At the time of these events, the Bank of England was also a private company dealing in national debt, and the crash of its rival confirmed its position as banker to the British government. When in August 1710 Robert Harley was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, the government had already become reliant on the Bank of England, a privately owned company chartered 16 years previously, which had obtained a monopoly as the lender to Westminster, in return for arranging and managing loans to the government. The government had become dissatisfied with the service it was receiving and Harley was actively seeking new ways to improve the national finances. A new Parliament met in November 1710 resolved to attend to national finances, which were suffering significantly from the pressures of two simultaneous wars: the War of the Spanish Succession with France, which ended in 1713, and the Great Northern War, which was not to end until 1721. Harley came prepared, with detailed accounts describing the situation of the national debt, which was customarily a piecemeal arrangement, with each government department borrowing independently as the need arose. He released the information steadily, continually adding new reports of debts incurred and scandalous expenditure, until in January 1711 the House of Commons agreed to appoint a committee to investigate the entire debt. The committee included Harley himself, the two Auditors of the Imprests (whose task was to investigate government spending), Edward Harley (the Chancellor's brother), Paul Foley (the Chancellor's brother-in-law), the Secretary of the Treasury, William Lowndes (who had had significant responsibility for reminting the entire debased British coinage in 1696) and John Aislabie (who represented the October Club, a group of about 200 MPs who had agreed to vote together). Harley's first concern was to find £300,000 for the next quarter's payroll for the British army operating on the Continent under the Duke of Marlborough. This funding was provided by a private consortium of , George Caswall and Hoare's Bank. The Bank of England had been operating a state lottery on behalf of the government, but in 1710 this had produced less revenue than expected and another had already begun in 1711, which was also performing poorly; Harley granted the authority to sell tickets to John Blunt, a director of the Hollow Sword Blade Company, which despite its name was an unofficial bank. Sales commenced on 3 March 1711 and tickets had completely sold out by the 7th, making it the first truly successful English state lottery. The success was shortly followed by another larger lottery, "The Two Million Adventure" or "The Classis", with tickets costing £100, with a top prize of £20,000 and every ticket winning a prize of at least £10.