ing again to France. In reality, the Irish made a better appearance, and fought more vigorously, after the battle of the Boyne than before it. The Duke of Berwick, a natural son of James, and the Earl of Tyrconnel, still kept the field with a large body of cavalry, and the infantry were in the meantime effectually protected in the town of Limerick. William invested this town, and in one assault upon it lost 2000 men, which so disheartened him, that he went back to England, leaving his officers to prosecute the war. The Irish army afterwards fought a regular battle at Aghrim, when partly owing to the loss of their brave leader, St. Ruth, they were totally routed. The remains of the Catholic forces took refuge in Limerick, where they finally submitted in terms of a treaty which seemed to secure the Catholic population in all desirable rights and privileges.
REIGN OF WILLIAM III.
Though all military opposition was thus overcome, William soon found difficulties of another kind in the management of the state. The Tories, though glad to save the established church by calling in his interference, had submitted with no good grace to the necessity of making him king; and no sooner was the danger past, than their usual principles of hereditary right were in a great measure revived. From the name of the exiled monarch, they now began to be known by the appellation of Jacobites. James' hopes of a restoration were thus for a long time kept alive, and the peace of William's mind was so much embittered, as to make his sovereignty appear a dear purchase. Perhaps the only circumstances which reconciled the king to his situation, was the great additional force he could now bring against the ambitious designs of Louis XIV. Almost from his accession he entered heartily into the combination of European powers for checking this warlike prince, and conducted military operations against him every summer in person. The necessity of having supplies for that purpose rendered him unfit, even if he had been willing, to resist any liberal measures proposed to him in Parliament, and hence his passing of the famous Triennial Act in 1694, by which it was appointed that a new Parliament should he called every third year. In this year died Queen Mary, without offspring; after which William reigned as sole monarch.
The peace of Ryswick, concluded in 1697, by which the French power was confined to the limits, permitted William to spend the concluding years of his reign in peace. In 1700, in consideration that he and his sister-in-law Anne had no children, the famous Act of Succession was passed, by which the crown, failing these two individuals, was settled upon the next Protestant heir, Sophia, Duchess of Hanover, daughter of Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of James I.
The reign of King William is remarkable for the first legal support of a standing army, and for the commencement of the national debt. It is also distinguished by the first establishment of regular banks for the deposit of money, and the issue of a paper currency. Formerly, the business of banking, as far as necessary, was transacted by goldsmiths, or through the medium of the public Exchequer, by which plans the public was not sufficiently insured against loss. In 1695, the first public establishment for the purpose, the Bank of England, was established by one William Paterson,
