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By the 37th of Henry VIII. all interest above ten per cent. was

declared unlawful. More, it seems, had sometimes been taken

before that. In the reign of Edward VI. religious zeal prohibited

all interest. This prohibition, however, like all others of the

same kind, is said to have produced no effect, and probably

rather increased than diminished the evil of usury. The statute

of Henry VIII. was revived by the 13th of Elizabeth, cap. 8. and

ten per cent. continued to be the legal rate of interest till the

21st of James I. when it was restricted to eight per cent. It was

reduced to six per cent. soon after the Restoration, and by the

12th of Queen Anne, to five per cent. All these different

statutory regulations seem to have been made with great

propriety. They seem to have followed, and not to have gone

before, the market rate of interest, or the rate at which people

of good credit usually borrowed. Since the time of Queen Anne,

five per cent.