chimney tax was declared a badge of slavery, and was, with many expressions of gratitude to the King, abolished for ever.[1]
The Commons granted, with little dispute, and without a division, six hundred thousand pounds for the purpose of repaying to the United Provinces the charges of the expedition which had delivered England. The facility with which this large sum was voted to a shrewd, diligent and thrifty people, our allies, indeed, politically, but commercially our most formidable rivals, excited some murmurs out of doors, and was, during many years, a favourite subject of sarcasm with Tory pamphleteers.[2] The liberality of the House admits however of an easy explanation. On the very day on which the subject was under consideration, alarming news arrived at Westminster, and convinced many, who would at another time have been disposed to scrutinise severely any account sent in by the Dutch, that our country could not yet dispense with the services of the foreign troops.
France had declared war against the States General; and the States General had consequently demanded from the King of England those succours which he was bound by the treaty of Nimeguen to furnish.[3] He had ordered some battalions to march to Harwich, that they might be in readiness to cross to the Continent. The old soldiers of James were generally in a very bad temper; and this order did not produce a soothing effect. The discontent was greatest in the regiment which now ranks as first of the line. Though borne on the English establishment, that regiment, from the time when it first fought under the great Gustavus, had been almost exclusively composed of Scotchmen; and Scotchmen have never, in any region to which their adventurous and aspiring temper has led them, failed to note and to resent every slight offered to Scotland. Officers and men muttered that a vote of a foreign assembly was nothing to them. If they could be absolved from their allegiance to
- ↑ Commons' Journals, and Grey's Debates, March 1, 1688/9
- ↑ Commons' Journals, March 15, 1688/9. So late as 1713, Arbuthnot, in the fifth part of John Bull, alluded to this transaction with much pleasantry. "As to your Venire Facias," says John to Nick Frog, "I have paid you for one already."
- ↑ Wagenaar, lxi.
