Page 150 of 159

* Scobel, p. 419.

** Thurloe, vol. ii. p. 476.

*** Scobel, p. 376.

**** Thurloe, vol. vi. p. 425.

v It appears that the late king’s revenue, from 1637 to the
meeting of the long parliament, was only nine hundred
thousand pounds of which two hundred thousand may be
esteemed illegal.

v* Dr Walker, p. 14.

v** Thurloe, vol. i. p. 753.

v*** Thurloe, vol. ii. p. 414.

v**** Thurloe, vol. vii. p. 667.

The committee of danger, in April, 1648, voted to raise the army to forty thousand men.[*] The same year, the pay of the army was estimated at eighty thousand pounds a month.[**] The establishment of the army, in 1652, was, in Scotland, fifteen thousand foot, two thousand five hundred and eighty horse, five hundred and sixty dragoons; in England, four thousand seven hundred foot, two thousand five hundred and twenty horse, garrisons six thousand one hundred and fifty-four. In all, thirty one thousand five hundred and fourteen, besides officers.[***] The army in Scotland was afterwards considerably reduced. The army in Ireland was not much short of twenty thousand men; so that, upon the whole, the commonwealth maintained, in 1652, a standing army of more than fifty thousand men. Its pay amounted to a yearly sum of one million forty-seven thousand seven hundred and fifteen pounds.[****] Afterwards the protector reduced the establishment to thirty thousand men; as appears by the “instrument of government and humble petition and advice.” His frequent enterprises obliged him from time to time to augment them. Richard had on foot in England an army of thirteen thousand two hundred and fifty-eight men, in Scotland nine thousand five hundred and six, in Ireland about ten thousand men.[v] The foot soldiers had commonly a shilling a day.[v*] The horse had two shillings and sixpence; so that many gentlemen and younger brothers of good family enlisted in the protector’s cavalry.[v**] No wonder that such men were averse from the restablishment of civil government, by which, they well knew, they must be deprived of so gainful a profession.

At the time of the battle of Worcester the parliament had on foot about eighty thousand men, partly militia, partly regular forces. The vigor of the commonwealth, and the great capacity of those members who had assumed the government, never at any time appeared so conspicuous.[v***]

* Whitlocke, p. 298.

** Whitlocke, p. 378.

*** Journal, 2d December, 1652.

**** Journal, 2d December, 1652.

v Journal, 6th of April, 1659.

v* Thurloe, vol. i. p. 395; vol. ii. p. 414.

v** Gumble’s Life of Monk.

v*** Whitlocke, p. 477.

The whole revenue of the public during the protectorship of Richard was estimated at one million eight hundred and sixty-eight thousand seven hundred and seventeen pounds; his annual expenses at two millions two hundred and one thousand five hundred and forty pounds. An additional revenue was demanded from parliament.[*]

The commerce and industry of England increased extremely during the peaceable period of Charles’s reign: the trade to the East Indies and to Guinea became considerable. The English possessed almost the sole trade with Spain. Twenty thousand cloths were annually sent to Turkey.[**] Commerce met with interruption, no doubt, from the civil wars and convulsions which afterwards prevailed; though it soon recovered after the establishment of the commonwealth. The war with the Dutch, by distressing the commerce of so formidable a rival, served to encourage trade in England; the Spanish war was to an equal degree pernicious. All the effects of the English merchants, to an immense value, were confiscated in Spain. The prevalence of democratical principles engaged the country gentlemen to bind their sons apprentices to merchants;[***] and commerce has ever since been more honorable in England than in any other European kingdom. The exclusive companies, which formerly confined trade, were never expressly abolished by any ordinance of parliament during the commonwealth; but as men paid no regard to the prerogative whence the charters of these companies were derived, the monopoly was gradually invaded, and commerce increased by the increase of liberty. Interest in 1650 was reduced to six per cent.

The customs in England, before the civil wars, are said to have amounted to five hundred thousand pounds a year;[****] a sum ten times greater than during the best period in Queen Elizabeth’s reign: but there is probably some exaggeration in this matter.

The post-house, in 1653, was farmed at ten thousand pounds a year, which was deemed a considerable sum for the three kingdoms. Letters paid only about half the present postage.

From 1619 to 1638, there had been coined six millions nine hundred thousand and forty-two pounds. From 1638 to 1657, the coinage amounted to seven millions seven hundred and thirty-three thousand five hundred and twenty-one pounds.[v]

* Journal, 7th April, 1659.

** Strafford’s Letters, vol. i. p. 421, 423, 430, 467.

*** Clarendon.

**** Lewis Roberts’s Treasure of Traffick.

v Happy Future State of England

Dr. Davenant has told us, from the registers of the mint, that, between 1558 and 1659, there had been coined nineteen millions eight hundred and thirty-two thousand four hundred and seventy-six pounds in gold and silver.

The first mention of tea, coffee, and chocolate, is about 1660.[*] Asparagus, artichokes, cauliflower, and a variety of salads, were about the same time introduced into England.[**]

The colony of New England increased by means of the Puritans, who fled thither in order to free themselves from the constraint which Laud and the church party had imposed upon them; and, before the commencement of the civil wars, it is supposed to have contained twenty-five thousand souls.[***] For a like reason, the Catholics, afterwards, who found themselves exposed to many hardships, and dreaded still worse treatment went over to America in great numbers, and settled the colony of Maryland.

Before the civil wars, learning and the fine arts were favored at court, and a good taste began to prevail in the nation. The king loved pictures, sometimes handled the pencil himself, and was a good judge of the art. The pieces of foreign masters were bought up at a vast price; and the value of pictures doubled in Europe by the emulation between Charles and Philip IV. of Spain, who were touched with the same elegant passion. Vandyke was caressed and enriched at court. Inigo Jones was master of the king’s buildings; though afterwards persecuted by the parliament, on account of the part which he had in rebuilding St. Paul’s, and for obeying some orders of council, by which he was directed to pull down houses, in order to make room for that edifice. Laws, who had not been surpassed by any musician before him, was much beloved by the king, who called him the father of music. Charles was a good judge of writing, and was thought by some more anxious with regard to purity of style than became a monarch.[****]

* Anderson, vol. ii. p. 111.

** Anderson, vol. ii. p. 111.

*** British Empire in America, vol. i. p. 372.

**** Purnet.

Notwithstanding his narrow revenue, and his freedom from all vanity, he lived in such magnificence, that he possessed four and twenty palaces, all of them elegantly and completely furnished; insomuch that, when he removed from one to another, he was not obliged to transport any thing along with him.

Cromwell, though himself a barbarian was not insensible to literary merit. Usher, notwithstanding his being a bishop, received a pension from him. Marvel and Milton were in his service. Waller, who was his relation, was caressed by him. That poet always said, that the protector himself was not so wholly illiterate as was commonly imagined. He gave a hundred pounds a year to the divinity professor at Oxford; and an historian mentions this bounty as an instance of his love of literature.[*] He intended to have erected a college at Durham for the benefit of the northern counties.