Houses for the
firmness and wisdom which had rescued the nation from commercial and
financial difficulties unprecedented in our history. Before he set out
for the Continent, he conferred some new honours, and made some
new ministerial arrangements. Every member of the Whig junto was
distinguished by some conspicuous mark of royal favour. Somers delivered
up the seal, of which he was Keeper; he received it back again with the
higher title of Chancellor, and was immediately commanded to affix it to
a patent, by which he was created Baron Somers of Evesham. [791] Russell
became Earl of Orford and Viscount Barfleur. No English title had
ever before been taken from a place of battle lying within a foreign
territory. But the precedent then set has been repeatedly followed; and
the names of Saint Vincent, Trafalgar, Camperdown, and Douro are now
borne by the successors of great commanders. Russell seems to have
accepted his earldom, after his fashion, not only without gratitude, but
grumblingly, and as if some great wrong had been done him. What was
a coronet to him? He had no child to inherit it. The only distinction
which he should have prized was