so it was," says our old moralizing friend, quoting his school-books, for senility and puerility are not altogether unlike, and there this cause ended, verifying a great truth in Horace,

"Murus abeneus esto Nil conscire sibi."

no

In a year or two after his serving as sheriff, Sir Dudley North was appointed commissioner of customs. This seems to have been the king's personal act; and the appointment was doubt a good one; but we cannot follow Roger in his detailed proofs of this. North appears to have honestly promoted the best men he could find, and, when his men were found " "peccant," for the best gaugers were in King Charles's days, among the most corrupt of men, North, contrary to the practice of his brother commissioners, who each fought tooth and nail the battles of the fellows they appointed, never overlooked a fault in any man who owed his place to him. North's own income being now increased by the salary of his office, a thousand a-year, and some presents of eatables, as Westphalia hams seized, spices from the East India Company, and the like, which came of course, he thought (as most men do, that feel their fortunes rising) that he must live in somewhat better style; "the rather, because his lady, though affecting retirement, yet, when she did appear, loved to have a parade about her, and often childing brought christenings, which in the city are usually celebrated with much company and feastings. And she herself, being a Bristol lady, where excesses of that kind ordinarily prevail, was desirous not to fail of what was, on such occasions, expected. And he being a commissioner, and otherwise concerned with the court, had occasion to entertain great men; and, as the house where he lived was too strait, and wanted even the conveniences that belonged to a Turkey merchant," he took a magnificent house, "that great one behind Goldsmith's hall, built by Sir John Bludsworth." He furnished it richly, especially one state apartment of divers rooms in file." The furniture cost him at least four thousand pounds. But, alas! "the house was situate among the goldsmiths and other smoky trades, and their smoke and dust filled the air, and confounded all his good furniture. He hath in person laboured to caulk up the win

dows, and all the chimneys not used were kept close stopped. But, notwithstanding all that could be done to prevent it, the dust gathered thick upon every thing within doors; for which reason the rooms were often let stand without any furniture at all." His civic feasts exhibited all the old solemnities of such things. "His long tables," saith Roger, whom we do not here quite understand, "were covered plentifully with the officers and proclamations, as was the way at city feasts. If these were not right, the guests must blame antiquity, and as well find fault with the shape of his gown." His private parties were of a cordial and pleasant kind. "The manner," says our friend Roger, "which we of the fraternity used among ourselves, was to spend at least one night in the week with Sir Dudley, which was Thursday, and with my Lord Chief Justice North on Sundays, till he had the great seal, and then many more were added to his nights." On the lord keeper's death Sunday nights fell to Roger's share, who was, till then, an ubiquitarian." The period was one of trouble and of change, and Roger says, that their evenings of meeting being known, spies were sent among them in the guise of friends and visitors, and tells one or two stories not worth repeating, to prove a matter but too probable.

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There is no man all evil. Of Jeffries, even in the hour when he was drunk with blood, and drunk with wine, good has been recorded. In his memorable western expedition bis visitation of Bristol should not be forgotten. There had been a custom in the corporation, to sell as slaves, for the American plantations, criminals whose lives were spared on condition of their submitting to transportation. The trade was a tempting one, and, as the assizes and sessions did not supply sufficient of this merchandize for the cupidity of the Bristol aldermen, they found a shorter way to obtain it. The mayor and justices sat each day at the tholsel court, and there they did such justice business as came before them. When small rogues and pilferers were taken and brought there, they succeeded into terrifying them with the fear of being hanged, and while they were in this panic, the servants of the court instructed them to pray transportation as the only means of escape. On this the aldermen, in succession, took one and another, often quarrelling

He attended constantly, and encouraged fair traders, which was best done, in his brother's expressive language, "by sitting on the skirts of smugglers." "But I must observe withal, that, together with all this, he was not free from clamour; for, however the fair merchants were satisfied, the foul ones joined in a common cry against him; and no wonder, when he was to them a rock of offence, and to the revenue, a screen against their frauds. It is their constant practice to move every stone, to get rid of a good officer, whom no mists will blind, nor corruption infect. Such an one is a common nuisance; and if calumnies, lies, or any indirect means, will confound him, they have a magazine that will hold out. And, in that age, when parties raged, he being eminent on the one side, the smugglers took into the other, and talked of nothing but illegalities and oppressions, endeavouring, among the anti-court party in the city, to make him be thought the veriest tyrant upon earth, and no better than a Turkish basha; and how far they

went towards it, shall be touched. In the

mean time it was manifest, that all those who appeared publicly to charge him, were the most notorious thieves of custom in

the whole city; and very few of the fair traders, and those upon account of factious spleen only, joined with them."

North's habits of business seem at this time to have been of the greatest use to the court. He was indefatigable in the performance of his duties-relentless in his punishment of fraud, and determined upon its exposure. In fact, letting in daylight upon fraud is after all the surest remedy. He offended Rochester, by detecting a well-concerted fraud in the accounts of a contract for hearth-money and excise, obtained by his interest. False books were kept, and the auditor of the accounts, though dissatisfied with the books, was unable to disentangle the trick. Indeed, as the story is told by Roger, it is hard to think that the auditor was not himself a party to the deception. Sir Dudley North-there was "no better artist at voluminous accounts" in England than Sir Dudley-examined the matter. He observed that "when he touched upon any thing obscure, the auditor hummed and hawed, as if he had lost his utterance. This made him suspect some grand disguise in the accounts; and at last he found clearly that a whole column of figures was falsified, and that in carrying on the books, that column was a blank, and left to be filled up as

there should be occasion." The king determined on this to dissolve the contract, and proceedings were about to be taken in the Exchequer. But the chapter of accidents was favorable to The king died soon after-Rochester, their patron, survived, and was one of James's ministers-and the affair was allowed to be forgotten.

the contractors.

The power of the Commons House of Parliament in England ultimately resolves itself into its power of granting or withholding the supplies. At every period of our history, the battles of the popular party and the court have been fought by the same means. At all times, however, there has been preserved some decency of appearance in the pretences on which this extreme measure is resorted to. Charles's profuse expenditure on the navy-his lavish dissipations-his taste for building, rendered him helplessly dependent on parliament. Retrenchment in all, perhaps in any, of these sources of expense, would in the then circumstances of the crown, have enabled him to live the settled revenue. The upon recollection of this being a possible experiment of the king's, made the parliament fear that, were they over-rigid in refusing supplies, the advantages which they now had of gradually stripping the prerogative of its best feathers, would be altogether lost. Supplies were voted freely enough, but with each money-bill a new grievance was sure to be stated-"they plucked at his pinions, and sought to get a quill or two," It was often a hard match between the court and the country parties which should prevail in carrying through or retarding a money-bill -so much so as to occasion several amusing scrambles. A story is told, that when Serjeant Gregory was speaker, a bill was engrossed, and having passed the third reading, lay on the table to be carried up, when the house should so order. The country party delayed sending it up, till some one or other of their "grievances" was disposed of. The others, however, who of course had the king in their hand, watched their time ; and a member moving for carrying up the bill, the speaker, without waiting for debate, or even staying to put the question, rose out of the chair, and took the bill in his hand. The court party rose and closed in behind him, and carried him forward; and so they went up to the Lords, and "the king being

in his chair, the bill was presented, and le roy le veut. The other party could only cry hold, but all in vain Factum valet."

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In these contests, however, notwithstanding the success of occasional measures, the court continually lost ground. The indolence of the court party made them willing to avoid the task of becoming acquainted with the details of business, when they could find or invent any decent pretext for it. The privy council had hitherto been in the habit of referring what they called "dark questions" of trade to eminent merchants, whose advice they in general followed. They now appointed a board of trade, whose duty was to examine all matters of trade and commerce, and report their opinion to the council. It would be digressing too far from the immediate subject of this paper, to explain the influences by which the commissioners of this board were selected from the party called by the court fanatics. The revenue became seriously diminished from the period of the institution of this board, and there can be no reasonable doubt that such was the intention of the commissioners. The commission itself was, besides, a very expensive one. North tell us in a discontented tone of their great house in Queenstreet their formal board with green cloth and standishes, clerks good store, a tall porter and staff, and fitting attendance below-and a huge luminary at the door. In winter time, when the board met, as was two or three times a-week, or oftener, all the rooms were lighted; coaches at the door, and great passing in and out, as if a council of state in good earnest had been sitting." The court soon got tired of a body whose only object seemed to play into the hands of their enemies. Fortunately for the court, an unmanageable dispute arose between the East India and the Turkey merchants, whose interests and tempers were found to be irreconcilable. They at last agreed that the matter should be heard by the king in council. They appeared before the king, and each stated his own case-for the disputants felt that they could not render their respective cases intelligible to counsel, and, as we have now and then seen exemplified in that class of clients who plead their own causes, thought, that if their own voices could be heard in argument, they could not but win the day. The passions of the exchange

and of the counting-house played their part before the king. Partiality, and Jealousy, and Avarice, spoke their own undisguised language. The dialect of the conventicle was forgotten, and the controversy had not proceeded far, before the one ruling principle of trade

the desire of each to serve himself at the expense of every one else-was distinctly enough expressed, in something like the tones of this week-day world. Charles was amused at the scene, where puritan met puritan in that high presence, "vying and revying with perpetual contradiction, little less than giving each other the lye." The controversy exhibited what both parties would willingly conceal-the frauds of all upon the revenue. How the controversy terminated between the parties, is not worth recording. To the king they made it pretty plain that they were-we use his own right royal words—a pack of knaves. The incident gave him an excuse to dissolve the board; and after its dissolution, North appears to have been consulted by the council on most questions of commerce.

We have said, or should have said, that North, after his return to England, continued his mercantile connection with the East-his brother Mountagu being his factor and correspondent in Constantinople. At the time that North was every day consulted by the privy council, the Levant or Turkey company,-resenting some losses sustained by what they regard as unjust and capricious extortions in Turkey-proceeded to what was almost a declaration of war against the Grand Seignior. The principal merchants of the Turkey company were, it so happened, in general politics, opposed to the court. As it is the nature of party to include every thing, however remote it may at first seem, within its perpetually extending circle, those who agreed with them on subjects of English politics, adopted their opinions in this wild controversy with the sublime porte. North was amused at the speeches which he heard. One wealthy man was for an instant application to the king for ships of war, to go and lie before the seraglio, and if the Turk would not right the merchants, beat it about his ears. made a pleasant entertainment," says Roger, " at the Turkey club that evening, to recollect the several lofty flights and towering projects of those that spoke on this side, and how slight they

"It

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made of the Ottoman emperor in his own metropolis." One gentleman his name ought to be immortal, Sir Samuel Barnadiston-said they must tumultuate the people at Constantinople!! Tumultuate, tumultuate, tumultuate," said the worthy fig-merchant, even as in our day we have heard the feebler words, agitate, agitate, agitate." The assembly ended in what they called a compromise, and made an order of the Levant company, "that until justice should be done to the Levant merchants, all trade with Turkey was interdicted."

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In vain was this resolution combatted against. The proposers of it, who remembered their own first mad thought of storming the seraglio, which they abandoned with reluctance, listened with impatience and unbelief to the arguments of persons who represented this milder proposition as the maddest action that could be done by men pretending to common sense." As Roger observes, it was quite out of the question that their factors abroad could dare to shut up their warehouses, and our ambassador declare a cessation of commerce in the way proposed; for beyond doubt, their persons and effects would be seized for this insolent affront to the Grand Seignior. Nor could any thing give greater delight to the authors of the extortions of which they complained, for this conduct would give reasonable excuse for still further demands as a punishment for their insolence. As to their respect for us and our merchants, the Turks think of us as much as we do "of an Armenian pedler of amber beads ;" and our trade, once discontinued, would, in all probability, be for ever lost. What do we supply that they might not have from the French or Dutch? This was the feeling of North; but, says Roger, it was talking to the winds. The leaders had other views-they must tumultuate the people at home, and embarrass the king by diminishing the customs.

Lord Guilford learned this strange proceeding from his brother, and communicated it to the privy council-he had serious, and we think reasonable, apprehensions that the absurd interdict might induce war between England and the Porte. The Levant company were summoned to attend the king in council, and were told that they were a company chartered to carry on, not to interdict, trade; that if they did not instantly vacate and annul their resolution, a proclamation should be at

once issued, declaring it free to any subject of England to trade with Turkey, and thus at once depriving the company of their privilege of exclusive dealing; that orders would be forthwith issued to the ambassador at Constantinople, and the consuls at the several factories, to protect the persons and goods of any persons trading from Eugland. It was further intimated that the privilege with which they had been intrusted formerly, of using his majesty's name in their communications with the Grand Seignior, or his ministers, was withdrawn, and that all such communications must henceforth be read and approved of by the king in council, before being forwarded. North was of course at once recognised as the person communicating this intelligence of their purposes to the court; and many of the leading merchants of the company had the unspeakable meanness of whispering about, that “North betrayed the secrets of their court." There can be no doubt in any reasonable mind, that it was the duty of every man, who felt the injury to the country, that even the report of this absurd interdict could not but effect, to communicate the project to government, if he had no other means of defeating it. Lord Guilford imagined that the object meant was different from what was exhibited, and that the whole was a factious attempt to injure the government, by lessening the customs; that to this the interests of trade, and even of the projectors themselves, were cheerfully sacrificed. Dudley North's own language, in reply to the mean and malignant taunt of the whisperers whom we have mentioned, is worth remembering :-“ If any man there, that owned himself an Englishman, and either would be passive and silent while the interests of his country were going to wreck, or being summoned to attend his majesty, not answer truly what was demanded of him, he would reply, that man was both a fool and a knave. Therefore, if any shame come to them, they may thank their own bad orders, and let those alone, who sought to prevent the ruinous effect of them."

North's talents and services were valued by the king; and we soon after find him placed in the Treasury, with a salary of sixteen hundred a-year, and in an office which left his time chiefly at his own disposal. The king's death, however, soon followed; and on the accession of James, the white taff of