622 A. D. 1685. 



not a little written both m England and Holland on the fubject of mak- 

 ing lea-water frefli. Propofals were made, and patents granted, for the 

 fame, as being of fo great a benefit to failors on long voyages ; yet even 

 to this day, notwithftanding fundry later propofals, there has been no 

 effedual progrefs made therein. 



In this firft year of King James IPs reign, he coined gold of 22 car- 

 rats fine and two carrats allay into L44 : 10 by tale per lb. of gold, 

 viz. into pieces of 10, 20, and 40/", and L5 pieces : and his filver coins 

 contained in a pound weight of the old ftandard 62/ by tale, viz. crowns, 

 half-crowns, fliillings, fixpences, groats, twopences, and pence. The 

 ftandards the fame as in our days. 



Pope Innocent XT, being indebted 40 millions of Roman croMais, 

 (equal to about i i millions fterlingl executed a fcheme of redudion, 

 probably copied from what had been done by the dates of Holland in 

 the year 1655, as we have flievvn under that year. 



The pope finding that his public debts, though bearing only 4 per 

 cent intereft, were now fold fo high as 122 per cent, in the firft place 

 took care to provide three or four millions of crowns in ready cafli, and 

 thereupon ifliied a declaration, that fuch as would for the future be fa- 

 tisfied with an intereft of 3 per cent, ftrould declare their content by a 

 limited time ; and that fuch as chofe rather to be paid off their princi- 

 pal debt, might come and receive it. This option made all the cre- 

 ditors accept the propolhl of continuing at 3 per cent, by payments of 

 one half per cent every two months, rather than take their principal 

 money : and it feems, though the intereft was thus reduced, the prin- 

 cipal, in a very fiiort time after, rofe at market to 112 per cent. [Bi- 

 Jljop Burnet's Letters and travels.'] 



This is the fecond inftance of the good fuccefs of a national finking 

 fund in Europe. 



The king of Fi-ance, obferving that the great extent of the limits of 

 the Senegal company (no lefs than about fifteen hundred leagues of the 

 coaft of Africa) excluded all his other fubjeds from trading in negro 

 Haves for the ufe of the French Weft-India colonies, now eftabliflied a 

 new Guinea company, with an exclufive right for twenty years to trade 

 in negroes, gold duft, &c. between the i-iver Sierra Leona and the Cape 

 of Good Hope ; the coaft from Sierra Leona to Cape Blanco being re- 

 ferved to the Senegal company. 



On this occafion it will be no digreflion to remark the great altera- 

 tion which the tranfplantation of animals, as well as of vegetables, makes 

 by the difference of climate, air, latitude, &c. The Porttiguefe fettled 

 in Angola, &c. on the African coaft, in a few generations gradually 

 contrad the compledion of the natives, even their woolly hair, thick 

 lips, and flat nofes ; and negroes born in Europe become gradually more 



