During the week which followed there was some anxiety as to the result of the subscription for the stock of the General Society.  If that subscription failed, there would be a deficit; public credit would be shaken; and Montague would be regarded as a pretender who had owed his reputation to a mere run of good luck, and who had tempted chance once too often.  But the event was such as even his sanguine spirit had scarcely ventured to anticipate.  At one in the afternoon of the 14th of July the books were opened at the Hall of the Company of Mercers in Cheapside.  An immense crowd was already collected in the street.  As soon as the doors were flung wide, wealthy citizens, with their money in their hands, pressed in, pushing and elbowing each other.  The guineas were paid down faster than the clerks could count them.  Before night six hundred thousand pounds had been subscribed.  The next day the throng was as great.  More than one capitalist put down his name for thirty thousand pounds.  To the astonishment of those ill boding politicians who were constantly repeating that the war, the debt, the taxes, the grants to Dutch courtiers, had ruined the kingdom, the sum, which it had been doubted whether England would be able to raise in many weeks, was subscribed by London in a few hours.  The applications from the provincial towns and rural districts came too late.  The merchants of Bristol had intended to take three hundred thousand pounds of the stock, but had waited to learn how the subscription went on before they gave their final orders; and, by the time that the mail had gone down to Bristol and returned, there was no more stock to be had.

This was the moment at which the fortunes of Montague reached the meridian.  The decline was close at hand.  His ability and his constant success were everywhere talked of with admiration and envy.  That man, it was commonly said, has never wanted, and never will want, an expedient.

During the long and busy session which had just closed, some interesting and important events had taken place which may properly be mentioned here.  One of those events was the destruction of the most celebrated palace in which the sovereigns of England have ever dwelt.  On the evening of the 4th of January, a woman,—­the patriotic journalists and pamphleteers of that time did not fail to note that she was a Dutchwoman,—­who was employed as a laundress at Whitehall, lighted a charcoal fire in her room and placed some linen round it.  The linen caught fire and burned furiously.  The tapestry, the bedding, the wainscots were soon in a blaze.  The unhappy woman who had done the mischief perished.  Soon the flames burst out of the windows.  All Westminster, all the Strand, all the river were in commotion.  Before midnight the King’s apartments, the Queen’s apartments, the Wardrobe, the Treasury, the office of the Privy Council, the office of the Secretary of State, had been destroyed.  The two chapels perished together;