In 1765, one of those insolent attempts occurred on the part of the state, which reminds the reader of an absolute, rather than of a representative, government. The peace concluded in 1763, followed a war which cost upwards of a hundred millions, and the bribery which was necessary to carry the treaty through the House, had contributed to exhaust the treasury. Money was to be acquired, and the people grumbled at the taxation necessary to raise it. In this dilemma it suddenly occurred to the ministers that there might be unclaimed property in the assurance offices, and by some confusion of right and wrong it was thought just to claim this private property for the public good. Nothing could more decidedly approach confiscation. But in dealing with these offices the government was dealing with a large and influential body of proprietors whose gains were aided by this “dead cash,” and who were not men to see their purses invaded with impunity. The Amicable, the Royal Exchange, the London and the Equitable Assurance Companies numbered among their shareholders the greatest mercantile names of the day; they were the same men, or of the same generation, who as directors or as proprietors of the Bank of England resisted, a few years later, the just demand of William Pitt for the unclaimed dividends on the national debt; a demand so obviously sound that its opponents had not an argument to support their refusal. If, then, they were so vigorous when wrong, it may be imagined that they stood boldly forward when they were right. Their courage was undaunted, and they positively defied the claim. The Whigs declared that it was as barefaced as shutting the Exchequer by the Second Charles; the Jacobites said they might as well have a Stuart as a Guelph, that the minister had mistaken his men, and that under no circumstances would they voluntarily yield. Pamphlets were issued, which distinctly asserted that no one would trust a government acting so infamously; that confiscation of private property to pay a nation’s debts was only one remove from bankruptcy; and that no citizen would lend money to a government so unprincipled. The propriety and proper feeling of the people aided the resistance of the offices, and the attempt was only successful in proving to the state, that all arbitrary power had past away, and that for the future an honest course would be their best policy. FOOTNOTES: [11] In 1768, Mr. Mores quarrelled with and separated from the society.