FN 704 See L'Hermitage, June 12/22, June 23/July, 3 June 30/July 10, Aug 1/11 Aug 28/Sept 7 1696. The Postman of August 15. mentions the great benefit derived from the Exchequer Bills. The Pegasus of Aug. 24. says: "The Exchequer Bills do more and more obtain with the public; and 'tis no wonder." The Pegasus of Aug.
28. says: "They pass as money from hand to hand; 'tis observed that such as cry them down are ill affected to the government.""They are found by experience," says the Postman of the seventh of May following, "to be of extraordinary use to the merchants and traders of the City of London, and all other parts of the kingdom." I will give one specimen of the unmetrical and almost unintelligible doggrel which the Jacobite poets published on this subject:--"Pray, Sir, did you hear of the late proclamation, Of sending paper for payment quite thro' the nation?
Yes, Sir, I have: they're your Montague's notes, Tinctured and coloured by your Parliament votes.
But 'tis plain on the people to be but a toast, They come by the carrier and go by the post."FN 705 Commons' Journals, Nov. 25. 1696.
FN 706 L'Hermitage, June 2/12. 1696; Commons' Journals, Nov. 25.;Post-man, May 5., June 4., July 2.
FN 707 L'Hermitage, July.3/13 10/20 1696; Commons' Journals, Nov.
25.; Paris Gazette, June 30., Aug. 25.; Old Postmaster, July 9.
FN 708 William to Heinsius, July 30. 1696; William to Shrewsbury, July 23. 30. 31.
FN 709 Shrewsbury to William, July 28. 31., Aug. 4. 1696;L'Hermitage, Aug. 1/11.
FN 710 Shrewsbury to William, Aug 7. 1696; L'Hermitage, Aug 14/24.; London Gazette, Aug. 13.
FN 711 L'Hermitage, Aug.18/28. 1696. Among the records of the Bank is a resolution of the Directors prescribing the very words which Sir John Houblon was to use. William's sense of the service done by the Bank on this occasion is expressed in his letter to Shrewsbury, of Aug. 24/Sept 3. One of the Directors, in a letter concerning the Bank, printed in 1697, says: "The Directors could not have answered it to their members, had it been for any less occasion than the preservation of the kingdom."FN 712 Haynes's Brief Memoires; Lansdowne MSS. 801. Montague's friendly letter to Newton, announcing the appointment, has been repeatedly printed. It bears date March 19. 1695/6.
FN 713 I have very great pleasure in quoting the words of Haynes, an able, experienced and practical man, who had been in the habit of transacting business with Newton. They have never I believe, been printed. "Mr. Isaac Newton, public Professor of the Mathematicks in Cambridge, the greatest philosopher, and one of the best men of this age, was, by a great and wise statesman, recommended to the favour of the late King for Warden of the King's Mint and Exchanges, for which he was peculiarly qualified, because of his extraordinary skill in numbers, and his great integrity, by the first of which he could judge correctly of the Mint accounts and transactions as soon as he entered upon his office; and by the latter--I mean his integrity--he set a standard to the conduct and behaviour of every officer and clerk in the Mint. Well had it been for the publick, had he acted a few years sooner in that situation." It is interesting to compare this testimony, borne by a man who thoroughly understood the business of the Mint, with the childish talk of Pope. "Sir Isaac Newton," said Pope, "though so deep in algebra and fluxions, could not readily make up a common account; and, whilst he was Master of the Mint, used to get somebody to make up the accounts for him." Some of the statesmen with whom Pope lived might have told him that it is not always from ignorance of arithmetic that persons at the head of great departments leave to clerks the business of casting up pounds, shillings and pence.
FN 714 "I do not love, he wrote to Flamsteed, "to be printed on every occasion, much less to be dunned and teased by foreigners about mathematical things, or to be thought by our own people to be trifling away my time about them, when I am about the King's business."FN 715 Hopton Haynes's Brief Memoires; Lansdowne MSS. 801.; the Old Postmaster, July 4. 1696; the Postman May 30., July 4 , September 12. 19., October 8,; L'Hermitage's despatches of this summer and autumn, passim.
FN 716 Paris Gazette, Aug. 11. 1696.
FN 717 On the 7th of August L'Hermitage remarked for the first time that money seemed to be more abundant.
FN 718 Compare Edmund Bohn's Letter to Carey of the 31st of July 1696 with the Paris Gazette of the same date. Bohn's description of the state of Norfolk is coloured, no doubt, by his constitutionally gloomy temper, and by the feeling with which he, not unnaturally, regarded the House of Commons. His statistics are not to be trusted; and his predictions were signally falsified. But he may be believed as to plain facts which happened in his immediate neighbourhood.
FN 719 As to Grascombe's character, and the opinion entertained of him by the most estimable Jacobites, see the Life of Kettlewell, part iii., section 55. Lee the compiler of the Life of Kettlewell mentions with just censure some of Grascombe's writings, but makes no allusion to the worst of them, the Account of the Proceedings in the House of Commons in relation to the Recoining of the Clipped Money, and falling the price of Guineas.
That Grascombe was the author, was proved before a Committee of the House of Commons. See the Journals, Nov. 3o. 1696.
FN 720 L'Hermitage, June 12/22., July 7/17. 1696.
FN 721 See the Answer to Grascombe, entitled Reflections on a Scandalous Libel.
FN 722 Paris Gazette, Sept. 15. 1696, FN 723 L'Hermitage, Oct. 2/12 1696.
FN 724 L'Hermitage, July 20/30., Oct. 2/12 9/10 1696.
FN 725 The Monthly Mercuries; Correspondence between Shrewsbury and Galway; William to Heinsius, July 23. 30. 1696; Memoir of the Marquess of Leganes.