At the meeting in Canterlot, in private of course, King Goldtooth had brought up the matter of simply invading the republic to get rid of the debt that had gripped them for the past three and a half centuries. There had been a murmur of assent, but no commitment. It was a popular idea, and the griffons were not the only ones to entertain it. Every time a kingdom seemed to undergo a boom in prosperity, all of a sudden something would happen that would require an extension of a loan. Or a new one altogether, an increase in interest, or even a ban on future loans so that when the inevitable occurred, that kingdom would suffer and would even find banks not centred in Greycoast unwilling to deal with them until they came crawling back on their bellies.