■WILLIAM AND MABY.

315

Bank. So closely was their interest bound up with the interest chap.of the government that the greater the public danger the more — c '^ready were they to come to the rescue. In old times, when theTreasury was empty, when the taxes came in slowly, and whenthe pay of the soldiers and sailors was in arrear, it had beennecessary for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to go, hat inhand, up and down Cheapside and Cornhill, attended by theLord Mayor and by the Aldermen, and to make up a sum byborrowing a hundred pounds from this hosier, and two hundredpounds from that ironmonger.* Those times were over. Thegovernment, instead of laboriously scooping up supplies fromnumerous petty sources, could now draw whatever it requiredfrom an immense reservoir, which all those petty sources keptconstantly replenished. It is hardly too much to say that,during many years, the weight of the Bank, which was con-stantly in the scale of the Whigs, almost counterbalanced theweight of the Church, which was as constantly in the scale ofthe Tories.

A few minutes after the bill which established the Bank ofEngland had received the royal assent, the Parliament waspmro e a-prorogued by the King with a speech in which he warmly pariia-thanked the Commons for their liberality. Montague was im- JJhlisie-mediately rewarded for his services with the place of Chancellorof the Exchequer.** menis.

Shrewsbury had a few weeks before consented to acceptthe seals. lie had held out resolutely from November to Slirews _March. While he was trying to find excuses which might g"JJ clarysatisfy his political friends, Sir James Montgomery visited ofstale -him. Montgomery was now the most miserable of humanbeings. Having borne a great part in a great Revolution,having been charged with the august office of presenting

- * Proceedings of the Wednesday Club in Friday Street.

** Lords’ Journals, April 25.1(194; London Gazette, May 7. 1694.