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HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

When to the three great sources of income which have■ been mentioned we add the royal domains, then far more ex-tensive than at present, the first fruits and tenths, which hadnot yet been surrendered to the Church, the Duchies of Corn-wall and Lancaster, the forfeitures and the fines, we shall findthat the whole annual revenue of the crown may be fairlyestimated at about fourteen hundred thousand pounds. Ofthis revenue part was hereditary: the rest had been granted toCharles for life; and he was at liberty to lay out the wholeexactly as he thought fit. Whatever he could save by re-trenching the expenditure of the public departments was anaddition to his privy purse. Of the Post Office, more will here-after be said. The profits of that establishment had beenappropriated by Parliament to the Duke of York.

The King’s revenue was, or rather ought to have been,charged with the payment of about eighty thousand pounds ayear, the interest of the sum fraudulently detained in the Ex-chequer by the Cabal. While Danby was at the head of thefinances, the creditors had received their dividends, thoughnot with the strict punctuality of modern times: but those whohad succeeded him at the Treasury had been less expert, orless solicitous to maintain public faith. Since the victory wonby the court over the Whigs, not a farthing had been paid;and no redress was granted to the sufferers, till a new dynastyhad established a new system. There can be no greater errorthan to imagine that the device of meeting the exigencies ofthe state by loans was imported into our island by William theThird. From a period of immemorial antiquity it had been thepractice of every English government to contract debts. Whatthe Revolution introduced was the practice of honestly payingthem. *

* My chief aulhorities for this financial statement will be found inthe Commons’ Journals, March 1. and March 20 . 1G8J.