that are Ministers might pray together, or, if that cannot be, let us speake, eate, and drinke together, because, if I mistake not, estrangement hath brought us up to jealousie and hatred.' Dinner as a therapeutic agent to assuage the disease of theological hatred is an excellent idea, but in this case quite impracticable, for behind the bitterness of doctrinal divergency lay the sting of social contempt. The Civil War tended in no degree towards the breaking down of the barriers of caste. Presbyterians and Independents alike dearly loved a lord, and valued their own gentility. The regular ministers were as little disposed as any other class to forfeit their social position of university graduates and ordained clergymen. It is true that the leading Independent ministers were of the same rank, but behind them were a motley throng of 'illiterate mechanical preachers, priests of the lowest of the people,' shoemakers, tailors, a comfit maker in Bucklersbury,' or 'a woman that sells lace in Cheapside,' and so on.

The struggle against toleration was by no means confined to the ministers. Petition after petition was laid before Parliament by the Common Council, the freemen of London, the eastern counties, and all the strongholds of Presbyterianism. After long delay these petitions bore fruit, after their kind, in an Ordinance for the punishing of Blasphemies and Heresies,' which passed the Lords and Commons on May 2, 1648. The framers of this law followed pretty closely the order laid down in 'Gangraena.' They divided the various heresies into two classes. The first consisted of the more serious errors. Those who preached or assented to these are liable to the punishment of death, unless they recant, in which case they remain in prison until they find two substantial sureties. If they again relapse, they shall be executed. The second class, consisting of such minor heresies as maintaining that Church government by Presbytery is unlawful,' is punishable by imprisonment until recanted. Had such a law been carried out, it is obvious that none but orthodox Presbyterians would have remained unhung or outside the prison walls; but it was passed by a moribund Parliament which had entirely lost the power to put its ideal system into practice, and there is no reason to believe that any prosecu

tions were actually carried out under its drastic clauses. It remained on the Statute-book until August 1650, when it was superseded by a 'Blasphemy Act' of a milder character, aimed chiefly at the immoral tendencies of 'Seekers' and Ranters,' and at Messiahs and other semilunatics.

Step by step with the growing bitterness of the theological controversy, the political breach between Presbyterians and Independents widened and deepened with every succeeding year. It is not possible here to enter into the history of the complicated and tortuous negotiations which passed during the years 1646 to 1648 between the King, the Army, the Parliament, and the Scottish leaders. It must suffice to note the fact that, during this period, the army was moving steadily in one direction, the Parliament in the opposite. The superior officers of the army were still in some measure divided, some following the extreme views of Ireton, others adhering to the more conservative instincts of Fairfax ; but the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people was meanwhile taking complete possession of the rank and file; loyalty to the Crown was daily being replaced by republicanism; and Charles himself was developing into the man of blood, who was to be called to account for the blood he had shed and the evil he had done to his utmost against the Lord's cause and people in these poor nations.'

The Presbyterians in and out of Parliament were moving as steadily towards a restoration. They had never been republicans; they were now ready to become enthusiastic royalists if only they could induce the King to accept the position of a covenanted figure-head to carry out their cherished scheme of universal, compulsory Presbyterianism. Their guiding motive was, after all, not so much loyalty to the Throne or personal devotion to the King, as terror and hatred of the Army-a sentiment in which Parliament and the Presbyterian ministers were entirely at one with the Common Council and the citizens of London.

Merely to read through the petitions and protests against the unchristian, scandalous, treacherous, rebellious, tyranical, jesuiticall, bloody counsels and exorbitancies of this Army of Saints,' is to solve one of the

most curious paradoxes of English history-the hatred of a standing army, traces of which may still be found among a nation singularly devoted at heart to warlike methods and qualities.

Nothing in the whole collection is more remarkable than the evidence afforded by the tracts for the years 1647 and 1648, not merely of the hope, but of the confident expectation of the citizens of London in the success of the 'Personal Treaty' with the King, both before, during, and after the negotiations at Newport in the autumn of 1648. It may seem strange to us, with our wider knowledge of King Charles, of the Parliament, and of the leaders of the Army, that any sane person could have believed for a moment in the success of this 'Personal Treaty.' We know enough of Charles I to be confident that he was the last man in the world to play the part of a Venetian Doge, complacently sanctioning the action of a Presbyterian clique engaged in establishing a political and religious system every detail of which was abhorrent to him. We know enough also of the spirit of the army to be sure that no settlement made without their consent could have stood for a fortnight. There may have been a few at the head of affairs who realised the insuperable difficulties of the situation, but the citizen of London, the contemporary man in the street,' was in a different position, and the accumulated evidence of hundreds of newspapers and pamphlets is quite conclusive as to his conviction of the King's speedy restoration and the enforced disbandment of the army. That Charles himself was of the same opinion is clearly shown by his own words on the first day of his trial, January 20, 1649.

'I was' (he says) 'not long ago in the Isle of Wight. There I entered into a Treaty with both Houses of Parliament. I treated them with as much public faith as it is possible to be had of any people in the world. I cannot say but they dealt very nobly with me. We were upon the conclusion of the Treaty.'

The impossible position was solved by Pride's Purge, December 6, 1648, by which a hundred and forty members were excluded from the House of Commons and the Presbyterian majority finally crushed. Comparisons

between any given event of the English Civil War and of the French Revolution usually lead to the discovery of the absolute divergencies which underlie superficial similarities. But there is a curiously close resemblance between Pride's Purge and the Coup d'état of the 18th Fructidor, an V (September 4, 1797). In each case the moderate majority was accused of aiming at a restoration of the royal authority and of enmity to the army., In each case the moderate party was destroyed and the extremists placed in power by an armed force, drawn from the regular army, and so powerful as to be irresistible. In each case the Coup d'état, after a short interval of anarchy and confusion, led to the despotic rule of a successful military officer. In point of fact this military officer in each case proved to be an able and just ruler; but this was a fortunate accident rather than a justification of a violent overthrow of the representative Government. In at least one detail the analogy is curiously complete. In a contemporary account of Pride's Purge appears the following passage:

'About three of the clock in the afternoon' (December 6, 1648) 'Hugh Peter, with a sword by his side like a boisterous souldier, came rushing in to see the prisoners and take a list of their names, when some of the prisoners, demanding of him by what authority they were thus imprisoned and kept from their duty, he answered, "By the power of the sword."' When the members of the Corps Législatif, arrested on September 4, 1797, asked the officer who was conveying them to the Temple by what authority he dared to arrest the Representatives of the people, he replied, 'By the law of the sword.' There is not the smallest reason to suppose that the French officer had so much as heard of Pride or the Reverend Hugh Peters. In both cases the laconic answer was the simplest possible statement of the fact.

Here we must close. We have touched only on one or two of the many points of interest contained in this inexhaustible treasure-house; but we hope that enough has been said to justify Carlyle's dictum that the Thomason Tracts form the most valuable set of documents connected with English history.'

Art. XII.-GOLD RESERVES.

1. Lombard Street. By Walter Bagehot. New and revised edition, with notes by E. Johnstone. London: Kegan Paul, 1901.

2. The Theory of the Foreign Exchanges. By the Right Hon. Viscount Goschen. London: Effingham Wilson, 1903.

3. The Royal Mint. Thirty-fourth and thirty-seventh annual Reports of the Deputy-Master and Comptroller of the Mint. London: Darling and Son, 1904 and 1907. 4. United States Mint. Annual Report of the Director of the Mint for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1907. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1907.

THE strained condition of the money markets of the world throughout the whole of 1907, and the American 'raid' on the gold reserves of Europe during the last three months of the year have reawakened public interest in the question whether the gold reserves of the United Kingdom are altogether adequate for the work which they are liable to be called upon to perform.

The world's reserves of loanable capital are held in gold, and gold is the base upon which all operations in credit must ultimately rest. The predominant position which Great Britain holds in the trade of the world and the volume of her international financial transactions render this question one of peculiar interest and importance at the present juncture. Hitherto the matter has been treated as a purely banking question; but this is a mistake; the question is one of national importance, and it affects in a vital and practical manner the whole mercantile community. Bankers occupy such a peculiar position in the controversy that it may be questioned whether it is altogether reasonable to leave to them alone the solution of this difficult problem. They are called upon to reconcile many conflicting interests; they must look to the dividends of their shareholders, and they have at the same time to fulfil their obligations to depositors and borrowers. Then, again, there is evidence of a distinct line of cleavage between the interests