William is defeated by Luxembourg at Landen, July 19.

A new charter granted to the East India Company, Oct. 7.

The East India Company had been greatly favoured by King James, and its leading men were still considered as his partisans. Partly from this cause, but more from the enormous profits which it was known to derive from its trade, a rival association sprang up about the time of the Revolution, and was encouraged by the parliament, which more than once applied to William to dissolve the old company. It was found, however, that this could not legally be done without giving a three years' notice, and in the| meanwhile, Sir Josiah Child, and his kinsman Sir Thomas Cooke, who succeeded him as governor of the company, distributed such vast bribes that they instead obtained a new charter; but they were eventually outbid by their rivals, who in 1698 were also incorporated. In 1702 an agreement for the union of the two bodies was come to, whence arose the well-known appellation of the great corporation, "the United Company of Merchants of England trading to the East Indies."

This is by French writers often called the battle of Neerwinden. William was forced to abandon a strong camp which he had formed at that village, with a loss of 12,000 men. The hated Count Solmes (see A.D. 1692) and the gallant Sarsfield (see A.D. 1690) were both mortally wounded.

Evelyn notes in his Diary (Dec. 18, 1683), "I sold my East India adventure of £250 principal for £750, after I had been in that company twenty-five years, being extraordinary advantageous, by the blessing of God."

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Unlike the majority of the rich London merchants, Child had supported the measures of the court during the two preceding reigns, and he had thus gained the royal patronage for the company, of which James II. became a member. "I went, says Evelyn, March 16, 1684, "to see Sir Josiah Child's prodigious cost in planting walnut-trees about his seat [at Wanstead), and making fishponds, many miles in circuit, in Epping forest, in a barren spot, as oftentimes these suddenly moneyed men seat themselves. He, from a merchant's apprentice, and management of the East India Company's stock, being arrived to an estate, 'tis said, of £200,000. He lately married his daughter to the eldest son of the Duke of Beaufort (late marquis of Worcester), with £50,000 portional present, and various expectations." Child lived several years after his retirement from the direction of the company, and died possessed of enormous wealth, in 1699,

John Benbow was the son of a royalist colonel who fought beside Charles II. at Worcester, and at the Restoration obtained a small office in the Tower, where he was recognised by the king, who promised to provide better for him, but the old

Commodore Benbow bombards St. Malo, in November!.

The parliament meets, Nov. 7, and sits till April 25, 1694.

The Commons complain of the loss sustained at sea, and vote that the fleet has been "treacherously mismanaged." In consequence Admiral Russell is soon again called to the chief command, and Nottingham retires from office.

The Commons complain of the recent charter to the East India Company, and pass a vote affirming the right of all Englishmen to trade to any part of the world, unless prohibited by act of parliament.

The bill for regulating trials for treason is again introduced by the Peers, but dropped before it can reach the Commons.

Bills for holding triennial parliaments and for naturalizing foreign Protestants are introduced in the Commons, but negatived.

A bill for excluding placemen from parliament is passed by both Houses, but William refuses his assent.

A.D. 1694.

Many schemes are devised to meet the extraordinary expenses of the war.

man, overjoyed, died almost on the spot. Young Benbow entered the merchant service, and at length became the owner of a vessel, which he called the Benbow frigate, in which he traded to the Mediterranean, and on one occasion so gallantly beat off a Barbary corsair that James II. made him captain of a man-of-war. After the Revolution, at the request of the London merchants, to whom his former occupation had made him well known, he was chiefly employed in the Channel, where he protected the English commerce against the French privateers, and also conducted attacks on St. Malo, Calais, Dunkirk, and other of their strongholds. In 1699 he was despatched to the West Indies, but was soon recalled to blockade Dunkirk. In 1701 he was again sent to the West Indies, and he was there mortally wounded in action, almost unsupported, with a French fleet, Aug. 24, 1702, and died at Jamaica the 4th of November following.

This was the second attack on the place, and the design was to utterly destroy it. The bombardment was carried on for four days (Nov. 16 to 20), on the last of which a new kind of fire-ship, styled an "infernal machine," was sent in. It had on board 100 barrels of powder and 340 cases of shot, beside a vast quantity of pitch and other combustibles. Though the vessel ran on a rock some distance from its intended place, when it exploded, it threw down the sea wall, unroofed most of the houses, and shattered every window for more than a league inland. "This manner of destructive war," Evelyn remarks, "was begun by the French, is exceedingly ruinous, especially falling on the poorer people, and does not seem to tend to make a more speedy end of the war, but rather to exasperate, and incite to revenge.'

Beside the land-tax, which was reimposed at 4s. in the £. [5 & 6 Gul. & Mar. c. 1], and a poll-tax [c. 14], stampduties were revived [c. 21], the hackney coaches of London were taxed [c. 22], and £1,000,000 was raised by a lottery [c. 71; but as money was still wanting, £1,200,000 more was obtained by granting peculiar privileges to a body of merchants who undertook to furnish it", [c. 20].

Complaints are made of corrupt means having been used to procure the charter to the East India Company. In consequence, a conditional indemnity is granted to Sir Thomas Cooke, the chairman, [5 & 6 Gul. & Mar. c. 15], but as he does not make the required disclosures, he, and Sir Bazill Firebrace, Charles Bates, and James Craggs, directors, are imprisoned, and disabled from alienating their estates, [c. 19].

William goes to Holland, May 6. He takes the field against Luxembourg, but no important event occurs, and he at length returns to England, Nov. 9.

A fleet of French merchantmen and their convoy destroyed in Conquet bay, May 10.

An unsuccessful attack is made on Brest, in June.

They had been first imposed in 1671, by the statute 22 & 23 Car. II. c. 9, which had been suffered to expire.

hThus originated the Bank of England, which also received a royal charter, July 27, 1694. The scheme was originated by William Paterson, a Scotchman of versatile talent, who had passed many years abroad, and who afterwards became conspicuous as the deviser of the Scottish African and Indian Company. The charter was originally for eleven years only, but it has been renewed several times since; the capital lent to the government has increased to £14,553,000, but the interest has been reduced from 8 per cent., its original amount, 3 per cent., its present rate.

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The intended attack became known to the French, and Vauban was employed in strengthening the fortifications. The place was, in consequence, found unassailable by the ships, and General Talmash, who attempted to land with a body of troops in boats, lost near 1,200 of his men, and was himself mortally wounded.

He had been committed May 22. 1 These machines were the invention of a Dutch engineer, named Meesters. As their expense was enormous, their failure caused great dissatisfaction, and added to the dislike with which the Dutch were now generally regarded.

An investigation into this matter took place in the House of Commons, and, although the case had broken down in open court, a party majority disregarded this, and passed a resolution affirming that 'there had been a dangerous conspiracy," though legal evidence of it had not been produced. The

Dieppe and Havre are bombarded, July 12, 16, 18.

Admiral Russell blockades the French fleet in the harbour of Toulon, and thus destroys their former superiority in the Mediterranean.

Colonel John Parker, imprisoned on a charge of plotting against the life of William, escapes from the Tower*, Aug. 11.

Dunkirk and Calais are bombarded, and assailed by infernal machines, but with little success', September.

Several gentlemen are tried at Manchester on a charge of high treason, but are acquitted", October.

The parliament meets Nov. 12, and sits till May 3, 1695. The Place Bill is negatived in the House of Commons, and that for the regulation of trials for treason, in the Lords; but the triennial Bill at length becomes law ", [6 & 7 Gul. & Mar. c. 2].

Duties granted on births, marriages and burials, [c. 6]. By the same act special taxes were laid on bachelors and widowers.

Tillotson, archbishop of Canterbury, dies, Nov. 22. He is succeeded by Thomas Tenison o, bishop of Lincoln.

Queen Mary dies, Dec. 28. She is buried at Westminster, March 5, 1695.

truth is now known to be, that a band of spies concocted the charge, and whilst pretending to seek evidence in support of it, plundered the houses of the prisoners of plate and other valuables. These wretches were in the pay of John Trenchard and Aaron Smith, the secretary of state and the solicitor of the treasury, themselves men of infamous character (Smith had stood in the pillory), whose employment brought much merited disgrace on William's government.

"It bears the title of "an Act for the frequent calling and meeting of Parliaments," and provided that the parliament then sitting should be brought to a close on or before 1st Nov. 1696, but the time was anticipated above a year.

He was born in 1636, at Cottenham, in Cambridgeshire, and was educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He at first studied physic, but afterwards became vicar of St. Martin-in-theFields, London, where he distinguished himself not only by writings against Romanism, which are still highly esteemed, but by his exemplary piety and benevolence. In 1689 he was made archdeacon of London, and early in 1692 he was consecrated bishop of Lincoln. He died Dec. 14, 1715. His care in procuring an additional place of worship for his parishioners of St. Martin has been already mentioned (see A.D. 1687), and for their benefit he founded a valuable library, which was sold by virtue of an Act of Parliament in 1861, and the proceeds ordered to be applied to middle-class educational purposes. Evelyn says of him, "I never knew a man of a more universal and generous spirit, with so much modesty, prudence, and piety."

charge the duke with corruption; and he makes a speech in his own justification, April 27. They propose to impeach him, when the session is suddenly prorogued, May 3.

The censorship of the press is abandoned, the last act passed to restrain unlicensed printing [4 Gul. & Mar. c. 24] being suffered to expire.

A plot against William is devised, early in May. The earl of Aylesbury (Thomas Bruce), Lord Montgomery, Sir John Friend, Sir William Perkins, Sir John Fenwick, Charnock, Porter, Cook, Goodman, and others, are engaged in it; and Charnock is dispatched to France to procure the sanction of King James'.

The Scottish parliament meets, May 9, 1695, under the presidency of the

marquis of Tweeddale (John Hay). An act is passed for the administration of the law in the Highlands, empowering the appointment of itinerant justiciaries and reviving the laws against clanships. By another act severe penalties are denounced against blasphemy. The Company of Scotland trading to Africa and the Indies is formed.

The Scottish parliament inquires into the massacre of Glencoe. It fully establishes the guilt of the earl of Breadalbane, the Master of Stair, and several other parties; makes a formal report of the same (June 24), and prays William to vindicate his own character by punishing them; but nothing is done.

William goes to Holland, May 12. He returns Oct. 10.

. He had belonged to Magdalen College, Oxford, and was one of the very few of its fellows who acquiesced in King James's arbitrary proceedings there.

f James evidently sanctioned the enterprise; it is to be hoped, only to the extent of an overthrow of William's government. The same is probably true of many of the others; but some few ruffians had a design of murder, and when detected they saved their lives by ascribing their own atrocious scheme to others.

In 1633, in consequence of various enormities, the name McGrigor was prohibited to be used; the act was rescinded in 1661, but the prohibition was now revived. In 1695 one Evan McGrigor, a merchant in Edinburgh, on his petition to the Scottish parliament, was allowed to retain the name on his allegation that changing it would be prejudicial to his affairs: but he was not allowed to transmit it to his children, for whom, being obliged to select another appellation, he took the name of Evanson.

This act ordains that "whoever hereafter shall in their writing or discourse deny, impugn, or quarrel, argue or reason against the being of God, or any of the Persons of the blessed Trinity, or the authority of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, or the providence of God in the government of the world, shall for the first fault be punished with imprisonment ay and while they give public satisfaction in sackcloth to the congregation within which the scandal was committed. And for the second fault, the delinquent shall be fined in a year's valued rent of his real estate, and the twentieth part of his free personal estate, (the equal half of which fines are to be applied to the use of the poor of that parish within which the crime shall happen to be committed, and the other half to the

tenant passed over, and held a parliament in Dublin. This body did little more than pass an act recognising the title of William and Mary, and shew its disposition to retaliate on the natives, when it was suddenly prorogued by Sydney, who returned to England, and was succeeded by lords

party informer,) besides his being imprisoned ay and while he make again satisfaction ut supra. And for the third fault he shall be punished by death as an obstinate blasphemer." An act of older date made it a capital crime to revile the Supreme Being, and this was not considered as superseded, as a young divinity student, Thomas Aikenhead, suffered under it at Leith, January 8, 1697.

This was by an act of the Scottish parliament, of June, 1695. In consequence, a royal charter to carry out its objects of trade and colonization was granted, for ten years, to John, Lord Belhaven, and twenty others, principally merchants of Edinburgh or London. Its privileges were believed to conflict with the interests alike of the English and the Dutch merchants, and in consequence of their persevering opposition the scheme became an uner failure. See Note, p. 519.

j One of these was Sir Thomas Coningsby, of Hampton, in Herefordshire, who was eventually removed from office for notorious corruption. An investigation of his conduct took place in the English parliament, but he escaped unpunished, through the most scandalous partisanship, although it was proved that he had had a man, named Gafney, hung by the provost-marshal in Dublin, not only without trial, but even without a written warrant. In parliament he was the fierce opponent of the Tories in general, but more especially of Harley, who was his neighbour in the country, and of whose popularity he was jealous. After the death of Anne, Coningsby took a leading part in impeaching Harley, and was made an English peer (Earl Coningsby). He was a man of intemperate character, ever at open war with all around him, and he died very little regretted, in 1729.