ORIGIN OF THE NATIONAL DEBT.

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care of; and she then resolved to rear the Naval Hospital at Greenwich, as a lasting memorial of England's gratitude for the valour of her sailors, and for the great victory with which God had blessed their arms.

But before this plan could be carried out, Mary was no more. Her reign did not last long; she fell a victim to the small-pox in December, 1694, and was very deeply regretted by her husband and her subjects. When William was absent in Ireland or on the continent, she had always conducted the government with wisdom, and she was endeared to the people by many beneficent actions. The Naval Hospital which she had projected was erected by William in honour of her memory. Until that time, there was no hospital for our seamen in all England.

The war with France lasted till the year 1697; in that year Louis the Fourteenth agreed to acknowledge William as King of England, and to give back most of the towns and territories he had taken during the war in the Netherlands, and in Germany.

The chief burden of the war had fallen upon the Dutch and English, who gained no territory by it; but they had secured their freedom and well-being, by crippling the enormous power of the ambitious French king.

No contest had ever cost England so much money; and it was to provide for these great expenses that the National Debt first began to be incurred. It was not possible to raise all the money that was wanted from year to year, by means of taxes, for that would have brought insupportable distress on the people; but some rich men, who had plenty of money to

spare, lent part of it to the government, on condition that they should receive a certain sum every year, by way of interest. The same thing has been done, again and again, until the present time—for England has carried on a great many very expensive wars ; and this money, which has been lent to the government, and which is The National Debt, now amounts to many hundred millions of pounds sterling: nearly thirty millions of money are paid every year, by way of interest.

All the nation rejoiced greatly at the peace of 1697 (it is often called the Peace of Ryswick, from the place where the treaty was signed). The second of December in that year was appointed for a national thanksgiving; and St. Paul's Cathedral, which had been rebuilding ever since the Great Fire of London, was opened on that day for the first time.

The peace of Ryswick did not last long. James the Second died in September, 1701; and Louis the Fourteenth broke, without scruple, his engagement to William, and acknowledged the son of James as King of England. The people of England were so indignant at this breach of faith, that they willingly took up arms again, and provided large sums of money for the expenses of the war. But in the midst of the preparations, William died. He was injured by a fall from his horse, and breathed his last a fortnight afterwards, March 8th, 1702.

At the time of his death the people were beginning to be much more attached to him than they had been before, for they saw that he was sincerely desirous to promote the welfare of England. Too many of the chief men in the kingdom were at least as much con

MASSACRE OF GLENCOE.

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cerned to promote their own advancement as the good of their country.

In Charles the Second's time, all the men who took any part in public affairs had come to be distinguished by the names of Whigs and Tories. The Whigs were those men who were most disposed to increase the power of the people, and the Tories those who took most care to preserve the power of the king, and the ancient institutions of the country.

Great and good men have always been found in each of these parties; but at the time of which we are now reading, there were a great number, both of Whigs and Tories, who would not do what they thought best for the country, just because it was right and their duty to do so, but in order to get titles and money for themselves. And some of the principal men in the state were trying to serve two kings at once: they were afraid that James the Second might some day be restored to the throne, so they tried to keep on good terms with him, and sometimes sent him word what the English government was going to do, by which means Louis was enabled to thwart William's measures.

The chief fault of William the Third was his too great carelessness of human life. He sometimes fought battles when there was no reasonable prospect of gaining any advantage by them, and in this way sacrificed uselessly the lives of thousands of his soldiers. But the worst instance was of another kind.

Amongst the Highland clans there was a small tribe called the Macdonalds of Glencoe. They lived in a rugged barren valley, surrounded by the lands of the Campbells. The chiefs of the Campbells, Argyle

and Breadalbane, longed to rid themselves of the Macdonalds, but they would not have been able to destroy them without the help of Sir John Dalrymple, commonly called the Master of Stair.

Dalrymple had nothing to do with the people of Glencoe, but he hated the Highlanders, and he persuaded William that this unfortunate little tribe, in particular, was a mere gang of thieves. The king issued an order for their destruction, and Dalrymple kept the order secret till he had laid his plans with such ingenious cruelty, that he thought not even an infant would escape the general ruin.

A large party of soldiers were sent to Glencoe, as if they came only for a friendly purpose, and were entertained by the Macdonalds during many days with the utmost hospitality their poverty would allow. But it had been settled, that on a certain day, other bodies of soldiers should surround the valley, and stop up every outlet, while those who were already in possession of the village should suddenly fall upon their unsuspecting hosts, and butcher them. As for the women and children, and the very aged men, they were to be left to die of cold and hunger in the snow-for the houses, and all they contained, were to be burnt, and the flocks and cattle driven away. This most wicked plan failed of its full execution; the soldiers did fall suddenly upon their hosts, and slew old and young without mercy, but a few of the tribe escaped, because the snow lay so deep, and the weather was so tempestuous, that the soldiers who were to have stopped up all the passes of the valley did not arrive until after the massacre had begun.

Three years passed away before this great wickedness was inquired into, but by that time the public indignation had become so strong that William was obliged to take some notice of it. It is much to his dishonour that when all the circumstances of the butchery were made known to him, he did not inflict the slightest punishment on the Master of Stair, or on those who had carried his infamous plan into

execution.

CHAPTER LXXI.

QUEEN ANNE, 1702.-SETTLEMENT OF THE CROWN ON THE HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK. THE MARLBOROUGHS.-BLENHEIM.-TREATY OF

UTRECHT, 1713.-CAPTURE OF GIBRALTAR, 1704.-UNION OF SCOTLAND AND ENGLAND, MAY 1ST, 1707.-DEATH OF QUEEN ANNE, august, 1714.—" QUEEN ANNE'S BOUNTY."-THE NON-JURORS.THE FIRST MISSIONARY SOCIETIES OF ENGLAND FOUNDED, 1698 AND 1701.-IMPROVEMENT OF MANUFACTURES.

(From 1702 to 1714.)

ON the death of William the Third, his sister-in-law, the Princess Anne, succeeded to the throne. She was at this time thirty-seven years of age. Anne was a very affectionate wife and mother, and the loss of all her children had been a bitter grief to her, but especially the death of her last surviving son, who had lived to be twelve years of age, and had been carefully educated, in the hope that he would one day be King of England.

The young prince had died in the year 1700, and it had then been necessary to make a new settlement of the crown; for the son of James the Second was a Roman Catholic, like his father, and the nation had decided that no Roman Catholic could reign in England. The nearest Protestant relations of the royal