the permission would have been granted as of course. But on this
occasion the judges were kept waiting some hours at the door; and
such difficulties were made about the permission that the Peers
desisted from urging a request which seemed likely to be
ungraciously refused.

The attention of the Parliament was, during the remainder of the
session, chiefly occupied by commercial questions. Some of those
questions required so much investigation, and gave occasion to so
much dispute, that the prorogation did not take place till the
fifth of July. There was consequently some illness and much
discontent among both Lords and Commons. For, in that age, the
London season usually ended soon after the first notes of the
cuckoo had been heard, and before the poles had been decked for
the dances and mummeries which welcomed the genial May day of the
ancient calendar. Since the year of the Revolution, a year which
was an exception to all ordinary rules, the members of the two
Houses had never been detained from their woods and haycocks even
so late as the beginning of June.

The Commons had, soon after they met, appointed a Committee to
enquire into the state of trade, and had referred to this
Committee several petitions from merchants and manufacturers who
complained that they were in danger of being undersold, and who
asked for additional protection.

A highly curious report on the importation of silks and the
exportation of wool was soon presented to the House. It was in
that age believed by all but a very few speculative men that the
sound commercial policy was to keep out of the country the