desperate want of money, and supported by the 'City' because the
'City' was Whig. Very briefly, the story was this. The Government of
Charles II. (under the Cabal Ministry) had brought the credit of the
English State to the lowest possible point. It had perpetrated one
of those monstrous frauds, which are likewise gross blunders. The
goldsmiths, who then carried on upon a trifling scale what we should
now call banking, used to deposit their reserve of treasure in the
'Exchequer,' with the sanction and under the care of the Government.
In many European countries the credit of the State had been so much
better than any other credit, that it had been used to strengthen
the beginnings of banking. The credit of the state had been so used
in England: though there had lately been a civil war and several
revolutions, the honesty of the English Government was trusted
implicitly. But Charles II. showed that it was trusted undeservedly.
He shut up the 'Exchequer,' would pay no one, and so the
'goldsmiths' were ruined.

The credit of the Stuart Government never recovered from this
monstrous robbery, and the Government created by the Revolution of
1688 could hardly expect to be more trusted with money than its
predecessor. A Government created by a revolution hardly ever is.
There is a taint of violence which capitalists dread instinctively,
and there is always a rational apprehension that the Government
which one revolution thought fit to set up another revolution may
think fit to pull down. In 1694, the credit of William III.'s
Government was so low in London that it was impossible for it to
borrow any large sum; and the evil was the greater, because in
consequence of the French war the financial straits of the
Government were extreme. At last a scheme was hit upon which would
relieve their necessities. 'The plan,' says Macaulay, 'was that