50 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 
tablishing the bank should be sent up as part of a law granting 
supplies to the Crown. The Jacobites entertained some hope that 
the session would end with a quarrel between the Houses, that 
the Tonnage Bill would be lost, and that William would enter on 
the campaign without money. It was already May, according 
to the New Style. The London season was over; and many noble 
families had left Covent Garden and Soho Square for their woods 
and hayfields. But summonses were sent out. There was a vio- 
lent rush back to town. The benches which had only been desert- 
ed so lately were crowded. The sittings began at an hour un- 
usually early, and were prolonged to an hour unusually late. 
On the day on which the bill was committed the contest lasted 
without intermission from nine in the morning until six in the 
evening. Godolphin was in the chair. Nottingham and Roches- 
ter proposed to strike out all the clauses which related to the 
Bank. Something was said about the danger of setting up a 
gigantic corporation which might soon give law to the King and 
the three Estates of the Realm. But the peers seemed to be most 
moved by the appeal which was made to them as landlords. The 
whole scheme, it was asserted, was intended to enrich usurers at 
the expense of the nobility and gentry. Persons who had laid 
by money would rather put it into the Bank than lend it on 
mortgage at moderate interest: Caermarthen said little or noth- 
ing in defense of what was, in truth, the work of his rivals and 
enemies. He owned that there were grave objections to the modé 
in which the Commons had provided for the publi¢ service of the 
year. But would their Lordships amend a money bill? Would 
they engage in a contest of which the end must be that they must 
either yield, or incur the grave responsibility of leaving the 
Channel without a fleet during the summer? This argument pre- 
vailed; and, on a division, the amendment was rejected by forty- 
three votes to thirty-one. A few hours later the bill wegen at the 
ee assent, and the Parliament was prorogued. 
In the City the success of Montague’s plan was complete. 
It was then at least as difficult to raise a million at eight per cent. 
as it would now be to raise one hundred millions sterling at four 
per cent. It had been supposed that contributions would drop 
