allowance for incumbrances and for the rate of exchange, was
about four thousand pounds.

The success of the report was complete. The nation and its
representatives hated taxes, hated foreign favourites, and hated
Irish Papists; and here was a document which held out the hope
that England might, at the expense of foreign courtiers and of
popish Celts, be relieved from a great load of taxes. Many, both
within and without the walls of Parliament, gave entire faith to
the estimate which the commissioners had formed by a wild guess,
in the absence of trustworthy information. They gave entire faith
also to the prediction that a strict inquiry would detect many
traitors who had hitherto been permitted to escape with impunity,
and that a large addition would thus be made to the extensive
territory which had already been confiscated. It was popularly
said that, if vigorous measures were taken, the gain to the
kingdom would be not less than three hundred thousand pounds a
year; and almost the whole of this sum, a sum more than
sufficient to defray the whole charge of such an army as the
Commons were disposed to keep up in time of peace, would be
raised by simply taking away what had been unjustifiably given to
Dutchmen, who would still retain immense wealth taken out of
English pockets, or unjustifiably left to Irishmen, who thought
it at once the most pleasant and the most pious of all
employments to cut English throats. The Lower House went to work
with the double eagerness of rapacity and of animosity. As soon
as the report of the four and the protest of the three had been
laid on the table and read by the clerk, it was resolved that a
Resumption Bill should be brought in. It was then resolved, in
opposition to the plainest principles of justice, that no