Note 143 — Chapter VIII · (continued 2)

Hume says that Charles had an accumulated treasure of £200,000 at this time. I know not his authority for the particular sum: but Clarendon pretends that "the revenue had been so well improved, and so wisely managed, that there was money in the exchequer proportionable for the undertaking any noble enterprise." This is, at the best, strangely hyperbolical; but, in fact, there was an absolute want of everything. Ship-money would have been a still more crying sin than it was, if the produce had gone beyond the demands of the state; nor was this ever imputed to the court. This is one of Lord Clarendon's capital mistakes; for it leads him to speak of the treaty of Berwick as a measure that might have been avoided, and even, in one place, to ascribe it to the king's excessive lenity and aversion to shedding blood; wherein a herd of superficial writers have followed him.