Returning to Vane, Mr Hosmer says in one place (p. 148), that the post of Treasurer was worth £30,000, and in another (p. 376), £20,000 a year. What Mr Hosmer’s authority (G. Sikes, The Life and Death of Sir Henry Vane), really writes is, ‘The bare poundage, which in time of peace came to about £3000, would have amounted to about £20,000 by the year during the war with Holland.’ The poundage in peace years never approached £3000, and, as Vane ceased to be Treasurer in 1650, and, from the date of his resignation, a lower scale of payment was adopted, the second part of the calculation is obviously nothing to the purpose. Whether the reduction in the Treasurer’s commission was due to Vane, or whether he resigned on account of it, we have no evidence to show, nor do vague generalities help to clear the doubt. As bearing testimony to Vane’s disinterestedness Mr Hosmer quotes Sikes to the effect that he returned half his receipts, from the date of his appointment as sole Treasurer, at the time of the self-denying ordinance. Unfortunately the accounts previous to 1645 are wanting and the question must remain open, but if the probability may be judged by general tendency it must be said to be extremely unlikely, since he was Treasurer from 8th Aug. 1642 till 31st Dec. 1650, and during that time received in poundage and salary for the five-and-a-half years for which the accounts remain the sum of £19,620, 1s 10d. There is no sign in the audit office papers that he returned one penny of his legal dues, and, whoever else had to wait, he seems to have paid himself liberally and punctually. Mr Hosmer has only indirectly noticed that Parliament, when Vane resigned, settled a retiring pension on him. Sikes says, ‘some inconsiderable matter without his seeking, was allotted to him by the Parliament in lieu thereof’ (i.e., of his place). The ‘inconsiderable matter,’ was landed estate producing £1200 a year. Seeing that he held his post for only seven and a half years, that during that time he must have received at least £25,000, and that all previous Treasurers had been, on occasion, dismissed without any suggestion of compensation, his disinterestedness may be questioned. When Parliament voted Ireton an estate of £2000 a year he refused it on account of the poverty of the country. And Sikes’s version that it was ‘without his seeking’ is not absolutely beyond doubt. On June 27th, 1650, a petition of Vane’s was referred to a committee to discuss how the treasurership was to be managed from Dec. 31st following, and ‘also to consider what compensation is fit to be given to the petitioner out of that office or otherwise in consideration of his right in the said office.’ It is no unjustifiable assumption to infer from this the possibility that the petition at any rate included a claim for compensation. Sikes, again, tells us that he caused his subordinate Hutchinson to succeed him, but when, on 10th Oct. 1650, the motion was before the House that the ‘question be now put’ whether Hutchinson’s appointment should be made, Vane was one of the tellers for the ‘Noes’ and was beaten by 27 to 18. This was immediately followed by Hutchinson’s nomination without a division. The incidents of Hutchinson’s official career imply a much stronger and more lasting influence than that of Vane, but the only importance of the question is as affecting the trustworthiness of the latter’s seventeenth century biographer. Mr Hosmer, like all other writers on Vane, appears to quote Sikes with implicit faith, but the man evidently wrote only loosely and generally, making up in enthusiasm what he lacked in exactness; e.g., ‘In the beginning of that expensive war he resigned the treasurership of the Navy.’ Hutchinson succeeded him from 1st Jan. 1650-1, and war with Holland did not occur till June 1652. There is nothing to show that Vane was not an honest administrator, but his party, fortunately, produced many others equally trustworthy.
[1253] Add. MSS., 9302, f. 42.
[1254] State Papers, Dom., ccxxxix, 43.
[1255] Add. MSS., 9297, f. 75.
[1256] State Papers, Dom., clxxiii, 32.
[1258] State Papers, Dom., ccxlv, 49; January 1627.
[1259] Ibid., l, 45.
[1260] Ibid., cxxxviii, 66.
[1261] Ibid., cxliii, 37.