Whatever Madame Bonaventure's religious opinions
might be, she kept her own council so well that no one ever found them
out.
But evil days were at hand. Hitherto, all had been smiling and
prosperous. The prospect now began to darken.
Within the last twelve months a strange and unlooked for interference
had taken place with our hostess's profits, which she had viewed, at
first, without much anxiety, because she did not clearly comprehend its
scope; but latterly, as its formidable character became revealed, it
began to fill her with uneasiness. The calamity, as she naturally enough
regarded it, arose in the following manner. The present was an age of
monopolies and patents, granted by a crown ever eager to obtain money
under any pretext, however unjustifiable and iniquitous, provided it was
plausibly coloured; and these vexatious privileges were purchased by
greedy and unscrupulous persons for the purpose of turning them into
instruments of extortion and wrong. Though various branches of trade and
industry groaned under the oppression inflicted upon them, there were no
means of redress. The patentees enjoyed perfect immunity, grinding them
down as they pleased, farming out whole districts, and dividing the
spoil. Their miserable victims dared scarcely murmur; having ever the
terrible court of Star-Chamber before them, which their persecutors
could command, and which punished libellers--as they would be accounted,
if they gave utterance to their wrongs, and charged their oppressors
with mis-doing,--with fine, branding, and the pillory.
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