Introduction, Part 1

Introduction.

The financial history of the reign of James II reverses the verdict which in the introductions to the preceding vols. of this Calendar has been passed upon Charles II's administration. That verdict declared that Charles's policy was national, that his administration was honest, that he was starved, cheated and betrayed by his Parliament and misunderstood by his people, that he was routed by Louis XIV in a diplomatic encounter which was as unscrupulous as any in the annals of the modern world, but that spite of all he fought a clean fight, remained unflinchingly true to his country and to himself, and died a gentleman.

If history is obliged, in the case of James II, to reverse this verdict it is entirely that monarch's own fault. We find at first some difficulty in understanding why his reign should have opened under such distinctly brighter financial auspices than Charles had enjoyed. It is impossible to be explained on the ground of James's personal popularity for he never was popular. The truth can only be that after the fury of the Popish Plot was past the nation's eyes were opened, it became conscious of the fact that Louis XIV had engineered the whole episode and had profited magnificently by it and that the success of the scheme had only been rendered possible by Charles II's impoverishment at the hands of a disloyal and factious Parliament. A mere reaction from a fit of religious fury would never have led the Parliament of James II to remedy the evil at its root, the financial evil at its financial root. Such action could only have been prompted by a clear conception of how deeply the nation had been befooled, and by a stern determination that it should not be so again. The unanimity and decision of James's first, and only, Parliament would be otherwise inexplicable.

James II succeeded to the throne on the 6th Feb., 1685. His Parliament met on the 19th of May. On the 22nd, after three days spent in the formalities of swearing in, the Commons in Committee of the whole House and within a few minutes of listening to the King's speech, voted without a dissentient voice that the revenue which was settled on the late King for life be settled on his present Majesty for life. The significance of this vote may need emphasising. It is the last instance of its kind in English history. Roughly speaking, the revenue comprised under this vote consisted of the old Customs and Excise, all new impositions which would fall under either of these heads, the Hearthmoney, Post Office and a number of smaller miscellaneous hereditary and semi-feudal sources of revenue which in the accounts of the time are generally included under the heading of " small branches of the revenue."

When William III came to the throne all this revenue was granted for one year only ("resolved: that all those branches of the revenue which were due and payable by law in the reigns of King Charles II and King James II be collected to the use and service of the Crown until the 24th day of June, 1689, as by law they might have been during either of those reigns," 11 Mar., 1688–9, Commons' Journals, Vol. X, p. 46). But under James II the theory of the Constitution was still that of the Tudor monarchy. The executive, the administration of the country, was entirely in the hands of the King and the revenue which was granted him at the outset of a reign, for the maintenance of such executive, was really the King's by right, was hereditary; the grant was only a formality to betoken his entering into his own. Between the death of Charles II and the passing of the Act based on this vote of 1685, May 22 (the consequent Act for the Continuance of the Customs and Excise was pressed through with such expedition that it received the royal assent on May 30) an interval of 3½ months had elapsed, during which there was theoretically no legal justification for demanding either Customs or Excise or Hearthmoney. But James had demanded them and collected them without any opposition from the mercantile or other classes concerned (see his explanation of the situation in his interview with Barillon 18 Feb., 1685, Dalrymple, Vol. II, Appendix, p. 100, I have resolved to call a Parliament immediately. . . I shall publish at the same time a declaration that I am to maintain myself in the enjoyment of the same revenues the King my brother had. Without this Proclamation for a Parliament I should hazard too much by taking possession directly of the revenue which was established during the lifetime of my deceased brother"). Accordingly when Parliament met this act of the executive was not challenged. The matter was passed over in silence. "In the affair of money," says Sir J. Reresby (p. 324), "men seemed content to settle a handsome revenue on the King and to give money; but whether this was to be a constant revenue or only temporary to be renewed from time to time, that Parliament might be consulted the oftener, was the question." In presenting the Bill to the King on May 30 the Speaker of the House of Commons used the following extraordinary language:— " We do now come in all duty to present to your Majesty the revenue you pleased to demand at the opening of this Parliament, wherein we proceeded with as much speed as the forms of passing Bills of that nature would admit. We bring not with it any Bill for the preservation or security of our religion which is dearer to us than our lives, in that we acquiesce, entirely rely and rest wholly satisfied in your Majesty's gracious and sacred word, repeated declaration and assurance to support and defend the religion of the Church of England as it is now by law established. We present this revenue to your Majesty without the addition of any conditional, appropriating or tacking clauses etc. and we humbly beseech your Majesty to accept of it" (Lords' Journals, Vol. XIV, p. 21).

Language more abject and servile than this was never used by any of Queen Elizabeth's Parliaments.

In the whole proceedings—they are indeed slight—on this Bill in the Commons there is not a trace of the slightest attempt at calculating the revenue needs of the Government. There was no estimate formed or even asked for as to what would be the normal yield or produce of the revenue so to be granted, nor as to what was the normal expenditure of the country. The whole thing was left passively in the hands of the King.

But there was more to come.

In thanking the House of Commons for this Act, James put them in mind of the departmental debts resting upon the executive : " After so happy a beginning you may believe I would not call upon you unnecessarily for an extraordinary supply. But when I tell you that the stores of the Navy and Ordnance are extremely exhausted ; that the anticipations upon several branches of the revenue are great and burdensome ; that the debts of the King my brother to his servants and family are such as deserve compassion ; that the rebellion in Scotland without putting more weight upon it than it really deserves, must oblige me to a considerable expense extraordinary, I am sure such considerations will move you to give me an aid to provide for those things wherein the security, the ease and the happiness of my Government are so much concerned. But above all I must recommend to you the care of the Navy, the strength and glory of this nation."

By the side of the appeals which Charles II had made to his Parliaments, appeals that were pressing, manly, frank and completely justified, this appeal of James II to his first and only Parliament is tame and colourless, lacking at once in justification and in conviction. And yet it met with instant and unquestioning acquiescence. Indeed, more than that. The terms of the appeal were such that the Commons would have been perfectly justified in voting an aid calculated to raise once and all an amount of, say, 2,000,000l. to wipe out the departmental debts (including, of course, the Household debts to Charles II's servants etc.), thus making the executive solvent and giving it an unhampered start for the new reign.

Instead of adopting this course, however, the Commons actually granted the King increments of his standing revenue. In other words, they increased the " King's own," his permanent hereditary revenue. That which James I had striven in vain to attain by the Great Contract, that which Charles II had begged of his Commons, insistently, beseechingly, convincingly, but always in vain, all this was granted to James II at the first time of asking. The only limitation was that these new grants, as will be seen, were limited to the period of eight years, 1685, June24, to 1693, June 24.

The moment the Speaker had reported the King's speech to the Commons the House resolved itself into Grand Committee and after apparently a most perfunctory debate resolved to grant the King [for life] the duties on wines and vinegar which at three separate times (by the Acts of 19 and 20 Car. II, c. 6; 22 Car. II, c. 3; 30 Car. II, c. 2) had been granted to Charles II for specific restricted periods (Commons' Journals, Vol. IX, pp. 722–3, May 30). With equal precipitancy and complacency the Grand Committee on the following day resolved to grant the King [for life] additional duties on tobacco and on sugars (fn. 1) (Ibid, p. 724).

The Bill for the duties on wines and vinegars passed the Commons without opposition on June 3 (Commons' Journals, Vol. IX, p. 726), that is within three days of the original resolution. It passed the Lords on the 5th June without amendment (Lords' Journals, Vol. XIV, p. 32).

The treatment which was accorded to the companion measure, the Bill for a duty on sugars and tobacco, was equally cursory. It was rushed through the Committee stage in the Commons in a single afternoon (12 June, Commons' Journals, Vol. X, p. 734), was carried up to the Lords on the 15th June, read a first time in the Lords on that day, finally passed on the following day and on that same day, June 16, these two Bills of supply, the Wines and Vinegar Duties Act and the Sugars and Tobacco duties Act, received the royal assent.

Thus without the slightest deliberation and within three weeks of the opening of the session two important grants of supply had been made to reinforce the ordinary revenue of the Crown for a period of eight years. The little light that is thrown upon the debates by outside sources shows that the only subject of dispute arose over the proposal to tax Plantation sugar. Those members of the House who were interested in the Plantations opposed the proposal on the ground that it behoved England to foster the sugar trade in the Plantations in imitation of the French, who were then endeavouring to encourage that trade. At the same time the importers, merchants and grocers, attempted a factious opposition purely from their own trade standpoint, but they were easily dashed and put out of countenance by Sir Dudley North, then one of the Treasury Lords, to whom the scheme of this tax in particular is attributed:—
"Divers proposals were made, some for a land tax on purpose that the duty might be unpopular; some for a tax upon new buildings ; and others had their projects which they had little reason for. . . Sir Dudley North took a strict account of all the commodities in trade from the Custom House books and considered which would best bear a further imposition, for if commodities are overrated it amounts to a prohibition. At last he thought fit to propose a tax of one farthing upon sugars and an halfpenny upon tobacco imported, to lie upon the English consumption only and not upon the export, and this as he estimated would yield the sum expected and would scarce be any burthen sensible to the people. In short, this tax was approved and voted at the Committee and a Bill directed which was drawn up and brought in." (North's Life of Sir Dudley North, pp. 377–9, and Life of Lord Keeper North, p. 377; Reresby's Diary, pp. 330–1.)

The third Act of Supply which passed this Parliament was intended, in its inception, not so much as a general reinforcement of the King's revenue as for the extraordinary occasion of suppressing the rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth. But although intended ostensibly to meet so temporary and extraordinary an occasion, the form which the supply finally took was a permanent one. The first proposal for this supply was made on June 17, the day following that on which the two preceding grants had received the royal assent. At first the new proposal took the form of a projected tax on new buildings in London and Southwark (Commons' Journals, Vol. IX, p. 739). Reresby's part in the debate on this proposal is a very interesting one:—
"I spoke thrice in this debate, first in answer to the gentleman that said this was laying a tax for a public use upon one piece of a county and upon private persons; to which I replied that this one county drained all England of its people, especially the North, our tenants all coming hither, finding by experience that they could live here better in a cellar or a garret than they could live in the country on a farm of 30l. rent; that hereby this little piece of England had laid a tax in a manner upon all the rest of England and was a nuisance to all the rest and therefore it was not so improper that it should be taxed separately and the rather because it was never taxed before or but once very little. Some moved that it should be laid for one year and a half, but that I opposed, for I said there were some few foundations taxed in Oliver's time and that tax was laid but for one year in the worst of times, and therefore we ought not now to lay it for a longer period in good times. It was moved that more money might be laid upon brandies towards this supply to the King; but this I spoke against, saying it was fit this [the new buildings fund] should be computed how much it would arise to before another fund was encumbered or more money voted to be raised."

On the following day, however, June 18, James sent an urgent message to the House desiring them to provide a good fund of credit [to borrow on] for a present sum of money, to answer the immediate charge of the rebellion in the West. Without hesitation or debate the House voted that a supply not exceeding 400,000l. be given to the King. Finding that the project of a tax on new buildings would take a considerable time to work out, estimate and enact, the House turned to the more ready alternative of a tax on certain imported commodities, French linen, brandies, calicoes and wrought silks (June 20, Commons' Journals,Vol. IX, pp. 742–3). It was resolved that on the credit of the fund thus allocated the King should be empowered to raise loans to an amount not exceeding 400,000l. (June 24, ibid, p. 747). In this form the Bill passed the Commons on the 25th June and was carried up (ibid, p. 749; Lords' Journals, Vol. XIV, p. 58). The Bill passed the Lords on the following day (Lords' Journals, Vol. XIV, p. 60) and received the royal assent on June 27.

This last Act of Supply, therefore, of the Session was passed through all the stages in both Houses in five days and received the royal assent within a week. And it is to be especially noticed that this Bill, though called into existence as a temporary and extraordinary supply for the purpose of suppressing Monmouth's rebellion, had a comparatively long time limit. The grant of these duties was to be for the five years from 1685, July 1, to 1690, July 1.

To complete this hasty sketch of the financial provision made by Parliament for James II it is only necessary to add the Bill for removing the prohibition of the import of French wines and vinegar. On the 18th June, Roger North was instructed to prepare such a Bill. It passed the Commons on the 25th, and the Lords on the 26th, and received the royal assent on the 27th June (Commons' Journals, Vol. IX, pp. 740, 748; Lords' Journals, Vol. XIV, pp. 57, 60, 65).

The importance of this last Act lies in the fact that the prohibition (in the Act for the Poll of the year 1677) of the import of French goods had produced a very serious shrinkage in the Customs receipts from 1677 onwards. The loss of revenue from this source alone was very great during the remaining years of Charles's reign. For the whole of those remaining years it has been even stated at 1,000,000l. The removal of the prohibition, therefore, meant that the Customs receipts would be enabled, and actually were enabled, to go back to their high water level of the years 1675–7.

Before concluding this list of the supply granted by Parliament to James II, reference must be made to the Coinage Duty Act. By the Act of 1 James II, c. 7, the two former Acts (of 18 Car. II, c. 5, and 25 Car. II, c. 8) were revived for seven years with the purpose of providing, as those two Acts had done, for practically free coinage of gold and silver. In order to meet the cost of such free coinage, Parliament had under Charles II granted the King a new impost on certain liquors with the stipulation that the receipts should be applied to such coinage and that the accounts of such moneys should be kept separate from the general accounts of the Customs. It will be at once apparent that for all purposes of revenue and expenditure such a provision can be left out of account. Under both Charles II and James II these Coinage Duty Acts simply imposed a burden of so much on the King and found a supply of so much (the equivalent amount) to meet that burden. The grant was not therefore a grant of revenue nor was the expenditure a normal part of national expenditure.

This explanation is only necessitated by the fact that in the series of accounts below the Coinage duty will be found occupying a separate compartment or account from the General Customs account. As already said, this is due to the terms of the Act of Parliament referred to.

It almost takes one's breath away to compare such complacent, subservient, breakneck financial legislation with the treatment which for the preceding 15 years had been meted out to Charles II. Within three weeks the Parliament had voted James II a permanent hereditary income for life, which ultimately was proved to average over 1,500,000l. per an.; and over and above that it had voted three additional Acts of Supply which in their totality increased James's annual revenue by over 400,000l. per an., thus bringing his actual income to nearly 2,000,000l. per an., as against 1,200,000l. which the Restoration Parliament had promised to give to Charles II. And all this had been done without any estimate having been called for as to the national expenditure. When James II's Parliament voted him this money it had not the slightest idea what need there was for it or what use it would be put to. There was not a single clause of appropriation in any one of the Acts. No statement of departmental debts had been submitted to the House, nor any outline of proposed expenditure for the future. The House of Commons simply shut its eyes and opened its mouth.

On the 2nd July the Parliament was adjourned to Aug. 4, and on that day again to Nov. 9. Even yet the reactionary wave which had made the Commons so subservient to the King had not spent itself, and when James approached them with a request for further supply the Commons were prepared to meet him. But this time James made the mistake of being explicit, of showing his hand. Taking Monmouth's rebellion as a pretext, he told the two Houses how he had increased the standing Forces and he asked for a supply for the support of this great charge " which is now more than double what it was " (Lords' Journals, Vol. XIV, p. 73, Nov. 9), at the same time telling the Houses quite plainly that he had retained in commission divers Catholic officers who had not qualified themselves by taking the Test. On their first subsequent meeting (Nov. 13) the Commons refused to pass a vote of thanks for the King's speech. It voted supply for the King's extraordinary occasions, but would not fix the quantum nor the appropriation—the proposal to appropriate the supply to the support of the Army being lost by 250 to 125. Then by a narrow majority, 183–182, it was decided to postpone the question of supply and to devote attention to the employment of Catholic officers (Reresby, p. 344; Commons' Journals, Vol. IX, p. 757). The account of this day's debate, as sketched in Clark's Life of James II, Vol. I, pp. 51–5, reveals the astounding fact that the Commons were aware of the needlessness of their generosity —that they had given the King four millions at once, that the present income was near two millions and the charge of Government not more than 1,300,000l. On the following day (Nov. 14) the Grand Committee resolved to indemnify the [Popish] officers as to the past, but to petition the King not to maintain them in employment. But so complacent and timid was the House still that this latter item was altered to the form " that his Majesty would graciously be pleased to give such directions that no apprehensions or jealousies may remain in the hearts of his Majesty's good and faithful subjects." After drawing up an address to the King in the terms of these votes (Nov. 16) the Grand Committee of the Commons sat down to the consideration of supply. At first "200,000l. was moved to be given, then 400,000l. by the country gentlemen. The counties [by the mouth of Sir John Ernie, Chancellor of the Exchequer] insisted upon 1,200,000l. for paying the new raised Forces for five years. The House would not hear of that use for the money, lest it might prove an establishment of a standing Army; but would give it to the King to be employed as he thought fit [that is without mentioning the Forces, the service for which the money was intended: and so avoiding the semblance of giving a Parliamentary sanction to a standing Army]. At the last 700,000l. was named and granted to the King. In this debate the usefulness of a standing Army (till the rebellion or rather the ferment of it was perfectly quieted) was much insisted upon on one side; the danger of it and the inconveniences (especially considering the unruliness and insolence of soldiers, their ill example in the country and the burthen of free quarters) on the other. But all this was compromised in the declared intention of the House to make the Militia more useful, until which time it was agreed as a thing necessary that the Army ought to be kept up" (Commons Journals, Vol. IX, p. 758; Reresby, p, 346).

Accordingly on the morning of the following day, Nov. 17, the Commons went into Committee of Supply to decide on what funds to raise this sum of 700,000l. It was decided in the main to raise it by 400,000l. on East India and French linens and stuffs and brandies and that the duties already granted thereon should be prolonged for another five years from 1690, July 1, and by 300,000l. on French wines.

Having reached this point, the Houses adjourned to attend the King at Whitehall for his reply to their address. The reply was quite as injudicious and much more ungracious than the original speech, which had stirred distrust in the breast of the Commons, " I did not expect such an address from this House of Commons." James absolutely refused to recede from his position.

Still, as far as the Commons were concerned, the position was not hopelessly lost for the King. On their reassembling on the following day, Nov. 18, Mr. John Cooke of Derbyshire, a gentleman of an estate of 3,000l. per an., stood up in his place and said, " We are Englishmen and we ought not to be frighted out of our duty by a few high words." The House resented the words as an indecent reflection on the King and ordered the Serjeant at Arms to conduct Cooke to the Tower. Nay more: at the next sitting (Nov. 19) it actually returned to the question of supply, ordered the engrossing of the Bill on the lines abovesaid and with the insertion of a credit clause or borrowing power clause. Even at the last moment, therefore, the House of Commons still showed itself servile enough to vote a large supply without any explanation or justification as to its necessity, without any guarantee as to its application and in the face of a direct and deliberate affront from the King.

The Commons were, however, saved from draining the dregs of their own servility by the spirit of the Lords. On the same day, Nov. 19, on which the Commons had tamely resumed discussion of supply the Lords had taken up the consideration of the King's speech and of the employment of Popish officers. The debate was very warm and the King, who was present, as usual with him, was much concerned at the plainness of speech employed in it. The debate was adjourned until the following Monday (Nov. 23) and all the Lords in and about town were ordered to attend then under penalty. There is no doubt that the opposition was urged on by Louis XIV from a fear of the military force which James was developing and from a consequent wish to stir up domestic strife again in England. But James intervened. Rather than undergo the humiliation of a hostile vote in the Lords he preferred to sacrifice the supply of 700,000l. which was already nearly perfected for him. On the following day, Nov. 20, he prorogued the Parliament and it never sat again. By five successive prorogations it was continued until 1687, Nov. 22, and it was finally dissolved on the 2nd July, 1687 (Lords' Journals, Vol. XIV, p. 88; Dalrymple, Vol. I, p. 87).

As far as English monetary legislation or grants of supply is concerned, there is probably nowhere in our history a more ludicrous instance of complacent subservience to the Court than is revealed in the above rapid sketch of the financial dealings between James and his only Parliament. Without the King's confiding in them at all, without his submitting an estimate to them, without the slightest justification for any or for all of his demands, the Commons met his wishes, voted supply in inconsidered and precipitate haste, exacted no guarantee as to the application of the money, inserted no appropriation clause, nor ever raised the question of accountability.

Such was the price which England paid for the reaction from the Popish Plot.

Before turning to the investigation of the figures of the revenue enjoyed by James II as a result of the above detailed legislation, and before describing the uses to which he applied that revenue, it is necessary to characterise the part he played in this Parliamentary transaction. For had the Commons known the extent of his duplicity they would not have been so servile and so precipitate in their grants to him.

On Feb. 18 [=18/8], two days after his accession, he sent Rochester to Barillon to explain that he would be dependent on the French King's subsidies and that he hoped for his help in order to be independent of Parliament —help which he said would engage him still more not to depart from the road which he used to think Charles II should have kept with regard to France. Before he heard of this request Louis had already sent a present of 500,000 livres [40,640l. sterling] to James through his Ambassador Barillon. James's expressions of gratitude were unkingly in their fulsomeness. But this donation only whetted the English King's appetite. He sent (Feb. 24/14) Rochester, Sunderland and Godolphin to Barillon to represent the necessity of his, James's, affairs and how much it imported him to receive supplies in the beginning of his reign. In the interview, Rochester appears to have aimed at obtaining a promise of renewal of the subsidy of 2,000,000 livres or 1,500,000 livres which Louis XIV had promised to Charles II in the last years of his reign. Failing to obtain any satisfactory assurance, James sent Lord Churchill to Paris (Feb. 17/27) to request from Louis a present and considerable supply, and when Churchill failed, the King and his three ministers turned again upon Barillon (Mar. 10–15).

Our interest in this diplomatic wrangle lies not so much in the matter of the subsidy as in the revelation it throws upon the working of James's mind. It was represented to Barillon that a subvention from Louis was absolutely essential to enable him to meet his Parliament with firmness, and to resist the imposition of any conditions prejudicial to his authority which would undoubtedly be proposed when the House came to renew the grant of Charles II's revenue—especially any condition of time limit if there should be a disposition to grant the Customs etc. only for a year or for a certain period instead of for the King's life. Such a condition the King would resent so deeply that he would be prepared to break the Parliament and maintain himself by force in the enjoyment of the hereditary revenue; and in order to this James looked for a subsidy from Louis, and so on and so on. Thus spake James through his ministers when he addressed Barillon.

When, a week later, he met the newly elected Parliament he addressed them as follows:—" I cannot doubt that I shall fail of suitable returns from you with all imaginable duty and kindness on your part and particularly in what relates to the settling of my revenue and continuing it during my life as it was in the time of the King my brother. I might use many arguments to enforce this demand, from the benefit of trade, the support of the Navy, the necessity of the Crown and the well-being of the Government itself which I must suffer not to be precarious. But I am confident your own consideration of what is just and reasonable will suggest to you whatsoever might be enlarged upon this occasion. There is one popular argument which I foresee may be used against what I ask of you from the inclination men have for frequent Parliaments; which some may think would be the best secured by feeding me from time to time by such proportions as they shall think convenient. And this argument, it being the first time I speak to you from the throne, I will answer once for all; that this would be a very improper method to take with me and that the best way to engage me to meet you often is always to use me well. I expect, therefore, that you will comply with me in what I have desired and that you will do it speedily."

If the Commons showed no resentment of these extraordinary words, if they complied with servile alacrity in carrying out the King's wishes beyond even his expectations, it was only because they had not fathomed the depths of his duplicity and of his unfitness for rule. They did not know what he had said to Barillon.

It remains now to see what James's revenue was and what use he put it to.

In estimating his revenue we have two parallel sources of information which are set out in full in the following pages: the one source derived from the Exchequer Declarations gives in effect the net revenue: the other source, compiled by William Lowndes, gives both the gross and net revenue. There is in existence a third computation which was made for the Revolution Parliament in 1689. This latter statement (Commons' Journals, Vol. X, pp. 37–8) is as follows:—

For the purposes of the above statement the yield of the new impositions is taken from the year 1687, Michaelmas, to 1688, Michaelmas; and the yield of the old Customs and Excise is the average of the four years as follows:—

The more authentic and detailed net account of the revenue and expenditure as stated in the Exchequer half yearly Declarations (Auditors and Pells) is as follows:—

Table I—Table of Exchequer Income.

Table II—Table of Expenditure.

Table III.—Statement of Income and Expenditure according to the Exchequer Declaration.

Only a close acquaintance with the forms of Exchequer accounting will enable a proper use to be made of the above last two preceding tables (which are of course similar in form and in origin to the tables of revenue and expenditure consistently printed throughout in the introductions to the successive volumes of the present Calendar). Certain forms or items of revenue never reached the Exchequer at all, being arrested half way and diverted into issues or payments by means of tallies of anticipations. Also the payments into the Exchequer from the Customs and Excise and Hearthmoney represent not only net receipts (that is after deducting salaries and expenses of management), but even represent those net receipts still further diminished by tallies of pro. For instance, certain annuities (to the Duke of York, to the Queen Dowager and the bankers' debt interest) were paid at the Excise Office by tallies of pro or assignation and these payments should be added to the total Exchequer receipts in calculating the full actual yield or receipt from the Excise. And so for the Customs etc. It is very fortunate that for the whole of the reign of James II we possess a quite independent contemporary computation of the revenue. This was made by William Lowndes, who during this period was a Treasury clerk, but subsequently became Secretary to the Treasury. He is well known for his Essay for the amendment of the silver coin 1695 etc., and was manifestly a master of national finance.

For some purpose which is not yet clear, Lowndes compiled a yearly account of the revenue and expenditure from 1679 onwards, and after an eventful history the manuscripts containing these valuable accounts now repose safely in the Bodleian. On account of the fact that they represent quite a different statement and method of computing the national revenue, they are here printed in abstract for the period covered by the present volume. It will be noticed that under each head of Departmental revenue Lowndes gives (1) the cash balance in hand at the opening of each half year; (2) the receipts classified according to the respective accounts or years or half years to which they belonged It is therefore abundantly clear that he must have had access to the books of each of these Departments, for this information and classification could not have been drawn from the Weekly Certificates or from the half yearly Declarations It is this fact which gives such value to these statements by Lowndes, for some of the material on which they were based is no longer existent These statements, for James II's reign, are as follows:—
Mich, 1684, to 6 Feb, 1684–5, under Treasury Lords, and 6 Feb, 1684–5, to Lady day, 1685, under Treasurer Rochester

Receipts and Payments made by Tallies [of pro].

Expenditure.

Lady day, 1685, to Midsummer, 1685