6. No one was to be persecuted on account of his or her religion; but the Catholics were not allowed to hold landed property, or to be members of parliament; and it was not till the reign of George the Fourth that people of the Catholic faith were restored to their ancient rights and privileges.
7. Soon after William was made king, he had to go to Ireland, to fight against James the Second, who had landed there with a French army, thinking the Irish would assist him to recover the throne. But he was defeated in a battle fought on the banks of the river Boyne, and obliged to go back to France, where he lived in retirement for the rest of his life.
8. His daughter, Mary, the wife of king William, was a very amiable woman, and much beloved by the English. It was she who induced the government to convert the palace at Greenwich into an asylum for poor old sailors; and the king gave money for the purpose.
9. The East Indian trade was very much increased during this reign, so that all things that came from China and India, such as tea, silk, cotton, spices, porcelain or china ware, and many other beautiful and useful things, became more easy to be procured in this country.
10. I must also tell you that the Bank of England was now first established, for the purpose of raising money for the government to carry on war against Louis the Fourteenth, of France; and this was the beginning of what you will sometimes hear called the National Debt; for when people put money into the bank, it is the same as lending it to the king or the government; and as long as they choose to lend it, they are paid so much a year for doing so, and this is called their dividend, which they go to the Bank twice a year to receive.
11. The war in which king William was engaged, had nothing whatever to do with the English, but was only for the sake of helping the Archduke of Austria, to fight out his quarrels with the king of France; yet, after William’s death, these wars were carried on during the whole reign of queen Anne, who succeeded William the Third, in the year 1702, after he had reigned thirteen years.
12. These wars caused great distress in England, where the taxes were increased, to pay the expenses of the soldiers, and trade was much injured, as we were at war with both France and Spain.
13. There was a duty, for the first time, laid upon many things that people have to use every day, such as soap, starch, and paper, so that all these articles became much dearer.
14. The meaning of a duty is this:—The parliament says, no person may make any paper, unless he give to the government so much money for every ream he makes; so the paper-makers pay the money, and charge more for their paper to the shopkeepers, who buy it of them; then you and I, and everybody who uses paper, must pay more for it than if there was no duty; and the same with all things on which there are duties. So you see the expenses of war fall upon every one, in some way or other.
15. Queen Anne was a daughter of James the Second, but as she was a Protestant, no objection was made to her accession, although her brother was excluded from the throne, as being a Catholic.