The English company settled in Antwerp having refused her a loan of forty thousand pounds, she dissembled her resentment till she found that they had bought and shipped great quantities of cloth for Antwerp fair, which was approaching: she then laid an embargo on the ships, and obliged the merchants to grant her a loan of the forty thousand pounds at first demanded, to engage for the payment of twenty thousand pounds more at a limited time, and to submit to an arbitrary imposition of twenty shillings on each piece.

Some time after, she was informed that the Italian merchants had shipped above forty thousand pieces of cloth for the Levant, for which they were to pay her a crown a piece, the usual imposition: she struck a bargain with the merchant adventurers in London; prohibited the foreigners from making any exportation; and received from the English merchants, in consideration of this iniquity, the sum of fifty thousand pounds, and an imposition of four crowns on each piece of cloth which they should export.

She attempted to borrow great sums abroad; but her credit was so low, that though she offered fourteen per cent to the city of Antwerp for a loan of thirty thousand pounds, she could not obtain it till she compelled the city of London to be surety for her.[*] All these violent expedients were employed while she herself was in profound peace with all the world, and had visibly no occasion for money but to supply the demands of a husband who gave attention only to his own convenience, and showed himself entirely indifferent about her interests.
* Godwin, p.359.

Cowper's Chronicle.

Burnet, vol.ii.