which he had risen. He was charged with keeping in hand large sums of public money for his own private use, instead of paying the officers and seamen when their pay was due. They called for his accounts, and there appeared to be four hundred and sixty thousand pounds in his hands. In his defence he represented that this was actually in course of payment, and that part of the sum was yet in tallies, which must be converted into cash before it could be distributed. But this did not satisfy the commons. They voted an address to the king, complaining of the impropriety of one and the same person being lord high admiral, chief commissioner of the board of admiralty, and treasurer; of gross misapplication of the public money; of many unnecessary changes introduced into the navy; of delays in granting convoys, and favoritism to particular officers. Orford was prudent enough to retire from his offices before the storm which was gathering burst in all its fury upon him. The tories, elated by this success, endeavoured to get Sir George Rooke put into Orford's place; but the whigs were yet strong enough and imprudent enough to get the earl of Bridgewater named first lord of the admiralty — a man almost wholly unacquainted with naval affairs, and lord Haversham, another of the "land-admirals," as the sailors called these unprofessional men, succeeded to Priestman, one of the junior lords, who retired.
Those matters being settled the house voted fifteen thousand pounds for sailors for the year, and that this should include none but sailors, lest the king should include some land forces under the name of marines. They also granted one million four hundred and eighty-four thousand pounds for the service of the year, to be raised by a land and income tax of three shillings in the pound. In this act they also inserted a clause appointing commissioners to take an account of the estates forfeited in Ireland by the last rebellion, in order to their being applied in ease of the subjects of England. This was another sharp reminder of the king's proceedings. It had been promised by him that he would not bestow the forfeited estates without the sanction of the house, but in disregard of this he had given large estates to his favourites. William was deeply mortified by this clause, and some of the lords entered a protest against it, on the ground that the clause was foreign to the contents of the bill, and was contrary to the practice of parliament. The king, however, did not venture to refuse his signature to the act, which he passed on the 4th of May, and at the same time prorogued the parliament.
Before the close of this session, however, in March, that dissipated Lord Mohun was again arraigned before the peers for being concerned in another murder, committed in a midnight brawl, along with the Earl of Warwick. Mohun, with singular good fortune, was again acquitted. Warwick was found guilty of manslaughter.
Before quitting England, William was obliged to almost entirely remodel his ministry. The duke of Leeds retired from the presidency of the council; his influence had expired with the discovery of his bribe from the East India Company. The earl of Pembroke, the Long Tom Pembroke, whom Sunderland was for chopping into a king, was put in his place. Villiers, earl of Jersey, having returned from his embassy to France, was made secretary of state in place of the duke of Shrewsbury, who became lord chamberlain. The earl of Manchester went as ambassador to France in place of Jersey, and lord Lonsdale, another tory, obtained the privy seal. On the 2nd of June, William, having appointed a regency, embarked for Holland, where he retired to Loo, but not to peace of mind, for he saw events marching to an ominous result. The forces of England and of the continent were disbanded, except those of Louis, which were rapidly increased; and not only the Spanish monarchy but all Europe appeared at his mercy. But before following these movements, we must trace some nearer home.
Ireland was quiet. The parliament of that kingdom had voted one hundred and twenty thousand pounds for the maintenance of the twelve thousand troops ordered by the English parliament to be quartered in that country, and the duke of Bolton and the earls of Berkeley and Galway were appointed lords-justices. In Scotland far different was the state of things. There a spirit of the warmest excitement raged against the ministry of England, and not the less against the king, who disowned their company, organised to carry out the act granted for trading to Africa and the Indies. The charter for this company was granted by the Scottish parliament and ratified by William in 1695. Its professed object was to trade with the East and West Indies and Africa; but there was a plan for carrying out these objects, which does not seem to have been made known to the government or public generally till after the acquisition of the charter. This was to seize on the isthmus of Darien, to estabUsh a strong colony there, and not only to grow rich through possession of the gold mines, but to found ports both on the Atlantic and on the Pacific, so that a great carrying trade might be prosecuted betwixt Europe and China and the East Indies by that route.
William Paterson, the projector of this scheme, was the same man who had projected and carried into being, through the influence of Montague, the Bank of England. He has been generally represented as a visionary speculator and schemer, and has not unfrequently been confounded with John Law of Lauriston, the author of the famous South Sea Bubble and Mississippi Scheme, which spread such ruin through both France and England. Paterson, however, was a very different man. Undoubtedly he was a most speculative genius, but in his speculations there was something grand, substantial, and based for the most part on the purest moral principles. The Bank of England is the proud memorial of his real sagacity and acute talents. It was well devised, and immediately rose to entire success. Through some disagreement in the mode of management Paterson sold out his stock, and proposed the erection of an Orphan Bank connected with the Orphan Fund established by the corporation of London already mentioned. This was not entertained, and he then projected his grand scheme for the Scotch company to trade to the Indies. This scheme, so far from being visionary, had all the elements of a great and far-seeing reality. It was a perception by Paterson of the advantages of that route to the Pacific and the East which is now more than ever acknowledged, but which to this hour is encumbered by the antagonist jealousies of different powers. Though England and the United States have agreed to a free passage across the isthmus of Panama, and have by the
