river at times, it was merely upon a party of pleasure, accompanied by
gay gallants in velvet cloaks and silken doublets, and by light-hearted
dames like herself, and not by notorious plotters or sour priests.
Still, as many Bordeaux merchants frequented the house, as well as
traders from the Hanse towns, and other foreigners, it was looked upon
by the suspicious as a hotbed of Romish heresy and treason. Moreover,
these maligners affirmed that English recusants, as well as seminary
priests from abroad, had been harboured there, and clandestinely
spirited away from the pursuit of justice by the skipper; but the
charges were never substantiated, and could, therefore, only proceed
from envy and malice. Whatever Madame Bonaventure's religious opinions
might be, she kept her own council so well that no one ever found them
out.

But evil days were at hand. Hitherto, all had been smiling and
prosperous. The prospect now began to darken.

Within the last twelve months a strange and unlooked for interference
had taken place with our hostess's profits, which she had viewed, at
first, without much anxiety, because she did not clearly comprehend its
scope; but latterly, as its formidable character became revealed, it
began to fill her with uneasiness. The calamity, as she naturally enough
regarded it, arose in the following manner. The present was an age of
monopolies and patents, granted by a crown ever eager to obtain money
under any pretext, however unjustifiable and iniquitous, provided it was
plausibly coloured; and these vexatious privileges were purchased by
greedy and unscrupulous persons for the purpose of turning them into
instruments of extortion and wrong. Though various branches of trade and
industry groaned under the oppression inflicted upon them, there were no
means of redress. The patentees enjoyed perfect immunity, grinding them