James was surrounded by numbers of his indigent countrymen.

Their habits were expensive, their wants many, and their importunities incessant.

To satisfy the more clamorous, a new expedient was devised.

The king transferred to them his claims on some of the more opulent recusants, against whom they were at liberty to proceed by law, in his name, unless the sufferers should submit to compound, by the grant of an annuity for life, or the immediate payment of a considerable sum.

This was at a time when the jealousies between the two nations had reached a height, of which, at the present day, we have but little conception.