So fruitful a source of wealth was not allowed to fall into desuetude. The Florentine republic, experiencing a deficiency in her revenue, established a mount, allowed five per cent. interest, and, says Sir William Blackstone, these laid the foundation of our national debt. The Dutch were not long following the example. When the great persecution occurred, which forced the Spanish Jew—the aristocracy of the chosen race—from the place of his nativity, he brought with him to Holland the craft and the cunning of the people. He taught the Dutch to create an artificial wealth; and the people of that republic, by its aid, maintained an attitude of independence, which rendered them so long the envy and the hatred of the proud states which surrounded their territory. Their industry increased with the claims upon them. They cultivated their country with renewed perseverance; they brought the spices of the rich and barbarous East to the shores of the cultivated and the civilized West; they opened new sources of profit; their merchant-vessels covered the waters; their navy was the boast of Europe; their army was the scourge of the great Louis in the height of his pride and power. The markets of Holland evinced a full activity; the towns of Holland increased in importance; and the capital of Holland became the centre of European money transactions, partly in consequence of the great bigotry which banished the Jew from Spain. When, therefore, the chief of that small yet powerful republic was called to sit upon an English throne, he brought with him many of those whose brains had contrived and whose cunning had contributed to produce these great changes; and from his reign, whatever evils may have arisen from a reckless waste of money, there commenced that principle which, for a century and a half, has operated on the fortunes of all Europe,—which proclaimed that, under every form and phase of circumstance, in the darkest hour of gloom as in the proudest moment of grandeur, the inviolable faith of England should be preserved towards the public creditor. Up to this period, the only national debt on which interest was acknowledged was that sum which had been seized on in the Exchequer; and even these dividends were irregularly paid. Many debts had been incurred by our earlier kings, but all the promises and pledges which had been given for their redemption were broken directly the money was gained; and it remained, we repeat, for William, whatever his errors may have been, to establish the principle, that faith to the public creditor must be inviolate.