A. D. 1665. ^Kj 



receive a compenfation from the owners of thefliip and goods, not ex- 

 ceeding two per cent of the value of the fliip and goods fo defended, to 

 be diftributed among the captain, maftcr, officers, and feamen, of fuch 

 fhip, or the widows and children of the flain, by diredion of the judge 

 of the admiralty-court, in due proportion. And whereas it often hap- 

 pens that mailers and mariners of fhips, having infured or taken up 

 on bottomry greater funis of money than the value of their adventure, 

 do wilfully caft away, burn, or othervvife deftroy, the fhips under their 

 charge, to the great lofs of merchants and owners, fuch mafter, £cc. fliall 

 fuffer death as felons. 



1665. — In the year 1665 the Dutch admiral De Ruyter not only re- 

 took moil of the forts which Sir Robert Holmes had taken from Hol- 

 land, but he alfo took our own fort of Cormanteen, which they hold to 

 this day by the name of Fort Amilerdam. They alfo feized the iile of 

 St. Helena, which was a refrefhing place for our Eafl-India {hipping, 

 and therefor was retaken even the fame year. 



Under the year i 645 we have given the rile of banking by goldfmiths 

 in London ; and obferved how^ much they improved that new branch 

 of their bufinefs after the reiloration, by taking advantage of the king's, 

 p-erpetual necellities, from his unfrugal management of the public reve- 

 nue, which he was conilantly anticipating ; partly proceeding from their 

 readinefs to lend him at extravagant interefl, and their taking to 

 pawn the king's bills, orders, and tallies. Neverthelefs, the number of 

 bankers increafed fo much, and the money came fo fiil into their hands, 

 by people to whom they paid a moderate interefl * for the fame, that 

 all the public demands fell fhort of employing their whole cafh. This 

 made them run into the bufinefs of lending money on private pawns at 

 high interefl, difcounting bills of exchange, lending on perlonal fecurity 

 to heirs in expectancy, &c. Thefe, and many other luch methods of 

 bellowing their caih, were about this timxC put in pradice by the gold- 

 ifniths, fays the author already quoted under the year 1645, who, 

 through the increal'e of commerce, thinks the banking trade was at its. 

 greateil hight in the year 1 667, u-hen the Dutch burnt our fliips at 

 Chatham ; but that difafter caufing what is in our days called a run 

 (probably the firfl of its kind) on the bankers, it, in fome meafure, lelT- 

 ened their credit, v/hich was entirely ruined, by fhutting up the ex- 

 chequer live years after, of which more in its place. As there was a 

 great quantity of caih in the kingdom at that time, this brief account 

 may, in part, ferve to anfwer a query often made m our own days, viz. 

 how were monied people able to difpoie of their fuperlucration cafh, 

 before the modern public funds exifled ? 



* They generally allowed four per cent for the ufe of money loJged with them by widows, or« 

 phans, or other pcrlbns, who would nor have occafion for it for fame time certain. Merchants, who 

 lodged their running cafh, to be drawn fur whenever waiaed, received no intcreft. y/. 



5 



