Yet there were not wanting persons who thought it hardly decent in the Treasury to call in the aid of a gambler by profession.

[513] By the lottery loan, as it was called, one million was obtained.

But another million was wanted to bring the estimated revenue for the year 1694 up to a level with the estimated expenditure.

The ingenious and enterprising Montague had a plan ready, a plan to which, except under the pressure of extreme pecuniary difficulties, he might not easily have induced the Commons to assent, but which, to his large and vigorous mind, appeared to have advantages, both commercial and political, more important than the immediate relief to the finances.

He succeeded, not only in supplying the wants of the State for twelve months, but in creating a great institution, which, after the lapse of more than a century and a half, continues to flourish, and which he lived to see the stronghold, through all vicissitudes, of the Whig party, and the bulwark, in dangerous times, of the Protestant succession.
In the reign of William old men were still living who could remember the days when there was not a single banking house in the city of London.