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 THE FIRST EARL OF SALISBURY 191

of the various interests affected by the proposals, hardened their hearts and refused to make any further concessions. The inevitable result was that the whole scheme fell through, and though the King was mainly to blame, the odium, both of the proposals and of their failure, fell on the Treasurer. Bacon, the shrewdest political observer of the time, has left on record his opinion of Salisbury's financial methods, in a letter to the King written a few months after his cousin's death :

" To have your wants and necessities in particular as it were hanged up in two tablets before the eyes of your lords and commons, to be talked of for four months together : to have all your courses to help yourself in revenue or profit put into printed books, which were wont to be held arcana imperil : to have such worms of aldermen to lend for ten in the hundred upon good assurance, and with such [entreaty ?], as if it should save the bark of your fortune : to contract still where mought be had the readiest pay- ment, and not the best bargain : to stir a number of pro- jects for your profit, and then to blast them, and leave your Majesty nothing but the scandal of them : to pretend even carriage between your Majesty's rights and the ease of the people, and to satisfy neither : These courses and others the like I hope are gone with the deviser of them ; which have turned your Majesty to inestimable prejudice." 1

In reading this, one has to remember Bacon's personal animus against his cousin, and also the fact that he was hoping to take his place. But malicious as is the expression of his opinion, it no doubt represents a widely held view. It is, how- ever, not the whole of the truth. The fact remains

1 Bacon to the King, September, 1612 (Spedding, IV. 313).

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