conscience. In 1660, the year of the Restoration, the Statute of Charles .11.^ re-enacted in substance the act of the commonwealth, passed ten years earlier, and recited that " the abatement of interest from ten to eight per cent, had, from notable experience, been found bene- ficial to trade and agriculture, with many more ad- vantages to the nation, and reducing it to a nearer proportion with foreign states with which we traf- ficque ;" and then reduced the rate of interest to six per cent.
No further alteration took place in the law on the subject, for a period of about fifty years, when the Statute of Queen Anne,^ called "An Act to reduce the rate of interest, without prejudice to Parliamentary securities," fixed the legal rate of interest at five per cent. This statute was formed upon the Statute of Henry VIII., which was " most strongly constructed for the suppression of usury ; and against all persons that should offend against the true meaning of that ' Fenton tells us that this distinction between biting and tonihless usurie, is a vaine device. That the Hebrew word for usury is " Neshec," which signifies " cruel hiting ;" the Greek word for the same is " Pleonasmos," which means " painfid travailing," and the Latin word is " Foenus," which means " unnatural brood" and then argues that the very nature of the thing is greatly to be sus- pected, for it is ominous and very suspicious to have a had name. n2 Charles II., c. 13. » 12 Anne, c. 16. A. D. 1713.
STATUTE OP ANNE. 51 statute, by any way or device, directly or indirectly." Indeed all the statutes against usury, since that of Henry VIII., were copied from each other almost verbatim, and differed in no material particular, ex- cept that they altered and gradually reduced the rate of interest to the per centage limited by the present Act of Queen Anne. Therefore the decisions under the Statute of Henry VIII., and all the statutes subse- quent, are to be considered as declaratory of the law at the present day.^ It was enacted by the Statute of Queen Anne, that - no person, upon any contract, shall take for loan of any moneys, etc., more