the Painted Chamber at Westminster, with his first parliament before him, he alludes with special satisfaction to this city visit. "I would not forget," he says, "the honorable and civil entertainment I found in the great city of London. Truly I do not think it folly to remember this; for it was very great and high, and very public, and included as numerous a body of those that are known by names and titles, the several corporations and societies of citizens in this city, as hath at any time been seen in England,--and not without some appearance of satisfaction also." Cromwell returned the compliment paid him by the city, and invited the mayor and court of aldermen to dine with him. A good understanding seems to have been maintained between the lord protector and the metropolitan authorities. When plots were formed to take away his life, he called the corporation together, and gave them an extraordinary commission to preserve the peace, and invested them with the entire direction of the municipal militia. He also relieved the citizens from some of their taxes, revived the artillery company, and granted a license for the free importation of four thousand chaldrons of coals from Newcastle for the use of the poor--measures which made his highness popular in London. "Subsequently to the annihilation of the royal authority, or between that and the protectorate, the city became the grand focus of the parliamentary government, as is abundantly testified by the numerous tracts and other records of the period. Guildhall was a second House of Commons, an auxiliary senate, and the companies' halls the meeting-places of those branches of it denominated committees. All the newspapers of the day abound with notices of the occupation of the companies' premises by their committees. Goldsmiths' Hall was their bank, Haberdashers' Hall their court for adjustment of claims, Clothworkers' Hall for sequestration, and all the other halls of the great companies were offices for the transaction of other government business. Weavers' Hall might properly be denominated the exchequer. From this place parliament was accustomed to issue bills, about and before 1652, in the nature of exchequer bills, and which were commonly known under the name of Weaver-Hall bills."--_Herbert's Hist. of Livery Companies_, vol. i. During the melancholy time that the civil war raged in England, the London companies were much oppressed, and spoiled of their resources by the arbitrary exactions made by those in power; but they seem to have enjoyed a better condition under the protectorate, when a season of comparative rest and quietude returned.