The  public  danger  in  the  days  of  the  Stuarts  came  so  nearly  home
to  the  people  who  had  power,  that  the  existence  of  the  National
Debt  was  looked  on  as  the  best  guarantee  of  the  Act  of  Settlement,
in  which  the  least  significant  part  was,  if  we  are  to  judge  by  what
was  written  at  the  ^ime,  the  devolution  of  the  Crown  on  the  house
of  Hanover.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  risks  which  were  sure  to  be
seen  in  the  event  of  the  old  line  being  restored  are  the  key  to  the
indecision  of  Harley,  and  must  be  read  between  the  lines  in  the  savage
disappointment  of  Atterbury  and  Bolingbroke,   when  the  latter


TEE  LOANS  OF  THE  BEVOLUTION.  449

described  his  colleague  and  rival.    You  will  find  it  quoted  by-
HaUam  as  of  the  old  Pretender.    It  is  reaUy  of  Harley.
Most  of  the  early  loans  were  terminable,  and  special  taxes,  as  is
now  the  custom  in  countries  with  little  credit,  were  assigned  to  the
interest.  I  have  told  you  before  that  the  existence  of  the  floating
debt  was  a  scandal  to  "William's  government  or  advisers,  and  I  think,
that  Bentinck  and  Zulestein,  if  they  were  anything  but  diplomatists,,
might  have  instructed  Montague  and  Godolphin  in  the  expedients  of
Dutch  finance.  In  reality,  the  earUest  part  of  the  permanent  debt
was  that  of  the  bankers,  the  money  which  nearly  thirty  years  before.
