CHAPTER IV 
1688-1783 
Tue Revolution of 1688 drove out the Stuatts and, 
by the settlement under which William and Mary 
came to the throne of England, Parliament gained 
immensely in power. Henceforward the holders of 
royal grants and the directors of chartered companies 
were not merely dependent upon royal favour; they 
had to reckon also with the House of Commons, 
which meant not less but, if possible, more corruption.! 
Further, as the excesses of the reign of Charles II 
had been due to reaction against Puritanism, so before 
the end of the seventeenth century reaction set in 
against these excesses. 
In his diary, under date November 24, 1699, John 
Evelyn wrote, ¢ Such horrible robberies and murders 
were committed as had not been known in this nation. 
Atheism, profaneness, blasphemy, amongst all sorts, 
portended some judgment if not amended, on which 
a society was set on foot, who obliged themselves 
to endeavour the reforming of it in London and 
1 Reference should be made to Macaulay’s pages on Parliamentary 
corruption as a system which he dated from 16go, and from the 
ascendancy of Danby, then Marquis of Caermarthen. Chap. xv of 
the History, in the 1855 edition, vol. iii, pp. 541-7.