an, thus amended, received the sanction of the Commons more easily
than might have been expected from the violence of the adverse clamour.
In truth, the Parliament was under duress. Money must be had, and could
in no other way be had so easily. What took place when the House had
resolved itself into a committee cannot be discovered; but, while the
Speaker was in the chair, no division took place. The bill, however, was
not safe when it had reached the Upper House. Some Lords suspected that
the plan of a national bank had been devised for the purpose of exalting
the moneyed interest at the expense of the landed interest. Others
thought that this plan, whether good or bad, ought not to have been
submitted to them in such a form. Whether it would be safe to call into
existence a body which might one day rule the whole commercial world,
and how such a body should be constituted, were questions which ought
not to be decided by one branch of the Legislature. The Peers ought to
be at perfect liberty to examine all the details of the proposed scheme,
to suggest amendments, to ask for conferences. It was therefore most
unfair that the law establishing the Bank should be sent up as part of a
law granting supplies to the Crown. The Jacobites entertained some hope
that the session would end with a quarrel between the Houses, that the
Tonnage Bill would be lost, and that William would enter on the campaign
without money. It was already May, according to the New Style. The
London season was over; and many noble families had left Covent Garden
and Soho Square for their woods and hayfields. But summonses were sent
out. There was a violent rush back to town. The benches which had lately
been deserted were crowded. The sittings began at an hour unusually
early, and were prolonged to an hour unusually late. On the day on which
the bill was committed the contest lasted without intermission from
nine in the morning till six in the evening. Godolphin was in the chair.
Nottingham and Rochester proposed to strike out all the clauses which
related to the Bank. Something was said about the danger of setting up a
gigantic corporation which might soon give law to the King and the
three Estates of the Realm. But the Peers seemed to be most moved by
the appeal which was made to them as landlords. The whole scheme, it was
asserted, was intended to enrich usurers at the expense of the nobility
and gentry. Persons who had laid by money would rather put it