A laud tax for
a year was imposed of a shilling a pound; two shillings a pound on two
thirds of the salaries of offices; fifteen shillings on every hundred
pounds of bankers' money and stock; an additional excise upon beer for
six years, and certain impositions upon law proceedings for nine years.
The parliament had never before been in a more liberal humor; and
never surely was it less merited by the counsels of the king and of his
ministers.[*]
* This year, on the 3d of January, died George Monk, duke of
Albemarle, at Newhall, in Essex, after a languishing
illness, and in the sixty-third year of his age. He left a
great estate of fifteen thousand pounds a year in land, and
sixty thousand pounds in money, acquired by the bounty of
the king, and increased by his own frugality in his later
years. Bishop Burnet, who, agreeably to his own factious
spirit, treats this illustrious personage with great
malignity, reproaches him with avarice; but as he appears
not to have been in the least tainted with rapacity, his
frugal conduct may more candidly be imputed to the habits
acquired in early life, while he was possessed of a very
narrow fortune.
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