Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/89

] country. He demanded that the army should be raised to a hundred and ten thousand men, and the navy proportionably augmented. He complained bitterly of the mismanagement of the fleet, and the commons immediately proceeded to inquire into the cause of it. The whigs made a vehement charge of treachery and neglect against Delaval and Killigrew; the tories, to defend them, threw the blame on the admiralty. Lord Falkland, who was chief commissioner, was proved by Rainsford, the receiver of the navy, to have embezzled a large sum, and it was moved that he be committed to the Tower. This, however, was overruled, but he was reprimanded in his place. The lords then took up the same examination, and endeavoured to turn the blame from the earl of Nottingham to Sir John Trenchard, the whig secretary. Nottingham declared that early in June he received a list of the French fleet from Paris, and the time of their sailing, and handed it to Trenchard, whose duty it was to send the orders to the admirals. But Trenchard was in his turn screened by the whigs. The matter was again taken up by the commons, and lord Falkland was declared guilty of a high misdemeanour and committed to the Tower; whence, however, in two days he was released on his own petition. Robert Harley—destined to make a great figure in this and the succeeding reign-Foley, and Harcourt, all of whom had from whigs joined the tories, presented to the house a representation of the receipts and disbursements of the revenue, which displayed the grossest mismanagement. But the farther the inquiry went the more flagrant became the discoveries of the corruption of both ministers and members of parliament, through bounties, grants, places, pensions, and secret service money; so that it was clear that parliament was so managed that ministers could baffle any bill, quash any grievance, and prepare any fictitious statement of accounts. The result was that William was compelled to dismiss Nottingham, and to place Russell, secret traitor as he was, at the head of the admiralty. The seals which Nottingham resigned were offered to Shrewsbury, but were not at once accepted.

Having expressed their feeling on the mismanagement and treachery of the past year, the commons proceeded to vote the supplies for the next, and in this they showed no want of confidence in the king. They did not, indeed, vote him his hundred and ten thousand troops, but they voted eighty-three thousand one hundred and twenty-one, but not till they had called for the treaties existing betwixt William and his allies, and the quota which every one was to furnish. To defray the charge they voted five millions and a half, in nearly equal proportions betwixt the army and the navy, including four hundred thousand pounds to pay the arrears of the session; and this they ordered to be raised by a land-tax of four shillings in the pound, and a further excise on beer, a duty on salt, and a lottery. This was a profusion which would have made the country stand aghast under the abhorrent rule of James, and the force was nearly double that with which Cromwell had made himself the dread of Europe.

These matters being settled, they tried their strength on the popular questions of the bills for regulating the trials for high treason, the triennial bill, and the place bill. None of these bills were made law. The triennial bill and the bill for regulating the trials for high treason were lost; the place bill was carried, but William refused to ratify it, under the idea that it was intended to abridge his prerogative. The excitement in the commons was intense. It was resolved to address his majesty, and such an address was drawn up and presented by the whole house. William received them very graciously, but conceded nothing, and Harley declared, on returning to the house, that the king's answer was no answer at all. Menaces of showing their power on the next occasion by stopping the supplies were thrown out, and it was proposed to go up to his majesty again to demand a more explicit answer; but the whigs represented the danger of thus encouraging the hopes of the Jacobites by the prospect of a breach betwixt the king and parliament, and the matter dropped.

The question of the charter of the East India Company was again warmly debated. The feud betwixt the old and the new company had grown so violent, that the old company, fearing government might be induced to grant a charter to the new company, had put forth all its powers of bribery, and had succeeded. This company had by some means neglected the payment of the tax on joint-stock companies, by which, according to the terms of the act, their charter was forfeited. The new company eagerly seized on this circumstance to prevent a renewal of the charter; but the old company put nearly one hundred thousand pounds at the disposal of Sir Thomas Cook, one of their members and also member of parliament, and, by a skilful distribution of this sum amongst the king's ministers, Caermarthen and Seymour coming in for a large share, they succeeded in getting their charter renewed.

The new company and the merchants of London were exasperated at this proceeding. They published an account of the whole transaction; they represented that the old company was guilty of the grossest oppression and the most scandalous acts of violence and injustice out in India and its seas; they asserted that only two of their ships had exported in one year more cloths than the old company had exported in three years; and they offered to send more the next year of both cloths and other merchandise than the company had sent in five; but the bribes prevailed, and the old company obtained its charter—not very definite in its terms, however, as regarded its monopoly, and subject to such alterations and restrictions within a given time as the king should see fit. At this juncture the old company were imprudent enough to obtain an order from the admiralty to restrain a valuable ship called the Redbridge, lying in the Thames, from sailing. Her papers were made out for Alicant, but it was well known that she was bound for the Indies. The owners appealed to parliament, and parliament declared the detention of the vessel illegal, and, moreover, that all subjects of England had a right to trade to the Indies, unless prohibited by act of parliament. Encouraged by this decision, the new company prayed the commons to grant them a direct sanction to trade thither, and the old company, on their part, prayed for a parliamentary sanction to their charter; but no decision in either case was come to, and for some years scenes of strange contention continued to be enacted betwixt the rival companies and free traders in the seas and ports of these distant regions.