In 1714, a statement being sent in by Sir John Vanburgh, two hundred and twenty thousand pounds were found to have been received from the Treasury, and the debts due by the crown for the building amounted to sixty thousand pounds.[376] After this crisis in the affairs of Blenheim, the Duke of Marlborough took the completion of the work into his own hands, and desired that an estimate of the expense might be given by Vanburgh. At this time even the shell of the building could not, it was calculated, be completed without many thousand pounds more. It was also necessary to get an act of parliament passed, devolving the responsibility of the debts already incurred, on the crown; a measure which was, happily for the Duke and his heirs, carried in the first year of George the First. Affairs now seemed to be placed on a safe footing; but Blenheim was never, at that period, likely to be finished for Marlborough to inhabit. “Besides,” adds the Duchess, writing to her friend Mrs. Clayton, “all without doors, where there is nothing done, is a chaos that turns one’s brains but to think of it; and it will cost an immense sum to complete the causeway, and that ridiculous bridge in which I counted thirty-three rooms. Four houses are to be at each corner of the bridge; but that which makes it so much prettier than London Bridge is, that you may sit in six rooms, and look out at window into the high arch, while the coaches are driving over your head.”[377] The Duchess, as it may be perceived by this satirical description, was not very well pleased with Vanburgh. In fact, upon a previous examination of the accounts, many charges grossly extravagant were detected; as well as abundant errors of design. In the course of the fabrication of the palace, nervous fears seem to have assailed the Duke and Duchess, concerning the immense income requisite to maintain an establishment in such an overgrown palace. It is amusing to find Sir John Vanburgh thus consoling the Duchess by his parallel of Castle Howard, respecting the size of which the noble owners had had the same fears. After discussing some other matters, he writes, in 1713, thus:—[378] “He (Lord Carlisle) likewise finds that all his rooms, with moderate fires, are ovens, and that this great house does not require above one pound of wax and two of tallow candles a night to light it more than his house at London did; nor, in short, is he at any expense more whatsoever than he was in the remnant of an old house; but three housemaids and one man to keep the whole house and offices in perfect cleanliness, which is done to such a degree, that the kitchen, and all the offices and passages under the principal floor, are as dry as the drawing-room; and yet there is a great deal of company, and very good housekeeping. So that, upon the whole, (except the keeping of the new gardens,) the expense of living in this great fine house does not amount to above a hundred pounds a year more than was spent in the old one.