e of the next reign. He was an able financier, and succeeded in reducing the National Debt (S503). He believed in keeping the country out of war, and also, as we have seen, out

isfaction the truth of his theory that most men "have their price," and that an appeal to the pocketbook is both quicker and surer than an appeal to the principle. But before the end of his ministry he had to c

ld no longer venture to rule by force, as in hte days of the Stuarts. It meant that the Crown no longer possessed the arbitrary po