At the period of the charter of the bank, the minds of men were on the rack to conceive new sources of revenue with which to meet the increased expenditures of the nation. The land tax was renewed at four shillings in the pound, and yielded a revenue of two millions. A poll tax was established. Stamp duties, which had prevailed in the time of Charles II had been allowed to expire, but were now revived, and have ever since been among the most prolific sources of income, yielding to the British Government in the year 1862 no less than L8,400,000 sterling. Hackney coaches were taxed, notwithstanding the outcries of the coachmen and the resistance of their wives, who assembled around Westminster Hall and mobbed the members. A new duty on salt was imposed, and finally resort was had to the lottery, whereby one million sterling was raised. All these resources were not sufficient for the growing wants of the Government, and the plan of the Bank of England was devised to furnish immediate relief to the finances. Montague brought the measure forward in Parliament, and 'he succeeded,' as Macaulay remarks, 'not only in supplying the wants of the state for twelve months, but in creating a great institution, which, after the lapse of more than a century and a half, continues to flourish, and which he lived to see the stronghold, through all vicissitudes, of the Whig party, and the bulwark, in dangerous times, of the Protestant succession.' The birth of the bank and the birth of the English national debt were both in King William's time. In 1691, when England was at war with France, the national debt unfunded was L3,130,000, at an annual interest of L232,000. In 1697, at the Peace of Ryswick, this debt had swollen to L14,522,000. At the Peace of Utrecht, in 1713, it had reached L34,000,000. The war with Spain in 1718 brought it up to forty millions sterling. And here it might have rested, had the advice of Shakspeare been followed: 'Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace.' But England went to war with Spain 'on the right of search.' From 1691 to this time the debt had increased on an average about a million sterling per year. As early as 1745 the credit of the bank was so identified with that of the state, that during the invasion of the Pretender, whose forces were at Derby, only one hundred and twenty miles from London, the creditors of the bank flocked in crowds to its counter to obtain specie for its notes. The merchants intervened and signed an agreement to make the bank's notes receivable in all business transactions. The war of the Austrian succession followed in 1742, and at the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, 'forever to be maintained,' the English were saddled with a debt of L75,000,000. 'Peace hath her victories, No less renowned than war.'