to write a civil note to one who is
mightier than he:—a money leviathan, to
request that he will be good enough to arrange
the loan of a few millions of pounds sterling.
The great capitalist does not send him a
cheque for the amount by the return post, for
the very good reason that he does not usually
keep such large sums lying idle at his bankers',
neither may he be possessed of a tithe of
the amount required. But he returns the
oft-repeated answer in money lending cases,
"he has not the cash himself, but he thinks
he knows some friends who have," and forthwith,
having arranged the terms for interest
and security, commences the inquiry amongst
his friends, by what is termed opening a new
loan. Such being the importance of this great
interest, it may well claim from us
some notice of its origin, its constitution, and
its present working.

The property with which dealers and
brokers on 'Change have to connect themselves
consists of money loans to governments
and shares in public companies. Our present
paper will be confined entirely to the former
of these, which may be very properly and
conveniently classed under two distinct heads,
that is to say, loans to our own government,
known as the British Funds, and loans to
foreign kingdoms and states, called Foreign
Stocks. The custom of borrowing money
appears to have been a right kingly practice
from time immemorial in all countries. In
England, ages ago, the sovereign thought it
not incompatible with his regal dignity to
levy "black mail" upon such of his subjects
as he fancied had enough and to spare, and
when this device failed to meet the exigencies
of the case, he hesitated not at pawning the
crown jewels or any other valuables upon
which he could obtain a consideration. There
were, it is true, no regular pawnbrokering
establishments in those days from the door
of which dangled the three ominous balls of
gilt; but there were ever those ready with
their cash, who, too powerful to be robbed,
consented to make advances against royal
trinkets.

King John had a peculiar way of raising
loans, not at all approved of by Isaac of
York and his Jewish brethren. Edward the
First seized upon the plate belonging to
churches and monasteries under pretence of
aiding him in a crusade to the Holy Land;
large sums of money were collected for the
same purpose; but it happened that when
the royal treasure-chest became replenished,
the king was taken suddenly unwell and
declared that he did not feel equal to the voyage.
His Majesty, nevertheless, did not think fit
to return any of the moneys received for the
special mission. Both Edward the Third
and Henry the Fifth were frequently
compelled, during their French wars, to the most
unworthy shifts, and did not hesitate to
borrow money, well knowing that it would never
be returned. Edward the Fourth was said
to be the handsomest tax-gatherer in his
kingdom, and so royally did he beg, that all
the women of the day hastened to pay in
their own or their husbands' contributions
to the exchequer, for the pleasure of enriching
such a goodly mendicant. It is related
of this well-favoured monarch that, once as
he sat in his apartments at Whitehall
presiding over the receipt of taxes, he kissed a
young widow who brought to his treasury
more than was her due, whereupon the
cunning lady immediately doubled the amount,
and so bribed the King for a second kiss.

Henry the Seventh levied his rates upon
the people upon a rather novel principle, by
forcing the frugal to pay as much as the
ostentatious; for, according to his financial
logic, their frugality enabled them to do so.
Elizabeth, having sold patents and granted
monopolies until no more were required,
resorted to the device of exacting new years'
gifts from all of any note in the state, and
these came to a goodly sum. She was also
in the frequent habit of borrowing largely
from the various corporations; of course without
the trouble of reckoning interest upon
such trifles; and, when she found she had
more in her treasury than the immediate
occasion required, her Majesty condescended
to re-lend a portion of it to the same
companies at an interest of seven or eight per
cent. It may be truly said that the
exchequer of our earliest monarchs was in the
pockets of the people; that of Henry the
Eighth in the monasteries and churches; that
of Elizabeth in the corporations; and of the
following sovereigns wherever they could
find it.

It will thus be perceived that although
our enormous National Debt dates no further
back than the reign of William the Third,
it does not at all follow, as some have
supposed, that the art of getting the state into
debt was the invention of that sovereign.
Macaulay observes, with great justice, that
"from a period of immemorial antiquity it
had been the practice of every English
Government to contract debts. What the
revolution introduced was the practice of honourably
paying them." Skilled in the commercial
craft of his own country, William, whilst he
imitated his predecessors in raising loans,
did so upon something like sound principles,
and under the names of Long and Short
Annuities, Tontines and Lotteries, filled his
coffers without defrauding his people. The
latter have been very properly abolished,
but the former still constitute a portion of
the British Funds.

Although so intimately connected with the
history of the Stock Exchange, and the career
of Bulls and Bears, it would occupy too much
of our space to enter upon any detailed
account of the growth of the National Debt
of this country. Most of our readers will
not require to be told how this debt, which
William the Third left at sixteen millions