JAMES THE SECOND.

89

North was one of the attest men of his time. He had early in c ^‘life been sent to the Levant, where he had been long engaged TSssT"in mercantile pursuits. Most men would, in such a situation,have allowed their faculties to rust. For at Smyrna and Con-stantinople there were few books and few intelligent com-panions. But the young factor had one of those vigorousunderstandings which are independent of external aids. Inhis solitude he meditated deeply on the philosophy of trade,and thought out by degrees a complete and admirable theory,substantially the same with that which, a hundred years later,was expounded by Adam Smith. After an exile of manyyears, Dudley North returned to England with a large fortune,and commenced business as a Turkey merchant in the City ofLondon. His profound knowledge, both speculative andpractical, of commercial matters, and the perspicuity andliveliness with which he explained his views, speedily intro-duced him to the notice of statesmen. The government foundin him at once an enlightened adviser and an unscrupulousslave. For with his rare mental endowments were joined laxprinciples and an unfeeling heart. When the Tory reactionwas in full progress, he had consented to be made Sheriff forthe express purpose of assisting the vengeance of the court.

His juries had never failed to find verdicts of Guilty; and, ona day of judicial butchery, carts, loaded with the legs andarms of quartered Whigs, were, to the great discomposureof his lady, driven to his fine house in Basinghall Street fororders. His services had been rewarded with the honour ofknighthood, with an Alderman’s gown, and with the officeof Commissioner of the Customs. He had been brought intoParliament for Banbury, and, though a new member, was theperson on whom the Lord Treasurer chiefly relied for theconduct of financial business in the Lower House.*

* Roger North’s Life of Sir Dudley North; Life of Lord Guildford166.; M'Culloch’s Literature of Political Economy.