The income and expenditure of the Commonwealth are stated to have far exceeded those of any monarch who ever sat before on the throne of England, and to have been not less than four million four hundred thousand pounds per annum. The post office, as already stated, brought in ten thousand pounds per annum. A singular tax, called the Weekly Meal, or the price of a meal a week from each person, produced upwards of one hundred thousand pounds a year, or six hundred and eight thousand four hundred pounds in the six years during which it was levied. There was a weekly assessment for the support of the war, which rose from thirty-eight thousand pounds to one hundred and twenty thousand pounds per week, which was continued as a land tax under the Protectorate, producing from 1640 to 1659 no less than thirty-two million one hundred and seventy-two thousand three hundred and twenty-one pounds. The Excise also owes its origin to this period, and produced, it is said, five hundred thousand pounds a year. Large sums were realised by the sales of Crown and Church lands,--from the sale of Crown lands, parks, etc., one million eight hundred and fifty-eight thousand pounds; from the sale of Church lands, ten million pounds; from sequestration of the revenue of the clergy for four years, three million five hundred thousand pounds; eight hundred and fifty thousand pounds from incomes of offices sequestered for the public service; four million five hundred thousand pounds from the sequestration of private estates or compositions for them; one million pounds from compositions with delinquents in Ireland; three million five hundred thousand pounds from the sale of forfeited estates in England and Ireland, etc. The ministers and commanders are asserted to have taken good care of themselves. Cromwell's own income is stated at nearly two million pounds, or one million nine hundred thousand pounds; namely, one million five hundred thousand pounds from England, forty-three thousand pounds from Scotland, and two hundred and eight thousand pounds from Ireland. The members of Parliament were paid at the rate of four pounds a week each, or about three hundred thousand pounds a year altogether; and Walker, in his "History of Independency," says that Lenthall, the Speaker, held offices to the amount of nearly eight thousand pounds a year; that Bradshaw had Eltham Palace, and an estate of one thousand pounds a year, as bestowed for presiding at the king's trial; and that nearly eight hundred thousand pounds were spent on gifts to adherents of the party. As these statements, however, are those of their adversaries, they no doubt admit of ample abatement; but after all deduction, the demands of king and Parliament on the country during the contest, and of the Protectorate in keeping down its enemies, must have been enormous. Notwithstanding this, the rate of interest on money continued through this period to decline. During James's reign it was