Cromwell also renewed the attempts of Elizabeth, James, and Charles to stop the erection of new buildings; all those persons who had built houses—except on four acres of ground—since 1620 were fined one year’s rent, and all those who should build after 1656 were to be fined £100. These successive Acts caused great vexation at the time, but as they were never enforced save at irregular intervals, the chief effect was to drive across the river into the Borough those of the craftsmen for whom there was no room in the City. The Common Council proceeded to consider the allowances for the expenses of the Mayor and the Sheriffs; these were now fixed at £208:6s. a month for the former, and £150 a month for each of the latter. A Committee was appointed “to manage and to let to farm a number of offices, including those of garbling, package, and scavage, metage of grain, coal, salt and fruit, as well as all fines, issues, amerciaments and estreated recognizances under the greenwax.” The condition of the poor was taken in hand at this time very seriously. A project was started to raise money by establishing a post in Scotland and other parts of the country; but the House of Commons resolved that the office of postmaster in every part of the country is in the power and the disposal of the Parliament; the project, therefore, fell through; meantime the poor remained. It was decided to raise £4600 in order to find work for them; a storehouse was set apart for them in the Minories and the King’s Wardrobe, part of the Palace so-called, one court of which remained until recently—to be used as a workroom. [Illustration: OLIVER CROMWELL (1599–1658) From a painting in the National Portrait Gallery, London.] The weariness of civil war felt by the Londoners was further displayed in the autumn of 1650 when a contingent of recruits was marched from London to the North to join the army in Scotland. Half of them deserted by the way. In the following year the City remonstrated on the heavy taxation from which they suffered, stating that the City was assessed at a fifteenth part of the whole kingdom; that the foreign trade had suffered grievously from Prince Rupert’s piracies; that the wealthier citizens were withdrawing from London to the suburbs, and so evading taxation. The last clause is remarkable. The time had not yet come when the wealthier merchants desired to leave the City and to live outside; the practice shows simply that in this way they avoided taxation. The battle of Worcester, September 3, 1651, put an end to the Civil War. A few days later the unhappy Scottish prisoners were marched through the City, ragged, barefoot, bareheaded, starving—a terrible spectacle. Meal was collected for them from house to house; they were taken to Tothill Fields in Westminster, where they lay in the open under rain and suffering from the cold winds of autumn. Twelve hundred of them died. The rest were sent away to the Gold Coast, whence none ever came back.