the better fortune of the other.[1] [Footnote 1: Journals, March 15, 20, 23, 29, 30; April 3, 5, 13, 16. On the question whether they should treat in union with the Scots, the Commons divided sixty-four against sixty-four: but the noes obtained the casting vote of the speaker.--Baillie, i. 446. See also the Journals of the Lords, vi. 473, 483, 491, 501, 514, 519, 527, 531. Such, indeed, was the dissension among them, that Baillie says they would have accepted the first proposal from the houses at Oxford, had not the news that the Scots had passed the Tweed arrived a few hours before. This gave the ascendancy to the friends of war.--Baillie, i. 429, 430.] [Sidenote a: A.D. 1644. April 25.] [Sidenote b: A.D. 1644. April 29.] Here the reader may pause, and, before he proceeds to the events of the next campaign, may take a view of the different financial expedients adopted by the contending parties. Want of money was an evil which pressed equally on both; but it was more easily borne by the patriots, who possessed an abundant resource in the riches of the capital, and were less restrained in their demands by considerations of delicacy or justice. 1. They were able on sudden emergencies to raise considerable supplies by loan from the merchants of the city, who seldom dared to refuse, or, if they did, were compelled to yield by menaces of distraint and imprisonment. For all such advances interest was promised at the usual rate of eight per cent., and "the public faith was pledged for the repayment of the capital." 2. When the parliament ordered their first levy of soldiers, many of their partisans subscribed considerable sums in money, or plate, or arms, or provisions. But it was soon asked, why the burthen should fall exclusively on the well-affected; and the houses improved the hint to ordain that all non-subscribers, both in the city and in the country, should be compelled to contribute the twentieth part of their estates towards the support of the common cause. 3. Still the wants of the army daily increased, and, as a temporary resource, an order was made that each county should provide for the subsistence of the men whom it had furnished; 4. and this was followed by a more permanent expedient, a weekly assessment of ten thousand pounds on the city of London, and of twenty-four thousand pounds on the rest of the kingdom, to be levied by county-rates after the manner of subsidies. 5. In addition, the estates both real and personal of all delinquents, that is, of all individuals who had borne arms for the king, or supplied him with money, or in any manner, or under any pretence, had opposed the parliament, were sequestrated from the owners, and placed under the management of certain commissioners empowered to receive the rents, to seize the moneys and goods, to sue for debts, and to pay the proceeds into the treasury. 6. In the next place came the excise, a branch of taxation of exotic origin, and hitherto unknown in the kingdom.