grievances that, at one of the earliest sittings of the Privy
Council, he introduced the subject. He sent a message requesting
the House of Commons to consider whether better regulations would
effectually prevent the abuses which had excited so much
discontent. He added that he would willingly consent to the
entire abolition of the tax if it should appear that the tax and
the abuses were inseparable.39 This communication was received
with loud applause. There were indeed some financiers of the old
school who muttered that tenderness for the poor was a fine
thing; but that no part of the revenue of the state came in so
exactly to the day as the hearth money; that the goldsmiths of
the City could not always be induced to lend on the security of
the next quarter's customs or excise, but that on an assignment
of hearth money there was no difficulty in obtaining advances. In
the House of Commons, those who thought thus did not venture to
raise their voices in opposition to the general feeling. But in
the Lords there was a conflict of which the event for a time
seemed doubtful. At length the influence of the Court,
strenuously exerted, carried an Act by which the chimney tax was
declared a badge of slavery, and was, with many expressions of
gratitude to the King, abolished for ever.40

The Commons granted, with little dispute, and without a division,
six hundred thousand pounds for the purpose of repaying to the
United Provinces the charges of the expedition which had
delivered England. The facility with which this large sum was
voted to a shrewd, diligent and thrifty people, our allies,
indeed, politically, but commercially our most formidable rivals,
excited some murmurs out of doors, and was, during many years, a
favourite subject of sarcasm with Tory pamphleteers.41 The