Outside Diagon Alley was a Muggle bookstore. Pomona occasionally went there to browse and see how Muggle history books described the Witch Hunts.
They had not been deliberately hidden away; many related books could be found on the shelves. Later, she read history books from other periods. One of them wrote that ever since the Treaty of Amiens had been torn up, the conflict between Britain and France had never ceased. Because Britain paid the military expenses of the Anti-French Coalition, those subsidized Allies were also called the "Knights of Saint George's Gold," since a Pound sterling coin bore an image of Saint George slaying a dragon.
Catherine the Great was the first to propose that Britain provide funds to its allies. Russia could supply an army of ten thousand men, while Britain paid the price of 600,000 Pound sterling. At that time, the land battlefield of the Anti-French Coalition was Belgium in northern France.
After Pete died, and after France had gone through six Anti-French Coalition wars, Pound sterling began to depreciate against the Franc. Part of the funds London handed over to Vienna also ended up in Napoleon's pocket as war reparations. To prevent something similar from happening again, a Geneva banker living in Britain came up with the idea of Federal Notes. They served much the same purpose as the Continental currency issued during the American Revolution: accounts would be settled after the war, with buyers promised 5 percent interest.
This sort of "money" could not possibly fall into Napoleon's hands, so Federal Notes were also used to purchase military supplies. The history books said that Britain had established a transfer station in Pomerania specifically for moving funds and supplies.
By the time the Battle of Waterloo broke out, England had also reached the end of its