The City desired to advance another loan of £200,000, Oct., 1692
The entertainment, which was given at the expense of the aldermen and not charged in any way to the city's Chamber,[1762] was made the occasion by the king of suggesting another city loan of £200,000, making the third loan of the kind within the year, besides another loan of £100,000. The king's wishes were laid before the next Common Council (2 Nov.) and met with a ready response.[1763] Before leaving the Guildhall his majesty conferred the honour of[pg 571] knighthood upon Alderman Gore, Alderman Houblon, Leonard Robinson, the city chamberlain, and others.[1764]
Another City loan of £200,000, 25 April, 1693.
Scarcely had William turned his back on England in the spring of the following year (1693) in order to prosecute the war with France before the Common Council was asked (25 April) to advance another sum of £200,000 upon the credit of a recent Act of Parliament authorising the raising of a million of money for military purposes.[1765] The money, which was wanted for the purpose of paying the wages of seamen and for refitting the fleet, was immediately voted.
The Turkey fleet intercepted at Lagos Bay, June, 1693.
Excitement in the city.
The same ill-success followed the arms of the allied forces this year on the continent as in previous years. But the fall of Mons in 1691, of Namur in 1692, and the bloody field of Landen this year were far less disastrous in their effect to the Londoner than the damage inflicted on the Turkey fleet of merchantmen in Lagos Bay. For months the fleet, valued at several millions, had been waiting to be convoyed to the Mediterranean, and so great had been the delay in providing it with a sufficiently strong escort that the city merchant had already lost much of the profit he had looked to derive from the voyage. When at length a convoy was provided it was on the understanding that the greater part of the force should withdraw as soon as the most critical point of the voyage should be passed, leaving but barely twenty[pg 572] sail, under Rooke, to accompany the merchantmen through the Straits of Gibraltar. It was in vain that Rooke protested. The danger was the more hazardous inasmuch as no one could say where the French fleet was lying. Nevertheless, on the 5th June the main fleet parted company and returned to the Channel, leaving Rooke, with only seventeen men-of-war, to look to his charge as best he could. As time went on and no news could be got of the movements of the French fleet the underwriters in the city got more and more nervous.[1766] The end is well known. At Lagos the English admiral found his passage blocked by the French fleet. A sharp fight ensued, during which many merchantmen succeeded in making good their escape, others were burnt or sunk. "Never within the memory of man," wrote Macaulay, "had there been in the city a day of more gloom and agitation than that on which the news of the encounter in the Bay of Lagos arrived. Many traders, an eye-witness said, went away from the Royal Exchange as pale as if they had received sentence of death." The Turkey merchants in their distress sent a deputation to the queen.[1767] The deputation met with a kind reception, and was assured by Somers, on the queen's behalf, of her majesty's deep sympathy. An enquiry, he said, had already been set on foot as to the cause of the recent disaster, and care would be taken to prevent its recurrence.
City address to the queen and another loan of £300,000, 15 Aug., 1693.
On the 15th August, after voting a loan of £300,000 to her majesty for payment of the forces in Flanders, the Common Council prepared an address to the queen, in which they expressed their deep sense of the infinite goodness of God in preserving the king through all the perils of war, and thanked her for the sympathy she had displayed with the ruined merchants and for the steps she had taken for the better protection of trade in future. To this address a clause was added at the next meeting of the court (17 Aug.) referring to their cheerful readiness to advance a further sum of money for her majesty's necessities, and assuring her of their firm resolution to continue upon all occasions to support her authority and government against all persons to the uttermost of their power.[1768]
The queen invited to lord mayor's banquet, 30 Oct., 1693.