overruled through French influence. To obtain the money rendered necessary by the Dutch war, Charles now had recourse to the stop of the exchequer, a national act of bankruptcy borrowed from the career of Mazarin, by which the government obtained nearly a million and a half of money. Ashley has been accused of complicity in this, and Macaulay ascribes the plan entirely to him. It was in fact proposed to the king by Clifford, and received Ashley's strenuous opposition. It is stated by Martyn that Clifford had proposed it in 1671, and that it had then been withdrawn in consequence of Ashley's objections. When the proposal was renewed, Ashley laid before the king a paper of five reasons against it (Martyn, i. 415; Christie, ii. 59). In this paper he contends that it is contrary both to law and justice; that it violates the king's promises; that it will bring ruin on thousands of innocent persons; and that it will cause an immediate depression of trade, and raise exultation among all enemies of England. He wrote also a letter to Locke on 23 Nov. 1674, in which he admits having known that it was about to take place, but says that of course he had not betrayed the king's secret; and in this letter he asserts his opposition. Temple also, only a few months after the event, 23 May 1672 (Works, ii. 184), positively ascribes the step to Clifford; and Evelyn (12 March 1672) calls the latter the sole adviser, ‘though some pretend it was Lord Ashley's counsel.’ Ormonde and Lord Mohun appear to have borne similar testimony, saying that they were present in the council when Clifford proposed, and Ashley opposed, the measure. The witnesses on the other side consist of Roger North, who was a bitter opponent; of Burnet, who says (i. 561) that ‘Shaftesbury was the chief man in the advice;’ that he excused the measure to him by the usury and extortion of the bankers; and that, knowing of it beforehand, he took all his money out of the bankers' hands. Lord Dartmouth also says that Ashley warned Sir C. Duncombe of what was to happen (Burnet, i. 561 n.) The accusation is also made in Clarke's ‘Memoir of James II,’ but this, as well as Burnet's book and Roger North's, was written thirty or forty years after the event. The antecedent improbability that a man of Shaftesbury's clear mind and commercial knowledge should propose such a step is so great as to amount to practical certainty.
On 15 March 1672 appeared the declaration of indulgence for dissenters. This had now Ashley's warm approval. He argued that there was no logical distinction between a single or limited dispensing power and a general one, nor between a dispensing power in civil and in ecclesiastical cases; and he pointed out that in civil cases Charles had already exercised the prerogative twice. He declared that the executive ought to be able to suspend laws in the intervals of parliament; and further that it was to the interest of the church that it should live in content, and to that of trade that it should have nothing to do with religion. He thought that the declaration was favourable to the protestants, and that papists should only be disqualified. The second Dutch war was the other of the great cabal schemes which Ashley vigorously supported. He was ignorant, as has been shown, of the ulterior design of introducing popery, and his defence must rest upon the ground which he always held, of the necessity of maintaining England's naval and commercial supremacy.
Ashley was now made Earl of Shaftesbury and Baron Cooper of Pawlet, the patent being dated 23 April 1672. Shortly afterwards he was, as related in Stringer's memoir (Christie, ii. app. iii.), offered the post of lord high treasurer, and appears to have gone to extraordinary pains to avoid it. For this unwillingness the stop of the exchequer would be sufficient reason. It is difficult to disbelieve the memoir, which is extremely circumstantial; Shaftesbury, however, nowhere mentions the offer himself, but, on the contrary, speaks of the stop of the exchequer as ‘being the prologue of making the Lord Clifford high treasurer.’
After the great sea battle of June 1672 Shaftesbury and Clifford accompanied Charles to the Nore, and by Shaftesbury's advice the fleet, instead of again putting out to fight De Ruyter, was sent, against the wish of James, who was in command, to endeavour to intercept the Dutch East India fleet. Upon its return in September he seems again to have interfered in exactly the opposite direction, but was this time overruled (Clarke, Mem. of James II, pp. 478, 480).
On 27 Sept. 1672 Shaftesbury succeeded the Earl of Sandwich as president of the council of trade and plantation, created chiefly through his advice, with a salary of 800l. a year; an office which he retained until April 1676. On 17 Nov. 1672 he was made lord chancellor, ‘in regard of his uninterrupted services’ (London Gazette, 18 Nov.), succeeding Orlando Bridgeman [see Bridgeman, Sir Orlando], and the change was regarded by the French ambassador as very favourable to French interests, since Shaftesbury was sure to follow Charles's wishes implicitly. It is related in Carte (iv. 434) that after giving him the seals Charles asked Or-
