Chapter 157
[Footnote 601: There is an excellent portrait of Villeroy in St. Simon's Memoirs.]
[Footnote 602: Some curious traits of Trumball's character will be found in Pepys's Tangier Diary.]
[Footnote 603: Postboy, June 13., July 9. 11., 1695; Intelligence Domestic and Foreign, June 14.; Pacquet Boat from Holland and Flanders, July 9.]
[Footnote 604: Vaudemont's Despatch and William's Answer are in the Monthly Mercury for July 1695.]
[Footnote 605: See Saint Simon's Memoirs and his note upon Dangeau.]
[Footnote 606: London Gazette July 22. 1695; Monthly Mercury of August, 1695. Swift ten years later, wrote a lampoon on Cutts, so dull and so nauseously scurrilous that Ward or Gildon would have been ashamed of it, ent.i.tled the Description of a Salamander.]
[Footnote 607: London Gazette, July 29. 1695; Monthly Mercury for August 1695; Stepney to Lord Lexington, Aug. 16/26; Robert Fleming's Character of King William, 1702. It was in the attack of July 17/27 that Captain Shandy received the memorable wound in his groin.]
[Footnote 608: London Gazette, Aug. r. 5. 1695; Monthly Mercury of August 1695, containing the Letters of William and Dykvelt to the States General.]
[Footnote 609: Monthly Mercury for August 1695; Stepney to Lord Lexington, Aug. 16/26]
[Footnote 610: Monthly Mercury for August 1695; Letter from Paris, Aug 26/Sept 5 1695, among the Lexington Papers.]
[Footnote 611: L'Hermitage, Aug. 13/23 1695.]
[Footnote 612: London Gazette, Aug. 26. 1695; Monthly Mercury, Stepney to Lexington, Aug. 20/30.]
[Footnote 613: Boyer's History of King William III, 1703; London Gazette, Aug. 29. 1695; Stepney to Lexington, Aug. 20/30.; Blathwayt to Lexington, Sept. 2.]
[Footnote 614: Postscript to the Monthly Mercury for August 1695; London Gazette, Sept. 9.; Saint Simon; Dangeau.]
[Footnote 615: Boyer, History of King William III, 2703; Postscript to the Monthly Mercury, Aug. 1695; London Gazette, Sept. 9. 12.; Blathwayt to Lexington, Sept. 6.; Saint Simon; Dangeau.]
[Footnote 616: There is a n.o.ble, and I suppose, unique Collection of the newspapers of William's reign in the British Museum. I have turned over every page of that Collection. It is strange that neither Luttrell nor Evelyn should have noticed the first appearance of the new journals. The earliest mention of those journals which I have found, is in a despatch of L'Hermitage, dated July 12/22, 1695. I will transcribe his words:--"Depuis quelque tems on imprime ici plusieurs feuilles volantes en forme de gazette, qui sont remplies de toutes series de nouvelles.
Cette licence est venue de ce que le parlement n'a pas acheve le bill ou projet d'acte qui avoit ete porte dans la Chambre des Communes pour regler l'imprimerie et empecher que ces sortes de choses n'arriva.s.sent.
Il n'y avoit ci-devant qu'un des commis des Secretaires d'Etat qui eut le pouvoir de faire des gazettes: mais aujourdhui il s'en fait plusieurs sons d'autres noms." L'Hermitage mentions the paragraph reflecting on the Princess, and the submission of the libeller.]
[Footnote 617: L'Hermitage, Oct. 15/25., Nov. 15/25. 1695.]
[Footnote 618: London Gazette, Oct. 24. 1695. See Evelyn's Account of Newmarket in 1671, and Pepys, July 18. 1668. From Tallard's despatches written after the Peace of Ryswick it appears that the autumn meetings were not less numerous
[Footnote 619: I have taken this account of William's progress chiefly from the London Gazettes, from the despatches of L'Hermitage, from Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, and from the letters of Vernon, Yard and Cartwright among the Lexington Papers.]
[Footnote 620: See the letter of Yard to Lexington, November 8. 1695, and the note by the editor of the Lexington Papers.]
[Footnote 621: L'Hermitage, Nov. 15/25. 1695.]
[Footnote 622: L'Hermitage Oct 25/Nov 4 Oct 29/Nov 8 1695.]
[Footnote 623: Ibid. Nov. 5/15 1695.]
[Footnote 624: L'Hermitage, Nov. 15/25 1695; Sir James Forbes to Lady Russell, Oct. 3. 1695; Lady Russell to Lord Edward Russell; The Postman, Nov. 1695.]
[Footnote 625: There is a highly curious account of this contest in the despatches of L'Hermitage.]
[Footnote 626: Postman, Dec. 15. 17. 1696; Vernon to Shrewsbury, Dec.
13. 15.; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Burnet, i. 647.; Saint Evremond's Verses to Hampden.]
[Footnote 627: L'Hermitage, Nov. 13/23. 1695.]
[Footnote 628: I have derived much valuable information on this subject from a MS. in the British Museum, Lansdowne Collection, No. 801. It is ent.i.tled Brief Memoires relating to the Silver and Gold Coins of England, with an Account of the Corruption of the Hammered Money, and of the Reform by the late Grand Coinage at the Tower and the Country Mints, by Hopton Haynes, a.s.say Master of the Mint.]
[Footnote 629: Stat. 5 Eliz. c. ii., and 18 Eliz. c. 1]
[Footnote 630: Pepys's Diary, November 23. 1663.]
[Footnote 631: The first writer who noticed the fact that, where good money and bad money are thown into circulation together, the bad money drives out the good money, was Aristophanes. He seems to have thought that the preference which his fellow citizens gave to light coins was to be attributed to a depraved taste such as led them to entrust men like Cleon and Hyperbolus with the conduct of great affairs. But, though his political economy will not bear examination, his verses are excellent:--
pollakis g' emin edoksen e polis peponthenai tauton es te ton politon tous kalous te kagathous es te tarkhaion nomisma Kai to kainon khrusion.
oute gar toutoisin ousin ou kekibdeleumenios alla kallistois apanton, us dokei, nomismaton, kai monois orthos kopeisi, kai kekodonismenois en te tois Ellisim kai tois barbarioisi pantahkou khrometh' ouden, alla toutois tois ponerois khalkiois, khthes te kai proen kopeisi to kakistu kommati.
ton politon th' ous men ismen eugeneis kai sophronas andras ontas, kai dikaious, kai kalous te kagathous, kai traphentas en palaistrais, kai khorois kai mousiki prouseloumen tois de khalkois, kai ksenois, kai purriais, kai ponerois kak poneron eis apanta khrometha.]
[Footnote 632: Narcissus Luttrell's Diary is filled with accounts of these executions. "Le metier de rogneur de monnoye," says L'Hermitage, "est si lucratif et paroit si facile que, quelque chose qu'on fa.s.se pour les detruire, il s'en trouve toujours d'autres pour prendre leur place.
Oct 1/11. 1695."]
[Footnote 633: As to the sympathy of the public with the clippers, see the very curious sermon which Fleetwood afterwards Bishop of Ely, preached before the Lord Mayor in December 1694. Fleetwood says that "a soft pernicious tenderness slackened the care of magistrates, kept back the under officers, corrupted the juries, and withheld the evidence." He mentions the difficulty of convincing the criminals themselves that they had done wrong. See also a Sermon preached at York Castle by George Halley, a clergyman of the Cathedral, to some clippers who were to be hanged the next day. He mentions the impenitent ends which clippers generally made, and does his best to awaken the consciences of his bearers. He dwells on one aggravation of their crime which I should not have thought of. "If," says he, "the same question were to be put in this age, as of old, 'Whose is this image and superscription?' we could not answer the whole. We may guess at the image; but we cannot tell whose it is by the superscription; for that is all gone." The testimony of these two divines is confirmed by that of Tom Brown, who tells a facetious story, which I do not venture to quote, about a conversation between the ordinary of Newgate and a clipper.]
[Footnote 634: Lowndes's Essay for the Amendment of the Silver Coins, 1695.]
[Footnote 635: L'Hermitage, Nov 29/Dec 9 1695.]
[Footnote 636: The Memoirs of this Lancas.h.i.+re Quaker were printed a few years ago in a most respectable newspaper, the Manchester Guardian.]
[Footnote 637: Lowndes's Essay.]
[Footnote 638: L'Hermitage, Dec 24/Jan 3 1695.]
[Footnote 639: It ought always to be remembered, to Adam Smith's honour, that he was entirely converted by Bentham's Defence of Usury, and acknowledged, with candour worthy of a true philosopher, that the doctrine laid down in the Wealth of Nations was erroneous.]
[Footnote 640: Lowndes's Essay for the Amendment of the Silver Coins; Locke's Further Considerations concerning raising the Value of Money; Locke to Molyneux, Nov. 20. 1695; Molyneux to Locke, Dec. 24. 1695.]
[Footnote 641: Burnet, ii. 147.]
[Footnote 642: Commons' Journals, Nov. 22, 23. 26. 1695; L'Hermitage, Nov 26/Dec 6]
[Footnote 643: Commons' Journals, Nov. 26, 27, 28, 29. 1695; L'Hermitage, Nov 26./Dec 6 Nov. 29/Dec 9 Dec 3/13]
[Footnote 644: Commons' Journals, Nov. 28, 29. 1695; L'Hermitage, Dec.
3/13]
[Footnote 645: L'Hermitage, Nov 22/Dec 2, Dec 6/16 1695; An Abstract of the Consultations and Debates between the French King and his Council concerning the new Coin that is intended to be made in England, privately sent by a Friend of the Confederates from the French Court to his Brother at Brussels, Dec. 12. 1695; A Discourse of the General Notions of Money, Trade and Exchanges, by Mr. Clement of Bristol; A Letter from an English Merchant at Amsterdam to his Friend in London; A Fund for preserving and supplying our Coin; An Essay for regulating the Coin, by A. V.; A Proposal for supplying His Majesty with 1,200,000L, by mending the Coin, and yet preserving the ancient Standard of the Kingdom. These are a few of the tracts which were distributed among members of Parliament at this conjuncture.]
[Footnote 646: Commons' Journals, Dec. 10. 1695; L'Hermitage, Dec. 3/13 6/16 10/20]