embarrassment, began to wish that the terms, hard as they were, which had been offered by the Commissioners at Mercers’ Hall had been accepted.  The negotiation was renewed.  Shrewsbury, Godolphin and Portland, as agents for the King, had several conferences with Harley and Foley, who had recently pretended that eight hundred thousand pounds were ready to be subscribed to the Land Bank.  The Ministers gave assurances, that, if, at this conjuncture, even half that sum were advanced, those who had done this service to the State should, in the next session, be incorporated as a National Land Bank.  Harley and Foley at first promised, with an air of confidence, to raise what was required.  But they soon went back from their word; they showed a great inclination to be punctilious and quarrelsome about trifles; at length the eight hundred thousand pounds dwindled to forty thousand; and even the forty thousand could be had only on hard conditions.709 So ended the great delusion of the Land Bank.  The commission expired; and the offices were closed.

And now the Council of Regency, almost in despair, had recourse to the Bank of England.  Two hundred thousand pounds was the very smallest sum which would suffice to meet the King’s most pressing wants.  Would the Bank of England advance that sum?  The capitalists who lead the chief sway in that corporation were in bad humour, and not without reason.  But fair words, earnest entreaties and large promises were not spared; all the influence of Montague, which was justly great, was exerted; the Directors promised to do their best; but they apprehended that it would be impossible for them to raise the money without making a second call of twenty per cent. on their constituents.  It was necessary that the question should be submitted to a General Court; in such a court more than six hundred persons were entitled to vote; and the result might well be doubted.  The proprietors were summoned to meet on the fifteenth of August at Grocers’ Hall.  During the painful interval of suspense, Shrewsbury wrote to his master in language more tragic than is often found in official letters.  “If this should not succeed, God knows what can be done.  Any thing must be tried and ventured rather than lie down and die."710 On the fifteenth of August, a great epoch in the history of the Bank, the General Court was held.  In the chair sate Sir John Houblon, the Governor, who was also Lord Mayor of London, and, what would in our time be thought strange, a Commissioner of the Admiralty.  Sir John, in a speech, every word of which had been written and had been carefully considered by the Directors, explained the case, and implored the assembly to stand by King William.  There was at first a little murmuring.  “If our notes would do,” it was said, “we should be most willing to assist His Majesty; but two hundred thousand pounds in hard money at a time like this.”  The Governor announced explicitly that nothing but gold or silver would supply the necessities