and the House of Lords? Were the disclosures of 1695 forgotten,
the eighty thousand pounds of secret service money disbursed in
one year, the enormous bribes direct and indirect, Seymour's
saltpetre contracts, Leeds's bags of golds? By the malpractices
which the inquiry in the Exchequer Chamber then brought to light,
the Charter had been forfeited; and it would have been well if
the forfeiture had been immediately enforced. "Had not time then
pressed," said Montague, "had it not been necessary that the
session should close, it is probable that the petitioners, who
now cry out that they cannot get justice, would have got more
justice than they desired. If they had been called to account for
great and real wrong in 1695, we should not have had them here
complaining of imaginary wrong in 1698."

The fight was protracted by the obstinacy and dexterity of the
Old Company and its friends from the first week of May to the
last week in June. It seems that many even of Montague's
followers doubted whether the promised two millions would be
forthcoming. His enemies confidently predicted that the General
Society would be as complete a failure as the Land Bank had been
in the year before the last, and that he would in the autumn find
himself in charge of an empty exchequer. His activity and
eloquence, however, prevailed. On the twenty-sixth of June, after
many laborious sittings, the question was put that this Bill do
pass, and was carried by one hundred and fifteen votes to
seventy-eight. In the upper House, the conflict was short and
sharp. Some peers declared that, in their opinion, the
subscription to the proposed loan, far from amounting to the two
millions which the Chancellor of the Exchequer expected, would
fall far short of one million. Others, with much reason,