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91 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.