FN 632 Narcissus Luttrell's Diary is filled with accounts of these executions. "Le metier de rogneur de monnoye," says L'Hermitage, "est si lucratif et paroit si facile que, quelque chose qu'on fasse pour les detruire, il s'en trouve toujours d'autres pour prendre leur place. Oct 1/11. 1695."FN 633 As to the sympathy of the public with the clippers, see the very curious sermon which Fleetwood afterwards Bishop of Ely, preached before the Lord Mayor in December 1694. Fleetwood says that "a soft pernicious tenderness slackened the care of magistrates, kept back the under officers, corrupted the juries, and withheld the evidence." He mentions the difficulty of convincing the criminals themselves that they had done wrong. See also a Sermon preached at York Castle by George Halley, a clergyman of the Cathedral, to some clippers who were to be hanged the next day. He mentions the impenitent ends which clippers generally made, and does his best to awaken the consciences of his bearers. He dwells on one aggravation of their crime which I should not have thought of. "If," says he, "the same question were to be put in this age, as of old, 'Whose is this image and superscription?' we could not answer the whole. We may guess at the image; but we cannot tell whose it is by the superscription; for that is all gone." The testimony of these two divines is confirmed by that of Tom Brown, who tells a facetious story, which I do not venture to quote, about a conversation between the ordinary of Newgate and a clipper.
FN 634 Lowndes's Essay for the Amendment of the Silver Coins, 1695.
FN 635 L'Hermitage, Nov 29/Dec 9 1695.
FN 636 The Memoirs of this Lancashire Quaker were printed a few years ago in a most respectable newspaper, the Manchester Guardian.
FN 637 Lowndes's Essay.
FN 638 L'Hermitage, Dec 24/Jan 3 1695.
FN 639 It ought always to be remembered, to Adam Smith's honour, that he was entirely converted by Bentham's Defence of Usury, and acknowledged, with candour worthy of a true philosopher, that the doctrine laid down in the Wealth of Nations was erroneous.
FN 640 Lowndes's Essay for the Amendment of the Silver Coins;Locke's Further Considerations concerning raising the Value of Money; Locke to Molyneux, Nov. 20. 1695; Molyneux to Locke, Dec.
24. 1695.
FN 641 Burnet, ii. 147.
FN 642 Commons' Journals, Nov. 22, 23. 26. 1695; L'Hermitage, Nov 26/Dec 6FN 643 Commons' Journals, Nov. 26, 27, 28, 29. 1695; L'Hermitage, Nov 26./Dec 6 Nov. 29/Dec 9 Dec 3/13FN 644 Commons' Journals, Nov. 28, 29. 1695; L'Hermitage, Dec.
3/13.
FN 645 L'Hermitage, Nov 22/Dec 2, Dec 6/16 1695; An Abstract of the Consultations and Debates between the French King and his Council concerning the new Coin that is intended to be made in England, privately sent by a Friend of the Confederates from the French Court to his Brother at Brussels, Dec. 12. 1695; ADiscourse of the General Notions of Money, Trade and Exchanges, by Mr. Clement of Bristol; A Letter from an English Merchant at Amsterdam to his Friend in London; A Fund for preserving and supplying our Coin; An Essay for regulating the Coin, by A. V.; AProposal for supplying His Majesty with 1,200,000L, by mending the Coin, and yet preserving the ancient Standard of the Kingdom.
These are a few of the tracts which were distributed among members of Parliament at this conjuncture.
FN 646 Commons' Journals, Dec. 10. 1695; L'Hermitage, Dec. 3/136/16 10/20.
FN 647 Commons' Journals, Dec. 13. 1695.
FN 648 Stat. 7 Gul. 3.c.1.; Lords' and Commons' Journals;L'Hermitage, Dec 31/Jan 10 Jan 7/17 10/20 14/24 1696. L'Hermitage describes in strong language the extreme inconvenience caused by the dispute between the Houses:--"La longueur qu'il y a dans cette affaire est d'autant plus desagreable qu'il n'y a point (le sujet sur lequel le peuple en general puisse souffrir plus d'incommodite, puisqu'il n'y a personne qui, a tous moments, n'aye occasion de l'esprouver.
FN 649 That Locke was not a party to the attempt to make gold cheaper by penal laws, I infer from a passage in which he notices Lowndes's complaints about the high price of guineas. "The only remedy," says Locke, "for that mischief, as well as a great many others, is the putting an end to the passing of clipp'd money by tale." Locke's Further Considerations. That the penalty proved, as might have been expected, inefficacious, appears from several passages in the despatches of L'Hermitage, and even from Haynes's Brief Memoires, though Haynes was a devoted adherent of Montague.
FN 650 L'Hermitage, Jan 14/24 1696.
FN 651 Commons' Journals, Jan. 14. 17. 23. 1696; L'Hermitage, Jan. 14/24; Gloria Cambriae, or Speech of a Bold Briton against a Dutch Prince of Wales 1702; Life of the late Honourable Robert Price, &c. 1734. Price was the bold Briton whose speech--never, Ibelieve, spoken--was printed in 1702. He would have better deserved to be called bold, if he had published his impertinence while William was living. The Life of Price is a miserable performance, full of blunders and anachronisms.
FN 652 L'Hermitage mentions the unfavourable change in the temper of the Commons; and William alludes to it repeatedly in his letters to Heinsius, Jan 21/31 1696, Jan 28/Feb 7.
FN 653 The gaiety of the Jacobites is said by Van Cleverskirke to have been noticed during some time; Feb 25/March 6 1696.
FN 654 Harris's deposition, March 28. 1696.
FN 655 Hunt's deposition.
FN 656 Fisher's and Harris's depositions.
FN 657 Barclay's narrative, in the Life of James, ii. 548.; Paper by Charnock among the MSS. in the Bodleian Library.
FN 658 Harris's deposition.
FN 659 Ibid. Bernardi's autobiography is not at all to be trusted.
FN 660 See his trial.
FN 661 Fisher's deposition; Knightley's deposition; Cranburne's trial; De la Rue's deposition.
FN 662 See the trials and depositions.
FN 663 L'Hermitage, March 3/13.
FN 664 See Berwick's Memoirs.
