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We shall close the present Appendix with a brief account of the revenues, the military force, the commerce, the arts, and the learning of England during this period.

Queen Elizabeth’s economy was remarkable; and in some instances seemed to border on avarice. The smallest expense, if it could possibly be spared, appeared considerable in her eyes; and even the charge of an express, during the most delicate transactions, was not below her notice.[*] She was also attentive to every profit, and embraced opportunities of gain which may appear somewhat extraordinary. She kept, for instance, the see of Ely vacant nineteen years, in order to retain the revenue;[**] and it was usual with her, when she promoted a bishop, to take the opportunity of pillaging the see of some of its manors.[***]

* Birch’s Negot. p. 21.

** Strype, vol. iv. p.. 351.

*** Strype, vol. iv. p. 215. There is a curious letter of
the queen’s written to a bishop of Ely, and preserved in the
register of that see. It is in these words: “Proud prelate,
I understand you are backward in complying with your
agreement: but I would have you know, that I, who made you
what you are, can unmake you; and if you do not forthwith
fulfil your engagement, by God I will immediately unfrock
you. Yours, as you demean yourself, Elizabeth.” The bishop,
it seems, had promised to exchange some part of the land
belonging to the see for a pretended equivalent; and did so,
but it was in consequence of the above letter. Annual
Register. 1761, p. 15.

But that in reality there was little of no avarice in the queen’s temper, appears from this circumstance, that she never amassed any treasure; and even refused subsidies from the parliament when she had no present occasion for them. Yet we must not conclude, from this circumstance, that her economy proceeded from a tender concern for her people; she loaded them with monopolies and exclusive patents, which are much more oppressive than the most heavy taxes levied in an equal and regular manner. The real source of her frugal conduct was derived from her desire of independency, and her care to preserve her dignity, which would have been endangered had she reduced herself to the necessity of having frequent recourse to parliamentary supplies. In consequence of this motive, the queen, though engaged in successful and necessary wars, thought it more prudent to make a continual dilapidation of the royal demesnes,[*] than demand the most moderate supplies from the commons. As she lived unmarried, and had no posterity, she was content to serve her present turn, though at the expense of her successors; who, by reason of this policy, joined to other circumstances, found themselves on a sudden reduced to the most extreme indigence.

The splendor of a court was during this age a great part of the public charge; and as Elizabeth was a single woman, and expensive in no kind of magnificence, except clothes, this circumstance enabled her to perform great things by her narrow revenue. She is said to have paid four millions of debt, left on the crown by her father, brother, and sister; an incredible sum for that age.[**] The states at the time of her death owed her about eight hundred thousand pounds; and, the king of France four hundred and fifty thousand.[***]

* Rymer, tom. xvi. p. 141. D’Ewes, p. 151,457,525,629.
Bacon, vol. iv. p. 363.

** D’Ewes, p. 473. I think it impossible to reconcile this
account of the public debts with that given by Strype,
(Eccles. Mem. vol. ii. p. 344,) that in the year 1553 the
crown owed but three hundred thousand pounds. I own that
this last sum appears a great deal more likely. The whole
revenue of Queen Elizabeth would not in ten years have paid
four millions.

*** Winwood, vol. i. p. 29, 54.

Though that prince was extremely frugal, and after the peace of Vervins was continually amassing treasure, the queen never could, by the most pressing importunities, prevail on him to make payment of those sums which she had so generously advanced him during his greatest distresses. One payment of twenty thousand crowns, and another of fifty thousand, were all she could obtain, by the strongest representations she could make of the difficulties to which the rebellion in Ireland had reduced her.[*] The queen expended on the wars with Spain, between the years 1589 and 1593, the sum of one million three hundred thousand pounds, besides the pittance of a double subsidy, amounting to two hundred and eighty thousand pounds, granted her by parliament.[**] In the year 1599, she spent six hundred thousand pounds in six months on the service of Ireland.[***] Sir Robert Cecil affirmed, that in ten years Ireland cost her three millions four hundred thousand pounds.[****] She gave the earl of Essex a present of thirty thousand pounds upon his departure for the government of that kingdom.[v] Lord Burleigh computed, that the value of the gifts conferred on that favorite amounted to three hundred thousand pounds; a sum which, though probably exaggerated, is a proof of her strong affection towards him. It was a common saying during this reign, “The queen pays bountifully, though she rewards sparingly.”[v*]

It is difficult to compute exactly the queen’s ordinary revenue, but it certainly fell much short of five hundred thousand pounds a year.[v**] In the year 1590, she raised the customs from fourteen thousand pounds a year to fifty thousand, and obliged Sir Thomas Smith, who had farmed them, to refund some of his former profits.[v***]

* Winwood, vol. i. p. 117—195.

** D’Ewes, p. 483.

*** Camden, p. 167.

**** Appendix to the Earl of Essex’s Apology.

v Birch’s Memoirs, vol. ii.

v* Nanton’s Regalia, chap. 1.

v** Franklyn, in his Annals, (p. 9,) says that the profit of
the kingdom, besides wards and the duchy of Lancaster,
(which amounted to about one hundred and twenty thousand
pounds,) was one hundred and eighty-eight thousand one
hundred and ninety-seven pounds: the crown lands seem to be
comprehended in this computation.

v*** Camden, p. 558. This account of Camden is difficult or
impossible to be reconciled to the state of the customs in
the beginning of the subsequent reign, as they appear in the
journals of the commons. See Hist. of James, chap. 46.

This improvement of the revenue was owing to the suggestions of one Caermarthen; and was opposed by Burleigh, Leicester, and Walsingham: but the queen’s perseverance overcame all their opposition. The great undertakings which she executed with so narrow a revenue, and with such small supplies from her people, prove the mighty effects of wisdom and economy. She received from the parliament, during the course of her whole reign, only twenty subsidies and thirty-nine fifteenths. I pretend not to determine exactly the amount of these supplies; because the value of a subsidy was continually falling; and in the end of her reign it amounted only to eighty thousand pounds,[*] though in the beginning it had been a hundred and twenty thousand. If we suppose that the supplies granted Elizabeth during a reign of forty-five years amounted to three millions, we shall not probably be much wide of the truth.[**] This sum makes only sixty-six thousand six hundred and sixty-six pounds a year; and it is surprising, that while the queen’s demands were so moderate, and her expenses so well regulated, she should ever have found any difficulty in obtaining a supply from parliament, or be reduced to make sale of the crown lands. But such was the extreme, I had almost said, absurd parsimony of the parliaments during that period.

* D’Ewes, p. 630.

* Lord Salisbury computed these supplies only at two
millions eight hundred thousand pounds, Journ. 17th Feb.
1609. King James was certainly mistaken when he estimated
the queen’s annual supplies at one hundred and thirty-seven
thousand pounds. Franklyn, p. 44. It is curious to observe
that the minister, in the war begun in 1754, was in some
periods allowed to lavish in two months as great a sum as
was granted by parliament to Queen Elizabeth in forty-five
years. The extreme frivolous object of the late war, and the
great importance of hers, set this matter in still a
stronger light. Money too, we may observe, was in most
particulars of the same value in both periods: she paid
eight pence a day to every foot soldier. But our late
delusions have much exceeded any thing known in history, not
even excepting those of the crusades. For I suppose there is
no mathematical, still less an arithmetical demonstration,
that the road to the Holy Land was not the road to paradise,
as there is, that the endless increase of national debts is
the direct road to national ruin. But having now completely
reached that goal, it is needless at present to reflect on
the past. It will be found in the present year, 1776, that
all the revenues of this island north of Trent and west of
Reading, are mortgaged or anticipated forever. Could the
small remainder be in a worse condition were those provinces
seized by Austria and Prussia? There is only this
difference, that some event might happen in Europe, which
would oblige these great monarchs to disgorge their
acquisitions. But no imagination can figure a situation
which will induce our creditors to relinquish their claims,
or the public to seize their revenues. So egregious indeed
has been our folly, that we have even lost all title to
compassion in the numberless calamities that are awaiting
us.