THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM THE ACCESSION OF JAMES THE SECOND

Volume V

(Chapters XXIII-XXV)

by Thomas Babington Macaulay

CONTENTS:

CHAPTER XXIII

Standing ArmiesSunderlandLord SpencerControversy touching Standing ArmiesMeeting of ParliamentThe King's Speech well received; Debate on a Peace EstablishmentSunderland attackedThe Nation averse to a Standing ArmyMutiny Act; the Navy Acts concerning High TreasonEarl of ClancartyWays and Means; Rights of the Sovereign in reference to Crown LandsProceedings in Parliament on Grants of Crown LandsMontague accused of PeculationBill of Pains and Penalties against DuncombeDissension between the housesCommercial QuestionsIrish ManufacturesEast India CompaniesFire at WhitehallVisit of the CzarPortland's Embassy to FranceThe Spanish SuccessionThe Count of Tallard's EmbassyNewmarket Meeting: the insecure State of the RoadsFurther Negotiations relating to the Spanish SuccessionThe King goes to HollandPortland returns from his EmbassyWilliam is reconciled to Marlborough

CHAPTER XXIV

Altered Position of the MinistryThe ElectionsFirst Partition TreatyDomestic DiscontentLittleton chosen SpeakerKing's Speech; Proceedings relating to the Amount of the Land ForceUnpopularity of MontagueBill for Disbanding the ArmyThe King's SpeechDeath of the Electoral Prince of Bavaria. Renewed Discussion of the Army QuestionNaval AdministrationCommission on Irish Forfeitures. Prorogation of ParliamentChanges in the Ministry and HouseholdSpanish SuccessionDarien

CHAPTER XXV. 

Trial of Spencer CowperDuelsDiscontent of the NationCaptain KiddMeeting of ParliamentAttacks on BurnetRenewed Attack on SomersQuestion of the Irish Forfeitures: Dispute between the HousesSomers again attackedProrogation of ParliamentDeath of James the SecondThe Pretender recognised as KingReturn of the KingGeneral ElectionDeath of William

PREFACE TO THE FIFTH VOLUME. 

I HAVE thought it right to publish that portion of the continuation ofthe "History of England" which was fairly transcribed and revised byLord Macaulay. It is given to the world precisely as it was left: noconnecting link has been added; no reference verified; no authoritysought for or examined. It would indeed have been possible, with thehelp I might have obtained from his friends, to have supplied much thatis wanting; but I preferred, and I believe the public will prefer, thatthe last thoughts of the great mind passed away from among us shouldbe preserved sacred from any touch but his own. Besides the revisedmanuscript, a few pages containing the first rough sketch of the lasttwo months of William's reign are all that is left. From this I havewith some difficulty deciphered the account of the death of William. Noattempt has been made to join it on to the preceding part, or to supplythe corrections which would have been given by the improving hand of theauthor. But, imperfect as it must be, I believe it will be received withpleasure and interest as a fit conclusion to the life of his great hero. 

I will only add my grateful thanks for the kind advice and assistancegiven me by his most dear and valued friends, Dean Milman and Mr. Ellis. 

CHAPTER XXIII

 Standing Armies--Sunderland--Lord Spencer--Controversy touching Standing Armies--Meeting of Parliament--The King's Speech well received; Debate on a Peace Establishment--Sunderland attacked--The Nation averse to a Standing Army--Mutiny Act; the Navy Acts concerning High Treason--Earl of Clancarty--Ways and Means; Rights of the Sovereign in reference to Crown Lands--Proceedings in Parliament on Grants of Crown Lands--Montague accused of Peculation--Bill of Pains and Penalties against Duncombe--Dissension between the houses--Commercial Questions--Irish Manufactures--East India Companies--Fire at Whitehall--Visit of the Czar--Portland's Embassy to France--The Spanish Succession--The Count of Tallard's Embassy--Newmarket Meeting: the insecure State of the Roads--Further Negotiations relating to the Spanish Succession--The King goes to Holland--Portland returns from his Embassy--William is reconciled to Marlborough

THE rejoicings, by which London, on the second of December 1697, celebrated the return of peace and prosperity, continued till long aftermidnight. On the following morning the Parliament met; and one of themost laborious sessions of that age commenced. 

Among the questions which it was necessary that the Houses shouldspeedily decide, one stood forth preeminent in interest and importance. Even in the first transports of joy with which the bearer of the treatyof Ryswick had been welcomed to England, men had eagerly and anxiouslyasked one another what was to be done with that army which hadbeen formed in Ireland and Belgium, which had learned, in manyhard campaigns, to obey and to conquer, and which now consisted ofeighty-seven thousand excellent soldiers. Was any part of this greatforce to be retained in the service of the State? And, if any part, whatpart? The last two kings had, without the consent of the legislature, maintained military establishments in time of peace. But that theyhad done this in violation of the fundamental laws of England wasacknowledged by all jurists, and had been expressly affirmed in the Billof Rights. It was therefore impossible for William, now that the countrywas threatened by no foreign and no domestic enemy, to keep up even asingle battalion without the sanction of the Estates of the Realm; andit might well be doubted whether such a sanction would be given. 

It is not easy for us to see this question in the light in which itappeared to our ancestors. 

No man of sense has, in our days, or in the days of our fathers, seriously maintained that our island could be safe without an army. And, even if our island were perfectly secure from attack, an army wouldstill be indispensably necessary to us. The growth of the empire hasleft us no choice. The regions which we have colonized or conqueredsince the accession of the House of Hanover contain a populationexceeding twenty-fold that which the House of Stuart governed. There arenow more English soldiers on the other side of the tropic of Cancer intime of peace than Cromwell had under his command in time of war. Allthe troops of Charles II. Would not have been sufficient to garrison theposts which we now occupy in the Mediterranean Sea alone. The regimentswhich defend the remote dependencies of the Crown cannot be dulyrecruited and relieved, unless a force far larger than that which Jamescollected in the camp at Hounslow for the purpose of overawing hiscapital be constantly kept up within the kingdom. The old nationalantipathy to permanent military establishments, an antipathy which wasonce reasonable and salutary, but which lasted some time after ithad become unreasonable and noxious, has gradually yielded to theirresistible force of circumstances. We have made the discovery, thatan army may be so constituted as to be in the highest degree efficientagainst an enemy, and yet obsequious to the civil magistrate. We havelong ceased to apprehend danger to law and to freedom from the licenseof troops, and from the ambition of victorious generals. An alarmist whoshould now talk such language, as was common five generations ago, whoshould call for the entire disbanding of the land force; of the realm, and who should gravely predict that the warriors of Inkerman and Delhiwould depose the Queen, dissolve the Parliament, and plunder the Bank, would be regarded as fit only for a cell in Saint Luke's. But before theRevolution our ancestors had known a standing army only as an instrumentof lawless power. Judging by their own experience, they thought itimpossible that such an army should exist without danger to the rightsboth of the Crown and of the people. One class of politicians was neverweary of repeating that an Apostolic Church, a loyal gentry, an ancientnobility, a sainted King, had been foully outraged by the Joyces and thePrides; another class recounted the atrocities committed by the Lambs ofKirke, and by the Beelzebubs and Lucifers of Dundee; and both classes, agreeing in scarcely any thing else, were disposed to agree in aversionto the red coats. 

While such was the feeling of the nation, the King was, both as astatesman and as a general, most unwilling to see that superb bodyof troops which he had formed with infinite difficulty broken up anddispersed. But, as to this matter, he could not absolutely rely on thesupport of his ministers; nor could his ministers absolutely rely on thesupport of that parliamentary majority whose attachment had enabled themto confront enemies abroad and to crush traitors at home, to restorea debased currency, and to fix public credit on deep and solidfoundations. 

The difficulties of the King's situation are to be, in part at least, attributed to an error which he had committed in the preceding spring. The Gazette which announced that Sunderland been appointed Chamberlainof the Royal Household, sworn of the Privy Council, and named one of theLords Justices who were to administer the government during the summerhad caused great uneasiness among plain men who remembered all thewindings and doublings of his long career. In truth, his countrymenwere unjust to him. For they thought him, not only an unprincipled andfaithless politician, which he was, but a deadly enemy of the libertiesof the nation, which he was not. What he wanted was simply to be safe, rich and great. To these objects he had been constant through all thevicissitudes of his life. For these objects he had passed from Churchto Church and from faction to faction, had joined the most turbulentof oppositions without any zeal for freedom, and had served the mostarbitrary of monarchs without any zeal for monarchy; had voted forthe Exclusion Bill without being a Protestant, and had adored the Hostwithout being a Papist; had sold his country at once to both the greatparties which divided the Continent; had taken money from France, andhad sent intelligence to Holland. As far, however, as he could be saidto have any opinions, his opinions were Whiggish. Since his return fromexile, his influence had been generally exerted in favour of the Whigparty. It was by his counsel that the Great Seal had been entrustedto Somers, that Nottingham had been sacrificed to Russell, and thatMontague had been preferred to Fox. It was by his dexterous managementthat the Princess Anne had been detached from the opposition, and thatGodolphin had been removed from the head of the hoard of Treasury. Theparty which Sunderland had done so much to serve now held a new pledgefor his fidelity. His only son, Charles Lord Spencer, was just enteringon public life. The precocious maturity of the young man's intellectualand moral character had excited hopes which were not destined tobe realized. His knowledge of ancient literature, and his skill inimitating the styles of the masters of Roman eloquence, were applaudedby veteran scholars. The sedateness of his deportment and the apparentregularity of his life delighted austere moralists. He was known indeedto have one expensive taste; but it was a taste of the most respectablekind. He loved books, and was bent or forming the most magnificentprivate library in England. While other heirs of noble houses wereinspecting patterns of steinkirks and sword knots, dangling afteractresses, or betting on fighting cocks, he was in pursuit of theMentz editions of Tully's Offices, of the Parmesan Statius, and ofthe inestimable Virgin of Zarottus. [1] It was natural that highexpectations should be formed of the virtue and wisdom of a youth whosevery luxury and prodigality had a grave and erudite air, and that evendiscerning men should be unable to detect the vices which were hiddenunder that show of premature sobriety. 

Spencer was a Whig, unhappily for the Whig party, which, before theunhonoured and unlamented close of his life, was more than once broughtto the verge of ruin by his violent temper and his crooked politics. HisWhiggism differed widely from that of his father. It was not a languid, speculative, preference of one theory of government to another, but afierce and dominant passion. Unfortunately, though an ardent, it was atthe same time a corrupt and degenerate, Whiggism; a Whiggism so narrowand oligarchical as to be little, if at all, preferable to the worstforms of Toryism. The young lord's imagination had been fascinated bythose swelling sentiments of liberty which abound in the Latin poetsand orators; and he, like those poets and orators, meant by libertysomething very different from the only liberty which is of importance tothe happiness of mankind. Like them, he could see no danger to libertyexcept from kings. A commonwealth, oppressed and pillaged by such menas Opimius and Verres, was free, because it had no king. A member of theGrand Council of Venice, who passed his whole life under tutelage andin fear, who could not travel where he chose, or visit whom he chose, or invest his property as he chose, whose path was beset with spies, who saw at the corners of the streets the mouth of bronze gaping foranonymous accusations against him, and whom the Inquisitors of Statecould, at any moment, and for any or no reason, arrest, torture, flinginto the Grand Canal, was free, because he had no king. To curtail, for the benefit of a small privileged class, prerogatives which theSovereign possesses and ought to possess for the benefit of the wholenation, was the object on which Spencer's heart was set. During manyyears he was restrained by older and wiser men; and it was not tillthose whom he had early been accustomed to respect had passed away, andtill he was himself at the head of affairs, that he openly attempted toobtain for the hereditary nobility a precarious and invidious ascendencyin the State, at the expense both of the Commons and of the Throne. 

In 1695, Spencer had taken his seat in the House of Commons as memberfor Tiverton, and had, during two sessions, conducted himself as asteady and zealous Whig. 

The party to which he had attached himself might perhaps have reasonablyconsidered him as a hostage sufficient to ensure the good faith of hisfather; for the Earl was approaching that time of life at which eventhe most ambitious and rapacious men generally toil rather for theirchildren than for themselves. But the distrust which Sunderland inspiredwas such as no guarantee could quiet. Many fancied that he was, --withwhat object they never took the trouble to inquire, --employing the samearts which had ruined James for the purpose of ruining William. Eachprince had had his weak side. One was too much a Papist, and the othertoo much a soldier, for such a nation as this. The same intriguingsycophant who had encouraged the Papist in one fatal error was nowencouraging the soldier in another. It might well be apprehended that, under the influence of this evil counsellor, the nephew might alienateas many hearts by trying to make England a military country as the unclehad alienated by trying to make her a Roman Catholic country. 

The parliamentary conflict on the great question of a standing armywas preceded by a literary conflict. In the autumn of 1697 began acontroversy of no common interest and importance. The press was nowfree. An exciting and momentous political question could be fairlydiscussed. Those who held uncourtly opinions could express thoseopinions without resorting to illegal expedients and employing theagency of desperate men. The consequence was that the dispute wascarried on, though with sufficient keenness, yet, on the whole, with adecency which would have been thought extraordinary in the days of thecensorship. 

On this occasion the Tories, though they felt strongly, wrote butlittle. The paper war was almost entirely carried on between twosections of the Whig party. The combatants on both sides were generallyanonymous. But it was well known that one of the foremost champions ofthe malecontent Whigs was John Trenchard, son of the late Secretary ofState. Preeminent among the ministerial Whigs was one in whom admirablevigour and quickness of intellect were united to a not less admirablemoderation and urbanity, one who looked on the history of past ages withthe eye of a practical statesman, and on the events which were passingbefore him with the eye of a philosophical historian. It was notnecessary for him to name himself. He could be none but Somers. 

The pamphleteers who recommended the immediate and entire disbanding ofthe army had an easy task. If they were embarrassed, it was only by theabundance of the matter from which they had to make their selection. Ontheir side were claptraps and historical commonplaces without number, the authority of a crowd of illustrious names, all the prejudices, allthe traditions, of both the parties in the state. These writers laidit down as a fundamental principle of political science that a standingarmy and a free constitution could not exist together. What, they asked, had destroyed the noble commonwealths of Greece? What had enslaved themighty Roman people? What had turned the Italian republics of the middleages into lordships and duchies? How was it that so many of the kingdomsof modern Europe had been transformed from limited into absolutemonarchies? The States General of France, the Cortes of Castile, theGrand Justiciary of Arragon, what had been fatal to them all? Historywas ransacked for instances of adventurers who, by the help of mercenarytroops, had subjugated free nations or deposed legitimate princes;and such instances were easily found. Much was said about Pisistratus, Timophanes, Dionysius, Agathocles, Marius and Sylla, Julius Caesar andAugustus Caesar, Carthage besieged by her own mercenaries, Rome put upto auction by her own Praetorian cohorts, Sultan Osman butchered by hisown Janissaries, Lewis Sforza sold into captivity by his own Switzers. But the favourite instance was taken from the recent history of our ownland. Thousands still living had seen the great usurper, who, strong inthe power of the sword, had triumphed over both royalty and freedom. TheTories were reminded that his soldiers had guarded the scaffold beforethe Banqueting House. The Whigs were reminded that those same soldiershad taken the mace from the table of the House of Commons. From suchevils, it was said, no country could be secure which was cursed witha standing army. And what were the advantages which could be set offagainst such evils? Invasion was the bugbear with which the Court triedto frighten the nation. But we were not children to be scared by nurserytales. We were at peace; and, even in time of war, an enemy who shouldattempt to invade us would probably be intercepted by our fleet, andwould assuredly, if he reached our shores, be repelled by our militia. Some people indeed talked as if a militia could achieve nothing great. But that base doctrine was refuted by all ancient and all modernhistory. What was the Lacedaemonian phalanx in the best days ofLacedaemon? What was, the Roman legion in the best days of Rome? Whatwere the armies which conquered at Cressy, at Poitiers, at Agincourt, at Halidon, or at Flodden? What was that mighty array which Elizabethreviewed at Tilbury? In the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenthcenturies Englishmen who did not live by the trade of war had made warwith success and glory. Were the English of the seventeenth century sodegenerate that they could not be trusted to play the men for their ownhomesteads and parish churches?

For such reasons as these the disbanding of the forces was stronglyrecommended. Parliament, it was said, might perhaps, from respect andtenderness for the person of His Majesty, permit him to have guardsenough to escort his coach and to pace the rounds before his palace. Butthis was the very utmost that it would be right to concede. The defenceof the realm ought to be confided to the sailors and the militia. Eventhe Tower ought to have no garrison except the trainbands of the TowerHamlets. 

It must be evident to every intelligent and dispassionate man thatthese declaimers contradicted themselves. If an army composed of regulartroops really was far more efficient than an army composed of husbandmentaken from the plough and burghers taken from the counter, how could thecountry be safe with no defenders but husbandmen and burghers, when agreat prince, who was our nearest neighbour, who had a few months beforebeen our enemy, and who might, in a few months, be our enemy again, keptup not less than a hundred and fifty thousand regular troops? If, on theother hand, the spirit of the English people was such that they would, with little or no training, encounter and defeat the most formidablearray of veterans from the continent, was it not absurd to apprehendthat such a people could be reduced to slavery by a few regiments oftheir own countrymen? But our ancestors were generally so much blindedby prejudice that this inconsistency passed unnoticed. They were securewhere they ought to have been wary, and timorous where they mightwell have been secure. They were not shocked by hearing the same manmaintain, in the same breath, that, if twenty thousand professionalsoldiers were kept up, the liberty and property of millions ofEnglishmen would be at the mercy of the Crown, and yet that thosemillions of Englishmen, fighting for liberty and property, wouldspeedily annihilate an invading army composed of fifty or sixty thousandof the conquerors of Steinkirk and Landen. Whoever denied the formerproposition was called a tool of the Court. Whoever denied the latterwas accused of insulting and slandering the nation. 

Somers was too wise to oppose himself directly to the strong currentof popular feeling. With rare dexterity he took the tone, not of anadvocate, but of a judge. The danger which seemed so terrible to manyhonest friends of liberty he did not venture to pronounce altogethervisionary. But he reminded his countrymen that a choice between dangerswas sometimes all that was left to the wisest of mankind. No lawgiverhad ever been able to devise a perfect and immortal form of government. Perils lay thick on the right and on the left; and to keep far from oneevil was to draw near to another. That which, considered merely withreference to the internal polity of England, might be, to a certainextent, objectionable, might be absolutely essential to her rank amongEuropean Powers, and even to her independence. All that a statesmancould do in such a case was to weigh inconveniences against each other, and carefully to observe which way the scale leaned. The evil of havingregular soldiers, and the evil of not having them, Somers set forth andcompared in a little treatise, which was once widely renowned as theBalancing Letter, and which was admitted, even by the malecontents, to be an able and plausible composition. He well knew that mere namesexercise a mighty influence on the public mind; that the most perfecttribunal which a legislator could construct would be unpopular ifit were called the Star Chamber; that the most judicious tax whicha financier could devise would excite murmurs if it were called theShipmoney; and that the words Standing Army then had to English earsa sound as unpleasing as either Shipmoney or Star Chamber. He declaredtherefore that he abhorred the thought of a standing army. What herecommended was, not a standing, but a temporary army, an army of whichParliament would annually fix the number, an army for which Parliamentwould annually frame a military code, an army which would cease toexist as soon as either the Lords or the Commons should think that itsservices were not needed. From such an army surely the danger to publicliberty could not by wise men be thought serious. On the other hand, the danger to which the kingdom would be exposed if all the troops weredisbanded was such as might well disturb the firmest mind. Suppose awar with the greatest power in Christendom to break out suddenly, and tofind us without one battalion of regular infantry, without one squadronof regular cavalry; what disasters might we not reasonably apprehend?It was idle to say that a descent could not take place without amplenotice, and that we should have time to raise and discipline a greatforce. An absolute prince, whose orders, given in profound secresy, werepromptly obeyed at once by his captains on the Rhine and on the Scheld, and by his admirals in the Bay of Biscay and in the Mediterranean, mightbe ready to strike a blow long before we were prepared to parry it. Wemight be appalled by learning that ships from widely remote parts, andtroops from widely remote garrisons, had assembled at a single pointwithin sight of our coast. To trust to our fleet was to trust to thewinds and the waves. The breeze which was favourable to the invadermight prevent our men of war from standing out to sea. Only nine yearsago this had actually happened. The Protestant wind, before which theDutch armament had run full sail down the Channel, had driven KingJames's navy back into the Thames. It must then be acknowledged to benot improbable that the enemy might land. And, if he landed, what wouldhe find? An open country; a rich country; provisions everywhere; not ariver but which could be forded; no natural fastnesses such as protectthe fertile plains of Italy; no artificial fastnesses such as, at everystep, impede the progress of a conqueror in the Netherlands. Everything must then be staked on the steadiness of the militia; and it waspernicious flattery to represent the militia as equal to a conflict inthe field with veterans whose whole life had been a preparation for theday of battle. The instances which it was the fashion to cite of thegreat achievements of soldiers taken from the threshing floor and theshopboard were fit only for a schoolboy's theme. Somers, who had studiedancient literature like a man, --a rare thing in his time, --said thatthose instances refuted the doctrine which they were meant to prove. Hedisposed of much idle declamation about the Lacedaemonians bysaying, most concisely, correctly and happily, that the Lacedaemoniancommonwealth really was a standing army which threatened all the restof Greece. In fact, the Spartan had no calling except war. Of arts, sciences and letters he was ignorant. The labour of the spade and of theloom, and the petty gains of trade, he contemptuously abandoned to menof a lower caste. His whole existence from childhood to old age wasone long military training. Meanwhile the Athenian, the Corinthian, theArgive, the Theban, gave his chief attention to his oliveyard or hisvineyard, his warehouse or his workshop, and took up his shield andspear only for short terms and at long intervals. The differencetherefore between a Lacedaemonian phalanx and any other phalanx was longas great as the difference between a regiment of the French householdtroops and a regiment of the London trainbands. Lacedaemon consequentlycontinued to be dominant in Greece till other states began to employregular troops. Then her supremacy was at an end. She was great whileshe was a standing army among militias. She fell when she had to contendwith other standing armies. The lesson which is really to be learnedfrom her ascendency and from her decline is this, that the occasionalsoldier is no match for the professional soldier. [2]

The same lesson Somers drew from the history of Rome; and every scholarwho really understands that history will admit that he was in the right. The finest militia that ever existed was probably that of Italy in thethird century before Christ. It might have been thought that sevenor eight hundred thousand fighting men, who assuredly wanted neithernatural courage nor public spirit, would have been able to protect theirown hearths and altars against an invader. An invader came, bringingwith him an army small and exhausted by a march over the snows of theAlps, but familiar with battles and sieges. At the head of this armyhe traversed the peninsula to and fro, gained a succession of victoriesagainst immense numerical odds, slaughtered the hardy youth of Latiumlike sheep, by tens of thousands, encamped under the walls of Rome, continued during sixteen years to maintain himself in a hostile country, and was never dislodged till he had by a cruel discipline graduallytaught his adversaries how to resist him. 

It was idle to repeat the names of great battles won, in the middleages, by men who did not make war their chief calling; those battlesproved only that one militia might beat another, and not that a militiacould beat a regular army. As idle was it to declaim about the campat Tilbury. We had indeed reason to be proud of the spirit which allclasses of Englishmen, gentlemen and yeomen, peasants and burgesses, had so signally displayed in the great crisis of 1588. But we had alsoreason to be thankful that, with all their spirit, they were not broughtface to face with the Spanish battalions. Somers related an anecdote, well worthy to be remembered, which had been preserved by traditionin the noble house of De Vere. One of the most illustrious men of thathouse, a captain who had acquired much experience and much fame in theNetherlands, had, in the crisis of peril, been summoned back to Englandby Elizabeth, and rode with her through the endless ranks of shoutingpikemen. She asked him what he thought of the army. "It is, " he said, "abrave army. " There was something in his tone or manner which showedthat he meant more than his words expressed. The Queen insisted on hisspeaking out. "Madam, " he said, "Your Grace's army is brave indeed. Ihave not in the world the name of a coward, and yet I am the greatestcoward here. All these fine fellows are praying that the enemy may land, and that there may be a battle; and I, who know that enemy well, cannotthink of such a battle without dismay. " De Vere was doubtless in theright. The Duke of Parma, indeed, would not have subjected our country;but it is by no means improbable that, if he had effected a landing, the island would have been the theatre of a war greatly resembling thatwhich Hannibal waged in Italy, and that the invaders would not have beendriven out till many cities had been sacked, till many counties had beenwasted, and till multitudes of our stout-hearted rustics and artisanshad perished in the carnage of days not less terrible than those ofThrasymene and Cannae. 

While the pamphlets of Trenchard and Somers were in every hand, theParliament met. 

The words with which the King opened the session brought the greatquestion to a speedy issue. "The circumstances, " he said, "of affairsabroad are such, that I think myself obliged to tell you my opinion, that, for the present, England cannot be safe without a land force;and I hope we shall not give those that mean us ill the opportunity ofeffecting that under the notion of a peace which they could not bring topass by war. "

The speech was well received; for that Parliament was thoroughly wellaffected to the Government. The members had, like the rest of thecommunity, been put into high good humour by the return of peace and bythe revival of trade. They were indeed still under the influence ofthe feelings of the preceding day; and they had still in their earsthe thanksgiving sermons and thanksgiving anthems; all the bonfires hadhardly burned out; and the rows of lamps and candles had hardly beentaken down. Many, therefore, who did not assent to all that the King hadsaid, joined in a loud hum of approbation when he concluded. [3] Assoon as the Commons had retired to their own chamber, they resolved topresent an address assuring His Majesty that they would stand by himin peace as firmly as they had stood by him in war. Seymour, who had, during the autumn, been going from shire to shire, for the purpose ofinflaming the country gentlemen against the ministry, ventured to makesome uncourtly remarks; but he gave so much offence that he was hisseddown, and did not venture to demand a division. [4]

The friends of the Government were greatly elated by the proceedingsof this day. During the following week hopes were entertained that theParliament might be induced to vote a peace establishment of thirtythousand men. But these hopes were delusive. The hum with whichWilliam's speech had been received, and the hiss which had drowned thevoice of Seymour, had been misunderstood. The Commons were indeed warmlyattached to the King's person and government, and quick to resent anydisrespectful mention of his name. But the members who were disposedto let him have even half as many troops as he thought necessary werea minority. On the tenth of December his speech was considered in aCommittee of the whole House; and Harley came forward as the chief ofthe opposition. He did not, like some hot headed men, among boththe Whigs and the Tories, contend that there ought to be no regularsoldiers. But he maintained that it was unnecessary to keep up, afterthe peace of Ryswick, a larger force than had been kept up after thepeace of Nimeguen. He moved, therefore, that the military establishmentshould be reduced to what it had been in the year 1680. The Ministersfound that, on this occasion, neither their honest nor their dishonestsupporters could be trusted. For, in the minds of the most respectablemen, the prejudice against standing armies was of too long growth andtoo deep root to be at once removed; and those means by which the Courtmight, at another time, have secured the help of venal politicianswere, at that moment, of less avail than usual. The Triennial Act wasbeginning to produce its effects. A general election was at hand. Everymember who had constituents was desirous to please them; and it wascertain that no member would please his constituents by voting for astanding army; and the resolution moved by Harvey was strongly supportedby Howe, was carried, was reported to the House on the following day, and, after a debate in which several orators made a great display oftheir knowledge of ancient and modern history, was confirmed by onehundred and eighty-five votes to one hundred and forty-eight. [5]

In this debate the fear and hatred with which many of the best friendsof the Government regarded Sunderland were unequivocally manifested. "Itis easy, " such was the language of several members, "it is easy toguess by whom that unhappy sentence was inserted in the speech from theThrone. No person well acquainted with the disastrous and disgracefulhistory of the last two reigns can doubt who the minister is, who is nowwhispering evil counsel in the ear of a third master. " The Chamberlain, thus fiercely attacked, was very feebly defended. There was indeed inthe House of Commons a small knot of his creatures; and they were mennot destitute of a certain kind of ability; but their moral characterwas as bad as his. One of them was the late Secretary of the Treasury, Guy, who had been turned out of his place for corruption. Another wasthe late Speaker, Trevor, who had, from the chair, put the questionwhether he was or was not a rogue, and had been forced to pronouncethat the Ayes had it. A third was Charles Duncombe, long the greatestgoldsmith of Lombard Street, and now one of the greatest landowners ofthe North Riding of Yorkshire. Possessed of a private fortune equal tothat of any duke, he had not thought it beneath him to accept the placeof Cashier of the Excise, and had perfectly understood how to makethat place lucrative; but he had recently been ejected from office byMontague, who thought, with good reason, that he was not a man to betrusted. Such advocates as Trevor, Guy and Duncombe could do little forSunderland in debate. The statesmen of the junto would do nothing forhim. They had undoubtedly owed much to him. His influence, cooperatingwith their own great abilities and with the force of circumstances, hadinduced the King to commit the direction of the internal administrationof the realm to a Whig Cabinet. But the distrust which the old traitorand apostate inspired was not to be overcome. The ministers could not besure that he was not, while smiling on them, whispering in confidentialtones to them, pouring out, as it might seem, all his heart to them, really calumniating them in the closet or suggesting to the oppositionsome ingenious mode of attacking them. They had very recently beenthwarted by him. They were bent on making Wharton a Secretary of State, and had therefore looked forward with impatience to the retirement ofTrumball, who was indeed hardly equal to the duties of his great place. To their surprise and mortification they learned, on the eve of themeeting of Parliament, that Trumball had suddenly resigned, and Vernon, the Under Secretary, had been summoned to Kensington, and had returnedthence with the seals. Vernon was a zealous Whig, and not personallyunacceptable to the chiefs of his party. But the Lord Chancellor, theFirst Lord of the Treasury, and the First Lord of the Admiralty, mightnot unnaturally think it strange that a post of the highest importanceshould have been filled up in opposition to their known wishes, and witha haste and a secresy which plainly showed that the King did not wish tobe annoyed by their remonstrances. The Lord Chamberlain pretended thathe had done all in his power to serve Wharton. But the Whig chiefs werenot men to be duped by the professions of so notorious a liar. Montaguebitterly described him as a fireship, dangerous at best, but on thewhole most dangerous as a consort, and least dangerous when showinghostile colours. Smith, who was the most efficient of Montague'slieutenants, both in the Treasury and in the Parliament, cordiallysympathised with his leader. Sunderland was therefore left undefended. His enemies became bolder and more vehement every day. Sir Thomas Dyke, member for Grinstead, and Lord Norris, son of the Earl of Abingdon, talked of moving an address requesting the King to banish for ever fromthe Court and the Council that evil adviser who had misled His Majesty'sroyal uncles, had betrayed the liberties of the people, and had abjuredthe Protestant religion. 

Sunderland had been uneasy from the first moment at which his namehad been mentioned in the House of Commons. He was now in an agonyof terror. The whole enigma of his life, an enigma of which manyunsatisfactory and some absurd explanations have been propounded, is atonce solved if we consider him as a man insatiably greedy of wealth andpower, and yet nervously apprehensive of danger. He rushed with ravenouseagerness at every bait which was offered to his cupidity. But anyominous shadow, any threatening murmur, sufficed to stop him in his fullcareer, and to make him change his course or bury himself in a hidingplace. He ought to have thought himself fortunate indeed, when, afterall the crimes which he had committed, he found himself again enjoyinghis picture gallery and his woods at Althorpe, sitting in the House ofLords, admitted to the royal closet, pensioned from the Privy Purse, consulted about the most important affairs of state. But his ambitionand avarice would not suffer him to rest till he held a high andlucrative office, till he was a regent of the kingdom. The consequencewas, as might have been expected, a violent clamour; and that clamour hehad not the spirit to face. 

His friends assured him that the threatened address would not becarried. Perhaps a hundred and sixty members might vote for it; buthardly more. "A hundred and sixty!" he cried: "No minister can standagainst a hundred and sixty. I am sure that I will not try. " It must beremembered that a hundred and sixty votes in a House of five hundred andthirteen members would correspond to more than two hundred votes in thepresent House of Commons; a very formidable minority on the unfavourableside of a question deeply affecting the personal character of a publicman. William, unwilling to part with a servant whom he knew to beunprincipled, but whom he did not consider as more unprincipled thanmany other English politicians, and in whom he had found much of a veryuseful sort of knowledge, and of a very useful sort of ability, tried toinduce the ministry to come to the rescue. It was particularlyimportant to soothe Wharton, who had been exasperated by his recentdisappointment, and had probably exasperated the other members of thejunto. He was sent for to the palace. The King himself intreated himto be reconciled to the Lord Chamberlain, and to prevail on the Whigleaders in the Lower House to oppose any motion which Dyke or Norrismight make. Wharton answered in a manner which made it clear thatfrom him no help was to be expected. Sunderland's terrors now becameinsupportable. He had requested some of his friends to come to his housethat he might consult them; they came at the appointed hour, but foundthat he had gone to Kensington, and had left word that he should soonbe back. When he joined them, they observed that he had not the gold keywhich is the badge of the Lord Chamberlain, and asked where it was. "AtKensington, " answered Sunderland. They found that he had tendered hisresignation, and that it had been, after a long struggle, accepted. They blamed his haste, and told him that, since he had summoned them toadvise him on that day, he might at least have waited till the morrow. "To morrow, " he exclaimed, "would have ruined me. To night has savedme. "

Meanwhile, both the disciples of Somers and the disciples of Trenchardwere grumbling at Harley's resolution. The disciples of Somersmaintained that, if it was right to have an army at all, it must beright to have an efficient army. The disciples of Trenchard complainedthat a great principle had been shamefully given up. On the vitalissue, Standing Army or no Standing Army, the Commons had pronounced anerroneous, a fatal decision. Whether that army should consist of fiveregiments or of fifteen was hardly worth debating. The great dyke whichkept out arbitrary power had been broken. It was idle to say that thebreach was narrow; for it would soon be widened by the flood which wouldrush in. The war of pamphlets raged more fiercely than ever. At the sametime alarming symptoms began to appear among the men of the sword. Theysaw themselves every day described in print as the scum of society, as mortal enemies of the liberties of their country. Was itreasonable, --such was the language of some scribblers, --that an honestgentleman should pay a heavy land tax, in order to support in idlenessand luxury a set of fellows who requited him by seducing his dairy maidsand shooting his partridges? Nor was it only in Grub Street tracts thatsuch reflections were to be found. It was known all over the town thatuncivil things had been said of the military profession in the House ofCommons, and that Jack Howe, in particular, had, on this subject, given the rein to his wit and to his ill nature. Some rough and daringveterans, marked with the scars of Steinkirk and singed with the smokeof Namur, threatened vengeance for these insults. The writers andspeakers who had taken the greatest liberties went in constant fearof being accosted by fierce-looking captains, and required to make animmediate choice between fighting and being caned. One gentleman, whohad made himself conspicuous by the severity of his language, went aboutwith pistols in his pockets. Howe, whose courage was not proportionateto his malignity and petulance, was so much frightened, that he retiredinto the country. The King, well aware that a single blow given, atthat critical conjuncture, by a soldier to a member of Parliament mightproduce disastrous consequences, ordered the officers of the army totheir quarters, and, by the vigorous exertion of his authority andinfluence, succeeded in preventing all outrage. [6]

All this time the feeling in favour of a regular force seemed to begrowing in the House of Commons. The resignation of Sunderland hadput many honest gentlemen in good humour. The Whig leaders exertedthemselves to rally their followers, held meetings at the "Rose, " andrepresented strongly the dangers to which the country would be exposed, if defended only by a militia. The opposition asserted that neitherbribes nor promises were spared. The ministers at length flatteredthemselves that Harley's resolution might be rescinded. On the eighth ofJanuary they again tried their strength, and were again defeated, thoughby a smaller majority than before. A hundred and sixty-four membersdivided with them. A hundred and eighty-eight were for adhering to thevote of the eleventh of December. It was remarked that on this occasionthe naval men, with Rooke at their head, voted against the Government. [7]

It was necessary to yield. All that remained was to put on the wordsof the resolution of the eleventh of December the most favourable sensethat they could be made to bear. They did indeed admit of very differentinterpretations. The force which was actually in England in 1680 hardlyamounted to five thousand men. But the garrison of Tangier and theregiments in the pay of the Batavian federation, which, as they wereavailable for the defence of England against a foreign or domesticenemy, might be said to be in some sort part of the English army, amounted to at least five thousand more. The construction which theministers put on the resolution of the eleventh of December was, thatthe army was to consist of ten thousand men; and in this constructionthe House acquiesced. It was not held to be necessary that theParliament should, as in our time, fix the amount of the land force. TheCommons thought that they sufficiently limited the number of soldiers bylimiting the sum which was to be expended in maintaining soldiers. Whatthat sum should be was a question which raised much debate. Harley wasunwilling to give more than three hundred thousand pounds. Montaguestruggled for four hundred thousand. The general sense of the House wasthat Harley offered too little, and that Montague demanded too much. Atlast, on the fourteenth of January, a vote was taken for three hundredand fifty thousand pounds. Four days later the House resolved togrant half-pay to the disbanded officers till they should be otherwiseprovided for. The half-pay was meant to be a retainer as well as areward. The effect of this important vote therefore was that, whenevera new war should break out, the nation would be able to command theservices of many gentlemen of great military experience. The ministryafterwards succeeded in obtaining, much against the will of a portion ofthe opposition, a separate vote for three thousand marines. 

A Mutiny Act, which had been passed in 1697, expired in the spring of1698. As yet no such Act had been passed except in time of war; and thetemper of the Parliament and of the nation was such that the ministersdid not venture to ask, in time of peace, for a renewal of powersunknown to the constitution. For the present, therefore, the soldier wasagain, as in the times which preceded the Revolution, subject to exactlythe same law which governed the citizen. 

It was only in matters relating to the army that the government foundthe Commons unmanageable. Liberal provision was made for the navy. Thenumber of seamen was fixed at ten thousand, a great force, according tothe notions of that age, for a time of peace. The funds assigned someyears before for the support of the civil list had fallen short of theestimate. It was resolved that a new arrangement should be made, andthat a certain income should be settled on the King. The amount wasfixed, by an unanimous vote, at seven hundred thousand pounds; and theCommons declared that, by making this ample provision for his comfortand dignity, they meant to express their sense of the great things whichhe had done for the country. It is probable, however, that so large asum would not have been given without debates and divisions, had it notbeen understood that he meant to take on himself the charge of the Dukeof Gloucester's establishment, and that he would in all probability haveto pay fifty thousand pounds a year to Mary of Modena. The Torieswere unwilling to disoblige the Princess of Denmark; and the Jacobitesabstained from offering any opposition to a grant in the benefit ofwhich they hoped that the banished family would participate. 

It was not merely by pecuniary liberality that the Parliament testifiedattachment to the Sovereign. A bill was rapidly passed which withheldthe benefit of the Habeas Corpus Act, during twelve months more, fromBernardi and some other conspirators who had been concerned in theAssassination Plot, but whose guilt, though demonstrated to theconviction of every reasonable man, could not be proved by twowitnesses. At the same time new securities were provided against a newdanger which threatened the government. The peace had put an end to theapprehension that the throne of William might be subverted by foreignarms, but had, at the same time, facilitated domestic treason. It was nolonger necessary for an agent from Saint Germains to cross the sea ina fishing boat, under the constant dread of being intercepted by acruiser. It was no longer necessary for him to land on a desolate beach, to lodge in a thatched hovel, to dress himself like a carter, or totravel up to town on foot. He came openly by the Calais packet, walkedinto the best inn at Dover, and ordered posthorses for London. Meanwhileyoung Englishmen of quality and fortune were hastening in crowds toParis. They would naturally wish to see him who had once been theirking; and this curiosity, though in itself innocent, might have evilconsequences. Artful tempters would doubtless be on the watch for everysuch traveller; and many such travellers might be well pleased to becourteously accosted, in a foreign land, by Englishmen of honourablename, distinguished appearance, and insinuating address. It was not tobe expected that a lad fresh from the university would be able to refuteall the sophisms and calumnies which might be breathed in his earby dexterous and experienced seducers. Nor would it be strange if heshould, in no long time, accept an invitation to a private audienceat Saint Germains, should be charmed by the graces of Mary of Modena, should find something engaging in the childish innocence of the Princeof Wales, should kiss the hand of James, and should return home anardent Jacobite. An Act was therefore passed forbidding English subjectsto hold any intercourse orally, or by writing, or by message, with theexiled family. A day was fixed after which no English subject, who had, during the late war, gone into France without the royal permission orborne arms against his country was to be permitted to reside in thiskingdom, except under a special license from the King. Whoever infringedthese rules incurred the penalties of high treason. 

The dismay was at first great among the malecontents. For English andIrish Jacobites, who had served under the standards of Lewis or hungabout the Court of Saint Germains, had, since the peace, come over inmultitudes to England. It was computed that thousands were within thescope of the new Act. But the severity of that Act was mitigated by abeneficent administration. Some fierce and stubborn non-jurors who wouldnot debase themselves by asking for any indulgence, and some conspicuousenemies of the government who had asked for indulgence in vain, wereunder the necessity of taking refuge on the Continent. But the greatmajority of those offenders who promised to live peaceably underWilliam's rule obtained his permission to remain in their native land. 

In the case of one great offender there were some circumstances whichattracted general interest, and which might furnish a good subject toa novelist or a dramatist. Near fourteen years before this time, Sunderland, then Secretary of State to Charles the Second, had marriedhis daughter Lady Elizabeth Spencer to Donough Macarthy, Earl ofClancarty, the lord of an immense domain in Munster. Both the bridegroomand the bride were mere children, the bridegroom only fifteen, the brideonly eleven. After the ceremony they were separated; and many yearsfull of strange vicissitudes elapsed before they again met. The boy soonvisited his estates in Ireland. He had been bred a member of the Churchof England; but his opinions and his practice were loose. He foundhimself among kinsmen who were zealous Roman Catholics. A RomanCatholic king was on the throne. To turn Roman Catholic was the bestrecommendation to favour both at Whitehall and at Dublin Castle. Clancarty speedily changed his religion, and from a dissolute Protestantbecame a dissolute Papist. After the Revolution he followed the fortunesof James; sate in the Celtic Parliament which met at the King's Inns;commanded a regiment in the Celtic army; was forced to surrender himselfto Marlborough at Cork; was sent to England, and was imprisoned in theTower. The Clancarty estates, which were supposed to yield a rent of notmuch less than ten thousand a year, were confiscated. They were chargedwith an annuity to the Earl's brother, and with another annuity to hiswife; but the greater part was bestowed by the King on Lord Woodstock, the eldest son of Portland; During some time, the prisoner's life wasnot safe. For the popular voice accused him of outrages for which theutmost license of civil war would not furnish a plea. It is said thathe was threatened with an appeal of murder by the widow of a Protestantclergyman who had been put to death during the troubles. After passingthree years in confinement, Clancarty made his escape to the Continent, was graciously received at St. Germains, and was entrusted with thecommand of a corps of Irish refugees. When the treaty of Ryswick hadput an end to the hope that the banished dynasty would be restored byforeign arms, he flattered himself that he might be able to make hispeace with the English Government. But he was grievously disappointed. The interest of his wife's family was undoubtedly more than sufficientto obtain a pardon for him. But on that interest he could not reckon. The selfish, base, covetous, father-in-law was not at all desirousto have a highborn beggar and the posterity of a highborn beggar tomaintain. The ruling passion of the brother-in-law was a stern andacrimonious party spirit. He could not bear to think that he was sonearly connected with an enemy of the Revolution and of the Bill ofRights, and would with pleasure have seen the odious tie severed evenby the hand of the executioner. There was one, however, from whom theruined, expatriated, proscribed young nobleman might hope to find a kindreception. He stole across the Channel in disguise, presented himself atSunderland's door, and requested to see Lady Clancarty. He was charged, he said, with a message to her from her mother, who was then lying on asick bed at Windsor. By this fiction he obtained admission, made himselfknown to his wife, whose thoughts had probably been constantly fixed onhim during many years, and prevailed on her to give him the most tenderproofs of an affection sanctioned by the laws both of God and of man. The secret was soon discovered and betrayed by a waiting woman. Spencerlearned that very night that his sister had admitted her husband to herapartment. The fanatical young Whig, burning with animosity which hemistook for virtue, and eager to emulate the Corinthian who assassinatedhis brother, and the Roman who passed sentence of death on his son, flewto Vernon's office, gave information that the Irish rebel, who had oncealready escaped from custody, was in hiding hard by, and procured awarrant and a guard of soldiers. Clancarty was found in the arms of hiswife, and dragged to the Tower. She followed him and implored permissionto partake his cell. These events produced a great stir throughout thesociety of London. Sunderland professed everywhere that he heartilyapproved of his son's conduct; but the public had made up its mind aboutSunderland's veracity, and paid very little attention to his professionson this or on any other subject. In general, honourable men of bothparties, whatever might be their opinion of Clancarty, felt greatcompassion for his mother who was dying of a broken heart, and his pooryoung wife who was begging piteously to be admitted within the Traitor'sGate. Devonshire and Bedford joined with Ormond to ask for mercy. Theaid of a still more powerful intercessor was called in. Lady Russellwas esteemed by the King as a valuable friend; she was venerated bythe nation generally as a saint, the widow of a martyr; and, when shedeigned to solicit favours, it was scarcely possible that she shouldsolicit in vain. She naturally felt a strong sympathy for the unhappycouple, who were parted by the walls of that gloomy old fortress inwhich she had herself exchanged the last sad endearments with one whoseimage was never absent from her. She took Lady Clancarty with her to thepalace, obtained access to William, and put a petition into his hand. Clancarty was pardoned on condition that he should leave the kingdom andnever return to it. A pension was granted to him, small when comparedwith the magnificent inheritance which he had forfeited, but quitesufficient to enable him to live like a gentleman on the Continent. Heretired, accompanied by his Elizabeth, to Altona. 

All this time the ways and means for the year were under consideration. The Parliament was able to grant some relief to the country. The landtax was reduced from four shillings in the pound to three. But nineexpensive campaigns had left a heavy arrear behind them; and it wasplain that the public burdens must, even in the time of peace, be suchas, before the Revolution, would have been thought more than sufficientto support a vigorous war. A country gentleman was in no very goodhumour, when he compared the sums which were now exacted from him withthose which he had been in the habit of paying under the last two kings;his discontent became stronger when he compared his own situationwith that of courtiers, and above all of Dutch courtiers, who had beenenriched by grants of Crown property; and both interest and envy madehim willing to listen to politicians who assured him that, if thosegrants were resumed, he might be relieved from another shilling. 

The arguments against such a resumption were not likely to be heard withfavour by a popular assembly composed of taxpayers, but to statesmen andlegislators will seem unanswerable. 

There can be no doubt that the Sovereign was, by the old polity of therealm, competent to give or let the domains of the Crown in such manneras seemed good to him. No statute defined the length of the term whichhe might grant, or the amount of the rent which he must reserve. Hemight part with the fee simple of a forest extending over a hundredsquare miles in consideration of a tribute of a brace of hawks to bedelivered annually to his falconer, or of a napkin of fine linen to belaid on the royal table at the coronation banquet. In fact, there hadbeen hardly a reign since the Conquest, in which great estates had notbeen bestowed by our princes on favoured subjects. Anciently, indeed, what had been lavishly given was not seldom violently taken away. Several laws for the resumption of Crown lands were passed by theParliaments of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Of those laws thelast was that which, in the year 1485, immediately after the battle ofBosworth, annulled the donations of the kings of the House of York. Morethan two hundred years had since elapsed without any Resumption Act. An estate derived from the royal liberality had long been universallythought as secure as an estate which had descended from father to sonsince the compilation of Domesday Book. No title was considered as moreperfect than that of the Russells to Woburn, given by Henry the Eighthto the first Earl of Bedford, or than that of the Cecils to Hatfield, purchased from the Crown for less than a third of the real value bythe first Earl of Salisbury. The Long Parliament did not, even in thatcelebrated instrument of nineteen articles, which was framed expresslyfor the purpose of making the King a mere Doge, propose to restrain himfrom dealing according to his pleasure with his parks and his castles, his fisheries and his mines. After the Restoration, under the governmentof an easy prince, who had indeed little disposition to give, but whocould not bear to refuse, many noble private fortunes were carved out ofthe property of the Crown. Some of the persons who were thus enriched, Albemarle, for example, Sandwich and Clarendon, might be thought to havefairly earned their master's favour by their services. Others hadmerely amused his leisure or pandered to his vices. His mistresses weremunificently rewarded. Estates sufficient to support the highest rank inthe peerage were distributed among his illegitimate children. That thesegrants, however prodigal, were strictly legal, was tacitly admitted bythe Estates of the Realm, when, in 1689, they recounted and condemnedthe unconstitutional acts of the kings of the House of Stuart. Neitherin the Declaration of Right nor in the Bill of Rights is there a word onthe subject. William, therefore, thought himself at liberty to giveaway his hereditary domains as freely as his predecessors had given awaytheirs. There was much murmuring at the profusion with which he rewardedhis Dutch favourites; and we have seen that, on one occasion in the year1696, the House of Commons interfered for the purpose of restraininghis liberality. An address was presented requesting him not to grant toPortland an extensive territory in North Wales. But it is to be observedthat, though in this address a strong opinion was expressed that thegrant would be mischievous, the Commons did not deny, and must thereforebe considered as having admitted, that it would be perfectly legal. TheKing, however, yielded; and Portland was forced to content himself withten or twelve manors scattered over various counties from Cumberland toSussex. 

It seems, therefore, clear that our princes were, by the law of theland, competent to do what they would with their hereditary estates. It is perfectly true that the law was defective, and that the profusionwith which mansions, abbeys, chaces, warrens, beds of ore, wholestreets, whole market towns, had been bestowed on courtiers was greatlyto be lamented. Nothing could have been more proper than to pass aprospective statute tying up in strict entail the little which stillremained of the Crown property. But to annul by a retrospective statutepatents, which in Westminster Hall were held to be legally valid, wouldhave been simply robbery. Such robbery must necessarily have made allproperty insecure; and a statesman must be short-sighted indeed whoimagines that what makes property insecure can really make societyprosperous. 

But it is vain to expect that men who are inflamed by anger, who aresuffering distress, and who fancy that it is in their power to obtainimmediate relief from their distresses at the expense of those who haveexcited their anger, will reason as calmly as the historian who, biassedneither by interest nor passion, reviews the events of a past age. The public burdens were heavy. To whatever extent the grants of royaldomains were revoked, those burdens would be lightened. Some of therecent grants had undoubtedly been profuse. Some of the living granteeswere unpopular. A cry was raised which soon became formidably loud. Allthe Tories, all the malecontent Whigs, and multitudes who, withoutbeing either Tories or malecontent Whigs, disliked taxes and dislikedDutchmen, called for a resumption of all the Crown property which KingWilliam had, as it was phrased, been deceived into giving away. 

On the seventh of February 1698, this subject, destined to irritatethe public mind at intervals during many years, was brought under theconsideration of the House of Commons. The opposition asked leave tobring in a bill vacating all grants of Crown property which had beenmade since the Revolution. The ministers were in a great strait; thepublic feeling was strong; a general election was approaching; it wasdangerous and it would probably be vain to encounter the prevailingsentiment directly. But the shock which could not be resisted might beeluded. The ministry accordingly professed to find no fault with theproposed bill, except that it did not go far enough, and moved for leaveto bring in two more bills, one for annulling the grants of James theSecond, the other for annulling the grants of Charles the Second. TheTories were caught in their own snare. For most of the grants of Charlesand James had been made to Tories; and a resumption of those grantswould have reduced some of the chiefs of the Tory party to poverty. Yetit was impossible to draw a distinction between the grants of Williamand those of his two predecessors. Nobody could pretend that the lawhad been altered since his accession. If, therefore, the grants of theStuarts were legal, so were his; if his grants were illegal, so werethe grants of his uncles. And, if both his grants and the grants of hisuncles were illegal, it was absurd to say that the mere lapse of timemade a difference. For not only was it part of the alphabet of the lawthat there was no prescription against the Crown, but the thirty-eightyears which had elapsed since the Restoration would not have sufficedto bar a writ of right brought by a private demandant against a wrongfultenant. Nor could it be pretended that William had bestowed his favoursless judiciously than Charles and James. Those who were least friendlyto the Dutch would hardly venture to say that Portland, Zulestein andGinkell was less deserving of the royal bounty than the Duchess ofCleveland and the Duchess of Portsmouth, than the progeny of Nell Gwynn, than the apostate Arlington or the butcher Jeffreys. The opposition, therefore, sullenly assented to what the ministry proposed. From thatmoment the scheme was doomed. Everybody affected to be for it; andeverybody was really against it. The three bills were brought intogether, read a second time together, ordered to be committed together, and were then, first mutilated, and at length quietly dropped. 

In the history of the financial legislation of this session, there weresome episodes which deserve to be related. Those members, a numerousbody, who envied and dreaded Montague readily became the unconscioustools of the cunning malice of Sunderland, whom Montague had refusedto defend in Parliament, and who, though detested by the opposition, contrived to exercise some influence over that party through theinstrumentality of Charles Duncombe. Duncombe indeed had his own reasonsfor hating Montague, who had turned him out of the place of Cashier ofthe Excise. A serious charge was brought against the Board of Treasury, and especially against its chief. He was the inventor of ExchequerBills; and they were popularly called Montague's notes. He had inducedthe Parliament to enact that those bills, even when at a discount in themarket, should be received at par by the collectors of the revenue. This enactment, if honestly carried into effect, would have beenunobjectionable. But it was strongly rumoured that there had beenfoul play, peculation, even forgery. Duncombe threw the most seriousimputations on the Board of Treasury, and pretended that he had been putout of his office only because he was too shrewd to be deceived, and toohonest to join in deceiving the public. Tories and malecontent Whigs, elated by the hope that Montague might be convicted of malversation, eagerly called for inquiry. An inquiry was instituted; but theresult not only disappointed but utterly confounded the accusers. Thepersecuted minister obtained both a complete acquittal, and a signalrevenge. Circumstances were discovered which seemed to indicate thatDuncombe himself was not blameless. The clue was followed; he wasseverely cross-examined; he lost his head; made one unguarded admissionafter another, and was at length compelled to confess, on the floor ofthe House, that he had been guilty of an infamous fraud, which, but forhis own confession, it would have been scarcely possible to bring hometo him. He had been ordered by the Commissioners of the Excise to payten thousand pounds into the Exchequer for the public service. He had inhis hands, as cashier, more than double that sum in good milled silver. With some of this money he bought Exchequer Bills which were then ata considerable discount; he paid those bills in; and he pocketed thediscount, which amounted to about four hundred pounds. Nor was thisall. In order to make it appear that the depreciated paper, which he hadfraudulently substituted for silver, had been received by him in paymentof taxes, he had employed a knavish Jew to forge endorsements of names, some real and some imaginary. This scandalous story, wrung out of hisown lips, was heard by the opposition with consternation and shame, by the ministers and their friends with vindictive exultation. It wasresolved, without any division, that he should be sent to the Tower, that he should be kept close prisoner there, that he should be expelledfrom the House. Whether any further punishment could be inflicted on himwas a perplexing question. The English law touching forgery became, at alater period, barbarously severe; but, in 1698, it was absurdly lax. Theprisoner's offence was certainly not a felony; and lawyers apprehendedthat there would be much difficulty in convicting him even of amisdemeanour. But a recent precedent was fresh in the minds of all men. The weapon which had reached Fenwick might reach Duncombe. A bill ofpains and penalties was brought in, and carried through the earlierstages with less opposition than might have been expected. Some Noesmight perhaps be uttered; but no members ventured to say that the Noeshad it. The Tories were mad with shame and mortification, at findingthat their rash attempt to ruin an enemy had produced no effect exceptthe ruin of a friend. In their rage, they eagerly caught at a new hopeof revenge, a hope destined to end, as their former hope had ended, indiscomfiture and disgrace. They learned, from the agents of Sunderland, as many people suspected, but certainly from informants who were wellacquainted with the offices about Whitehall, that some securitiesforfeited to the Crown in Ireland had been bestowed by the Kingostensibly on one Thomas Railton, but really on the Chancellor of theExchequer. The value of these securities was about ten thousand pounds. On the sixteenth of February this transaction was brought withoutany notice under the consideration of the House of Commons by ColonelGranville, a Tory member, nearly related to the Earl of Bath. Montaguewas taken completely by surprise, but manfully avowed the whole truth, and defended what he had done. The orators of the opposition declaimedagainst him with great animation and asperity. "This gentleman, "they said, "has at once violated three distinct duties. He is a privycouncillor, and, as such, is bound to advise the Crown with a view, notto his own selfish interests, but to the general good. He is the firstminister of finance, and is, as such, bound to be a thrifty manager ofthe royal treasure. He is a member of this House, and is, as such, boundto see that the burdens borne by his constituents are not made heavierby rapacity and prodigality. To all these trusts he has been unfaithful. The advice of the privy councillor to his master is, 'Give me money. 'The first Lord of the Treasury signs a warrant for giving himself moneyout of the Treasury. The member for Westminster puts into his pocketmoney which his constituents must be taxed to replace. " The surprisewas complete; the onset was formidable; but the Whig majority, aftera moment of dismay and wavering, rallied firmly round their leader. Several speakers declared that they highly approved of the prudentliberality with which His Majesty had requited the services of a mostable, diligent and trusty counsellor. It was miserable economy indeed togrudge a reward of a few thousands to one who had made the State richerby millions. Would that all the largesses of former kings had been aswell bestowed! How those largesses had been bestowed none knew betterthan some of the austere patriots who harangued so loudly against theavidity of Montague. If there is, it was said, a House in Englandwhich has been gorged with undeserved riches by the prodigality of weaksovereigns, it is the House of Bath. Does it lie in the mouth of a sonof that house to blame the judicious munificence of a wise and goodKing? Before the Granvilles complain that distinguished merit has beenrewarded with ten thousand pounds, let them refund some part of thehundreds of thousands which they have pocketed without any merit at all. 

The rule was, and still is, that a member against whom a charge is mademust be heard in his own defence, and must then leave the House. TheOpposition insisted that Montague should retire. His friends maintainedthat this case did not fall within the rule. Distinctions were drawn;precedents were cited; and at length the question was put, that Mr. Montague do withdraw. The Ayes were only ninety-seven; the Noes twohundred and nine. This decisive result astonished both parties. TheTories lost heart and hope. The joy of the Whigs was boundless. Itwas instantly moved that the Honourable Charles Montague, Esquire, Chancellor of the Exchequer, for his good services to this Governmentdoes deserve His Majesty's favour. The Opposition, completely cowed, didnot venture to demand another division. Montague scornfully thankedthem for the inestimable service which they had done him. But fortheir malice he never should have had the honour and happiness ofbeing solemnly pronounced by the Commons of England a benefactor of hiscountry. As to the grant which had been the subject of debate, he wasperfectly ready to give it up, if his accusers would engage to followhis example. 

Even after this defeat the Tories returned to the charge. They pretendedthat the frauds which had been committed with respect to the ExchequerBills had been facilitated by the mismanagement of the Board ofTreasury, and moved a resolution which implied a censure on that Board, and especially on its chief. This resolution was rejected by a hundredand seventy votes to eighty-eight. It was remarked that Spencer, as ifanxious to show that he had taken no part in the machinations of whichhis father was justly or unjustly suspected, spoke in this debate withgreat warmth against Duncombe and for Montague. 

A few days later, the bill of pains and penalties against Duncombepassed the Commons. It provided that two thirds of his enormousproperty, real and personal, should be confiscated and applied to thepublic service. Till the third reading there was no serious opposition. Then the Tories mustered their strength. They were defeated by a hundredand thirty-eight votes to a hundred and three; and the bill was carriedup to the Lords by the Marquess of Hartington, a young nobleman whom thegreat body of Whigs respected as one of their hereditary chiefs, as theheir of Devonshire, and as the son in law of Russell. 

That Duncombe had been guilty of shameful dishonesty was acknowledgedby all men of sense and honour in the party to which he belonged. He hadtherefore little right to expect indulgence from the party which he hadunfairly and malignantly assailed. Yet it is not creditable to the Whigsthat they should have been so much disgusted by his frauds, or so muchirritated by his attacks, as to have been bent on punishing him in amanner inconsistent with all the principles which governments ought tohold most sacred. 

Those who concurred in the proceeding against Duncombe tried tovindicate their conduct by citing as an example the proceedingagainst Fenwick. So dangerous is it to violate, on any pretence, thoseprinciples which the experience of ages has proved to be the safeguardsof all that is most precious to a community. Twelve months had hardlyelapsed since the legislature had, in very peculiar circumstances, andfor very plausible reasons, taken upon itself to try and to punish agreat criminal whom it was impossible to reach in the ordinary courseof justice; and already the breach then made in the fences which protectthe dearest rights of Englishmen was widening fast. What had last yearbeen defended only as a rare exception seemed now to be regarded as theordinary rule. Nay, the bill of pains and penalties which now hadan easy passage through the House of Commons was infinitely moreobjectionable than the bill which had been so obstinately resisted atevery stage in the preceding session. 

The writ of attainder against Fenwick was not, as the vulgar imaginedand still imagine, objectionable because it was retrospective. Itis always to be remembered that retrospective legislation is bad inprinciple only when it affects the substantive law. Statutes creatingnew crimes or increasing the punishment of old crimes ought in no caseto be retrospective. But statutes which merely alter the procedure, ifthey are in themselves good statutes, ought to be retrospective. To takeexamples from the legislation of our own time, the Act passed in 1845, for punishing the malicious destruction of works of art with whipping, was most properly made prospective only. Whatever indignation theauthors of that Act might feel against the ruffian who had broken theBarberini Vase, they knew that they could not, without the most seriousdetriment to the commonwealth, pass a law for scourging him. On theother hand the Act which allowed the affirmation of a Quaker to bereceived in criminal cases allowed, and most justly and reasonably, suchaffirmation to be received in the case of a past as well as of a futuremisdemeanour or felony. If we try the Act which attainted Fenwick bythese rules we shall find that almost all the numerous writers whohave condemned it have condemned it on wrong grounds. It made noretrospective change in the substantive law. The crime was not new. It was high treason as defined by the Statute of Edward the Third. Thepunishment was not new. It was the punishment which had been inflictedon traitors of ten generations. All that was new was the procedure;and, if the new procedure had been intrinsically better than the oldprocedure, the new procedure might with perfect propriety have beenemployed. But the procedure employed in Fenwick's case was the worstpossible, and would have been the worst possible if it had beenestablished from time immemorial. However clearly political crime mayhave been defined by ancient laws, a man accused of it ought not to betried by a crowd of five hundred and thirteen eager politicians, of whomhe can challenge none even with cause, who have no judge to guide them, who are allowed to come in and go out as they choose, who hear as muchor as little as they choose of the accusation and of the defence, whoare exposed, during the investigation, to every kind of corruptinginfluence, who are inflamed by all the passions which animated debatesnaturally excite, who cheer one orator and cough down another, who areroused from sleep to cry Aye or No, or who are hurried half drunkfrom their suppers to divide. For this reason, and for no other, theattainder of Fenwick is to be condemned. It was unjust and of evilexample, not because it was a retrospective Act, but because it was anact essentially judicial, performed by a body destitute of all judicialqualities. 

The bill for punishing Duncombe was open to all the objections which canbe urged against the bill for punishing Fenwick, and to other objectionsof even greater weight. In both cases the judicial functions wereusurped by a body unfit to exercise such functions. But the billagainst Duncombe really was, what the bill against Fenwick was not, objectionable as a retrospective bill. It altered the substantivecriminal law. It visited an offence with a penalty of which theoffender, at the time when he offended, had no notice. 

It may be thought a strange proposition that the bill against Duncombewas a worse bill than the bill against Fenwick, because the bill againstFenwick struck at life, and the bill against Duncombe struck only atproperty. Yet this apparent paradox is a sober truth. Life is indeedmore precious than property. But the power of arbitrarily taking awaythe lives of men is infinitely less likely to be abused than the powerof arbitrarily taking away their property. Even the lawless classes ofsociety generally shrink from blood. They commit thousands of offencesagainst property to one murder; and most of the few murders which theydo commit are committed for the purpose of facilitating or concealingsome offence against property. The unwillingness of juries to find afellow creature guilty of a capital felony even on the clearest evidenceis notorious; and it may well be suspected that they frequently violatetheir oaths in favour of life. In civil suits, on the other hand, theytoo often forget that their duty is merely to give the plaintiff acompensation for evil suffered; and, if the conduct of the defendant hasmoved their indignation and his fortune is known to be large, they turnthemselves into a criminal tribunal, and, under the name of damages, impose a large fine. As housebreakers are more likely to take plate andjewellery than to cut throats; as juries are far more likely to err onthe side of pecuniary severity in assessing damages than to send to thegibbet any man who has not richly deserved it; so a legislature, which should be so unwise as to take on itself the functions properlybelonging to the Courts of Law, would be far more likely to pass Acts ofConfiscation than Acts of Attainder. We naturally feel pity even for abad man whose head is about to fall. But, when a bad man is compelled todisgorge his ill-gotten gains, we naturally feel a vindictive pleasure, in which there is much danger that we may be tempted to indulge toolargely. 

The hearts of many stout Whigs doubtless bled at the thought of whatFenwick must have suffered, the agonizing struggle, in a mind not ofthe firmest temper, between the fear of shame and the fear of death, the parting from a tender wife, and all the gloomy solemnity of thelast morning. But whose heart was to bleed at the thought thatCharles Duncombe, who was born to carry parcels and to sweep down acounting-house, was to be punished for his knavery by having his incomereduced to eight thousand a year, more than most earls then possessed?

His judges were not likely to feel compassion for him; and they all hadstrong selfish reasons to vote against him. They were all in fact bribedby the very bill by which he would be punished. 

His property was supposed to amount to considerably more than fourhundred thousand pounds. Two thirds of that property were equivalent toabout sevenpence in the pound on the rental of the kingdom as assessedto the land tax. If, therefore, two thirds of that property could havebeen brought into the Exchequer, the land tax for 1699, a burden mostpainfully felt by the class which had the chief power in England, mighthave been reduced from three shillings to two and fivepence. Everysquire of a thousand a year in the House of Commons would have hadthirty pounds more to spend; and that sum might well have made to himthe whole difference between being at ease and being pinched duringtwelve months. If the bill had passed, if the gentry and yeomanry ofthe kingdom had found that it was possible for them to obtain a welcomeremission of taxation by imposing on a Shylock or an Overreach, by aretrospective law, a fine not heavier than his misconduct might, in amoral view, seem to have deserved, it is impossible to believe that theywould not soon have recurred to so simple and agreeable a resource. Inevery age it is easy to find rich men who have done bad things for whichthe law has provided no punishment or an inadequate punishment. Theestates of such men would soon have been considered as a fund applicableto the public service. As often as it was necessary to vote anextraordinary supply to the Crown, the Committee of Ways and Means wouldhave looked about for some unpopular capitalist to plunder. Appetitewould have grown with indulgence. Accusations would have been eagerlywelcomed. Rumours and suspicions would have been received as proofs. Thewealth of the great goldsmiths of the Royal Exchange would have becomeas insecure as that of a Jew under the Plantagenets, as that of aChristian under a Turkish Pasha. Rich men would have tried to investtheir acquisitions in some form in which they could lie closely hiddenand could be speedily removed. In no long time it would have been foundthat of all financial resources the least productive is robbery, andthat the public had really paid far more dearly for Duncombe's hundredsof thousands than if it had borrowed them at fifty per cent. 

These considerations had more weight with the Lords than with theCommons. Indeed one of the principal uses of the Upper House is todefend the vested rights of property in cases in which those rights areunpopular, and are attacked on grounds which to shortsighted politiciansseem valid. An assembly composed of men almost all of whom haveinherited opulence, and who are not under the necessity of paying courtto constituent bodies, will not easily be hurried by passion or seducedby sophistry into robbery. As soon as the bill for punishing Duncombehad been read at the table of the Peers, it became clear that therewould be a sharp contest. Three great Tory noblemen, Rochester, Nottingham and Leeds, headed the opposition; and they were joined bysome who did not ordinarily act with them. At an early stage of theproceedings a new and perplexing question was raised. How did it appearthat the facts set forth in the preamble were true, that Duncombe hadcommitted the frauds for which it was proposed to punish him in soextraordinary a manner? In the House of Commons, he had been takenby surprise; he had made admissions of which he had not foreseen theconsequences; and he had then been so much disconcerted by the severemanner in which he had been interrogated that he had at length avowedeverything. But he had now had time to prepare himself; he had beenfurnished with advice by counsel; and, when he was placed at the bar ofthe Peers, he refused to criminate himself and defied his persecutorsto prove him guilty. He was sent back to the Tower. The Lords acquaintedthe Commons with the difficulty which had arisen. A conference washeld in the Painted Chamber; and there Hartington, who appeared for theCommons, declared that he was authorized, by those who had sent him, toassure the Lords that Duncombe had, in his place in Parliament, ownedthe misdeeds which he now challenged his accusers to bring home to him. The Lords, however, rightly thought that it would be a strange and adangerous thing to receive a declaration of the House of Commons in itscollective character as conclusive evidence of the fact that a manhad committed a crime. The House of Commons was under none of thoserestraints which were thought necessary in ordinary cases to protectinnocent defendants against false witnesses. The House of Commonscould not be sworn, could not be cross-examined, could not be indicted, imprisoned, pilloried, mutilated, for perjury. Indeed the testimony ofthe House of Commons in its collective character was of less value thanthe uncontradicted testimony of a single member. For it was onlythe testimony of the majority of the House. There might be a largerespectable minority whose recollections might materially differ fromthe recollections of the majority. This indeed was actually the case. For there had been a dispute among those who had heard Duncombe'sconfession as to the precise extent of what he had confessed; andthere had been a division; and the statement which the Upper House wasexpected to receive as decisive on the point of fact had been at lastcarried only by ninety votes to sixty-eight. It should seem thereforethat, whatever moral conviction the Lords might feel of Duncombe'sguilt, they were bound, as righteous judges, to absolve him. 

After much animated debate, they divided; and the bill was lost byforty-eight votes to forty-seven. It was proposed by some of theminority that proxies should be called; but this scandalous propositionwas strenuously resisted; and the House, to its great honour, resolvedthat on questions which were substantially judicial, though they mightbe in form legislative, no peer who was absent should be allowed to havea voice. 

Many of the Whig Lords protested. Among them were Orford and Wharton. It is to be lamented that Burnet, and the excellent Hough, who was nowBishop of Oxford, should have been impelled by party spirit to recordtheir dissent from a decision which all sensible and candid men will nowpronounce to have been just and salutary. Somers was present; but hisname is not attached to the protest which was subscribed by his brethrenof the junto. We may therefore not unreasonably infer that, on this ason many other occasions, that wise and virtuous statesman disapproved ofthe violence of his friends. 

In rejecting the bill, the Lords had only exercised their indisputableright. But they immediately proceeded to take a step of which thelegality was not equally clear. Rochester moved that Duncombe should beset at liberty. The motion was carried; a warrant for the discharge ofthe prisoner was sent to the Tower, and was obeyed without hesitationby Lord Lucas, who was Lieutenant of that fortress. As soon as this wasknown, the anger of the Commons broke forth with violence. It was bytheir order that the upstart Duncombe had been put in ward. He was theirprisoner; and it was monstrous insolence in the Peers to release him. The Peers defended what they had done by arguments which must be allowedto have been ingenious, if not satisfactory. It was quite true thatDuncombe had originally been committed to the Tower by the Commons. But, it was said, the Commons, by sending a penal bill against him to theLords, did, by necessary implication, send him also to the Lords. Forit was plainly impossible for the Lords to pass the bill without hearingwhat he had to say against it. The Commons had felt this, and had notcomplained when he had, without their consent, been brought from hisplace of confinement, and set at the bar of the Peers. From that momenthe was the prisoner of the Peers. He had been taken back from the barto the Tower, not by virtue of the Speaker's warrant, of which the forcewas spent, but by virtue of their order which had remanded him. They, therefore, might with perfect propriety discharge him. 

Whatever a jurist might have thought of these arguments, they had noeffect on the Commons. Indeed, violent as the spirit of party was inthose times, it was less violent than the spirit of caste. Whenever adispute arose between the two Houses, many members of both forgot thatthey were Whigs or Tories, and remembered only that they were Patriciansor Plebeians. On this occasion nobody was louder in asserting theprivileges of the representatives of the people in opposition to theencroachments of the nobility than Harley. Duncombe was again arrestedby the Serjeant at Arms, and remained in confinement till the end of thesession. Some eager men were for addressing the King to turn Lucas outof office. This was not done; but during several days the ill humourof the Lower House showed itself by a studied discourtesy. One ofthe members was wanted as a witness in a matter which the Lords wereinvestigating. They sent two judges with a message requesting thepermission of the Commons to examine him. At any other time the judgeswould have been called in immediately, and the permission would havebeen granted as of course. But on this occasion the judges were keptwaiting some hours at the door; and such difficulties were made aboutthe permission that the Peers desisted from urging a request whichseemed likely to be ungraciously refused. 

The attention of the Parliament was, during the remainder of thesession, chiefly occupied by commercial questions. Some of thosequestions required so much investigation, and gave occasion to so muchdispute, that the prorogation did not take place till the fifth of July. There was consequently some illness and much discontent among both Lordsand Commons. For, in that age, the London season usually ended soonafter the first notes of the cuckoo had been heard, and before the poleshad been decked for the dances and mummeries which welcomed the genialMay day of the ancient calendar. Since the year of the Revolution, ayear which was an exception to all ordinary rules, the members of thetwo Houses had never been detained from their woods and haycocks even solate as the beginning of June. 

The Commons had, soon after they met, appointed a Committee to enquireinto the state of trade, and had referred to this Committee severalpetitions from merchants and manufacturers who complained that they werein danger of being undersold, and who asked for additional protection. 

A highly curious report on the importation of silks and the exportationof wool was soon presented to the House. It was in that age believed byall but a very few speculative men that the sound commercial policy wasto keep out of the country the delicate and brilliantly tinted texturesof southern looms, and to keep in the country the raw material on whichmost of our own looms were employed. It was now fully proved that, during eight years of war, the textures which it was thought desirableto keep out had been constantly coming in, and the material which itwas thought desirable to keep in had been constantly going out. Thisinterchange, an interchange, as it was imagined, pernicious to England, had been chiefly managed by an association of Huguenot refugees, residing in London. Whole fleets of boats with illicit cargoes hadbeen passing and repassing between Kent and Picardy. The loading andunloading had taken place sometimes in Romney Marsh, sometimes on thebeach under the cliffs between Dover and Folkstone. All the inhabitantsof the south eastern coast were in the plot. It was a common sayingamong them that, if a gallows were set up every quarter of a mile alongthe coast, the trade would still go on briskly. It had been discovered, some years before, that the vessels and the hiding places which werenecessary to the business of the smuggler had frequently affordedaccommodation to the traitor. The report contained fresh evidence uponthis point. It was proved that one of the contrabandists had providedthe vessel in which the ruffian O'Brien had carried Scum Goodman over toFrance. 

The inference which ought to have been drawn from these facts was thatthe prohibitory system was absurd. That system had not destroyed thetrade which was so much dreaded, but had merely called into existence adesperate race of men who, accustomed to earn their daily bread by thebreach of an unreasonable law, soon came to regard the most reasonablelaws with contempt, and, having begun by eluding the custom houseofficers, ended by conspiring against the throne. And, if, in time ofwar, when the whole Channel was dotted with our cruisers, it had beenfound impossible to prevent the regular exchange of the fleeces ofCotswold for the alamodes of Lyons, what chance was there that anymachinery which could be employed in time of peace would be moreefficacious? The politicians of the seventeenth century, however, wereof opinion that sharp laws sharply administered could not fail to saveEnglishmen from the intolerable grievance of selling dear what couldbe best produced by themselves, and of buying cheap what could be bestproduced by others. The penalty for importing French silks was mademore severe. An Act was passed which gave to a joint stock company anabsolute monopoly of lustrings for a term of fourteen years. The fruitof these wise counsels was such as might have been foreseen. Frenchsilks were still imported; and, long before the term of fourteen yearshad expired, the funds of the Lustring Company had been spent, itsoffices had been shut up, and its very name had been forgotten atJonathan's and Garraway's. 

Not content with prospective legislation, the Commons unanimouslydetermined to treat the offences which the Committee had brought tolight as high crimes against the State, and to employ against a fewcunning mercers in Nicholas Lane and the Old Jewry all the gorgeous andcumbrous machinery which ought to be reserved for the delinquencies ofgreat Ministers and Judges. It was resolved, without a division, thatseveral Frenchmen and one Englishman who had been deeply concernedin the contraband trade should be impeached. Managers were appointed;articles were drawn up; preparations were made for fitting upWestminster Hall with benches and scarlet hangings; and at one timeit was thought that the trials would last till the partridge shootingbegan. But the defendants, having little hope of acquittal, and notwishing that the Peers should come to the business of fixing thepunishment in the temper which was likely to be the effect of anAugust passed in London, very wisely declined to give their lordshipsunnecessary trouble, and pleaded guilty. The sentences were consequentlylenient. The French offenders were merely fined; and their finesprobably did not amount to a fifth part of the sums which they hadrealised by unlawful traffic. The Englishman who had been active inmanaging the escape of Goodman was both fined and imprisoned. 

The progress of the woollen manufactures of Ireland excited even morealarm and indignation than the contraband trade with France. TheFrench question indeed had been simply commercial. The Irish question, originally commercial, became political. It was not merely theprosperity of the clothiers of Wiltshire and of the West Riding that wasat stake; but the dignity of the Crown, the authority of the Parliament, and the unity of the empire. Already might be discerned among theEnglishry, who were now, by the help and under the protection of themother country, the lords of the conquered island, some signs of aspirit, feeble indeed, as yet, and such as might easily be put down by afew resolute words, but destined to revive at long intervals, and to bestronger and more formidable at every revival. 

The person who on this occasion came forward as the champion of thecolonists, the forerunner of Swift and of Grattan, was William Molyneux. He would have rejected the name of Irishman as indignantly as a citizenof Marseilles or Cyrene, proud of his pure Greek blood, and fullyqualified to send a chariot to the Olympic race course, would haverejected the name of Gaul or Libyan. He was, in the phrase of thattime, an English gentleman of family and fortune born in Ireland. He hadstudied at the Temple, had travelled on the Continent, had becomewell known to the most eminent scholars and philosophers of Oxford andCambridge, had been elected a member of the Royal Society of London, andhad been one of the founders of the Royal Society of Dublin. In the daysof Popish ascendancy he had taken refuge among his friends here; hehad returned to his home when the ascendancy of his own caste had beenreestablished; and he had been chosen to represent the University ofDublin in the House of Commons. He had made great efforts to promote themanufactures of the kingdom in which he resided; and he had found thoseefforts impeded by an Act of the English Parliament which laid severerestrictions on the exportation of woollen goods from Ireland. Inprinciple this Act was altogether indefensible. Practically it wasaltogether unimportant. Prohibitions were not needed to prevent theIreland of the seventeenth century from being a great manufacturingcountry; nor could the most liberal bounties have made her so. Thejealousy of commerce, however, is as fanciful and unreasonable as thejealousy of love. The clothiers of Wilts and Yorkshire were weak enoughto imagine that they should be ruined by the competition of a halfbarbarous island, an island where there was far less capital than inEngland, where there was far less security for life and property thanin England, and where there was far less industry and energy among thelabouring classes than in England. Molyneux, on the other hand, hadthe sanguine temperament of a projector. He imagined that, but forthe tyrannical interference of strangers, a Ghent would spring upin Connemara, and a Bruges in the Bog of Allen. And what right hadstrangers to interfere? Not content with showing that the law of whichhe complained was absurd and unjust, he undertook to prove that it wasnull and void. Early in the year 1698 he published and dedicated to theKing a treatise in which it was asserted in plain terms that the EnglishParliament had no authority over Ireland. 

Whoever considers without passion or prejudice the great constitutionalquestion which was thus for the first time raised will probably beof opinion that Molyneux was in error. The right of the Parliament ofEngland to legislate for Ireland rested on the broad general principlethat the paramount authority of the mother country extends over allcolonies planted by her sons in all parts of the world. This principlewas the subject of much discussion at the time of the American troubles, and was then maintained, without any reservation, not only by theEnglish Ministers, but by Burke and all the adherents of Rockingham, and was admitted, with one single reservation, even by the Americansthemselves. Down to the moment of separation the Congress fullyacknowledged the competency of the King, Lords and Commons to make laws, of any kind but one, for Massachusetts and Virginia. The only powerwhich such men as Washington and Franklin denied to the Imperiallegislature was the power of taxing. Within living memory, Acts whichhave made great political and social revolutions in our Colonies havebeen passed in this country; nor has the validity of those Acts everbeen questioned; and conspicuous among them were the law of 1807 whichabolished the slave trade, and the law of 1833 which abolished slavery. 

The doctrine that the parent state has supreme power over the coloniesis not only borne out by authority and by precedent, but will appear, when examined, to be in entire accordance with justice and with policy. During the feeble infancy of colonies independence would be pernicious, or rather fatal, to them. Undoubtedly, as they grow stronger andstronger, it will be wise in the home government to be more and moreindulgent. No sensible parent deals with a son of twenty in the same wayas with a son of ten. Nor will any government not infatuated treat sucha province as Canada or Victoria in the way in which it might be properto treat a little band of emigrants who have just begun to build theirhuts on a barbarous shore, and to whom the protection of the flag ofa great nation is indispensably necessary. Nevertheless, there cannotreally be more than one supreme power in a society. If, therefore, atime comes at which the mother country finds it expedient altogether toabdicate her paramount authority over a colony, one of two coursesought to be taken. There ought to be complete incorporation, ifsuch incorporation be possible. If not, there ought to be completeseparation. Very few propositions in polities can be so perfectlydemonstrated as this, that parliamentary government cannot be carried onby two really equal and independent parliaments in one empire. 

And, if we admit the general rule to be that the English parliament iscompetent to legislate for colonies planted by English subjects, whatreason was there for considering the case of the colony in Ireland as anexception? For it is to be observed that the whole question was betweenthe mother country and the colony. The aboriginal inhabitants, more thanfive sixths of the population, had no more interest in the matter thanthe swine or the poultry; or, if they had an interest, it was fortheir interest that the caste which domineered over them should not beemancipated from all external control. They were no more represented inthe parliament which sate at Dublin than in the parliament which sate atWestminster. They had less to dread from legislation at Westminster thanfrom legislation at Dublin. They were, indeed, likely to obtain but avery scanty measure of justice from the English Tories, a more scantymeasure still from the English Whigs; but the most acrimonious EnglishWhig did not feel towards them that intense antipathy, compounded ofhatred, fear and scorn, with which they were regarded by the Cromwellianwho dwelt among them. [8] For the Irishry Molyneux, though boasting thathe was the champion of liberty, though professing to have learned hispolitical principles from Locke's writings, and though confidentlyexpecting Locke's applause, asked nothing but a more cruel and morehopeless slavery. What he claimed was that, as respected the colony towhich he belonged, England should forego rights which she has exercisedand is still exercising over every other colony that she has everplanted. And what reason could be given for making such a distinction?No colony had owed so much to England. No colony stood in such need ofthe support of England. Twice, within the memory of men then living, thenatives had attempted to throw off the alien yoke; twice the intrudershad been in imminent danger of extirpation; twice England had come tothe rescue, and had put down the Celtic population under the feet ofher own progeny. Millions of English money had been expended in thestruggle. English blood had flowed at the Boyne and at Athlone, atAghrim and at Limerick. The graves of thousands of English soldiershad been dug in the pestilential morass of Dundalk. It was owing to theexertions and sacrifices of the English people that, from the basalticpillars of Ulster to the lakes of Kerry, the Saxon settlers weretrampling on the children of the soil. The colony in Ireland wastherefore emphatically a dependency; a dependency, not merely by thecommon law of the realm, but by the nature of things. It was absurd toclaim independence for a community which could not cease to be dependentwithout ceasing to exist. 

Molyneux soon found that he had ventured on a perilous undertaking. Amember of the English House of Commons complained in his place thata book which attacked the most precious privileges of the supremelegislature was in circulation. The volume was produced; some passageswere read; and a Committee was appointed to consider the whole subject. The Committee soon reported that the obnoxious pamphlet was only oneof several symptoms which indicated a spirit such as ought to besuppressed. The Crown of Ireland had been most improperly described inpublic instruments as an imperial Crown. The Irish Lords and Commons hadpresumed, not only to reenact an English Act passed expressly forthe purpose of binding them, but to reenact it with alterations. Thealterations were indeed small; but the alteration even of a letter wastantamount to a declaration of independence. Several addresses werevoted without a division. The King was entreated to discourage allencroachments of subordinate powers on the supreme authority of theEnglish legislature, to bring to justice the pamphleteer who had daredto question that authority, to enforce the Acts which had been passedfor the protection of the woollen manufactures of England, and to directthe industry and capital of Ireland into the channel of the linen trade, a trade which might grow and flourish in Leinster and Ulster withoutexciting the smallest jealousy at Norwich or at Halifax. 

The King promised to do what the Commons asked; but in truth there waslittle to be done. The Irish, conscious of their impotence, submittedwithout a murmur. The Irish woollen manufacture languished anddisappeared, as it would, in all probability, have languished anddisappeared if it had been left to itself. Had Molyneux lived a fewmonths longer he would probably have been impeached. But the close ofthe session was approaching; and before the Houses met again a timelydeath had snatched him from their vengeance; and the momentous questionwhich had been first stirred by him slept a deep sleep till it wasrevived in a more formidable shape, after the lapse of twenty-six years, by the fourth letter of The Drapier. 

Of the commercial questions which prolonged this session far into thesummer the most important respected India. Four years had elapsed sincethe House of Commons had decided that all Englishmen had an equal rightto traffic in the Asiatic Seas, unless prohibited by Parliament; and inthat decision the King had thought it prudent to acquiesce. Any merchantof London or Bristol might now fit out a ship for Bengal or for China, without the least apprehension of being molested by the Admiralty orsued in the Courts of Westminster. No wise man, however, was disposedto stake a large sum on such a venture. For the vote which protected himfrom annoyance here left him exposed to serious risks on the otherside of the Cape of Good Hope. The Old Company, though its exclusiveprivileges were no more, and though its dividends had greatlydiminished, was still in existence, and still retained its castles andwarehouses, its fleet of fine merchantmen, and its able and zealousfactors, thoroughly qualified by a long experience to transact businessboth in the palaces and in the bazaars of the East, and accustomedto look for direction to the India House alone. The private tradertherefore still ran great risk of being treated as a smuggler, if not asa pirate. He might indeed, if he was wronged, apply for redress to thetribunals of his country. But years must elapse before his cause couldbe heard; his witnesses must be conveyed over fifteen thousand milesof sea; and in the meantime he was a ruined man. The experiment of freetrade with India had therefore been tried under every disadvantage, or, to speak more correctly, had not been tried at all. The general opinionhad always been that some restriction was necessary; and that opinionhad been confirmed by all that had happened since the old restrictionshad been removed. The doors of the House of Commons were again besiegedby the two great contending factions of the City. The Old Companyoffered, in return for a monopoly secured by law, a loan of sevenhundred thousand pounds; and the whole body of Tories was for acceptingthe offer. But those indefatigable agitators who had, ever since theRevolution, been striving to obtain a share in the trade of the Easternseas exerted themselves at this conjuncture more strenuously than ever, and found a powerful patron in Montague. 

That dexterous and eloquent statesman had two objects in view. One wasto obtain for the State, as the price of the monopoly, a sum much largerthan the Old Company was able to give. The other was to promote theinterest of his own party. Nowhere was the conflict between Whigs andTories sharper than in the City of London; and the influence of the Cityof London was felt to the remotest corner of the realm. To elevate theWhig section of that mighty commercial aristocracy which congregatedunder the arches of the Royal Exchange, and to depress the Tory section, had long been one of Montague's favourite schemes. He had already formedone citadel in the heart of that great emporium; and he now thought thatit might be in his power to erect and garrison a second stronghold in aposition scarcely less commanding. It had often been said, in times ofcivil war, that whoever was master of the Tower and of Tilbury Fort wasmaster of London. The fastnesses by means of which Montague proposedto keep the capital obedient in times of peace and of constitutionalgovernment were of a different kind. The Bank was one of his fortresses;and he trusted that a new India House would be the other. 

The task which he had undertaken was not an easy one. For, while hisopponents were united, his adherents were divided. Most of those whowere for a New Company thought that the New Company ought, like the OldCompany, to trade on a joint stock. But there were some who held thatour commerce with India would be best carried on by means of what iscalled a regulated Company. There was a Turkey Company, the members ofwhich contributed to a general fund, and had in return the exclusiveprivilege of trafficking with the Levant; but those members trafficked, each on his own account; they forestalled each other; they undersoldeach other; one became rich; another became bankrupt. The Corporationmeanwhile watched over the common interest of all the members, furnishedthe Crown with the means of maintaining an embassy at Constantinople, and placed at several important ports consuls and vice-consuls, whosebusiness was to keep the Pacha and the Cadi in good humour, and toarbitrate in disputes among Englishmen. Why might not the same system befound to answer in regions lying still further to the east? Why shouldnot every member of the New Company be at liberty to export Europeancommodities to the countries beyond the Cape, and to bring back shawls, saltpetre and bohea to England, while the Company, in its collectivecapacity, might treat with Asiatic potentates, or exact reparationfrom them, and might be entrusted with powers for the administration ofjustice and for the government of forts and factories?

Montague tried to please all those whose support was necessary to him;and this he could effect only by bringing forward a plan so intricatethat it cannot without some pains be understood. He wanted two millionsto extricate the State from its financial embarrassments. That sum heproposed to raise by a loan at eight per cent. The lenders might beeither individuals or corporations. But they were all, individuals andcorporations, to be united in a new corporation, which was to be calledthe General Society. Every member of the General Society, whetherindividual or corporation, might trade separately with India to anextent not exceeding the amount which such member had advanced to thegovernment. But all the members or any of them might, if they so thoughtfit, give up the privilege of trading separately, and unite themselvesunder a royal Charter for the purpose of trading in common. Thus theGeneral Society was, by its original constitution, a regulated company;but it was provided that either the whole Society or any part of itmight become a joint stock company. 

The opposition to the scheme was vehement and pertinacious. The OldCompany presented petition after petition. The Tories, with Seymour attheir head, appealed both to the good faith and to the compassion ofParliament. Much was said about the sanctity of the existing Charter, and much about the tenderness due to the numerous families which had, in reliance on that Charter, invested their substance in India stock. Onthe other side there was no want of plausible topics or of skill to usethem. Was it not strange that those who talked so much about the Chartershould have altogether overlooked the very clause of the Charter onwhich the whole question turned? That clause expressly reserved tothe government power of revocation, after three years' notice, if theCharter should not appear to be beneficial to the public. The Charterhad not been found beneficial to the public; the three years' noticeshould be given; and in the year 1701 the revocation would take effect. What could be fairer? If anybody was so weak as to imagine that theprivileges of the Old Company were perpetual, when the very instrumentwhich created those privileges expressly declared them to be terminable, what right had he to blame the Parliament, which was bound to do thebest for the State, for not saving him, at the expense of the State, from the natural punishment of his own folly? It was evident thatnothing was proposed inconsistent with strict justice. And what righthad the Old Company to more than strict justice? These petitionerswho implored the legislature to deal indulgently with them in theiradversity, how had they used their boundless prosperity? Had not theIndia House recently been the very den of corruption, the tainted spotfrom which the plague had spread to the Court and the Council, to theHouse of Commons and the House of Lords? Were the disclosures of 1695forgotten, the eighty thousand pounds of secret service money disbursedin one year, the enormous bribes direct and indirect, Seymour'ssaltpetre contracts, Leeds's bags of golds? By the malpractices whichthe inquiry in the Exchequer Chamber then brought to light, the Charterhad been forfeited; and it would have been well if the forfeiture hadbeen immediately enforced. "Had not time then pressed, " said Montague, "had it not been necessary that the session should close, it is probablethat the petitioners, who now cry out that they cannot get justice, would have got more justice than they desired. If they had been calledto account for great and real wrong in 1695, we should not have had themhere complaining of imaginary wrong in 1698. "

The fight was protracted by the obstinacy and dexterity of the OldCompany and its friends from the first week of May to the last week inJune. It seems that many even of Montague's followers doubted whetherthe promised two millions would be forthcoming. His enemies confidentlypredicted that the General Society would be as complete a failure as theLand Bank had been in the year before the last, and that he would in theautumn find himself in charge of an empty exchequer. His activity andeloquence, however, prevailed. On the twenty-sixth of June, after manylaborious sittings, the question was put that this Bill do pass, and wascarried by one hundred and fifteen votes to seventy-eight. In the upperHouse, the conflict was short and sharp. Some peers declared that, intheir opinion, the subscription to the proposed loan, far from amountingto the two millions which the Chancellor of the Exchequer expected, would fall far short of one million. Others, with much reason, complained that a law of such grave importance should have been sent upto them in such a shape that they must either take the whole or throwout the whole. The privilege of the Commons with respect to money billshad of late been grossly abused. The Bank had been created by one moneybill; this General Society was to be created by another money bill. Sucha bill the Lords could not amend; they might indeed reject it; but toreject it was to shake the foundations of public credit and to leavethe kingdom defenceless. Thus one branch of the legislature wassystematically put under duress by the other, and seemed likely tobe reduced to utter insignificance. It was better that the governmentshould be once pinched for money than that the House of Peers shouldcease to be part of the Constitution. So strong was this feeling thatthe Bill was carried only by sixty-five to forty-eight. It receivedthe royal sanction on the fifth of July. The King then spoke from thethrone. This was the first occasion on which a King of Englandhad spoken to a Parliament of which the existence was about to beterminated, not by his own act, but by the act of the law. He couldnot, he said, take leave of the Lords and Gentlemen before him withoutpublicly acknowledging the great things which they had done for hisdignity and for the welfare of the nation. He recounted the chiefservices which they had, during three eventful sessions, rendered tothe country. "These things will, " he said, "give a lasting reputation tothis Parliament, and will be a subject of emulation to Parliaments whichshall come after. " The Houses were then prorogued. 

During the week which followed there was some anxiety as to the resultof the subscription for the stock of the General Society. If thatsubscription failed, there would be a deficit; public credit would beshaken; and Montague would be regarded as a pretender who had owed hisreputation to a mere run of good luck, and who had tempted chanceonce too often. But the event was such as even his sanguine spirit hadscarcely ventured to anticipate. At one in the afternoon of the 14thof July the books were opened at the Hall of the Company of Mercers inCheapside. An immense crowd was already collected in the street. Assoon as the doors were flung wide, wealthy citizens, with their moneyin their hands, pressed in, pushing and elbowing each other. The guineaswere paid down faster than the clerks could count them. Before night sixhundred thousand pounds had been subscribed. The next day the throng wasas great. More than one capitalist put down his name for thirty thousandpounds. To the astonishment of those ill boding politicians who wereconstantly repeating that the war, the debt, the taxes, the grants toDutch courtiers, had ruined the kingdom, the sum, which it had beendoubted whether England would be able to raise in many weeks, wassubscribed by London in a few hours. The applications from theprovincial towns and rural districts came too late. The merchants ofBristol had intended to take three hundred thousand pounds of the stock, but had waited to learn how the subscription went on before they gavetheir final orders; and, by the time that the mail had gone down toBristol and returned, there was no more stock to be had. 

This was the moment at which the fortunes of Montague reached themeridian. The decline was close at hand. His ability and his constantsuccess were everywhere talked of with admiration and envy. That man, itwas commonly said, has never wanted, and never will want, an expedient. 

During the long and busy session which had just closed, some interestingand important events had taken place which may properly be mentionedhere. One of those events was the destruction of the most celebratedpalace in which the sovereigns of England have ever dwelt. On theevening of the 4th of January, a woman, --the patriotic journalistsand pamphleteers of that time did not fail to note that she was aDutchwoman, --who was employed as a laundress at Whitehall, lighted acharcoal fire in her room and placed some linen round it. The linencaught fire and burned furiously. The tapestry, the bedding, thewainscots were soon in a blaze. The unhappy woman who had done themischief perished. Soon the flames burst out of the windows. AllWestminster, all the Strand, all the river were in commotion. Beforemidnight the King's apartments, the Queen's apartments, the Wardrobe, the Treasury, the office of the Privy Council, the office of theSecretary of State, had been destroyed. The two chapels perishedtogether; that ancient chapel where Wolsey had heard mass in the midstof gorgeous copes, golden candlesticks, and jewelled crosses, and thatmodern edifice which had been erected for the devotions of James andhad been embellished by the pencil of Verrio and the chisel of Gibbons. Meanwhile a great extent of building had been blown up; and it was hopedthat by this expedient a stop had been put to the conflagration. Butearly in the morning a new fire broke out of the heaps of combustiblematter which the gunpowder had scattered to right and left. The guardroom was consumed. No trace was left of that celebrated gallery whichhad witnessed so many balls and pageants, in which so many maids ofhonour had listened too easily to the vows and flatteries of gallants, and in which so many bags of gold had changed masters at the hazardtable. During some time men despaired of the Banqueting House. Theflames broke in on the south of that beautiful hall, and were with greatdifficulty extinguished by the exertions of the guards, to whom Cutts, mindful of his honourable nickname of the Salamander, set as good anexample on this night of terror as he had set in the breach of Namur. Many lives were lost, and many grievous wounds were inflicted by thefalling masses of stone and timber, before the fire was effectuallysubdued. When day broke, the heaps of smoking ruins spread from ScotlandYard to the Bowling Green, where the mansion of the Duke of Buccleuchnow stands. The Banqueting House was safe; but the graceful columns andfestoons designed by Inigo were so much defaced and blackened that theirform could hardly be discerned. There had been time to move the mostvaluable effects which were moveable. Unfortunately some of Holbein'sfinest pictures were painted on the walls, and are consequently known tous only by copies and engravings. The books of the Treasury and of thePrivy Council were rescued, and are still preserved. The Ministerswhose offices had been burned down were provided with new offices in theneighbourhood. Henry the Eighth had built, close to St. James's Park, two appendages to the Palace of Whitehall, a cockpit and a tennis court. The Treasury now occupies the site of the cockpit, the Privy CouncilOffice the site of the tennis court. 

Notwithstanding the many associations which make the name of Whitehallstill interesting to an Englishman, the old building was littleregretted. It was spacious indeed and commodious, but mean andinelegant. The people of the capital had been annoyed by the scoffingway in which foreigners spoke of the principal residence of oursovereigns, and often said that it was a pity that the great fire hadnot spared the old portico of St. Paul's and the stately arcades ofGresham's Bourse, and taken in exchange that ugly old labyrinth of dingybrick and plastered timber. It might now be hoped that we should havea Louvre. Before the ashes of the old palace were cold, plans for a newpalace were circulated and discussed. But William, who could not drawhis breath in the air of Westminster, was little disposed to expenda million on a house which it would have been impossible for himto inhabit. Many blamed him for not restoring the dwelling of hispredecessors; and a few Jacobites, whom evil temper and repeateddisappointments had driven almost mad, accused him of having burned itdown. It was not till long after his death that Tory writers ceased tocall for the rebuilding of Whitehall, and to complain that the King ofEngland had no better town house than St. James's, while the delightfulspot where the Tudors and the Stuarts had held their councils and theirrevels was covered with the mansions of his jobbing courtiers. [9]

In the same week in which Whitehall perished, the Londoners weresupplied with a new topic of conversation by a royal visit, which, ofall royal visits, was the least pompous and ceremonious and yet the mostinteresting and important. On the 10th of January a vessel from Hollandanchored off Greenwich and was welcomed with great respect. Peter theFirst, Czar of Muscovy, was on board. He took boat with a few attendantsand was rowed up the Thames to Norfolk Street, where a house overlookingthe river had been prepared for his reception. 

His journey is an epoch in the history, not only of his own country, butof our's, and of the world. To the polished nations of Western Europe, the empire which he governed had till then been what Bokhara or Siam isto us. That empire indeed, though less extensive than at present, wasthe most extensive that had ever obeyed a single chief. The dominions ofAlexander and of Trajan were small when compared with the immensearea of the Scythian desert. But in the estimation of statesmen thatboundless expanse of larch forest and morass, where the snow lay deepduring eight months of every year, and where a wretched peasantry couldwith difficulty defend their hovels against troops of famished wolves, was of less account than the two or three square miles into which werecrowded the counting houses, the warehouses, and the innumerable mastsof Amsterdam. On the Baltic Russia had not then a single port. Hermaritime trade with the other rations of Christendom was entirelycarried on at Archangel, a place which had been created and wassupported by adventurers from our island. In the days of the Tudors, aship from England, seeking a north east passage to the land of silk andspice, had discovered the White Sea. The barbarians who dwelt on theshores of that dreary gulf had never before seen such a portent as avessel of a hundred and sixty tons burden. They fled in terror; and, when they were pursued and overtaken, prostrated themselves before thechief of the strangers and kissed his feet. He succeeded in opening afriendly communication with them; and from that time there had been aregular commercial intercourse between our country and the subjectsof the Czar. A Russia Company was incorporated in London. An Englishfactory was built at Archangel. That factory was indeed, even in thelatter part of the seventeenth century, a rude and mean building. Thewalls consisted of trees laid one upon another; and the roof was ofbirch bark. This shelter, however, was sufficient in the long summer dayof the Arctic regions. Regularly at that season several English shipscast anchor in the bay. A fair was held on the beach. Traders came froma distance of many hundreds of miles to the only mart where they couldexchange hemp and tar, hides and tallow, wax and honey, the fur of thesable and the wolverine, and the roe of the sturgeon of the Volga, forManchester stuffs, Sheffield knives, Birmingham buttons, sugar fromJamaica and pepper from Malabar. The commerce in these articles wasopen. But there was a secret traffic which was not less active or lesslucrative, though the Russian laws had made it punishable, and thoughthe Russian divines pronounced it damnable. In general the mandates ofprinces and the lessons of priests were received by the Muscovite withprofound reverence. But the authority of his princes and of his priestsunited could not keep him from tobacco. Pipes he could not obtain; buta cow's horn perforated served his turn. From every Archangel fair rollsof the best Virginia speedily found their way to Novgorod and Tobolsk. 

The commercial intercourse between England and Russia made somediplomatic intercourse necessary. The diplomatic intercourse howeverwas only occasional. The Czar had no permanent minister here. We had nopermanent minister at Moscow; and even at Archangel we had no consul. Three or four times in a century extraordinary embassies were sent fromWhitehall to the Kremlin and from the Kremlin to Whitehall. 

The English embassies had historians whose narratives may still beread with interest. Those historians described vividly, and sometimesbitterly, the savage ignorance and the squalid poverty of the barbarouscountry in which they had sojourned. In that country, they said, therewas neither literature nor science, neither school nor college. It wasnot till more than a hundred years after the invention of printing thata single printing press had been introduced into the Russian empire; andthat printing press had speedily perished in a fire which was supposedto have been kindled by the priests. Even in the seventeenth centurythe library of a prelate of the first dignity consisted of a fewmanuscripts. Those manuscripts too were in long rolls; for the art ofbookbinding was unknown. The best educated men could barely read andwrite. It was much if the secretary to whom was entrusted the directionof negotiations with foreign powers had a sufficient smattering of DogLatin to make himself understood. The arithmetic was the arithmetic ofthe dark ages. The denary notation was unknown. Even in the ImperialTreasury the computations were made by the help of balls strung onwires. Round the person of the Sovereign there was a blaze of gold andjewels; but even in his most splendid palaces were to be found the filthand misery of an Irish cabin. So late as the year 1663 the gentlemen ofthe retinue of the Earl of Carlisle were, in the city of Moscow, thrustinto a single bedroom, and were told that, if they did not remaintogether, they would be in danger of being devoured by rats. 

Such was the report which the English legations made of what they hadseen and suffered in Russia; and their evidence was confirmed by theappearance which the Russian legations made in England. The strangersspoke no civilised language. Their garb, their gestures, theirsalutations, had a wild and barbarous character. The ambassador and thegrandees who accompanied him were so gorgeous that all London crowded tostare at them, and so filthy that nobody dared to touch them. They cameto the court balls dropping pearls and vermin. It was said that oneenvoy cudgelled the lords of his train whenever they soiled or lostany part of their finery, and that another had with difficulty beenprevented from putting his son to death for the crime of shaving anddressing after the French fashion. 

Our ancestors therefore were not a little surprised to learn that ayoung barbarian, who had, at seventeen years of age, become the autocratof the immense region stretching from the confines of Sweden to thoseof China, and whose education had been inferior to that of an Englishfarmer or shopman, had planned gigantic improvements, had learned enoughof some languages of Western Europe to enable him to communicate withcivilised men, had begun to surround himself with able adventurers fromvarious parts of the world, had sent many of his young subjects tostudy languages, arts and sciences in foreign cities, and finally haddetermined to travel as a private man, and to discover, by personalobservation, the secret of the immense prosperity and power enjoyed bysome communities whose whole territory was far less than the hundredthpart of his dominions. 

It might have been expected that France would have been the first objectof his curiosity. For the grace and dignity of the French King, thesplendour of the French Court, the discipline of the French armies, andthe genius and learning of the French writers, were then renowned allover the world. But the Czar's mind had early taken a strange ply whichit retained to the last. His empire was of all empires the least capableof being made a great naval power. The Swedish provinces lay between hisStates and the Baltic. The Bosporus and the Dardanelles lay betweenhis States and the Mediterranean. He had access to the ocean only ina latitude in which navigation is, during a great part of everyyear, perilous and difficult. On the ocean he had only a single port, Archangel; and the whole shipping of Archangel was foreign. There didnot exist a Russian vessel larger than a fishing-boat. Yet, from somecause which cannot now be traced, he had a taste for maritime pursuitswhich amounted to a passion, indeed almost to a monomania. Hisimagination was full of sails, yardarms, and rudders. That large mind, equal to the highest duties of the general and the statesman, contracteditself to the most minute details of naval architecture and navaldiscipline. The chief ambition of the great conqueror and legislator wasto be a good boatswain and a good ship's carpenter. Holland and Englandtherefore had for him an attraction which was wanting to the galleriesand terraces of Versailles. He repaired to Amsterdam, took a lodging inthe dockyard, assumed the garb of a pilot, put down his name on the listof workmen, wielded with his own hand the caulking iron and the mallet, fixed the pumps, and twisted the ropes. Ambassadors who came to paytheir respects to him were forced, much against their will, to clamberup the rigging of a man of war, and found him enthroned on the crosstrees. 

Such was the prince whom the populace of London now crowded to behold. His stately form, his intellectual forehead, his piercing black eyes, his Tartar nose and mouth, his gracious smile, his frown black with allthe stormy rage and hate of a barbarian tyrant, and above all a strangenervous convulsion which sometimes transformed his countenance during afew moments, into an object on which it was impossible to look withoutterror, the immense quantities of meat which he devoured, the pintsof brandy which he swallowed, and which, it was said, he had carefullydistilled with his own hands, the fool who jabbered at his feet, themonkey which grinned at the back of his chair, were, during some weeks, popular topics of conversation. He meanwhile shunned the public gazewith a haughty shyness which inflamed curiosity. He went to a play; but, as soon as he perceived that pit, boxes and galleries were staring, not at the stage, but at him, he retired to a back bench where he wasscreened from observation by his attendants. He was desirous to see asitting of the House of Lords; but, as he was determined not to be seen, he was forced to climb up to the leads, and to peep through a smallwindow. He heard with great interest the royal assent given to a billfor raising fifteen hundred thousand pounds by land tax, and learnedwith amazement that this sum, though larger by one half than the wholerevenue which he could wring from the population of the immense empireof which he was absolute master, was but a small part of whatthe Commons of England voluntarily granted every year to theirconstitutional King. 

William judiciously humoured the whims of his illustrious guest, andstole to Norfolk Street so quietly that nobody in the neighbourhoodrecognised His Majesty in the thin gentleman who got out of the modestlooking coach at the Czar's lodgings. The Czar returned the visit withthe same precautions, and was admitted into Kensington House by aback door. It was afterwards known that he took no notice of the finepictures with which the palace was adorned. But over the chimney ofthe royal sitting room was a plate which, by an ingenious machinery, indicated the direction of the wind; and with this plate he was inraptures. 

He soon became weary of his residence. He found that he was too far fromthe objects of his curiosity, and too near to the crowds to which he washimself an object of curiosity. He accordingly removed to Deptford, andwas there lodged in the house of John Evelyn, a house which had longbeen a favourite resort of men of letters, men of taste and men ofscience. Here Peter gave himself up to his favourite pursuits. Henavigated a yacht every day up and down the river. His apartment wascrowded with models of three deckers and two deckers, frigates, sloopsand fireships. The only Englishman of rank in whose society he seemed totake much pleasure was the eccentric Caermarthen, whose passion for thesea bore some resemblance to his own, and who was very competent togive an opinion about every part of a ship from the stem to the stern. Caermarthen, indeed, became so great a favourite that he prevailed onthe Czar to consent to the admission of a limited quantity of tobaccointo Russia. There was reason to apprehend that the Russian clergywould cry out against any relaxation of the ancient rule, and wouldstrenuously maintain that the practice of smoking was condemned by thattext which declares that man is defiled, not by those things which enterin at the mouth, but by those which proceed out of it. This apprehensionwas expressed by a deputation of merchants who were admitted to anaudience of the Czar; but they were reassured by the air with which hetold them that he knew how to keep priests in order. 

He was indeed so free from any bigoted attachment to the religion inwhich he had been brought up that both Papists and Protestants hopedat different times to make him a proselyte. Burnet, commissioned by hisbrethren, and impelled, no doubt, by his own restless curiosity andlove of meddling, repaired to Deptford and was honoured with severalaudiences. The Czar could not be persuaded to exhibit himself at SaintPaul's; but he was induced to visit Lambeth palace. There he saw theceremony of ordination performed, and expressed warm approbation ofthe Anglican ritual. Nothing in England astonished him so much as theArchiepiscopal library. It was the first good collection of books thathe had seen; and he declared that he had never imagined that there wereso many printed volumes in the world. 

The impression which he made on Burnet was not favourable. The goodbishop could not understand that a mind which seemed to be chieflyoccupied with questions about the best place for a capstan and the bestway of rigging a jury mast might be capable, not merely of ruling anempire, but of creating a nation. He complained that he had gone to seea great prince, and had found only an industrious shipwright. Nor doesEvelyn seem to have formed a much more favourable opinion of his augusttenant. It was, indeed, not in the character of tenant that the Czarwas likely to gain the good word of civilised men. With all the highqualities which were peculiar to himself, he had all the filthy habitswhich were then common among his countrymen. To the end of his life, while disciplining armies, founding schools, framing codes, organisingtribunals, building cities in deserts, joining distant seas byartificial rivers, he lived in his palace like a hog in a sty; and, whenhe was entertained by other sovereigns, never failed to leave on theirtapestried walls and velvet state beds unequivocal proof that a savagehad been there. Evelyn's house was left in such a state that theTreasury quieted his complaints with a considerable sum of money. 

Towards the close of March the Czar visited Portsmouth, saw a shamseafight at Spithead, watched every movement of the contending fleetswith intense interest, and expressed in warm terms his gratitude to thehospitable government which had provided so delightful a spectacle forhis amusement and instruction. After passing more than three months inEngland, he departed in high good humour. [10]

His visit, his singular character, and what was rumoured of his greatdesigns, excited much curiosity here, but nothing more than curiosity. England had as yet nothing to hope or to fear from his vast empire. Allher serious apprehensions were directed towards a different quarter. None could say how soon France, so lately an enemy, might be an enemyagain. 

The new diplomatic relations between the two great western powers werewidely different from those which had existed before the war. During theeighteen years which had elapsed between the signing of the Treatyof Dover and the Revolution, all the envoys who had been sent fromWhitehall to Versailles had been mere sycophants of the great King. In England the French ambassador had been the object of a degradingworship. The chiefs of both the great parties had been his pensionersand his tools. The ministers of the Crown had paid him open homage. Theleaders of the opposition had stolen into his house by the back door. Kings had stooped to implore his good offices, had persecuted himfor money with the importunity of street beggars; and, when theyhad succeeded in obtaining from him a box of doubloons or a bill ofexchange, had embraced him with tears of gratitude and joy. But thosedays were past. England would never again send a Preston or a Skelton tobow down before the majesty of France. France would never again senda Barillon to dictate to the cabinet of England. Henceforth theintercourse between the two states would be on terms of perfectequality. 

William thought it necessary that the minister who was to represent himat the French Court should be a man of the first consideration, and oneon whom entire reliance could be reposed. Portland was chosen for thisimportant and delicate mission; and the choice was eminently judicious. He had, in the negotiations of the preceding year, shown more abilitythan was to be found in the whole crowd of formalists who had beenexchanging notes and drawing up protocols at Ryswick. Things which hadbeen kept secret from the plenipotentiaries who had signed the treatywere well known to him. The clue of the whole foreign policy of Englandand Holland was in his possession. His fidelity and diligence werebeyond all praise. These were strong recommendations. Yet it seemedstrange to many that William should have been willing to part, for aconsiderable time, from a companion with whom he had during a quarter ofa century lived on terms of entire confidence and affection. The truthwas that the confidence was still what it had long been, but that theaffection, though it was not yet extinct, though it had not even cooled, had become a cause of uneasiness to both parties. Till very recently, the little knot of personal friends who had followed William from hisnative land to his place of splendid banishment had been firmly united. The aversion which the English nation felt for them had given him muchpain; but he had not been annoyed by any quarrel among themselves. Zulestein and Auverquerque had, without a murmur, yielded to Portlandthe first place in the royal favour; nor had Portland grudged toZulestein and Auverquerque very solid and very signal proofs of theirmaster's kindness. But a younger rival had lately obtained an influencewhich created much jealousy. Among the Dutch gentlemen who had sailedwith the Prince of Orange from Helvoetsluys to Torbay was one namedArnold Van Keppel. Keppel had a sweet and obliging temper, winningmanners, and a quick, though not a profound, understanding. Courage, loyalty and secresy were common between him and Portland. In otherpoints they differed widely. Portland was naturally the very oppositeof a flatterer, and, having been the intimate friend of the Prince ofOrange at a time when the interval between the House of Orange and theHouse of Bentinck was not so wide as it afterwards became, had acquireda habit of plain speaking which he could not unlearn when the comradeof his youth had become the sovereign of three kingdoms. He was a mosttrusty, but not a very respectful, subject. There was nothing which hewas not ready to do or suffer for William. But in his intercourse withWilliam he was blunt and sometimes surly. Keppel, on the other hand, hada great desire to please, and looked up with unfeigned admiration toa master whom he had been accustomed, ever since he could remember, to consider as the first of living men. Arts, therefore, which wereneglected by the elder courtier were assiduously practised by theyounger. So early as the spring of 1691 shrewd observers were struckby the manner in which Keppel watched every turn of the King's eye, andanticipated the King's unuttered wishes. Gradually the new servant roseinto favour. He was at length made Earl of Albemarle and Master of theRobes. But his elevation, though it furnished the Jacobites with a freshtopic for calumny and ribaldry, was not so offensive to the nation asthe elevation of Portland had been. Portland's manners were thoughtdry and haughty; but envy was disarmed by the blandness of Albemarle'stemper and by the affability of his deportment. 

Portland, though strictly honest, was covetous; Albemarle was generous. Portland had been naturalised here only in name and form; but Albemarleaffected to have forgotten his own country, and to have become anEnglishman in feelings and manners. The palace was soon disturbed byquarrels in which Portland seems to have been always the aggressor, andin which he found little support either among the English or amonghis own countrymen. William, indeed, was not the man to discard an oldfriend for a new one. He steadily gave, on all occasions, the preferenceto the companion of his youthful days. Portland had the first placein the bed-chamber. He held high command in the army. On all greatoccasions he was trusted and consulted. He was far more powerful inScotland than the Lord High Commissioner, and far deeper in the secretof foreign affairs than the Secretary of State. He wore the Garter, which sovereign princes coveted. Lands and money had been bestowed onhim so liberally that he was one of the richest subjects in Europe. Albemarle had as yet not even a regiment; he had not been sworn of theCouncil; and the wealth which he owed to the royal bounty was a pittancewhen compared with the domains and the hoards of Portland. Yet Portlandthought himself aggrieved. He could not bear to see any other personnear him, though below him, in the royal favour. In his fits ofresentful sullenness, he hinted an intention of retiring from the Court. William omitted nothing that a brother could have done to soothe andconciliate a brother. Letters are still extant in which he, with theutmost solemnity, calls God to witness that his affection for Bentinckstill is what it was in their early days. At length a compromise wasmade. Portland, disgusted with Kensington, was not sorry to go to Franceas ambassador; and William with deep emotion consented to a separationlonger than had ever taken place during an intimacy of twenty-fiveyears. A day or two after the new plenipotentiary had set out on hismission, he received a touching letter from his master. "The lossof your society, " the King wrote, "has affected me more than you canimagine. I should be very glad if I could believe that you felt as muchpain at quitting me as I felt at seeing you depart; for then I mighthope that you had ceased to doubt the truth of what I so solemnlydeclared to you on my oath. Assure yourself that I never was moresincere. My feeling towards you is one which nothing but death canalter. " It should seem that the answer returned to these affectionateassurances was not perfectly gracious; for, when the King next wrote, hegently complained of an expression which had wounded him severely. 

But, though Portland was an unreasonable and querulous friend, he wasa most faithful and zealous minister. His despatches show howindefatigably he toiled for the interests, and how punctiliously heguarded the dignity, of the prince by whom he imagined that he had beenunjustly and unkindly treated. 

The embassy was the most magnificent that England had ever sent to anyforeign court. Twelve men of honourable birth and ample fortune, some ofwhom afterwards filled high offices in the State, attended the missionat their own charge. Each of them had his own carriage, his own horses, and his own train of servants. Two less wealthy persons, who, indifferent ways, attained great note in literature, were of the company. Rapin, whose history of England might have been found, a century ago, in every library, was the preceptor of the ambassador's eldest son, Lord Woodstock. Prior was Secretary of Legation. His quick parts, his industry, his politeness, and his perfect knowledge of the Frenchlanguage, marked him out as eminently fitted for diplomatic employment. He had, however, found much difficulty in overcoming an odd prejudicewhich his chief had conceived against him. Portland, with good naturalabilities and great expertness in business, was no scholar. He hadprobably never read an English book; but he had a general notion, unhappily but too well founded, that the wits and poets who congregatedat Will's were a most profane and licentious set; and, being himself aman of orthodox opinions and regular life, he was not disposed to givehis confidence to one whom he supposed to be a ribald scoffer. Prior, with much address, and perhaps with the help of a little hypocrisy, completely removed this unfavourable impression. He talked on serioussubjects seriously, quoted the New Testament appositely, vindicatedHammond from the charge of popery, and, by way of a decisive blow, gavethe definition of a true Church from the nineteenth Article. Portlandstared at him. "I am glad, Mr. Prior, to find you so good a Christian. Iwas afraid that you were an atheist. " "An atheist, my good lord!" criedPrior. "What could lead your Lordship to entertain such a suspicion?""Why, " said Portland, "I knew that you were a poet; and I took it forgranted that you did not believe in God. " "My lord, " said the wit, "youdo us poets the greatest injustice. Of all people we are the farthestfrom atheism. For the atheists do not even worship the true God, whomthe rest of mankind acknowledge; and we are always invoking and hymningfalse gods whom everybody else has renounced. " This jest will beperfectly intelligible to all who remember the eternally recurringallusions to Venus and Minerva, Mars, Cupid and Apollo, which were meantto be the ornaments, and are the blemishers, of Prior's compositions. But Portland was much puzzled. However, he declared himself satisfied;and the young diplomatist withdrew, laughing to think with how littlelearning a man might shine in courts, lead armies, negotiate treaties, obtain a coronet and a garter, and leave a fortune of half a million. 

The citizens of Paris and the courtiers of Versailles, though moreaccustomed than the Londoners to magnificent pageantry, allowed that nominister from any foreign state had ever made so superb an appearanceas Portland. His horses, his liveries, his plate, were unrivalled. Hisstate carriage, drawn by eight fine Neapolitan greys decorated withorange ribands, was specially admired. On the day of his public entrythe streets, the balconies, and the windows were crowded with spectatorsalong a line of three miles. As he passed over the bridge on which thestatue of Henry IV. Stands, he was much amused by hearing one of thecrowd exclaim: "Was it not this gentleman's master that we burned onthis very bridge eight years ago?" The Ambassador's hotel was constantlythronged from morning to night by visitors in plumes and embroidery. Several tables were sumptuously spread every day under his roof; andevery English traveller of decent station and character was welcometo dine there. The board at which the master of the house presided inperson, and at which he entertained his most distinguished guests, was said to be more luxurious than that of any prince of the House ofBourbon. For there the most exquisite cookery of France was set off by acertain neatness and comfort which then, as now, peculiarly belonged toEngland. During the banquet the room was filled with people of fashion, who went to see the grandees eat and drink. The expense of all thissplendour and hospitality was enormous, and was exaggerated by report. The cost to the English government really was fifty thousand pounds infive months. It is probable that the opulent gentlemen who accompaniedthe mission as volunteers laid out nearly as much more from theirprivate resources. 

The malecontents at the coffeehouses of London murmured at thisprofusion, and accused William of ostentation. But, as this fault wasnever, on any other occasion, imputed to him even by his detractors, we may not unreasonably attribute to policy what to superficialor malicious observers seemed to be vanity. He probably thought itimportant, at the commencement of a new era in the relations between thetwo great kingdoms of the West, to hold high the dignity of the Crownwhich he wore. He well knew, indeed, that the greatness of a princedoes not depend on piles of silver bowls and chargers, trains of gildedcoaches, and multitudes of running footmen in brocade, and led horses invelvet housings. But he knew also that the subjects of Lewis had, duringthe long reign of their magnificent sovereign, been accustomed to seepower constantly associated with pomp, and would hardly believe that thesubstance existed unless they were dazzled by the trappings. 

If the object of William was to strike the imagination of the Frenchpeople, he completely succeeded. The stately and gorgeous appearancewhich the English embassy made on public occasions was, during sometime, the general topic of conversation at Paris. Portland enjoyed apopularity which contrasts strangely with the extreme unpopularity whichhe had incurred in England. The contrast will perhaps seem less strangewhen we consider what immense sums he had accumulated at the expense ofthe English, and what immense sums he was laying out for the benefitof the French. It must also be remembered that he could not confer orcorrespond with Englishmen in their own language, and that the Frenchtongue was at least as familiar to him, as that of his native Holland. He, therefore, who here was called greedy, niggardly, dull, brutal, whomone English nobleman had described as a block of wood, and another asjust capable of carrying a message right, was in the brilliant circlesof France considered as a model of grace, of dignity and of munificence, as a dexterous negotiator and a finished gentleman. He was the betterliked because he was a Dutchman. For, though fortune had favouredWilliam, though considerations of policy had induced the Court ofVersailles to acknowledge him, he was still, in the estimation ofthat Court, an usurper; and his English councillors and captains wereperjured traitors who richly deserved axes and halters, and might, perhaps, get what they deserved. But Bentinck was not to be confoundedwith Leeds and Marlborough, Orford and Godolphin. He had broken no oath, had violated no law. He owed no allegiance to the House of Stuart; andthe fidelity and zeal with which he had discharged his duties to hisown country and his own master entitled him to respect. The noble andpowerful vied with each other in paying honour to the stranger. 

The Ambassador was splendidly entertained by the Duke of Orleans at St. Cloud, and by the Dauphin at Meudon. A Marshal of France was charged todo the honours of Marli; and Lewis graciously expressed his concern thatthe frosts of an ungenial spring prevented the fountains and flower bedsfrom appearing to advantage. On one occasion Portland was distinguished, not only by being selected to hold the waxlight in the royal bedroom, but by being invited to go within the balustrade which surrounded thecouch, a magic circle which the most illustrious foreigners had hithertofound impassable. The Secretary shared largely in the attentions whichwere paid to his chief. The Prince of Conde took pleasure in talkingwith him on literary subjects. The courtesy of the aged Bossuet, theglory of the Church of Rome, was long gratefully remembered by theyoung heretic. Boileau had the good sense and good feeling to exchange afriendly greeting with the aspiring novice who had administered to him adiscipline as severe as he had administered to Quinault. The great Kinghimself warmly praised Prior's manners and conversation, a circumstancewhich will be thought remarkable when it is remembered that HisMajesty was an excellent model and an excellent judge of gentlemanlikedeportment, and that Prior had passed his boyhood in drawing corks ata tavern, and his early manhood in the seclusion of a college. TheSecretary did not however carry his politeness so far as to refrain fromasserting, on proper occasions, the dignity of his country and of hismaster. He looked coldly on the twenty-one celebrated pictures in whichLe Brun had represented on the coifing of the gallery of Versaillesthe exploits of Lewis. When he was sneeringly asked whether KensingtonPalace could boast of such decorations, he answered, with spirit andpropriety: "No, Sir. The memorials of the great things which my masterhas done are to be seen in many places; but not in his own house. "

Great as was the success of the embassy, there was one drawback. Jameswas still at Saint Germains; and round the mock King were gathereda mock Court and Council, a Great Seal and a Privy Seal, a crowd ofgarters and collars, white staves and gold keys. Against the pleasurewhich the marked attentions of the French princes and grandees gave toPortland, was to be set off the vexation which he felt when Middletoncrossed his path with the busy look of a real Secretary of State. But itwas with emotions far deeper that the Ambassador saw on the terraces andin the antechambers of Versailles men who had been deeply implicatedin plots against the life of his master. He expressed his indignationloudly and vehemently. "I hope, " he said, "that there is no design inthis; that these wretches are not purposely thrust in my way. Whenthey come near me all my blood runs back in my veins. " His words werereported to Lewis. Lewis employed Boufflers to smooth matters; andBoufflers took occasion to say something on the subject as if fromhimself. Portland easily divined that in talking with Boufflers hewas really talking with Lewis, and eagerly seized the opportunity ofrepresenting the expediency, the absolute necessity, of removing Jamesto a greater distance from England. "It was not contemplated, Marshal, "he said, "when we arranged the terms of peace in Brabant, that a palacein the suburbs of Paris was to continue to be an asylum for outlaws andmurderers. " "Nay, my Lord, " said Boufflers, uneasy doubtless on his ownaccount, "you will not; I am sure, assert that I gave you any pledgethat King James would be required to leave France. You are toohonourable a man, you are too much my friend, to say any such thing. ""It is true, " answered Portland, "that I did not insist on a positivepromise from you; but remember what passed. I proposed that King Jamesshould retire to Rome or Modena. Then you suggested Avignon; and Iassented. Certainly my regard for you makes me very unwilling to doanything that would give you pain. But my master's interests are dearerto me than all the friends that I have in the world put together. I musttell His Most Christian Majesty all that passed between us; and I hopethat, when I tell him, you will be present, and that you will be able tobear witness that I have not put a single word of mine into your mouth. "

When Boufflers had argued and expostulated in vain, Villeroy was senton the same errand, but had no better success. A few days later Portlandhad a long private audience of Lewis. Lewis declared that he wasdetermined to keep his word, to preserve the peace of Europe, to abstainfrom everything which could give just cause of offence to England, butthat, as a man of honour, as a man of humanity, he could not refuseshelter to an unfortunate King, his own first cousin. Portland repliedthat nobody questioned His Majesty's good faith; but that while SaintGermains was occupied by its present inmates it would be beyond evenHis Majesty's power to prevent eternal plotting between them and themalecontents on the other side of the Straits of Dover, and that, whilesuch plotting went on, the peace must necessarily be insecure. Thequestion was really not one of humanity. It was not asked, it was notwished, that James should be left destitute. Nay, the English governmentwas willing to allow him an income larger than that which he derivedfrom the munificence of France. Fifty thousand pounds a year, to whichin strictness of law he had no right, awaited his acceptance, if hewould only move to a greater distance from the country which, whilehe was near it, could never be at rest. If, in such circumstances, herefused to move, this was the strongest reason for believing that hecould not safely be suffered to stay. The fact that he thought thedifference between residing at Saint Germains and residing at Avignonworth more than fifty thousand a year sufficiently proved that he hadnot relinquished the hope of being restored to his throne by means of arebellion or of something worse. Lewis answered that on that point hisresolution was unalterable. He never would compel his guest and kinsmanto depart. "There is another matter, " said Portland, "about which I havefelt it my duty to make representations. I mean the countenance givento the assassins. " "I know nothing about assassins, " said Lewis. "Ofcourse, " answered the Ambassador, "your Majesty knows nothing about suchmen. At least your Majesty does not know them for what they are. ButI can point them out, and can furnish ample proofs of their guilt. " Hethen named Berwick. For the English Government, which had been willingto make large allowances for Berwick's peculiar position as long as heconfined himself to acts of open and manly hostility, conceived thathe had forfeited all claim to indulgence by becoming privy to theAssassination Plot. This man, Portland said, constantly hauntedVersailles. Barclay, whose guilt was of a still deeper dye, --Barclay, the chief contriver of the murderous ambuscade of Turnham Green, --hadfound in France, not only an asylum, but an honourable militaryposition. The monk who was sometimes called Harrison and sometimes wentby the alias of Johnson, but who, whether Harrison or Johnson, hadbeen one of the earliest and one of the most bloodthirsty of Barclaysaccomplices, was now comfortably settled as prior of a religious housein France. Lewis denied or evaded all these charges. "I never, " he said, "heard of your Harrison. As to Barclay, he certainly once had a company;but it has been disbanded; and what has become of him I do not know. Itis true that Berwick was in London towards the close of 1695; but he wasthere only for the purpose of ascertaining whether a descent on Englandwas practicable; and I am confident that he was no party to any crueland dishonourable design. " In truth Lewis had a strong personalmotive for defending Berwick. The guilt of Berwick as respected theAssassination Plot does not appear to have extended beyond connivance;and to the extent of connivance Lewis himself was guilty. 

Thus the audience terminated. All that was left to Portland was toannounce that the exiles must make their choice between Saint Germainsand fifty thousand a year; that the protocol of Ryswick bound theEnglish government to pay to Mary of Modena only what the law gave her;that the law gave her nothing; that consequently the English governmentwas bound to nothing; and that, while she, her husband and her childremained where they were, she should have nothing. It was hoped thatthis announcement would produce a considerable effect even in James'shousehold; and indeed some of his hungry courtiers and priests seemto have thought the chance of a restoration so small that it would beabsurd to refuse a splendid income, though coupled with a conditionwhich might make that small chance somewhat smaller. But it is certainthat, if there was murmuring among the Jacobites, it was disregarded byJames. He was fully resolved not to move, and was only confirmed inhis resolution by learning that he was regarded by the usurper as adangerous neighbour. Lewis paid so much regard to Portland's complaintsas to intimate to Middleton a request, equivalent to a command, thatthe Lords and gentlemen who formed the retinue of the banished King ofEngland would not come to Versailles on days on which the representativeof the actual King was expected there. But at other places there wasconstant risk of an encounter which might have produced several duels, if not an European war. James indeed, far from shunning such encounters, seems to have taken a perverse pleasure in thwarting his benefactor'swish to keep the peace, and in placing the Ambassador in embarrassingsituations. One day his Excellency, while drawing on his boots for a runwith the Dauphin's celebrated wolf pack, was informed that King Jamesmeant to be of the party, and was forced to stay at home. Another day, when his Excellency had set his heart on having some sport with theroyal staghounds, he was informed by the Grand Huntsman that King Jamesmight probably come to the rendezvous without any notice. Melfort wasparticularly active in laying traps for the young noblemen and gentlemenof the Legation. The Prince of Wales was more than once placed in such asituation that they could scarcely avoid passing close to him. Were theyto salute him? Were they to stand erect and covered while every bodyelse saluted him? No Englishman zealous for the Bill of Rights andthe Protestant religion would willingly do any thing which couldbe construed into an act of homage to a Popish pretender. Yet nogoodnatured and generous man, however firm in his Whig principles, would willingly offer any thing which could look like an affront to aninnocent and a most unfortunate child. 

Meanwhile other matters of grave importance claimed Portland'sattention. There was one matter in particular about which the Frenchministers anxiously expected him to say something, but about which heobserved strict silence. How to interpret that silence they scarcelyknew. They were certain only that it could not be the effect ofunconcern. They were well assured that the subject which he so carefullyavoided was never, during two waking hours together, out of histhoughts or out of the thoughts of his master. Nay, there was not in allChristendom a single politician, from the greatest ministers of statedown to the silliest newsmongers of coffeehouses, who really feltthat indifference which the prudent Ambassador of England affected. Amomentous event, which had during many years been constantly becomingmore and more probable, was now certain and near. Charles the Second ofSpain, the last descendant in the male line of the Emperor Charles theFifth, would soon die without posterity. Who would then be the heir tohis many kingdoms, dukedoms, counties, lordships, acquired in differentways, held by different titles and subject to different laws? That was aquestion about which jurists differed, and which it was not likely thatjurists would, even if they were unanimous, be suffered to decide. Amongthe claimants were the mightiest sovereigns of the continent; there waslittle chance that they would submit to any arbitration but that of thesword; and it could not be hoped that, if they appealed to the sword, other potentates who had no pretension to any part of the disputedinheritance would long remain neutral. For there was in Western Europeno government which did not feel that its own prosperity, dignity andsecurity might depend on the event of the contest. 

It is true that the empire, which had, in the preceding century, threatened both France and England with subjugation, had of late beenof hardly so much account as the Duchy of Savoy or the Electorate ofBrandenburg. But it by no means followed that the fate of that empirewas matter of indifference to the rest of the world. The paralytichelplessness and drowsiness of the body once so formidable could notbe imputed to any deficiency of the natural elements of power. Thedominions of the Catholic King were in extent and in population superiorto those of Lewis and of William united. Spain alone, without a singledependency, ought to have been a kingdom of the first rank; and Spainwas but the nucleus of the Spanish monarchy. The outlying provincesof that monarchy in Europe would have sufficed to make three highlyrespectable states of the second order. One such state might havebeen formed in the Netherlands. It would have been a wide expanse ofcornfield, orchard and meadow, intersected by navigable rivers andcanals. At short intervals, in that thickly peopled and carefully tilledregion, rose stately old towns, encircled by strong fortifications, embellished by fine cathedrals and senate-houses, and renowned eitheras seats of learning or as seats of mechanical industry. A secondflourishing principality might have been created between the Alps andthe Po, out of that well watered garden of olives and mulberry treeswhich spreads many miles on every side of the great white temple ofMilan. Yet neither the Netherlands nor the Milanese could, in physicaladvantages, vie with the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, a land whichnature had taken pleasure in enriching and adorning, a land which wouldhave been paradise, if tyranny and superstition had not, during manyages, lavished all their noxious influences on the bay of Campania, theplain of Enna, and the sunny banks of Galesus. 

In America the Spanish territories spread from the Equator northwardand southward through all the signs of the Zodiac far into the temperatezone. Thence came gold and silver to be coined in all the mints, andcuriously wrought in all the jewellers' shops, of Europe and Asia. Thence came the finest tobacco, the finest chocolate, the finest indigo, the finest cochineal, the hides of innumerable wild oxen, quinquina, coffee, sugar. Either the viceroyalty of Mexico or the viceroyalty ofPeru would, as an independent state with ports open to all the world, have been an important member of the great community of nations. 

And yet the aggregate, made up of so many parts, each of whichseparately might have been powerful and highly considered, was impotentto a degree which moved at once pity and laughter. Already one mostremarkable experiment had been tried on this strange empire. A smallfragment, hardly a three hundredth part of the whole in extent, hardlya thirtieth part of the whole in population, had been detached from therest, had from that moment begun to display a new energy and to enjoya new prosperity, and was now, after the lapse of a hundred and twentyyears, far more feared and reverenced than the huge mass of which it hadonce been an obscure corner. What a contrast between the Holland whichAlva had oppressed and plundered, and the Holland from which Williamhad sailed to deliver England! And who, with such an example before him, would venture to foretell what changes might be at hand, if the mostlanguid and torpid of monarchies should be dissolved, and if every oneof the members which had composed it should enter on an independentexistence?

To such a dissolution that monarchy was peculiarly liable. The King, andthe King alone, held it together. The populations which acknowledged himas their chief either knew nothing of each other, or regarded each otherwith positive aversion. The Biscayan was in no sense the countryman ofthe Valencian, nor the Lombard of the Biscayan, nor the Fleeting ofthe Lombard, nor the Sicilian of the Fleeting. The Arragonese had neverceased to pine for their lost independence. Within the memory of manypersons still living the Catalans had risen in rebellion, had entreatedLewis the Thirteenth of France to become their ruler with the old titleof Count of Barcelona, and had actually sworn fealty to him. Before theCatalans had been quieted, the Neapolitans had taken arms, had abjuredtheir foreign master, had proclaimed their city a republic, and hadelected a Loge. In the New World the small caste of born Spaniards whichhad the exclusive enjoyment of power and dignity was hated by Creolesand Indians, Mestizos and Quadroons. The Mexicans especially had turnedtheir eyes on a chief who bore the name and had inherited the bloodof the unhappy Montezuma. Thus it seemed that the empire against whichElizabeth and Henry the Fourth had been scarcely able to contend wouldnot improbably fall to pieces of itself, and that the first violentshock from without would scatter the ill-cemented parts of the hugefabric in all directions. 

But, though such a dissolution had no terrors for the Catalonian orthe Fleming, for the Lombard or the Calabrian, for the Mexican or thePeruvian, the thought of it was torture and madness to the Castilian. Castile enjoyed the supremacy in that great assemblage of races andlanguages. Castile sent out governors to Brussels, Milan, Naples, Mexico, Lima. To Castile came the annual galleons laden with thetreasures of America. In Castile was ostentatiously displayed andlavishly spent great fortunes made in remote provinces by oppressionand corruption. In Castile were the King and his Court. There stoodthe stately Escurial, once the centre of the politics of the world, theplace to which distant potentates looked, some with hope and gratitude, some with dread and hatred, but none without anxiety and awe. The gloryof the house had indeed departed. It was long since couriers bearingorders big with the fate of kings and commonwealths had ridden forthfrom those gloomy portals. Military renown, maritime ascendency, thepolicy once reputed so profound, the wealth once deemed inexhaustible, had passed away. An undisciplined army, a rotting fleet, an incapablecouncil, an empty treasury, were all that remained of that which hadbeen so great. Yet the proudest of nations could not bear to part evenwith the name and the shadow of a supremacy which was no more. All, fromthe grandee of the first class to the peasant, looked forward with dreadto the day when God should be pleased to take their king to himself. Some of them might have a predilection for Germany; but suchpredilections were subordinate to a stronger feeling. The paramountobject was the integrity of the empire of which Castile was the head;and the prince who should appear to be most likely to preserve thatintegrity unviolated would have the best right to the allegiance ofevery true Castilian. 

No man of sense, however, out of Castile, when he considered the natureof the inheritance and the situation of the claimants, could doubtthat a partition was inevitable. Among those claimants three stoodpreeminent, the Dauphin, the Emperor Leopold, and the Electoral Princeof Bavaria. 

If the question had been simply one of pedigree, the right of theDauphin would have been incontestable. Lewis the Fourteeenth had marriedthe Infanta Maria Theresa, eldest daughter of Philip the Fourth andsister of Charles the Second. Her eldest son, the Dauphin, wouldtherefore, in the regular course of things, have been her brother'ssuccessor. But she had, at the time of her marriage, renounced, forherself and her posterity, all pretensions to the Spanish crown. 

To that renunciation her husband had assented. It had been made anarticle of the Treaty of the Pyrenees. The Pope had been requested togive his apostolical sanction to an arrangement so important to thepeace of Europe; and Lewis had sworn, by every thing that could bind agentleman, a king, and a Christian, by his honour, by his royal word, bythe canon of the Mass, by the Holy Gospels, by the Cross of Christ, thathe would hold the renunciation sacred. [11]

The claim of the Emperor was derived from his mother Mary Anne, daughterof Philip the Third, and aunt of Charles the Second, and could nottherefore, if nearness of blood alone were to be regarded, come intocompetition with the claim of the Dauphin. But the claim of the Emperorwas barred by no renunciation. The rival pretensions of the great Housesof Bourbon and Habsburg furnished all Europe with an inexhaustiblesubject of discussion. Plausible topics were not wanting to thesupporters of either cause. The partisans of the House of Austria dwelton the sacredness of treaties; the partisans of France on the sacrednessof birthright. How, it was asked on one side, can a Christian king havethe effrontery, the impiety, to insist on a claim which he has with suchsolemnity renounced in the face of heaven and earth? How, it was askedon the other side, can the fundamental laws of a monarchy be annulled byany authority but that of the supreme legislature? The only body whichwas competent to take away from the children of Maria Theresa theirhereditary rights was the Comes. The Comes had not ratified herrenunciation. That renunciation was therefore a nullity; and noswearing, no signing, no sealing, could turn that nullity into areality. 

Which of these two mighty competitors had the better case may perhapsbe doubted. What could not be doubted was that neither would obtain theprize without a struggle which would shake the world. Nor can wejustly blame either for refusing to give way to the other. For, on thisoccasion, the chief motive which actuated them was, not greediness, butthe fear of degradation and ruin. Lewis, in resolving to put every thingto hazard rather than suffer the power of the House of Austria to bedoubled; Leopold, in determining to put every thing to hazard ratherthan suffer the power of the House of Bourbon to be doubled; merelyobeyed the law of self preservation. There was therefore one way, andone alone, by which the great woe which seemed to be coming on Europecould be averted. Was it possible that the dispute might be compromised?Might not the two great rivals be induced to make to a third partyconcessions such as neither could reasonably be expected to make to theother?

The third party, to whom all who were anxious for the peace ofChristendom looked as their best hope, was a child of tender age, Joseph, son of the Elector of Bavaria. His mother, the Electress MaryAntoinette, was the only child of the Emperor Leopold by his first wifeMargaret, a younger sister of the Queen of Lewis the Fourteenth. PrinceJoseph was, therefore, nearer in blood to the Spanish throne than hisgrandfather the Emperor, or than the sons whom the Emperor had byhis second wife. The Infanta Margaret had indeed, at the time of hermarriage, renounced her rights to the kingdom of her forefathers. Butthe renunciation wanted many formalities which had been observed inher sister's case, and might be considered as cancelled by the willof Philip the Fourth, which had declared that, failing his issue male, Margaret and her posterity would be entitled to inherit his Crown. Thepartisans of France held that the Bavarian claim was better than theAustrian claim; the partisans of Austria held that the Bavarian claimwas better than the French claim. But that which really constitutedthe strength of the Bavarian claim was the weakness of the Bavariangovernment. The Electoral Prince was the only candidate whose successwould alarm nobody; would not make it necessary for any power to raiseanother regiment, to man another frigate, to have in store anotherbarrel of gunpowder. He was therefore the favourite candidate of prudentand peaceable men in every country. 

Thus all Europe was divided into the French, the Austrian, and theBavarian factions. The contests of these factions were daily renewedin every place where men congregated, from Stockholm to Malta, and fromLisbon to Smyrna. But the fiercest and most obstinate conflict was thatwhich raged in the palace of the Catholic King. Much depended on him. For, though it was not pretended that he was competent to alter by hissole authority the law which regulated the descent of the Crown, yet, ina case in which the law was doubtful, it was probable that his subjectsmight be disposed to accept the construction which he might put upon it, and to support the claimant whom he might, either by a solemn adoptionor by will, designate as the rightful heir. It was also in the power ofthe reigning sovereign to entrust all the most important offices in hiskingdom, the government of all the provinces subject to him in the Oldand in the New World, and the keys of all his fortresses and arsenals, to persons zealous for the family which he was inclined to favour. Itwas difficult to say to what extent the fate of whole nations might beaffected by the conduct of the officers who, at the time of his decease, might command the garrisons of Barcelona, of Mons, and of Namur. 

The prince on whom so much depended was the most miserable of humanbeings. In old times he would have been exposed as soon as he came intothe world; and to expose him would have been a kindness. From his birtha blight was on his body and on his mind. With difficulty his almostimperceptible spark of life had been screened and fanned into a dim andflickering flame. His childhood, except when he could be rocked and sunginto sickly sleep, was one long piteous wail. Until he was ten yearsold his days were passed on the laps of women; and he has never oncesuffered to stand on his ricketty legs. None of those tawny littleurchins, clad in rags stolen from scarecrows, whom Murillo loved topaint begging or rolling in the sand, owed less to education than thisdespotic ruler of thirty millions of subjects, The most important eventsin the history of his own kingdom, the very names of provinces andcities which were among his most valuable possessions, were unknownto him. It may well be doubted whether he was aware that Sicily was anisland, that Christopher Columbus had discovered America, or that theEnglish were not Mahometans. In his youth, however, though too imbecilefor study or for business, he was not incapable of being amused. Heshot, hawked and hunted. He enjoyed with the delight of a true Spaniardtwo delightful spectacles, a horse with its bowels gored out, and aJew writhing in the fire. The time came when the mightiest of instinctsordinarily wakens from its repose. It was hoped that the young Kingwould not prove invincible to female attractions, and that he wouldleave a Prince of Asturias to succeed him. A consort was found forhim in the royal family of France; and her beauty and grace gave him alanguid pleasure. He liked to adorn her with jewels, to see her dance, and to tell her what sport he had had with his dogs and his falcons. Butit was soon whispered that she was a wife only in name. She died;and her place was supplied by a German princess nearly allied to theImperial House. But the second marriage, like the first, provedbarren; and, long before the King had passed the prime of life, allthe politicians of Europe had begun to take it for granted in all theircalculations that he would be the last descendant, in the male line, of Charles the Fifth. Meanwhile a sullen and abject melancholy tookpossession of his soul. The diversions which had been the seriousemployment of his youth became distasteful to him. He ceased to findpleasure in his nets and boar spears, in the fandango and the bullfight. Sometimes he shut himself up in an inner chamber from the eyes of hiscourtiers. Sometimes he loitered alone, from sunrise to sunset, in thedreary and rugged wilderness which surrounds the Escurial. The hourswhich he did not waste in listless indolence were divided betweenchildish sports and childish devotions. He delighted in rare animals, and still more in dwarfs. When neither strange beasts nor little mencould dispel the black thoughts which gathered in his mind, he repeatedAves and Credos; he walked in processions; sometimes he starved himself;sometimes he whipped himself. At length a complication of maladiescompleted the ruin of all his faculties. His stomach failed; nor wasthis strange; for in him the malformation of the jaw, characteristic ofhis family, was so serious that he could not masticate his food; andhe was in the habit of swallowing ollas and sweetmeats in the state inwhich they were set before him. While suffering from indigestion hewas attacked by ague. Every third day his convulsive tremblings, hisdejection, his fits of wandering, seemed to indicate the approach ofdissolution. His misery was increased by the knowledge that every bodywas calculating how long he had to live, and wondering what would becomeof his kingdoms when he should be dead. The stately dignitaries ofhis household, the physicians who ministered to his diseased body, thedivines whose business was to soothe his not less diseased mind, thevery wife who should have been intent on those gentle offices by whichfemale tenderness can alleviate even the misery of hopeless decay, wereall thinking of the new world which was to commence with his death, and would have been perfectly willing to see him in the hands of theembalmer if they could have been certain that his successor would bethe prince whose interest they espoused. As yet the party of the Emperorseemed to predominate. Charles had a faint sort of preference for theHouse of Austria, which was his own house, and a faint sort of antipathyto the House of Bourbon, with which he had been quarrelling, he did notwell know why, ever since he could remember. His Queen, whom he did notlove, but of whom he stood greatly in awe, was devoted to the interestsof her kinsman the Emperor; and with her was closely leagued the Countof Melgar, Hereditary Admiral of Castile and Prime Minister. 

Such was the state of the question of the Spanish succession at the timewhen Portland had his first public audience at Versailles. The Frenchministers were certain that he must be constantly thinking about thatquestion, and were therefore perplexed by his evident determination tosay nothing about it. They watched his lips in the hope that he wouldat least let fall some unguarded word indicating the hopes or fearsentertained by the English and Dutch Governments. But Portland was nota man out of whom much was to be got in that way. Nature and habitcooperating had made him the best keeper of secrets in Europe. Lewistherefore directed Pomponne and Torcy, two ministers of eminent ability, who had, under himself, the chief direction of foreign affairs, tointroduce the subject which the discreet confidant of William seemedstudiously to avoid. Pomponne and Torcy accordingly repaired tothe English embassy; and there opened one of the most remarkablenegotiations recorded in the annals of European diplomacy. 

The two French statesmen professed in their master's name the mostearnest desire, not only that the peace might remain unbroken, butthat there might be a close union between the Courts of Versailles andKensington. One event only seemed likely to raise new troubles. If theCatholic King should die before it had been settled who should succeedto his immense dominions, there was but too much reason to fear that thenations, which were just beginning to breathe after an exhausting anddevastating struggle of nine years, would be again in arms. His MostChristian Majesty was therefore desirous to employ the short intervalwhich might remain, in concerting with the King of England the means ofpreserving the tranquillity of the world. 

Portland made a courteous but guarded answer. He could not, he said, presume to say exactly what William's sentiments were; but this heknew, that it was not solely or chiefly by the sentiments of the Kingof England that the policy of England on a great occasion wouldbe regulated. The islanders must and would have their governmentadministered according to certain maxims which they held sacred; and ofthose maxims they held none more sacred than this, that every increaseof the power of France ought to be viewed with extreme jealousy. 

Pomponne and Torcy answered that their master was most desirous toavoid every thing which could excite the jealousy of which Portland hadspoken. But was it of France alone that a nation so enlightened as theEnglish must be jealous? Was it forgotten that the House of Austria hadonce aspired to universal dominion? And would it be wise in the princesand commonwealths of Europe to lend their aid for the purpose ofreconstructing the gigantic monarchy which, in the sixteenth century, had seemed likely to overwhelm them all?

Portland answered that, on this subject, he must be understood toexpress only the opinions of a private man. He had however now lived, during some years, among the English, and believed himself to be prettywell acquainted with their temper. They would not, he thought, be muchalarmed by any augmentation of power which the Emperor might obtain. The sea was their element. Traffic by sea was the great source of theirwealth; ascendency on the sea the great object of their ambition. Of theEmperor they had no fear. Extensive as was the area which he governed, he had not a frigate on the water; and they cared nothing for hisPandours and Croatians. But France had a great navy. The balance ofmaritime power was what would be anxiously watched in London; and thebalance of maritime power would not be affected by an union betweenSpain and Austria, but would be most seriously deranged by an unionbetween Spain and France. 

Pomponne and Torcy declared that every thing should be done to quiet theapprehensions which Portland had described. It was not contemplated, itwas not wished, that France and Spain should be united. The Dauphinand his eldest son the Duke of Burgundy would waive their rights. Theyounger brothers of the Duke of Burgundy, Philip Duke of Anjou andCharles Duke of Berry, were not named; but Portland perfectly understoodwhat was meant. There would, he said, be scarcely less alarm in Englandif the Spanish dominions devolved on a grandson of His Most ChristianMajesty than if they were annexed to the French crown. The laudableaffection of the young princes for their country and their family, and their profound respect for the great monarch from whom they weredescended, would inevitably determine their policy. The two kingdomswould be one; the two navies would be one; and all other states wouldbe reduced to vassalage. England would rather see the Spanish monarchyadded to the Emperor's dominions than governed by one of the youngerFrench princes, who would, though nominally independent, be reallya viceroy of France. But in truth there was no risk that the Spanishmonarchy would be added to the Emperor's dominions. He and his eldestson the Archduke Joseph would, no doubt, be as ready to waive theirrights as the Dauphin and the Duke of Burgundy could be; and thusthe Austrian claim to the disputed heritage would pass to the youngerArchduke Charles. A long discussion followed. At length Portland plainlyavowed, always merely as his own private opinion, what was the opinionof every intelligent man who wished to preserve the peace of the world. "France is afraid, " he said, "of every thing which can increase thepower of the Emperor. All Europe is afraid of every thing which canincrease the power of France. Why not put an end to all these uneasyfeelings at once, by agreeing to place the Electoral Prince of Bavariaon the throne of Spain?" To this suggestion no decisive answer wasreturned. The conference ended; and a courier started for England witha despatch informing William of what had passed, and soliciting furtherinstructions. 

William, who was, as he had always been, his own Secretary for ForeignAffairs, did not think it necessary to discuss the contents of thisdespatch with any of his English ministers. The only person whom heconsulted was Heinsius. Portland received a kind letter warmly approvingall that he had said in the conference, and directing him to declarethat the English government sincerely wished to avert the calamitieswhich were but too likely to follow the death of the King of Spain, and would therefore be prepared to take into serious considerationany definite plan which His Most Christian Majesty might think fit tosuggest. "I will own to you, " William wrote to his friend, "that I am sounwilling to be again at war during the short time which I still haveto live, that I will omit nothing that I can honestly and with a safeconscience do for the purpose of maintaining peace. "

William's message was delivered by Portland to Lewis at a privateaudience. In a few days Pomponne and Torcy were authorised to propose aplan. They fully admitted that all neighbouring states were entitledto demand the strongest security against the union of the French andSpanish crowns. Such security should be given. The Spanish governmentmight be requested to choose between the Duke of Anjou and the Duke ofBerry. The youth who was selected would, at the utmost, be only fifteenyears old, and could not be supposed to have any very deeply rootednational prejudices. He should be sent to Madrid without Frenchattendants, should be educated by Spaniards, should become a Spaniard. It was absurd to imagine that such a prince would be a mere viceroy ofFrance. Apprehensions had been sometimes hinted that a Bourbon, seatedon the throne of Spain, might cede his dominions in the Netherlands tothe head of his family. It was undoubtedly important to England, and allimportant to Holland, that those provinces should not become a part ofthe French monarchy. All danger might be averted by making them over tothe Elector of Bavaria, who was now governing them as representative ofthe Catholic King. The Dauphin would be perfectly willing to renouncethem for himself and for all his descendants. As to what concernedtrade, England and Holland had only to say what they desired, and everything in reason should be done to give them satisfaction. 

As this plan was, in the main, the same which had been suggested by theFrench ministers in the former conference, Portland did little morethan repeat what he had then said. As to the new scheme respecting theNetherlands, he shrewdly propounded a dilemma which silenced Pomponneand Torcy. 

If renunciations were of any value, the Dauphin and his posterity wereexcluded from the Spanish succession; and, if renunciations were ofno value, it was idle to offer England and Holland a renunciation as aguarantee against a great danger. 

The French Ministers withdrew to make their report to their master, and soon returned to say that their proposals had been merely firstthoughts, that it was now the turn of King William to suggest something, and that whatever he might suggest should receive the fullest andfairest consideration. 

And now the scene of the negotiation was shifted from Versaillesto Kensington. The Count of Tallard had just set out for England asAmbassador. He was a fine gentleman; he was a brave soldier; and he wasas yet reputed a skilful general. In all the arts and graces which werepriced as qualifications for diplomatic missions of the highest class, he had, among the brilliant aristocracy to which he belonged, nosuperior and only one equal, the Marquess of Harcourt, who was entrustedwith the care of the interests of the House of Bourbon at Madrid. 

Tallard carried with him instructions carefully framed in the FrenchForeign Office. He was reminded that his situation would be widelydifferent from that of his predecessors who had resided in Englandbefore the Revolution. Even his predecessors, however, had consideredit as their duty to study the temper, not only of the Court, but of thenation. It would now be more than ever necessary to watch the movementsof the public mind. A man of note was not to be slighted merely becausehe was out of place. Such a man, with a great name in the country and astrong following in Parliament, might exercise as much influence on thepolitics of England, and consequently of Europe, as any minister. TheAmbassador must therefore try to be on good terms with those who wereout as well as with those who were in. To this rule, however, there wasone exception which he must constantly bear in mind. With nonjurors andpersons suspected of plotting against the existing government he mustnot appear to have any connection. They must not be admitted into hishouse. The English people evidently wished to be at rest, and hadgiven the best proof of their pacific disposition by insisting onthe reduction of the army. The sure way to stir up jealousies andanimosities which were just sinking to sleep would be to make the Frenchembassy the head quarters of the Jacobite party. It would be wise inTallard to say and to charge his agents to say, on all fit occasions, and particularly in societies where members of Parliament might bepresent, that the Most Christian King had never been an enemy of theliberties of England. His Majesty had indeed hoped that it might bein his power to restore his cousin, but not without the assent ofthe nation. In the original draft of the instructions was a curiousparagraph which, on second thoughts, it was determined to omit. TheAmbassador was directed to take proper opportunities of cautioning theEnglish against a standing army, as the only thing which could reallybe fatal to their laws and liberties. This passage was suppressed, nodoubt, because it occurred to Pomponne and Torcy that, with whateverapprobation the English might listen to such language when uttered by ademagogue of their own race, they might be very differently affected byhearing it from a French diplomatist, and might think that there couldnot be a better reason for arming, than that Lewis and his emissariesearnestly wished them to disarm. 

Tallard was instructed to gain, if possible, some members of the Houseof Commons. Every thing, he was told, was now subjected to thescrutiny of that assembly; accounts of the public income, of the publicexpenditure, of the army, of the navy, were regularly laid on the table;and it would not be difficult to find persons who would supply theFrench legation with copious information on all these subjects. 

The question of the Spanish succession was to be mentioned to William ata private audience. Tallard was fully informed of all that had passed inthe conferences which the French ministers had held with Portland; andwas furnished with all the arguments that the ingenuity of publicistscould devise in favour of the claim of the Dauphin. 

The French embassy made as magnificent an appearance m England as theEnglish embassy had made in France. The mansion of the Duke of Ormond, one of the finest houses in Saint James's Square, was taken for Tallard. On the day of the public entry, all the streets from Tower Hill to PallMall were crowded with gazers who admired the painting and gilding ofhis Excellency's carriages, the surpassing beauty of his horses, andthe multitude of his running footmen, dressed in gorgeous liveriesof scarlet and gold lace. The Ambassador was graciously received atKensington, and was invited to accompany William to Newmarket, wherethe largest and most splendid Spring Meeting ever known was about toassemble. The attraction must be supposed to have been great; for therisks of the journey were not trifling. The peace had, all over Europe, and nowhere more than in England, turned crowds of old soldiers intomarauders. [12] Several aristocratical equipages had been attacked evenin Hyde Park. Every newspaper contained stories of travellers stripped, bound and flung into ditches. One day the Bristol mail was robbed;another day the Dover coach; then the Norwich waggon. On Hounslow Heatha company of horsemen, with masks on their faces, waited for the greatpeople who had been to pay their court to the King at Windsor. LordOssulston escaped with the loss of two horses. The Duke of Saint Albans, with the help of his servants, beat off the assailants. His brother theDuke of Northumberland, less strongly guarded, fell into their hands. They succeeded in stopping thirty or forty coaches, and rode off witha great booty in guineas, watches and jewellery. Nowhere, however, doesthe peal seem to have been so great as on the Newmarket road. Thereindeed robbery was organised on a scale unparalleled in the kingdomsince the days of Robin Hood and Little John. A fraternity ofplunderers, thirty in number according to the lowest estimate, squatted, near Waltham Cross, under the shades of Epping Forest, and builtthemselves huts, from which they sallied forth with sword and pistolto bid passengers stand. The King and Tallard were doubtless toowell attended to be in jeopardy. But, soon after they had passed thedangerous spot, there was a fight on the highway attended with loss oflife. A warrant of the Lord Chief justice broke up the Maroon villagefor a short time, but the dispersed thieves soon mustered again, and hadthe impudence to bid defiance to the government in a cartel signed, itwas said, with their real names. The civil power was unable to deal withthis frightful evil. It was necessary that, during some time, cavalryshould patrol every evening on the roads near the boundary betweenMiddlesex and Essex. 

The state of those roads, however, though contemporaries described it asdangerous beyond all example, did not deter men of rank and fashionfrom making the joyous pilgrimages to Newmarket. Half the Dukes in thekingdom were there. Most of the chief ministers of state swelled thecrowd; nor was the opposition unrepresented. Montague stole two or threedays from the Treasury, and Orford from the Admiralty. Godolphin wasthere, looking after his horses and his bets, and probably went away aricher man than he came. But racing was only one of the many amusementsof that festive season. On fine mornings there was hunting. For thosewho preferred hawking choice falcons had been brought from Holland. On rainy days the cockpit was encircled by stars and blue ribands. OnSundays William went to church in state, and the most eminent divines ofthe neighbouring University of Cambridge preached before him. He omittedno opportunity of showing marked civility to Tallard. The Ambassadorinformed his Court that his place at table was next to the royal armchair, and that his health had been most graciously drunk by the King. 

All this time, both at Kensington and Newmarket, the Spanish questionwas the subject of constant and earnest discussion. To trace all thewindings of the negotiation would be tedious. The general course whichit took may easily be described. The object of William was to place theElectoral Prince of Bavaria on the Spanish throne. To obtain the consentof Lewis to such an arrangement seemed all but impossible; but Williammanoeuvred with rare skill. Though he frankly acknowledged that hepreferred the Electoral Prince to any other candidate, he professed. Himself desirous to meet, as far as he honourably or safely could, thewishes of the French King. There were conditions on which England andHolland might perhaps consent, though not without reluctance, that ason of the Dauphin should reign at Madrid, and should be master of thetreasures of the New World. Those conditions were that the Milanese andthe Two Sicilies should belong to the Archduke Charles, that the Electorof Bavaria should have the Spanish Netherlands, that Lewis should giveup some fortified towns in Artois for the purpose of strengthening thebarrier which protected the United Provinces, and that some importantplaces both in the Mediterranean sea and in the Gulf of Mexico shouldbe made over to the English and Dutch for the security of trade. Minorcaand Havanna were mentioned as what might satisfy England. 

Against these terms Lewis exclaimed loudly. Nobody, he said, who knewwith how sensitive a jealousy the Spaniards watched every encroachmenton their colonial empire would believe that they would ever consent togive up any part of that empire either to England or to Holland. Thedemand which was made upon himself was altogether inadmissible. Abarrier was not less necessary to France than to Holland; and he neverwould break the iron chain of frontier fastnesses which was the defenceof his own kingdom, even in order to purchase another kingdom for hisgrandson. On that subject he begged that he might hear no more. Theproposition was one which he would not discuss, one to which he wouldnot listen. 

As William, however, resolutely maintained that the terms which he hadoffered, hard as they might seem, were the only terms on which Englandand Holland could suffer a Bourbon to reign at Madrid, Lewis beganseriously to consider, whether it might not be on the whole for hisinterest and that of his family rather to sell the Spanish crown dearthan to buy it dear. He therefore now offered to withdraw his oppositionto the Bavarian claim, provided a portion of the disputed inheritancewere assigned to him in consideration of his disinterestedness andmoderation. William was perfectly willing and even eager to treaton this basis. The first demands of Lewis were, as might have beenexpected, exorbitantly high. He asked for the kingdom of Navarre, which would have made him little less than master of the whole Iberianpeninsula, and for the duchy of Luxemburg, which would have made himmore dangerous than ever to the United Provinces. On both points heencountered a steady resistance. The impression which, throughout thesetransactions, the firmness and good faith of William made on Tallardis remarkable. At first the dexterous and keen witted Frenchman wasall suspicion. He imagined that there was an evasion in every phrase, ahidden snare in every offer. But after a time he began to discover thathe had to do with a man far too wise to be false. "The King of England, "he wrote, and it is impossible to doubt that he wrote what he thought, "acts with good faith in every thing. His way of dealing is upright andsincere. " [13] "The King of England, " he wrote a few days later, "hashitherto acted with great sincerity; and I venture to say that, if heonce enters into a treaty, he will steadily adhere to it. " But in thesame letter the Ambassador thought it necessary to hint to hismaster that the diplomatic chicanery which might be useful in othernegotiations would be all thrown away here. "I must venture to observeto Your Majesty that the King of England is very sharpsighted, that hisjudgment is sound, and that, if we try to spin the negotiation out, hewill very soon perceive that we are trifling with him. " [14]

During some time projects and counterprojects continued to pass andrepass between Kensington and Versailles. Something was conceded on bothsides; and when the session of Parliament ended there seemed to be fairhopes of a settlement. And now the scene of the negotiation was againchanged. Having been shifted from France to England, it was shifted fromEngland to Holland. As soon as William had prorogued the Houses, hewas impatient to be again in his native land. He felt all the glee of aschoolboy who is leaving harsh masters and quarrelsome comrades to passthe Christmas holidays at a happy home. That stern and composed facewhich had been the same in the pursuit at the Boyne and in the rout atLanden, and of which the keenest politicians had in vain tried to readthe secrets, now wore an expression but too intelligible. The Englishwere not a little provoked by seeing their King so happy. Hitherto hisannual visits to the Continent had been not only pardoned but approved. It was necessary that he should be at the head of his army. If he hadleft his people, it had been in order to put his life in jeopardy fortheir independence, their liberty, and their religion. But they hadhoped that, when peace had been restored, when no call of duty requiredhim to cross the sea, he would generally, during the summer and autumn, reside in his fair palaces and parks on the banks of the Thames, ortravel from country seat to country seat, and from cathedral town tocathedral town, making himself acquainted with every shire of his realm, and giving his hand to be kissed by multitudes of squires, clergymen andaldermen who were not likely ever to see him unless he came among them. It now appeared that he was sick of the noble residences which haddescended to him from ancient princes; that he was sick even of thosemansions which the liberality of Parliament had enabled him to build andembellish according to his own taste; that he was sick of Windsor, ofRichmond, and of Hampton; that he promised himself no enjoyment from aprogress through those flourishing and populous counties which hehad never seen, Yorkshire and Norfolk, Cheshire, Shropshire andWorcestershire. While he was forced to be with us, he was weary of us, pining for his home, counting the hours to the prorogation. As soon asthe passing of the last bill of supply had set him at liberty, he turnedhis back on his English subjects; he hastened to his seat in Guelders, where, during some months, he might be free from the annoyance of seeingEnglish faces and hearing English words; and he would with difficultytear himself away from his favourite spot when it became absolutelynecessary that he should again ask for English money. 

Thus his subjects murmured; but, in spite of their murmurs, he setoff in high spirits. It had been arranged that Tallard should speedilyfollow him, and that the discussion in which they had been engaged atKensington should be resumed at Loo. 

Heinsius, whose cooperation was indispensable, would be there. Portlandtoo would lend his assistance. He had just returned. He had alwaysconsidered his mission as an extraordinary mission, of which the objectwas to put the relations between the two great Western powers on aproper footing after a long series of years during which England hadbeen sometimes the enemy, but never the equal friend, of France. Histask had been well performed; and he now came back, leaving behindhim the reputation of an excellent minister, firm yet cautious as tosubstance, dignified yet conciliating in manner. His last audience atVersailles was unusually long; and no third person was present. Nothingcould be more gracious than the language and demeanour of Lewis. He condescended to trace a route for the embassy, and insisted thatPortland should make a circuit for the purpose of inspecting some ofthe superb fortresses of the French Netherlands. At every one of thosefortresses the governors and engineers had orders to pay every attentionto the distinguished stranger. Salutes were everywhere fired to welcomehim. A guard of honour was everywhere in attendance on him. He stoppedduring three days at Chantilly, and was entertained there by the Princeof Condé with all that taste and magnificence for which Chantilly hadlong been renowned. There were boar hunts in the morning and concerts inthe evening. Every gentleman of the legation had a gamekeeper speciallyassigned to him. The guests, who, in their own island were accustomedto give extravagant vails at every country house which they visited, learned, with admiration, that His Highness's servants were strictlyforbidden to receive presents. At his luxurious table, by a refinementof politeness, choice cider from the orchards round the Malvern Hillsmade its appearance in company with the Champagne and the Burgundy. 

Portland was welcomed by his master with all the kindness of old times. But that kindness availed nothing. For Albemarle was still in the royalhousehold, and appeared to have been, during the last few months, makingprogress in the royal favour. Portland was angry, and the more angrybecause he could not but perceive that his enemies enjoyed his anger, and that even his friends generally thought it unreasonable; nor did hetake any pains to conceal his vexation. But he was the very oppositeof the vulgar crowd of courtiers who fawn on a master while they betrayhim. He neither disguised his ill humour, nor suffered it to interferewith the discharge of his duties. He gave his prince sullen looks, shortanswers, and faithful and strenuous services. His first wish, he said, was to retire altogether from public life. But he was sensible that, having borne a chief part in the negotiation on which the fate of Europedepended, he might be of use at Loo; and, with devoted loyalty, thoughwith a sore heart and a gloomy brow, he prepared to attend Williamthither. 

Before the King departed he delegated his power to nine Lords Justices. The public was well pleased to find that Sunderland was not among them. Two new names appeared in the list. That of Montague could excite nosurprise. But that of Marlborough awakened many recollections and gaveoccasion to many speculations. He had once enjoyed a large measure ofroyal favour. He had then been dismissed, disgraced, imprisoned. ThePrincess Anne, for refusing to discard his wife, had been turned out ofthe palace, and deprived of the honours which had often been enjoyedby persons less near to the throne. Ministers who were supposed to havegreat influence in the closet had vainly tried to overcome the dislikewith which their master regarded the Churchills. It was not till he hadbeen some time reconciled to his sister in law that he ceased to regardher two favourite servants as his enemies. So late as the year 1696he had been heard to say, "If I had been a private gentleman, my LordMarlborough and I must have measured swords. " All these things were now, it seemed, forgotten. The Duke of Gloucester's household had just beenarranged. As he was not yet nine years old, and the civil list wasburdened with a heavy debt, fifteen thousand pounds was thought forthe present a sufficient provision. The child's literary educationwas directed by Burnet, with the title of Preceptor. Marlborough wasappointed Governor; and the London Gazette announced his appointment, not with official dryness, but in the fervid language of panegyric. He was at the same time again sworn a member of the Privy Council fromwhich he had been expelled with ignominy; and he was honoured a few dayslater with a still higher mark of the King's confidence, a seat at theboard of Regency. 

Some persons imagined that they saw in this strange reconciliationa sign that the influence of Portland was on the wane and that theinfluence of Albemarle was growing. For Marlborough had been many yearsat feud with Portland, and had even--a rare event indeed--been so muchirritated as to speak of Portland in coarse and ungentlemanliketerms. With Albemarle, on the other hand, Marlborough had studiouslyingratiated himself by all the arts which a mind singularly observantand sagacious could learn from a long experience in courts; and it ispossible that Albemarle may have removed some difficulties. It is hardlynecessary, however, to resort to that supposition for the purpose ofexplaining why so wise a man as William forced himself, after some delaycaused by very just and natural resentment, to act wisely. His opinionof Marlborough's character was probably unaltered. But he could not helpperceiving that Marlborough's situation was widely different from whatit had been a few years before. That very ambition, that very avarice, which had, in former times, impelled him to betray two masters, were nowsufficient securities for his fidelity to the order of things which hadbeen established by the Bill of Rights. If that order of things could bemaintained inviolate, he could scarcely fail to be, in a few years, thegreatest and wealthiest subject in Europe. His military and politicaltalents might therefore now be used without any apprehension that theywould be turned against the government which used them. It is to beremembered too that he derived his importance less from his militaryand political talents, great as they were, than from the dominion which, through the instrumentality of his wife, he exercised over the mind ofthe Princess. While he was on good terms with the Court it was certainthat she would lend no countenance to any cabal which might attackeither the title or the prerogatives of her brother in law. Confidentthat from this quarter, a quarter once the darkest and most stormy inthe whole political horizon, nothing but sunshine and calm was now tobe expected, William set out cheerfully on his expedition to his nativecountry. 

CHAPTER XXIV

 Altered Position of the Ministry--The Elections--First Partition Treaty--Domestic Discontent--Littleton chosen Speaker--King's Speech; Proceedings relating to the Amount of the Land Force--Unpopularity of Montague--Bill for Disbanding the Army--The King's Speech--Death of the Electoral Prince of Bavaria. --Renewed Discussion of the Army Question--Naval Administration--Commission on Irish Forfeitures. --Prorogation of Parliament--Changes in the Ministry and Household--Spanish Succession--Darien

THE Gazette which informed the public that the King had set out forHolland announced also the names of the first members returned, inobedience to his writ, by the constituent bodies of the Realm. Thehistory of those times has been so little studied that few persons areaware how remarkable an epoch the general election of 1698 is in thehistory of the English Constitution. 

We have seen that the extreme inconvenience which had resulted from thecapricious and headstrong conduct of the House of Commons during theyears immediately following the Revolution had forced William to resortto a political machinery which had been unknown to his predecessors, andof which the nature and operation were but very imperfectly understoodby himself or by his ablest advisers. For the first time theadministration was confided to a small body of statesmen, who, onall grave and pressing questions, agreed with each other and with themajority of the representatives of the people. The direction of war andof diplomacy the King reserved to himself; and his servants, consciousthat they were less versed than he in military affairs and in foreignaffairs, were content to leave to him the command of the army, and toknow only what he thought fit to communicate about the instructionswhich he gave to his own ambassadors and about the conferences which heheld with the ambassadors of other princes. But, with these importantexceptions, the government was entrusted to what then began to be calledthe Ministry. 

The first English ministry was gradually formed; nor is it possible tosay quite precisely when it began to exist. But, on the whole, the datefrom which the era of ministries may most properly be reckoned is theday of the meeting of the Parliament after the general election of 1695. That election had taken place at a time when peril and distress hadcalled forth all the best qualities of the nation. The hearts of menwere in the struggle against France for independence, for liberty, andfor the Protestant religion. Everybody knew that such a struggle couldnot be carried on without large establishments and heavy taxes. Thegovernment therefore could hardly ask for more than the country wasready to give. A House of Commons was chosen in which the Whig party hada decided preponderance. The leaders of that party had presently beenraised, one by one, to the highest executive offices. The majority, therefore, readily arranged itself in admirable order under theministers, and during three sessions gave them on almost every occasiona cordial support. The consequence was that the country was rescuedfrom its dangerous position, and, when that Parliament had lived outits three years, enjoyed prosperity after a terrible commercial crisis, peace after a long and sanguinary war, and liberty united with orderafter civil troubles which had lasted during two generations, andin which sometimes order and sometimes liberty had been in danger ofperishing. 

Such were the fruits of the general election of 1695. The ministers hadflattered themselves that the general election of 1698 would be equallyfavourable to them, and that in the new Parliament the old Parliamentwould revive. Nor is it strange that they should have indulged such ahope. Since they had been called to the direction of affairs every thinghad been changed, changed for the better, and changed chiefly by theirwise and resolute policy, and by the firmness with which their partyhad stood by them. There was peace abroad and at home. The sentinels hadceased to watch by the beacons of Dorsetshire and Sussex. The merchantships went forth without fear from the Thames and the Avon. Soldiers hadbeen disbanded by tens of thousands. Taxes had been remitted. The valueof all public and private securities had risen. Trade had never beenso brisk. Credit had never been so solid. All over the kingdom theshopkeepers and the farmers, the artisans and the ploughmen, relieved, beyond all hope, from the daily and hourly misery of the clipped silver, were blessing the broad faces of the new shillings and half crowns. Thestatesmen whose administration had been so beneficent might be pardonedif they expected the gratitude and confidence which they had fairlyearned. But it soon became clear that they had served their country onlytoo well for their own interest. In 1695 adversity and danger had mademen amenable to that control to which it is the glory of free nations tosubmit themselves, the control of superior minds. In 1698 prosperityand security had made men querulous, fastidious and unmanageable. The government was assailed with equal violence from widely differentquarters. The opposition, made up of Tories many of whom carried Toryismto the length of Jacobitism, and of discontented Whigs some of whomcarried Whiggism to the length of republicanism, called itself theCountry party, a name which had been popular before the words Whig andTory were known in England. The majority of the late House of Commons, a majority which had saved the State, was nicknamed the Court party. The Tory gentry, who were powerful in all the counties, had specialgrievances. The whole patronage of the government, they said, was inWhig hands. The old landed interest, the old Cavalier interest, had nowno share in the favours of the Crown. Every public office, every benchof justice, every commission of Lieutenancy, was filled with Roundheads. The Tory rectors and vicars were not less exasperated. They accused themen in power of systematically protecting and preferring Presbyterians, Latitudinarians, Arians, Socinians, Deists, Atheists. An orthodoxdivine, a divine who held high the dignity of the priesthood and themystical virtue of the sacraments, who thought schism as great a sin astheft and venerated the Icon as much as the Gospel, had no more chanceof a bishopric or a deanery than a Papist recusant. Such complaintsas these were not likely to call forth the sympathy of the Whigmalecontents. But there were three war cries in which all the enemies ofthe government, from Trenchard to Seymour, could join: No standingarmy; No grants of Crown property; and No Dutchmen. Multitudes of honestfreeholders and freemen were weak enough to believe that, unless theland force, which had already been reduced below what the public safetyrequired, were altogether disbanded, the nation would be enslaved, andthat, if the estates which the King had given away were resumed, alldirect taxes might be abolished. The animosity to the Dutch mingleditself both with the animosity to standing armies and with the animosityto Crown grants. For a brigade of Dutch troops was part of the militaryestablishment which was still kept up; and it was to Dutch favouritesthat William had been most liberal of the royal domains. 

The elections, however, began auspiciously for the government. The firstgreat contest was in Westminster. It must be remembered that Westminsterwas then by far the greatest city in the island, except only theneighbouring city of London, and contained more than three times aslarge a population as Bristol or Norwich, which came next in size. Theright of voting at Westminster was in the householders paying scot andlot; and the householders paying scot and lot were many thousands. Itis also to be observed that their political education was much furtheradvanced than that of the great majority of the electors of the kingdom. A burgess in a country town, or a forty shilling freeholder in anagricultural district, then knew little about public affairs exceptwhat he could learn from reading the Postman at the alehouse, and fromhearing, on the 30th of January, the 29th of May or the 5th of November, a sermon in which questions of state were discussed with more zeal thansense. But the citizen of Westminster passed his days in the vicinity ofthe palace, of the public offices, of the houses of parliament, of thecourts of law. He was familiar with the faces and voices of ministers, senators and judges. In anxious times he walked in the great Hall topick up news. When there was an important trial, he looked into theCourt of King's Bench, and heard Cowper and Harcourt contending, andHolt moderating between them. When there was an interesting debate, inthe House of Commons, he could at least squeeze himself into the lobbyor the Court of Requests, and hear who had spoken, and how and what werethe numbers on the division. He lived in a region of coffeehouses, ofbooksellers' shops, of clubs, of pamphlets, of newspapers, of theatreswhere poignant allusions to the most exciting questions of the dayperpetually called forth applause and hisses, of pulpits where thedoctrines of the High Churchman, of the Low Churchman, of the Nonjuror, of the Nonconformist, were explained and defended every Sunday by themost eloquent and learned divines of every persuasion. At that time, therefore, the metropolitan electors were, as a class, decidedlysuperior in intelligence and knowledge to the provincial electors. 

Montague and Secretary Vernon were the ministerial candidates forWestminster. They were opposed by Sir Henry Colt, a dull, surly, stubborn professor of patriotism, who tired everybody to death withhis endless railing at standing armies and placemen. The electors weresummoned to meet on an open space just out of the streets. The firstLord of the Treasury and the Secretary of State appeared at the head ofthree thousand horsemen. Colt's followers were almost all on foot. He was a favourite with the keepers of pot-houses, and had enlisted astrong body of porters and chairmen. The two parties, after exchanginga good deal of abuse, came to blows. The adherents of the ministers werevictorious, put the adverse mob to the rout, and cudgelled Colt himselfinto a muddy ditch. The poll was taken in Westminster Hall. From thefirst there was no doubt of the result. But Colt tried to prolong thecontest by bringing up a voter an hour. When it became clear that thisartifice was employed for the purpose of causing delay, the returningofficer took on himself the responsibility of closing the books, and ofdeclaring Montague and Vernon duly elected. 

At Guildhall the junto was less fortunate. Three ministerial Aldermenwere returned. But the fourth member, Sir John Fleet, was not onlya Tory, but was Governor of the old East India Company, and haddistinguished himself by the pertinacity with which he had opposed thefinancial and commercial policy of the first Lord of the Treasury. WhileMontague suffered the mortification of finding that his empire over thecity was less absolute than he had imagined, Wharton, notwithstandinghis acknowledged preeminence in the art of electioneering, underwent asuccession of defeats in boroughs and counties for which he had expectedto name the members. He failed at Brackley, at Malmesbury and atCockermouth. He was unable to maintain possession even of his ownstrongholds, Wycombe and Aylesbury. He was beaten in Oxfordshire. Thefreeholders of Buckinghamshire, who had been true to him during manyyears, and who in 1685, when the Whig party was in the lowest state ofdepression, had, in spite of fraud and tyranny, not only placed him atthe head of the poll but put their second votes at his disposal, nowrejected one of his candidates, and could hardly be induced to returnthe other, his own brother, by a very small majority. 

The elections for Exeter appear to have been in that age observed bythe nation with peculiar interest. For Exeter was not only one ofthe largest and most thriving cities in the Kingdom, but was also thecapital of the West of England, and was much frequented by the gentry ofseveral counties. The franchise was popular. Party spirit ran high; andthe contests were among the fiercest and the longest of which thereis any record in our history. Seymour had represented Exeter in theParliament of James, and in the two first Parliaments of William. In 1695, after a struggle of several weeks which had attracted muchattention not only here but on the Continent, he had been defeated bytwo Whig candidates, and forced to take refuge in a small borough. But times had changed. He was now returned in his absence by a largemajority; and with him was joined another Tory less able and, ifpossible, more unprincipled than himself, Sir Bartholomew Shower. Showerhad been notorious as one of the hangmen of James. When that cruel Kingwas bent on punishing with death soldiers who deserted from the armywhich he kept up in defiance of the constitution, he found that he couldexpect no assistance from Holt, who was the Recorder of London. Holt wasaccordingly removed. Shower was made Recorder, and showed his gratitudefor his promotion by sending to Tyburn men who, as every barrister inthe Inns of Court knew, were guilty of no offence at all. He richlydeserved to have been excepted from the Act of Grace, and left to thevengeance of the laws which he had so foully perverted. The return whichhe made for the clemency which spared him was most characteristic. Hemissed no opportunity of thwarting and damaging the Government which hadsaved him from the gallows. Having shed innocent blood for the purposeof enabling James to keep up thirty thousand troops without the consentof Parliament, he now pretended to think it monstrous that Williamshould keep up ten thousand with the consent of Parliament. That a greatconstituent body should be so forgetful of the past and so much out ofhumour with the present as to take this base and hardhearted pettifoggerfor a patriot was an omen which might well justify the most gloomyprognostications. 

When the returns were complete, it appeared that the new House ofCommons contained an unusual number of men about whom little was known, and on whose support neither the government nor the opposition couldwith any confidence reckon. The ranks of the staunch ministerial Whigswere certainly much thinned; but it did not appear that the Tory rankswere much fuller than before. That section of the representative bodywhich was Whiggish without being ministerial had gamed a great accessionof strength, and seemed likely to have, during some time, the fate ofthe country in its hands. It was plain that the next session would bea trying one. Yet it was not impossible that the servants of the Crownmight, by prudent management, succeed in obtaining a working majority. Towards the close of August the statesmen of the junto, disappointed andanxious but not hopeless, dispersed in order to lay in a stock of healthand vigour for the next parliamentary campaign. There were races atthat season in the neighbourhood of Winchenden, Wharton's seat inBuckinghamshire; and a large party assembled there. Orford, Montague andShrewsbury repaired to the muster. But Somers, whose chronic maladies, aggravated by sedulous application to judicial and political business, made it necessary for him to avoid crowds and luxurious banquets, retired to Tunbridge Wells, and tried to repair his exhausted frame withthe water of the springs and the air of the heath. Just at this momentdespatches of the gravest importance arrived from Guelders at Whitehall. 

The long negotiation touching the Spanish succession had at length beenbrought to a conclusion. Tallard had joined William at Loo, and hadthere met Heinsius and Portland. After much discussion, the price inconsideration of which the House of Bourbon would consent to waive allclaim to Spain and the Indies, and to support the pretensions of theElectoral Prince of Bavaria, was definitively settled. The Dauphin wasto have the Province of Guipuscoa, Naples, Sicily and some small Italianislands which were part of the Spanish monarchy. The Milanese wasallotted to the Archduke Charles. As the Electoral Prince was still achild, it was agreed that his father, who was then governing the SpanishNetherlands as Viceroy, should be Regent of Spain during the minority. Such was the first Partition Treaty, a treaty which has been during fivegenerations confidently and noisily condemned, and for which scarcelyany writer has ventured to offer even a timid apology, but which it mayperhaps not be impossible to defend by grave and temperate argument. 

It was said, when first the terms of the Partition Treaty were madepublic, and has since been many times repeated, that the English andDutch Governments, in making this covenant with France, were guilty ofa violation of plighted faith. They had, it was affirmed, by a secretarticle of a Treaty of Alliance concluded in 1689, bound themselves tosupport the pretensions of the Emperor to the Spanish throne; and theynow, in direct defiance of that article, agreed to an arrangement bywhich he was excluded from the Spanish throne. The truth is that thesecret article will not, whether construed according to the letter oraccording to the spirit, bear the sense which has generally been putupon it. The stipulations of that article were introduced by a preamble, in which it was set forth that the Dauphin was preparing to assert byarms his claim to the great heritage which his mother had renounced, andthat there was reason to believe that he also aspired to the dignity ofKing of the Romans. For these reasons, England and the States General, considering the evil consequences which must follow if he should succeedin attaining either of his objects, promised to support with all theirpower his Caesarean Majesty against the French and their adherents. Surely we cannot reasonably interpret this engagement to mean that, when the dangers mentioned in the preamble had ceased to exist, when theeldest Archduke was King of the Romans, and when the Dauphin had, forthe sake of peace, withdrawn his claim to the Spanish Crown, Englandand the United Provinces would be bound to go to war for the purpose ofsupporting the cause of the Emperor, not against the French but againsthis own grandson, against the only prince who could reign at Madridwithout exciting fear and jealousy throughout all Christendom. 

While some persons accused William of breaking faith with the Houseof Austria, others accused him of interfering unjustly in the internalaffairs of Spain. In the most ingenious and humorous political satireextant in our language, Arbuthnot's History of John Bull, England andHolland are typified by a clothier and a linendraper, who take uponthemselves to settle the estate of a bedridden old gentleman in theirneighbourhood. They meet at the corner of his park with paper andpencils, a pole, a chain and a semicircle, measure his fields, calculatethe value of his mines, and then proceed to his house in order to takean inventory of his plate and furniture. But this pleasantry, excellentas pleasantry, hardly deserves serious refutation. No person who hasa right to give any opinion at all about politics can think that thequestion, whether two of the greatest empires in the world should bevirtually united so as to form one irresistible mass, was a questionwith which other states had nothing to do, a question about whichother states could not take counsel together without being guilty ofimpertinence as gross as that of a busybody in private life who shouldinsist on being allowed to dictate the wills of other people. If thewhole Spanish monarchy should pass to the House of Bourbon, it washighly probable that in a few years England would cease to be great andfree, and that Holland would be a mere province of France. Such a dangerEngland and Holland might lawfully have averted by war; and it would beabsurd to say that a danger which may be lawfully averted by warcannot lawfully be averted by peaceable means. If nations are so deeplyinterested in a question that they would be justified in resorting toarms for the purpose of settling it, they must surely be sufficientlyinterested in it to be justified in resorting to amicable arrangementsfor the purpose of settling it. Yet, strange to say, a multitude ofwriters who have warmly praised the English and Dutch governments forwaging a long and bloody war in order to prevent the question of theSpanish succession from being settled in a manner prejudicial to them, have severely blamed those governments for trying to attain the same endwithout the shedding of a drop of blood, without the addition of a crownto the taxation of any country in Christendom, and without a moment'sinterruption of the trade of the world by land or by sea. 

It has been said to have been unjust that three states should havecombined to divide a fourth state without its own consent; and, inrecent times, the partition of the Spanish monarchy which was meditatedin 1698 has been compared to the greatest political crime which stainsthe history of modern Europe, the partition of Poland. But those whohold such language cannot have well considered the nature of the Spanishmonarchy in the seventeenth century. That monarchy was not a bodypervaded by one principle of vitality and sensation. It was anassemblage of distinct bodies, none of which had any strong sympathywith the rest, and some of which had a positive antipathy for eachother. The partition planned at Loo was therefore the very opposite ofthe partition of Poland. The partition of Poland was the partition of anation. It was such a partition as is effected by hacking a living manlimb from limb. The partition planned at Loo was the partition of an illgoverned empire which was not a nation. It was such a partition asis effected by setting loose a drove of slaves who have been fastenedtogether with collars and handcuffs, and whose union has produced onlypain, inconvenience and mutual disgust. There is not the slightestreason to believe that the Neapolitans would have preferred the CatholicKing to the Dauphin, or that the Lombards would have preferred theCatholic King to the Archduke. How little the Guipuscoans would havedisliked separation from Spain and annexation to France we may judgefrom the fact that, a few years later, the States of Guipuscoa actuallyoffered to transfer their allegiance to France on condition that theirpeculiar franchises should be held sacred. 

One wound the partition would undoubtedly have inflicted, a wound on theCastilian pride. But surely the pride which a nation takes in exercisingover other nations a blighting and withering dominion, a dominionwithout prudence or energy, without justice or mercy, is not a feelingentitled to much respect. And even a Castilian who was not greatlydeficient in sagacity must have seen that an inheritance claimed by twoof the greatest potentates in Europe could hardly pass entire to oneclaimant; that a partition was therefore all but inevitable; andthat the question was in truth merely between a partition effected byfriendly compromise and a partition effected by means of a long anddevastating war. 

There seems, therefore, to be no ground at all for pronouncing the termsof the Treaty of Loo unjust to the Emperor, to the Spanish monarchyconsidered as a whole, or to any part of that monarchy. Whether thoseterms were or were not too favourable to France is quite anotherquestion. It has often been maintained that she would have gained moreby permanently annexing to herself Guipuscoa, Naples and Sicily than bysending the Duke of Anjou or the Duke of Berry to reign at the Escurial. On this point, however, if on any point, respect is due to the opinionof William. That he thoroughly understood the politics of Europe isas certain as that jealousy of the greatness of France was with him apassion, a ruling passion, almost an infirmity. Before we blame him, therefore, for making large concessions to the power which it was thechief business of his life to keep within bounds, we shall do well toconsider whether those concessions may not, on close examination, befound to be rather apparent than real. The truth is that they were so, and were well known to be so both by William and by Lewis. 

Naples and Sicily formed indeed a noble kingdom, fertile, populous, blessed with a delicious climate, and excellently situated for trade. Such a kingdom, had it been contiguous to Provence, would indeed havebeen a most formidable addition to the French monarchy. But a glance atthe map ought to have been sufficient to undeceive those who imaginedthat the great antagonist of the House of Bourbon could be so weak as tolay the liberties of Europe at the feet of that house. A King of Francewould, by acquiring territories in the South of Italy, have really boundhimself over to keep the peace; for, as soon as he was at war with hisneighbours, those territories were certain to be worse than useless tohim. They were hostages at the mercy of his enemies. It would be easy toattack them. It would be hardly possible to defend them. A French armysent to them by land would have to force its way through the passes ofthe Alps, through Piedmont, through Tuscany, and through the PontificalStates, in opposition probably to great German armies. A French fleetwould run great risk of being intercepted and destroyed by the squadronsof England and Holland. Of all this Lewis was perfectly aware. Herepeatedly declared that he should consider the kingdom of the TwoSicilies as a source, not of strength, but of weakness. He accepted itat last with murmurs; he seems to have intended to make it over to oneof his younger grandsons; and he would beyond all doubt have gladlygiven it in exchange for a thirtieth part of the same area in theNetherlands. [15] But in the Netherlands England and Holland weredetermined to allow him nothing. What he really obtained in Italywas little more than a splendid provision for a cadet of his house. Guipuscoa was then in truth the price in consideration of which Franceconsented that the Electoral Prince of Bavaria should be King of Spainand the Indies. Guipuscoa, though a small, was doubtless a valuableprovince, and was in a military point of view highly important. ButGuipuscoa was not in the Netherlands. Guipuscoa would not make Lewis amore formidable neighbour to England or to the United Provinces. And, if the Treaty should be broken off, if the vast Spanish empire shouldbe struggled for and torn in pieces by the rival races of Bourbon andHabsburg, was it not possible, was it not probable, that France mightlay her iron grasp, not on Guipuscoa alone, but on Luxemburg and Namur, on Hainault, Brabant and Antwerp, on Flanders East and West? Was itcertain that the united force of all her neighbours would be sufficientto compel her to relinquish her prey? Was it not certain that thecontest would be long and terrible? And would not the English andDutch think themselves most fortunate if, after many bloody and costlycampaigns, the French King could be compelled to sign a treaty, thesame, word for word, with that which he was ready uncompelled to signnow?

William, firmly relying on his own judgment, had not yet, in the wholecourse of this momentous negotiation, asked the advice or employed theagency of any English minister. But the treaty could not be formallyconcluded without the instrumentality of one of the Secretaries of Stateand of the Great Seal. Portland was directed to write to Vernon. TheKing himself wrote to the Chancellor. Somers was authorised to consultany of his colleagues whom he might think fit to be entrusted withso high a secret; and he was requested to give his own opinion of theproposed arrangement. If that opinion should be favourable, not a daymust be lost. The King of Spain might die at any moment, and couldhardly live till the winter. Full powers must be sent to Loo, sealed, but with blanks left for the names of the plenipotentiaries. Strictsecresy must be observed; and care must be taken that the clerks whoseduty it was to draw up the necessary documents should not entertain anysuspicion of the importance of the work which they were performing. 

The despatch from Loo found Somers at a distance from all his politicalfriends, and almost incapacitated by infirmities and by remedies fromattending to serious business, his delicate frame worn out by thelabours and vigils of many months, his head aching and giddy with thefirst draughts from the chalybeate spring. He roused himself, however, and promptly communicated by writing with Shrewsbury and Orford. Montague and Vernon came down to Tunbridge Wells, and conferred fullywith him. The opinion of the leading Whig statesmen was communicatedto the King in a letter which was not many months later placed on therecords of Parliament. These statesmen entirely agreed with Williamin wishing to see the question of the Spanish succession speedily andpeaceably settled. They apprehended that, if Charles should die leavingthat question unsettled, the immense power of the French King andthe geographical situation of his dominions would enable him totake immediate possession of the most important parts of the greatinheritance. Whether he was likely to venture on so bold a course, andwhether, if he did venture on it, any continental government would havethe means and the spirit to withstand him, were questions as to whichthe English ministers, with unfeigned deference, submitted their opinionto that of their master, whose knowledge of the interests and tempersof all the courts of Europe was unrivalled. But there was one importantpoint which must not be left out of consideration, and about which hisservants might perhaps be better informed than himself, the temper oftheir own country. It was, the Chancellor wrote, their duty to tell HisMajesty that the recent elections had indicated the public feeling in amanner which had not been expected, but which could not be mistaken. Thespirit which had borne the nation up through nine years of exertions andsacrifices seemed to be dead. The people were sick of taxes; they hatedthe thought of war. As it would, in such circumstances, be no easymatter to form a coalition capable of resisting the pretensions ofFrance, it was most desirable that she should be induced to withdrawthose pretensions; and it was not to be expected that she would withdrawthem without securing for herself a large compensation. The principle ofthe Treaty of Loo, therefore, the English Ministers cordially approved. But whether the articles of that treaty were or were not too favourableto the House of Bourbon, and whether the House of Bourbon was likelyfaithfully to observe them, were questions about which Somers delicatelyhinted that he and his colleagues felt some misgivings. They had theirfears that Lewis might be playing false. They had their fears also that, possessed of Sicily, he would be master of the trade of the Levant; andthat, possessed of Guipuscoa, he would be able at any moment to pushan army into the heart of Castile. But they had been reassured by thethought that their Sovereign thoroughly understood this department ofpolitics, that he had fully considered all these things, that he hadneglected no precaution, and that the concessions which he had madeto France were the smallest which could have averted the calamitiesimpending over Christendom. It was added that the service which HisMajesty had rendered to the House of Bavaria gave him a right to ask forsome return. Would it be too much to expect, from the gratitude of theprince who was soon to be a great king, some relaxation of the rigoroussystem which excluded the English trade from the Spanish colonies? Sucha relaxation would greatly endear His Majesty to his subjects. 

With these suggestions the Chancellor sent off the powers which the Kingwanted. They were drawn up by Vernon with his own hand, and sealedin such a manner that no subordinate officer was let into the secret. Blanks were left, as the King had directed, for the names of twoCommissioners. But Somers gently hinted that it would be proper tofill those blanks with the names of persons who were English bynaturalisation, if not by birth, and who would therefore be responsibleto Parliament. 

The King now had what he wanted from England. The peculiarity of theBatavian polity threw some difficulties in his way; but every difficultygelded to his authority and to the dexterous management of Heinsius. Andin truth the treaty could not but be favourably regarded by the StatesGeneral; for it had been carefully framed with the especial objectof preventing France from obtaining any accession of territory, orinfluence on the side of the Netherlands; and Dutchmen, who rememberedthe terrible year when the camp of Lewis had been pitched betweenUtrecht and Amsterdam, were delighted to find that he was not to add tohis dominions a single fortress in their neighbourhood, and were quitewilling to buy him off with whole provinces under the Pyrenees andthe Apennines. The sanction both of the federal and of the provincialgovernments was given with ease and expedition; and in the evening ofthe fourth of September 1698, the treaty was signed. As to the blanks inthe English powers, William had attended to his Chancellor's suggestion, and had inserted the names of Sir Joseph Williamson, minister at theHague, a born Englishman, and of Portland, a naturalised Englishman. TheGrand Pensionary and seven other Commissioners signed on behalf of theUnited Provinces. Tallard alone signed for France. He seems to havebeen extravagantly elated by what seemed to be the happy issue of thenegotiation in which he had borne so great a part, and in his nextdespatch to Lewis boasted of the new treaty as destined to be the mostfamous that had been made during many centuries. 

William too was well pleased; and he had reason to be so. Had the Kingof Spain died, as all men expected, before the end of that year, it ishighly probable that France would have kept faith with England and theUnited Provinces; and it is almost certain that, if France had keptfaith, the treaty would have been carried into effect without anyserious opposition in any quarter. The Emperor might have complained andthreatened; but he must have submitted; for what could he do? He hadno fleet; and it was therefore impossible for him even to attempt topossess himself of Castile, of Arragon, of Sicily, of the Indies, inopposition to the united navies of the three greatest maritime powers inthe world. In fact, the only part of the Spanish empire which he couldhope to seize and hold by force against the will of the confederatesof Loo was the Milanese; and the Milanese the confederates of Loo hadagreed to assign to his family. He would scarcely have been so mad asto disturb the peace of the world when the only thing which he had anychance of gaining by war was offered him without war. The Castilianswould doubtless have resented the dismemberment of the unwieldy bodyof which they formed the head. But they would have perceived that byresisting they were much more likely to lose the Indies than to preserveGuipuscoa. As to Italy, they could no more make war there than in themoon. Thus the crisis which had seemed likely to produce an European warof ten years would have produced nothing worse than a few angry notesand plaintive manifestoes. 

Both the confederate Kings wished their compact to remain a secret whiletheir brother Charles lived; and it probably would have remained secret, had it been confided only to the English and French Ministers. Butthe institutions of the United Provinces were not well fitted for thepurpose of concealment. It had been necessary to trust so many deputiesand magistrates that rumours of what had been passing at Loo got abroad. Quiros, the Spanish Ambassador at the Hague, followed the trail withsuch skill and perseverance that he discovered, if not the whole truth, yet enough to furnish materials for a despatch which produced muchirritation and alarm at Madrid. A council was summoned, and sate long indeliberation. The grandees of the proudest of Courts could hardly failto perceive that their next sovereign, be he who he might, would findit impossible to avoid sacrificing part of his defenceless and widelyscattered empire in order to preserve the rest; they could not bear tothink that a single fort, a single islet, in any of the four quarters ofthe world was about to escape from the sullen domination of Castile. Tothis sentiment all the passions and prejudices of the haughty race weresubordinate. "We are ready, " such was the phrase then in their mouths, "to go to any body, to go to the Dauphin, to go to the Devil, so that weall go together. " In the hope of averting the threatened dismemberment, the Spanish ministers advised their master to adopt as his heir thecandidate whose pretensions it was understood that France, England andHolland were inclined to support. The advice was taken; and it was soonevery where known that His Catholic Majesty had solemnly designated ashis successor his nephew Francis Joseph, Electoral Prince of Bavaria. France protested against this arrangement, not, as far as can now bejudged, because she meant to violate the Treaty of Loo, but because itwould have been difficult for her, if she did not protest, to insist onthe full execution of that treaty. Had she silently acquiesced in thenomination of the Electoral Prince, she would have appeared to admitthat the Dauphin's pretensions were unfounded; and, if she admitted theDauphin's pretensions to be unfounded, she could not, without flagrantinjustice, demand several provinces as the price in considerationof which she would consent to waive those pretensions. Meanwhile theconfederates had secured the cooperation of a most important person, theElector of Bavaria, who was actually Governor of the Netherlands, andwas likely to be in a few months, at farthest, Regent of the wholeSpanish monarchy. He was perfectly sensible that the consent of France, England and Holland to his son's elevation was worth purchasing atalmost any cost, and, with much alacrity, promised that, when the timecame, he would do all in his power to facilitate the execution of theTreaty of Partition. He was indeed bound by the strongest ties to theconfederates of Loo. They had, by a secret article, added to the treaty, agreed that, if the Electoral Prince should become King of Spain, andthen die without issue, his father should be his heir. The news thatyoung Francis Joseph had been declared heir to the throne of Spain waswelcome to all the potentates of Europe with the single exception of hisgrandfather the Emperor. The vexation and indignation of Leopold wereextreme. But there could be no doubt that, graciously or ungraciously, he would submit. It would have been madness in him to contend againstall Western Europe on land; and it was physically impossible for him towage war on the sea. William was therefore able to indulge, during someweeks, the pleasing belief that he had by skill and firmness avertedfrom the civilised world a general war which had lately seemed to beimminent, and that he had secured the great community of nations againstthe undue predominance of one too powerful member. 

But the pleasure and the pride with which he contemplated the success ofhis foreign policy gave place to very different feelings as soon as heagain had to deal with our domestic factions. And, indeed, those whomost revere his memory must acknowledge that, in dealing with thesefactions, he did not, at this time, show his wonted statesmanship. Fora wise man, he seems never to have been sufficiently aware how muchoffence is given by discourtesy in small things. His ministers hadapprised him that the result of the elections had been unsatisfactory, and that the temper of the new representatives of the people wouldrequire much management. Unfortunately he did not lay this intimationto heart. He had by proclamation fixed the opening of the Parliament forthe 29th of November. This was then considered as a very late day. Forthe London season began together with Michaelmas Term; and, even duringthe war, the King had scarcely ever failed to receive the compliments ofhis faithful Lords and Commons on the fifth of November, the anniversaryboth of his birth and of his memorable landing. The numerous members ofthe House of Commons who were in town, having their time on their hands, formed cabals, and heated themselves and each other by murmuring at hispartiality for the country of his birth. He had been off to Holland, they said, at the earliest possible moment. He was now lingering inHolland till the latest possible moment. This was not the worst. The twenty-ninth of November came; but the King was not come. It wasnecessary that the Lords Justices should prorogue the Parliament to thesixth of December. The delay was imputed, and justly, to adverse winds. But the malecontents asked, with some reason, whether His Majesty hadnot known that there were often gales from the West in the German Ocean, and whether, when he had made a solemn appointment with the Estates ofhis Realm for a particular day, he ought not to have arranged things insuch a way that nothing short of a miracle could have prevented him fromkeeping that appointment. 

Thus the ill humour which a large proportion of the new legislators hadbrought up from their country seats became more and more aced every day, till they entered on their functions. One question was much agitatedduring this unpleasant interval. Who was to be Speaker? The junto wishedto place Sir Thomas Littleton in the chair. He was one of their ablest, most zealous and most steadfast friends; and had been, both in theHouse of Commons and at the Board of Treasury, an invaluable second toMontague. There was reason indeed to expect a strong opposition. ThatLittleton was a Whig was a grave objection to him in the opinion of theTories. That he was a placeman, and that he was for a standing army, were grave objections to him in the opinion of many who were not Tories. But nobody else came forward. The health of the late Speaker Foley hadfailed. Musgrave was talked of in coffeehouses; but the rumour that hewould be proposed soon died away. Seymour's name was in a few mouths;but Seymour's day had gone by. He still possessed, indeed, thoseadvantages which had once made him the first of the country gentlemenof England, illustrious descent, ample fortune, ready and weightyeloquence, perfect familiarity with parliamentary business. But allthese things could not do so much to raise him as his moral characterdid to drag him down. Haughtiness such as his, though it could neverhave been liked, might, if it had been united with elevated sentimentsof virtue and honour, have been pardoned. But of all the forms of pride, even the pride of upstart wealth not excepted, the most offensive is thepride of ancestry when found in company with sordid and ignoble vices, greediness, mendacity, knavery and impudence; and such was the pride ofSeymour. Many, even of those who were well pleased to see the ministersgalled by his keen and skilful rhetoric, remembered that he had soldhimself more than once, and suspected that he was impatient to sellhimself again. On the very eve of the opening of Parliament, a littletract entitled "Considerations on the Choice of a Speaker" was widelycirculated, and seems to have produced a great sensation. The writercautioned the representatives of the people, at some length, againstLittleton; and then, in even stronger language, though more concisely, against Seymour; but did not suggest any third person. The sixth ofDecember came, and found the Country party, as it called itself, stillunprovided with a candidate. The King, who had not been many hours inLondon, took his seat in the House of Lords. The Commons were summonedto the bar, and were directed to choose a Speaker. They returned totheir Chamber. Hartington proposed Littleton; and the proposition wasseconded by Spencer. No other person was put in nomination; but therewas a warm debate of two hours. Seymour, exasperated by finding that noparty was inclined to support his pretensions, spoke with extravagantviolence. He who could well remember the military despotism of Cromwell, who had been an active politician in the days of the Cabal, and whohad seen his own beautiful county turned into a Golgotha by the BloodyCircuit, declared that the liberties of the nation had never been ingreater danger than at that moment, and that their doom would be fixedif a courtier should be called to the chair. The opposition insisted ondividing. Hartington's motion was carried by two hundred and forty-twovotes to a hundred and thirty-five, Littleton himself, according tothe childish old usage which has descended to our times, voting in theminority. Three days later, he was presented and approved. 

The King then spoke from the throne. He declared his firm convictionthat the Houses were disposed to do whatever was necessary for thesafety, honour and happiness of the kingdom; and he asked them fornothing more. When they came to consider the military and navalestablishments, they would remember that, unless England were securefrom attack, she could not continue to hold the high place which shehad won for herself among European powers; her trade would languish;her credit would fail; and even her internal tranquillity would be indanger. He also expressed a hope that some progress would be made in thedischarge of the debts contracted during the War. "I think, " he said, "an English Parliament can never make such a mistake as not to holdsacred all Parliamentary engagements. "

The speech appeared to be well received; and during a short time Williamflattered himself that the great fault, as he considered it, of thepreceding session would be repaired, that the army would be augmented, and that he should be able, at the important conjuncture which wasapproaching, to speak to foreign powers in tones of authority, andespecially to keep France steady to her engagements. The Whigs of thejunto, better acquainted with the temper of the country and of the newHouse of Commons, pronounced it impossible to carry a vote for a landforce of more than ten thousand men. Ten thousand men would probably beobtained if His Majesty would authorise his servants to ask in his namefor that number, and to declare that with a smaller number he couldnot answer for the public safety. William, firmly convinced that twentythousand would be too few, refused to make or empower others to makea proposition which seemed to him absurd and disgraceful. Thus, at amoment at which it was peculiarly desirable that all who bore a part inthe executive administration should act cordially together, there wasserious dissension between him and his ablest councillors. For thatdissension neither he nor they can be severely blamed. They weredifferently situated, and necessarily saw the same objects fromdifferent points of view. He, as was natural, considered the questionchiefly as an European question. They, as was natural, consideredit chiefly as an English question. They had found the antipathy toa standing army insurmountably strong even in the late Parliament, a Parliament disposed to place large confidence in them and in theirmaster. In the new Parliament that antipathy amounted almost to a mania. That liberty, law, property, could never be secured while the Sovereignhad a large body of regular troops at his command in time of peace, andthat of all regular troops foreign troops were the most to be dreaded, had, during the recent elections, been repeated in every town hall andmarket place, and scrawled upon every dead wall. The reductions of thepreceding year, it was said, even if they had been honestly carved intoeffect, would not have been sufficient; and they had not been honestlycarried into effect. On this subject the ministers pronounced the temperof the Commons to be such that, if any person high in office were toask for what His Majesty thought necessary, there would assuredly bea violent explosion; the majority would probably be provoked intodisbanding all that remained of the army; and the kingdom would be leftwithout a single soldier. William, however, could not be brought tobelieve that the case was so hopeless. He listened too easily to somesecret adviser, Sunderland was probably the man, who accused Montagueand Somers of cowardice and insincerity. They had, it was whispered inthe royal ear, a majority, whenever they really wanted one. They werebent upon placing their friend Littleton in the Speaker's chair;and they had carried their point triumphantly. They would carry astriumphantly a vote for a respectable military establishment if thehonour of their master and the safety of their country were as dear tothem as the petty interests of their own faction. It was to no purposethat the King was told, what was nevertheless perfectly true, that notone half of the members who had voted for Littleton, could, by any artor eloquence, be induced to vote for an augmentation of the land force. While he was urging his ministers to stand up manfully against thepopular prejudice, and while they were respectfully representing to himthat by so standing up they should only make that prejudice stronger andmore noxious, the day came which the Commons had fixed for takingthe royal speech into consideration. The House resolved itself intoa Committee. The great question was instantly raised; What provisionshould be made for the defence of the realm? It was naturally expectedthat the confidential advisers of the Crown would propose something. Asthey remained silent, Harley took the lead which properly belonged tothem, and moved that the army should not exceed seven thousand men. SirCharles Sedley suggested ten thousand. Vernon, who was present, was ofopinion that this number would have been carved if it had been proposedby one who was known to speak on behalf of the King. But few memberscared to support an amendment which was certain to be less pleasing totheir constituents, and did not appear to be more pleasing to the Court, than the original motion. Harley's resolution passed the Committee. Onthe morrow it was reported and approved. The House also resolved thatall the seven thousand men who were to be retained should be naturalborn English subjects. Other votes were carried without a singledivision either in the Committee or when the mace was on the table. 

The King's indignation and vexation were extreme. He was angry with theopposition, with the ministers, with all England. The nation seemedto him to be under a judicial infatuation, blind to dangers whichhis sagacity perceived to be real, near and formidable, and morbidlyapprehensive of dangers which his conscience told him were no dangers atall. The perverse islanders were willing to trust every thing that wasmost precious to them, their independence, their property, their laws, their religion, to the moderation and good faith of France, to thewinds and the waves, to the steadiness and expertness of battalions ofploughmen commanded by squires; and yet they were afraid to trust himwith the means of protecting them lest he should use those means forthe destruction of the liberties which he had saved from extreme peril, which he had fenced with new securities, which he had defended with thehazard of his life, and which from the day of his accession he had neveronce violated. He was attached, and not without reason, to the BlueDutch Foot Guards. That brigade had served under him for many years, andhad been eminently distinguished by courage, discipline and fidelity. InDecember 1688 that brigade had been the first in his army to enterthe English capital, and had been entrusted with the important duty ofoccupying Whitehall and guarding the person of James. Eighteen monthslater, that brigade had been the first to plunge into the waters of theBoyne. Nor had the conduct of these veteran soldiers been less exemplaryin their quarters than in the field. The vote which required the King todiscard them merely because they were what he himself was seemed to hima personal affront. All these vexations and scandals he imagined thathis ministers might have averted, if they had been more solicitous forhis honour and for the success of his great schemes of policy, andless solicitous about their own popularity. They, on the other hand, continued to assure him, and, as far as can now be judged, to assure himwith perfect truth, that it was altogether out of their power to effectwhat he wished. Something they might perhaps be able to do. Many membersof the House of Commons had said in private that seven thousand men wastoo small a number. If His Majesty would let it be understood that heshould consider those who should vote for ten thousand as having donehim good service, there might be hopes. But there could be no hopeif gentlemen found that by voting for ten thousand they should pleasenobody, that they should be held up to the counties and towns which theyrepresented as turncoats and slaves for going so far to meet his wishes, and that they should be at the same time frowned upon at Kensington fornot going farther. The King was not to be moved. He had been too greatto sink into littleness without a struggle. He had been the soul oftwo great coalitions, the dread of France, the hope of all oppressednations. And was he to be degraded into a mere puppet of the Harleysand the Hooves, a petty prince who could neither help nor hurt, a lessformidable enemy and less valuable ally than the Elector of Brandenburgor the Duke of Savoy? His spirit, quite as arbitrary and as impatientof control as that of any of his predecessors, Stuart, Tudor orPlantagenet, swelled high against this ignominious bondage. It was wellknown at Versailles that he was cruelly mortified and incensed; and, during a short time, a strange hope was cherished there that, in theheat of his resentment, he might be induced to imitate his uncles, Charles and James, to conclude another treaty of Dover, and to sellhimself into vassalage for a subsidy which might make him independent ofhis niggardly and mutinous Parliament. Such a subsidy, it was thought, might be disguised under the name of a compensation for the littleprincipality of Orange, which Lewis had long been desirous to purchaseeven at a fancy price. A despatch was drawn up containing a paragraph bywhich Tallard was to be apprised of his master's views, and instructednot to hazard any distinct proposition, but to try the effect ofcautious and delicate insinuations, and, if possible, to draw William onto speak first. This paragraph was, on second thoughts, cancelled;but that it should ever have been written must be considered a mostsignificant circumstance. 

It may with confidence be affirmed that William would never have stoopedto be the pensioner of France; but it was with difficulty that hewas, at this conjuncture, dissuaded from throwing up the government ofEngland. When first he threw out hints about retiring to the Continent, his ministers imagined that he was only trying to frighten them intomaking a desperate effort to obtain for him an efficient army. Butthey soon saw reason to believe that he was in earnest. That he was inearnest, indeed, can hardly be doubted. For, in a confidential letter toHeinsius, whom he could have no motive for deceiving, he intimated hisintention very clearly. "I foresee, " he writes, "that I shall be drivento take an extreme course, and that I shall see you again in Hollandsooner than I had imagined. " [16] In fact he had resolved to go down tothe Lords, to send for the Commons, and to make his last speech from thethrone. That speech he actually prepared and had it translated. He meantto tell his hearers that he had come to England to rescue their religionand their liberties; that, for that end, he had been under the necessityof waging a long and cruel war; that the war had, by the blessing ofGod, ended in an honourable and advantageous peace; and that the nationmight now be tranquil and happy, if only those precautions were adoptedwhich he had on the first day of the session recommended as essentialto the public security. Since, however, the Estates of the Realm thoughtfit to slight his advice, and to expose themselves to the imminent riskof ruin, he would not be the witness of calamities which he had notcaused and which he could not avert. He must therefore request theHouses to present to him a bill providing for the government of therealm; he would pass that bill, and withdraw from a post in which hecould no longer be useful, but he should always take a deep interest inthe welfare of England; and, if what he foreboded should come to pass, if in some day of danger she should again need his services, his lifeshould be hazarded as freely as ever in her defence. 

When the King showed his speech to the Chancellor, that wise ministerforgot for a moment his habitual self-command. "This is extravagance, Sir, " he said: "this is madness. I implore your Majesty, for the sake ofyour own honour, not to say to anybody else what you have said tome. " He argued the matter during two hours, and no doubt lucidlyand forcibly. William listened patiently; but his purpose remainedunchanged. 

The alarm of the ministers seems to have been increased by finding thatthe King's intention had been confided to Marlborough, the very last manto whom such a secret would have been imparted unless William had reallymade up his mind to abdicate in favour of the Princess of Denmark. Somers had another audience, and again began to expostulate. But Williamcut him short. "We shall not agree, my Lord; my mind is made up. ""Then, Sir, " said Somers, "I have to request that I may be excused fromassisting as Chancellor at the fatal act which Your Majesty meditates. It was from my King that I received this seal; and I beg that he willtake it from me while he is still my King. "

In these circumstances the ministers, though with scarcely the faintesthope of success, determined to try what they could do to meet the King'swishes. A select Committee had been appointed by the House of Commons toframe a bill for the disbanding of all the troops above seven thousand. A motion was made by one of the Court party that this Committee shouldbe instructed to reconsider the number of men. Vernon acquitted himselfwell in the debate. Montague spoke with even more than his wontedability and energy, but in vain. So far was he from being able torally round him such a majority as that which had supported him in thepreceding Parliament, that he could not count on the support even of theplacemen who sate at the same executive board with him. Thomas Pelham, who had, only a few months before, been made a Lord of the Treasury, tried to answer him. "I own, " said Pelham, "that last year I thought alarge land force necessary; this year I think such a force unnecessary;but I deny that I have been guilty of any inconsistency. Last year thegreat question of the Spanish succession was unsettled, and there wasserious danger of a general war. That question has now been settled inthe best possible way; and we may look forward to many years of peace. "A Whig of still greater note and authority, the Marquess of Hartington, separated himself on this occasion from the junto. The current wasirresistible. At last the voices of those who tried to speak for theInstruction were drowned by clamour. When the question was put, therewas a great shout of No, and the minority submitted. To divide wouldhave been merely to have exposed their weakness. 

By this time it became clear that the relations between the executivegovernment and the Parliament were again what they had been before theyear 1695. The history of our polity at this time is closely connectedwith the history of one man. Hitherto Montague's career had been moresplendidly and uninterruptedly successful than that of any member of theHouse of Commons, since the House of Commons had begun to exist. And nowfortune had turned. By the Tories he had long been hated as a Whig; andthe rapidity of his rise, the brilliancy of his fame, and the unvaryinggood luck which seemed to attend him, had made many Whigs his enemies. He was absurdly compared to the upstart favourites of a former age, Carrand Villiers, men whom he resembled in nothing but in the speed withwhich he had mounted from a humble to a lofty position. They had, without rendering any service to the State, without showing anycapacity for the conduct of great affairs, been elevated to the highestdignities, in spite of the murmurs of the whole nation, by the merepartiality of the Sovereign. Montague owed every thing to his own meritand to the public opinion of his merit. With his master he appears tohave had very little intercourse, and none that was not official. Hewas in truth a living monument of what the Revolution had done for theCountry. The Revolution had found him a young student in a cell by theCam, poring on the diagrams which illustrated the newly discovered lawsof centripetal and centrifugal force, writing little copies of verses, and indulging visions of parsonages with rich glebes, and of closes inold cathedral towns had developed in him new talents; had held out tohim the hope of prizes of a very different sort from a rectory or aprebend. His eloquence had gained for him the ear of the legislature. His skill in fiscal and commercial affairs had won for him theconfidence of the City. During four years he had been the undisputedleader of the majority of the House of Commons; and every one of thoseyears he had made memorable by great parliamentary victories, and bygreat public services. It should seem that his success ought to havebeen gratifying to the nation, and especially to that assembly ofwhich he was the chief ornament, of which indeed he might be calledthe creature. The representatives of the people ought to have beenwell pleased to find that their approbation could, in the new orderof things, do for the man whom they delighted to honour all that themightiest of the Tudors could do for Leicester, or the most arbitrary ofthe Stuarts for Strafford. But, strange to say, the Commons soon beganto regard with an evil eve that greatness which was their own work. Thefault indeed was partly Montague's. With all his ability, he had not thewisdom to avert, by suavity and moderation, that curse, the inseparableconcomitant of prosperity and glory, which the ancients personifiedunder the name of Nemesis. His head, strong for all the purposes ofdebate and arithmetical calculation, was weak against the intoxicatinginfluence of success and fame. He became proud even to insolence. Oldcompanions, who, a very few years before, had punned and rhymed with himin garrets, had dined with him at cheap ordinaries, had sate with himin the pit, and had lent him some silver to pay his seamstress's bill, hardly knew their friend Charles in the great man who could not forgetfor one moment that he was First Lord of the Treasury, that he wasChancellor of the Exchequer, that he had been a Regent of the kingdom, that he had founded the Bank of England and the new East India Company, that he had restored the currency, that he had invented the ExchequerBills, that he had planned the General Mortgage, and that he had beenpronounced, by a solemn vote of the Commons, to have deserved allthe favours which he had received from the Crown. It was said thatadmiration of himself and contempt of others were indicated by all hisgestures and written in all the lines of his face. The very way in whichthe little jackanapes, as the hostile pamphleteers loved to call him, strutted through the lobby, making the most of his small figure, risingon his toe, and perking up his chin, made him enemies. Rash and arrogantsayings were imputed to him, and perhaps invented for him. He wasaccused of boasting that there was nothing that he could not carrythrough the House of Commons, that he could turn the majority round hisfinger. A crowd of libellers assailed him with much more than politicalhatred. Boundless rapacity and corruption were laid to his charge. Hewas represented as selling all the places in the revenue department forthree years' purchase. The opprobrious nickname of Filcher was fastenedon him. His luxury, it was said, was not less inordinate than hisavarice. There was indeed an attempt made at this time to raise againstthe leading Whig politicians and their allies, the great moneyed men ofthe City, a cry much resembling the cry which, seventy or eighty yearslater, was raised against the English Nabobs. Great wealth, suddenlyacquired, is not often enjoyed with moderation, dignity and good taste. It is therefore not impossible that there may have been some smallfoundation for the extravagant stories with which malecontentpamphleteers amused the leisure of malecontent squires. In such storiesMontague played a conspicuous part. He contrived, it was said, to be atonce as rich as Croesus and as riotous as Mark Antony. His stud and hiscellar were beyond all price. His very lacqueys turned up their noses atclaret. He and his confederates were described as spending the immensesums of which they had plundered the public in banquets of four courses, such as Lucullus might have eaten in the Hall of Apollo. A supper fortwelve Whigs, enriched by jobs, grants, bribes, lucky purchases andlucky sales of stock, was cheap at eighty pounds. At the end of everycourse all the fine linen on the table was changed. Those who saw thepyramids of choice wild fowl imagined that the entertainment had beenprepared for fifty epicures at the least. Only six birds' nests from theNicobar islands were to be had in London; and all the six, bought atan enormous price, were smoking in soup on the board. These fables weredestitute alike of probability and of evidence. But Grub Street coulddevise no fable injurious to Montague which was not certain to findcredence in more than half the manor houses and vicarages of England. 

It may seem strange that a man who loved literature passionately, andrewarded literary merit munificently, should have been more savagelyreviled both in prose and verse than almost any other politician in ourhistory. But there is really no cause for wonder. A powerful, liberaland discerning protector of genius is very likely to be mentioned withhonour long after his death, but is very likely also to be most brutallylibelled during his life. In every age there will be twenty bad writersfor one good one; and every bad writer will think himself a good one. Aruler who neglects all men of letters alike does not wound the self loveof any man of letters. But a ruler who shows favour to the few men ofletters who deserve it inflicts on the many the miseries of disappointedhope, of affronted pride, of jealousy cruel as the grave. All the rageof a multitude of authors, irritated at once by the sting of want and bythe sting of vanity, is directed against the unfortunate patron. It istrue that the thanks and eulogies of those whom he has befriended willbe remembered when the invectives of those whom he has neglected areforgotten. But in his own time the obloquy will probably make as muchnoise and find as much credit as the panegyric. The name of Maecenashas been made immortal by Horace and Virgil, and is popularly used todesignate an accomplished statesman, who lives in close intimacy withthe greatest poets and wits of his time, and heaps benefits on them withthe most delicate generosity. But it may well be suspected that, if theverses of Alpinus and Fannius, of Bavius and Maevius, had come downto us, we might see Maecenas represented as the most niggardly andtasteless of human beings, nay as a man who, on system, neglected andpersecuted all intellectual superiority. It is certain that Montaguewas thus represented by contemporary scribblers. They told the world inessays, in letters, in dialogues, in ballads, that he would do nothingfor anybody without being paid either in money or in some vile services;that he not only never rewarded merit, but hated it whenever he saw it;that he practised the meanest arts for the purpose of depressing it;that those whom he protected and enriched were not men of ability andvirtue, but wretches distinguished only by their sycophancy and theirlow debaucheries. And this was said of the man who made the fortune ofJoseph Addison, and of Isaac Newton. 

Nothing had done more to diminish the influence of Montague in the Houseof Commons than a step which he had taken a few weeks before the meetingof the Parliament. It would seem that the result of the general electionhad made him uneasy, and that he had looked anxiously round him for someharbour in which he might take refuge from the storms which seemed tobe gathering. While his thoughts were thus employed, he learned that theAuditorship of the Exchequer had suddenly become vacant. The Auditorshipwas held for life. The duties were formal and easy. The gains wereuncertain; for they rose and fell with the public expenditure; butthey could hardly, in time of peace, and under the most economicaladministration, be less than four thousand pounds a year, and werelikely, in time of war, to be more than double of that sum. Montaguemarked this great office for his own. He could not indeed take it, whilehe continued to be in charge of the public purse. For it would have beenindecent, and perhaps illegal, that he should audit his own accounts. He therefore selected his brother Christopher, whom he had lately made aCommissioner of the Excise, to keep the place for him. There was, as mayeasily be supposed, no want of powerful and noble competitors for sucha prize. Leeds had, more than twenty years before, obtained from Charlesthe Second a patent granting the reversion to Caermarthen. Godolphin, it was said, pleaded a promise made by William. But Montague maintained, and was, it seems, right in maintaining, that both the patent of Charlesand the promise of William had been given under a mistake, and that theright of appointing the Auditor belonged, not to the Crown, but to theBoard of Treasury. He carried his point with characteristic audacityand celerity. The news of the vacancy reached London on a Sunday. On theTuesday the new Auditor was sworn in. The ministers were amazed. Eventhe Chancellor, with whom Montague was on terms of intimate friendship, had not been consulted. Godolphin devoured his ill temper. Caermarthenordered out his wonderful yacht, and hastened to complain to the King, who was then at Loo. But what had been done could not be undone. 

This bold stroke placed Montague's fortune, in the lower sense of theword, out of hazard, but increased the animosity of his enemies andcooled the zeal of his adherents. In a letter written by one of hiscolleagues, Secretary Vernon, on the day after the appointment, theAuditorship is described as at once a safe and lucrative place. "But Ithought, " Vernon proceeds, "Mr. Montague was too aspiring to stoopto any thing below the height he was in, and that he least consideredprofit. " This feeling was no doubt shared by many of the friends ofthe ministry. It was plain that Montague was preparing a retreat forhimself. This flinching of the captain, just on the eve of a perilouscampaign, naturally disheartened the whole army. It deserves to beremarked that, more than eighty years later, another great parliamentaryleader was placed in a very similar situation. The younger William Pittheld in 1784 the same offices which Montague had held in 1698. Pitt waspressed in 1784 by political difficulties not less than those with whichMontague had contended in 1698. Pitt was also in 1784 a much poorer manthan Montague in 1698. Pitt, in 1784, like Montage in 1698, had at hisown absolute disposal a lucrative sinecure place in the Exchequer. Pittgave away the office which would have made him an opulent man, and gaveit away in such a manner as at once to reward unfortunate merit, andto relieve the country from a burden. For this disinterestedness he wasrepaid by the enthusiastic applause of his followers, by the enforcedrespect of his opponents, and by the confidence which, through all thevicissitudes of a chequered and at length disastrous career, the greatbody of Englishmen reposed in his public spirit and in his personalintegrity. In the intellectual qualities of a statesman Montague wasprobably not inferior to Pitt. But the magnanimity, the dauntlesscourage, the contempt for riches and for baubles, to which, more than toany intellectual quality, Pitt owed his long ascendency, were wanting toMontague. 

The faults of Montague were great; but his punishment was cruel. It wasindeed a punishment which must have been more bitter than the bitternessof death to a man whose vanity was exquisitely sensitive, and who hadbeen spoiled by early and rapid success and by constant prosperity. Before the new Parliament had been a month sitting it was plain that hisempire was at an end. He spoke with the old eloquence; but his speechesno longer called forth the old response. Whatever he proposed wasmaliciously scrutinised. The success of his budget of the preceding yearhad surpassed all expectation. The two millions which he had undertakento find had been raised with a rapidity which seemed magical. Yet forbringing the riches of the City, in an unprecedented flood, tooverflow the Exchequer he was reviled as if his scheme had failed moreludicrously than the Tory Land Bank. Emboldened by his unpopularity, the Old East India Company presented a petition praying that the GeneralSociety Act, which his influence and eloquence had induced the lateParliament to pass, might be extensively modified. Howe took the matterup. It was moved that leave should be given to bring in a bill accordingto the prayer of the petition; the motion was carried by a hundred andseventy-five votes to a hundred and forty-eight; and the whole questionof the trade with the Eastern seas was reopened. The bill was broughtin, but was, with great difficulty and by a very small majority, thrownout on the second reading. [17] On other financial questions Montague, so lately the oracle of the Committee of Supply, was now heard withmalevolent distrust. If his enemies were unable to detect any flaw inhis reasonings and calculations, they could at least whisper that Mr. Montague was very cunning, that it was not easy to track him, but thatit might be taken for granted that for whatever he did he had somesinister motive, and that the safest course was to negative whatever heproposed. Though that House of Commons was economical even to a vice, the majority preferred paying high interest to paying low interest, solely because the plan for raising money at low interest had beenframed by him. In a despatch from the Dutch embassy the States Generalwere informed that many of the votes of that session which had causedastonishment out of doors were to be ascribed to nothing but to thebitter envy which the ability and fame of Montague had excited. It wasnot without a hard struggle and a sharp pang that the first Englishmanwho has held that high position which has now been long called theLeadership of the House of Commons submitted to be deposed. But he wasset upon with cowardly malignity by whole rows of small men none ofwhom singly would have dared to look him in the face. A contemporarypamphleteer compared him to an owl in the sunshine pursued and peckedto death by flights of tiny birds. On one occasion he was irritated intouttering an oath. Then there was a cry of Order; and he was threatenedwith the Serjeant and the Tower. On another occasion he was moved evento shedding tears of rage and vexation, tears which only moved themockery of his low minded and bad hearted foes. 

If a minister were now to find himself thus situated in a House ofCommons which had just been elected, and from which it would thereforebe idle to appeal to the electors, he would instantly resign his office, and his adversaries would take his place. The change would be mostadvantageous to the public, even if we suppose his successor to be bothless virtuous and less able than himself. For it is much better forthe country to have a bad ministry than to have no ministry at all, and there would be no ministry at all if the executive departmentswere filled by men whom the representatives of the people took everyopportunity of thwarting and insulting. That an unprincipled man shouldbe followed by a majority of the House of Commons is no doubt an evil. But, when this is the case, he will nowhere be so harmless as at thehead of affairs. As he already possesses the power to do boundlessmischief, it is desirable to give him a strong motive to abstain fromdoing mischief; and such a motive he has from the moment that heis entrusted with the administration. Office of itself does much toequalise politicians. It by no means brings all characters to a level;but it does bring high characters down and low characters up towardsa common standard. In power the most patriotic and most enlightenedstatesman finds that he must disappoint the expectations of hisadmirers; that, if he effects any good, he must effect it by compromise;that he must relinquish many favourite schemes; that he must bear withmany abuses. On the other hand, power turns the very vices of the mostworthless adventurer, his selfish ambition, his sordid cupidity, hisvanity, his cowardice, into a sort of public spirit. The most greedy andcruel wrecker that ever put up false lights to lure mariners to theirdestruction will do his best to preserve a ship from going to pieceson the rocks, if he is taken on board of her and made pilot; and so themost profligate Chancellor of the Exchequer most wish that trade mayflourish, that the revenue may come in well, and that he may be ableto take taxes off instead of putting them on. The most profligate FirstLord of the Admiralty must wish to receive news of a victory like thatof the Nile rather than of a mutiny like that at the Nore. There is, therefore, a limit to the evil which is to be apprehended from the worstministry that is likely ever to exist in England. But to the evil ofhaving no ministry, to the evil of having a House of Commons permanentlyat war with the executive government, there is absolutely no limit. Thiswas signally proved in 1699 and 1700. Had the statesmen of the junto, assoon as they had ascertained the temper of the new Parliament, acted asstatesmen similarly situated would now act, great calamities would havebeen averted. The chiefs of the opposition must then have been calledupon to form a government. With the power of the late ministry theresponsibility of the late ministry would have been transferred to them;and that responsibility would at once have sobered them. The oratorwhose eloquence had been the delight of the Country party would have hadto exert his ingenuity on a new set of topics. There would have beenan end of his invectives against courtiers and placemen, of piteousmeanings about the intolerable weight of the land tax, of his boaststhat the militia of Kent and Sussex, without the help of a singleregular soldier, would turn the conquerors of Landen to the right about. He would himself have been a courtier; he would himself have been aplaceman; he would have known that he should be held accountable forall the misery which a national bankruptcy or a French invasion mightproduce; and, instead of labouring to get up a clamour for the reductionof imposts, and the disbanding of regiments, he would have employed allhis talents and influence for the purpose of obtaining from Parliamentthe means of supporting public credit, and of putting the country in agood posture of defence. Meanwhile the statesmen who were out might havewatched the new men, might have checked them when they were wrong, mighthave come to their help when, by doing right, they had raised a mutinyin their own absurd and perverse faction. In this way Montague andSomers might, in opposition, have been really far more powerful thanthey could be while they filled the highest posts in the executivegovernment and were outvoted every day in the House of Commons. Theirretirement would have mitigated envy; their abilities would have beenmissed and regretted; their unpopularity would have passed to theirsuccessors, who would have grievously disappointed vulgar expectation, and would have been under the necessity of eating their own words inevery debate. The league between the Tories and the discontented Whigswould have been dissolved; and it is probable that, in a session ortwo, the public voice would have loudly demanded the recall of the bestKeeper of the Great Seal, and of the best First Lord of the Treasury, the oldest man living could remember. 

But these lessons, the fruits of the experience of five generations, hadnever been taught to the politicians of the seventeenth century. Notionsimbibed before the Revolution still kept possession of the public mind. Not even Somers, the foremost man of his age in civil wisdom, thoughtit strange that one party should be in possession of the executiveadministration while the other predominated in the legislature. Thus, atthe beginning of 1699, there ceased to be a ministry; and years elapsedbefore the servants of the Crown and the representatives of the peoplewere again joined in an union as harmonious as that which had existedfrom the general election of 1695 to the general election of 1698. Theanarchy lasted, with some short intervals of composedness, till thegeneral election of 1765. No portion of our parliamentary history isless pleasing or more instructive. It will be seen that the House ofCommons became altogether ungovernable, abused its gigantic power withunjust and insolent caprice, browbeat King and Lords, the Courts ofCommon Law and the Constituent bodies, violated rights guaranteed by theGreat Charter, and at length made itself so odious that the people wereglad to take shelter, under the protection of the throne and of thehereditary aristocracy, from the tyranny of the assembly which had beenchosen by themselves. 

The evil which had brought on so much discredit on representativeinstitutions was of gradual though of rapid growth, and did not, in thefirst session of the Parliament of 1698, take the most alarming form. The lead of the House of Commons had, however, entirely passed away fromMontague, who was still the first minister of finance, to the chiefsof the turbulent and discordant opposition. Among those chiefs the mostpowerful was Harley, who, while almost constantly acting with the Toriesand High Churchmen, continued to use, on occasions cunningly selected, the political and religious phraseology which he had learned in hisyouth among the Roundheads. He thus, while high in the esteem of thecountry gentlemen and even of his hereditary enemies, the countryparsons, retained a portion of the favour with which he and hisancestors had long been regarded by Whigs and Nonconformists. He wastherefore peculiarly well qualified to act as mediator between the twosections of the majority. 

The bill for the disbanding of the army passed with little oppositionthrough the House till it reached the last stage. Then, at length, astand was made, but in vain. Vernon wrote the next day to Shrewsburythat the ministers had had a division which they need not be ashamed of;for that they had mustered a hundred and fifty-four against two hundredand twenty-one. Such a division would not be considered as matter ofboast by a Secretary of State in our time. 

The bill went up to the House of Lords, where it was regarded with nogreat favour. But this was not one of those occasions on which the Houseof Lords can act effectually as a check on the popular branch of thelegislature. No good would have been done by rejecting the bill fordisbanding the troops, unless the King could have been furnished withthe means of maintaining them; and with such means he could be furnishedonly by the House of Commons. Somers, in a speech of which both theeloquence and the wisdom were greatly admired, placed the question inthe true light. He set forth strongly the dangers to which the jealousyand parsimony of the representatives of the people exposed the country. But any thing, he said, was better than that the King and the Peersshould engage, without hope of success, in an acrimonious conflict withthe Commons. Tankerville spoke with his usual ability on the same side. Nottingham and the other Tories remained silent; and the bill passedwithout a division. 

By this time the King's strong understanding had mastered, as it seldomfailed, after a struggle, to master, his rebellious temper. He hadmade up his mind to fulfil his great mission to the end. It was withno common pain that he admitted it to be necessary for him to give hisassent to the disbanding bill. But in this case it would have been worsethan useless to resort to his veto. For, if the bill had been rejected, the army would have been dissolved, and he would have been left withouteven the seven thousand men whom the Commons were willing to allow him. He determined, therefore, to comply with the wish of his people, andat the same time to give them a weighty and serious but friendlyadmonition. Never had he succeeded better in suppressing the outwardsigns of his emotions than on the day on which he carried thisdetermination into effect. The public mind was much excited. The crowdsin the parks and streets were immense. The Jacobites came in troops, hoping to enjoy the pleasure of reading shame and rage on the face ofhim whom they most hated and dreaded. The hope was disappointed. ThePrussian Minister, a discerning observer, free from the passions whichdistracted English society, accompanied the royal procession from St. James's Palace to Westminster Hall. He well knew how bitterly Williamhad been mortified, and was astonished to see him present himself to thepublic gaze with a serene and cheerful aspect. 

The speech delivered from the throne was much admired; and thecorrespondent of the States General acknowledged that he despairedof exhibiting in a French translation the graces of style whichdistinguished the original. Indeed that weighty, simple and dignifiedeloquence which becomes the lips of a sovereign was seldom wantingin any composition of which the plan was furnished by William and thelanguage by Somers. The King informed the Lords and Commons that he hadcome down to pass their bill as soon as it was ready for him. He couldnot indeed but think that they had carried the reduction of the armyto a dangerous extent. He could not but feel that they had treated himunkindly in requiring him to part with those guards who had come overwith him to deliver England, and who had since been near him on everyfield of battle. But it was his fixed opinion that nothing could be sopernicious to the State as that he should be regarded by his people withdistrust, distrust of which he had not expected to be the object afterwhat he had endeavoured, ventured, and acted, to restore and to securetheir liberties. He had now, he said, told the Houses plainly thereason, the only reason, which had induced him to pass their bill; andit was his duty to tell them plainly, in discharge of his high trust, and in order that none might hold him accountable for the evils which hehad vainly endeavoured to avert, that, in his judgment, the nation wasleft too much exposed. 

When the Commons had returned to their chamber, and the King's speechhad been read from the chair, Howe attempted to raise a storm. A grossinsult had been offered to the House. The King ought to be asked whohad put such words into his mouth. But the spiteful agitator found nosupport. The majority were so much pleased with the King for promptlypassing the bill that they were not disposed to quarrel with himfor frankly declaring that he disliked it. It was resolved withouta division that an address should be presented, thanking him for hisgracious speech and for his ready compliance with the wishes of hispeople, and assuring him that his grateful Commons would never forgetthe great things which he had done for the country, would never give himcause to think them unkind or undutiful, and would, on all occasions, stand by him against all enemies. 

Just at this juncture tidings arrived which might well raise misgivingsin the minds of those who had voted for reducing the national means ofdefence. The Electoral Prince of Bavaria was no more. The Gazettewhich announced that the Disbanding Bill had received the royal assentinformed the public that he was dangerously ill at Brussels. The nextGazette contained the news of his death. Only a few weeks had elapsedsince all who were anxious for the peace of the world had learned withjoy that he had been named heir to the Spanish throne. That the boyjust entering upon life with such hopes should die, while the wretchedCharles, long ago half dead, continued to creep about between hisbedroom and his chapel, was an event for which, notwithstanding theproverbial uncertainty of life, the minds of men were altogetherunprepared. A peaceful solution of the great question now seemedimpossible. France and Austria were left confronting each other. Withina month the whole Continent might be in arms. Pious men saw in thisstroke, so sudden and so terrible, the plain signs of the divinedispleasure. God had a controversy with the nations. Nine years of fire, of slaughter and of famine had not been sufficient to reclaim a guiltyworld; and a second and more severe chastisement was at hand. Othersmuttered that the event which all good men lamented was to be ascribedto unprincipled ambition. It would indeed have been strange if, in thatage, so important a death, happening at so critical a moment, had notbeen imputed to poison. The father of the deceased Prince loudly accusedthe Court of Vienna; and the imputation, though not supported by theslightest evidence, was, during some time, believed by the vulgar. 

The politicians at the Dutch embassy imagined that now at length theparliament would listen to reason. It seemed that even the countrygentlemen must begin to contemplate the probability of an alarmingcrisis. The merchants of the Royal Exchange, much better acquainted thanthe country gentlemen with foreign lands, and much more accustomed thanthe country gentlemen to take large views, were in great agitation. Nobody could mistake the beat of that wonderful pulse which had recentlybegun, and has during five generations continued, to indicate thevariations of the body politic. When Littleton was chosen speaker, thestocks rose. When it was resolved that the army should be reduced toseven thousand men, the stocks fell. When the death of the ElectoralPrince was known, they fell still lower. The subscriptions to a newloan, which the Commons had, from mere spite to Montague, determined toraise on conditions of which he disapproved, came in very slowly. Thesigns of a reaction of feeling were discernible both in and out ofParliament. Many men are alarmists by constitution. Trenchard and Howehad frightened most men by writing and talking about the danger to whichliberty and property would be exposed if the government were allowed tokeep a large body of Janissaries in pay. The danger had ceased to exist;and those people who must always be afraid of something, as they couldno longer be afraid of a standing army, began to be afraid of the FrenchKing. There was a turn in the tide of public opinion; and no part ofstatesmanship is more important than the art of taking the tide ofpublic opinion at the turn. On more than one occasion William showedhimself a master of that art. But, on the present occasion, a sentiment, in itself amiable and respectable, led him to commit the greatestmistake of his whole life. Had he at this conjuncture again earnestlypressed on the Houses the importance of providing for the defence of thekingdom, and asked of them an additional number of English troops, it isnot improbable that he might have carried his point; it is certainthat, if he had failed, there would have been nothing ignominious in hisfailure. Unhappily, instead of raising a great public question, on whichhe was in the right, on which he had a good chance of succeeding, and onwhich he might have been defeated without any loss of dignity, he choseto raise a personal question, on which he was in the wrong, on which, right or wrong, he was sure to be beaten, and on which he could notbe beaten without being degraded. Instead of pressing for more Englishregiments, he exerted all his influence to obtain for the Dutch guardspermission to remain in the island. 

The first trial of strength was in the Upper House. A resolution wasmoved there to the effect that the Lords would gladly concur in any planthat could be suggested for retaining the services of the Dutch brigade. The motion was carried by fifty-four votes to thirty-eight. Buta protest was entered, and was signed by all the minority. It isremarkable that Devonshire was, and that Marlborough was not, one of theDissentients. Marlborough had formerly made himself conspicuous by thekeenness and pertinacity with which he had attacked the Dutch. But hehad now made his peace with the Court, and was in the receipt of alarge salary from the civil list. He was in the House on that day;and therefore, if he voted, must have voted with the majority. TheCavendishes had generally been strenuous supporters of the King and thejunto. But on the subject of the foreign troops Hartington in one Houseand his father in the other were intractable. 

This vote of the Lords caused much murmuring among the Commons. It wassaid to be most unparliamentary to pass a bill one week, and the nextweek to pass a resolution condemning that bill. It was true that thebill had been passed before the death of the Electoral Prince was knownin London. But that unhappy event, though it might be a good reason forincreasing the English army, could be no reason for departing fromthe principle that the English army should consist of Englishmen. Agentleman who despised the vulgar clamour against professional soldiers, who held the doctrine of Somers's Balancing Letter, and who was preparedto vote for twenty or even thirty thousand men, might yet well ask whyany of those men should be foreigners. Were our countrymen naturallyinferior to men of other races in any of the qualities which, underproper training, make excellent soldiers? That assuredly was not theopinion of the Prince who had, at the head of Ormond's Life Guards, driven the French household troops, till, then invincible, back overthe ruins of Neerwinden, and whose eagle eye and applauding voice hadfollowed Cutts's grenadiers up the glacis of Namur. Bitter spiritedmalecontents muttered that, since there was no honourable service whichcould not be as well performed by the natives of the realm as by alienmercenaries, it might well be suspected that the King wanted his alienmercenaries for some service not honourable. If it were necessary torepel a French invasion or to put down an Irish insurrection, the Bluesand the Buffs would stand by him to the death. But, if his object wereto govern in defiance of the votes of his Parliament and of the cryof his people, he might well apprehend that English swords and musketswould, at the crisis, fail him, as they had failed his father in law, and might well wish to surround himself with men who were not of ourblood, who had no reverence for our laws, and no sympathy with ourfeelings. Such imputations could find credit with no body superior inintelligence to those clownish squires who with difficulty managed tospell out Dyer's Letter over their ale. Men of sense and temper admittedthat William had never shown any disposition to violate the solemncompact which he had made with the nation, and that, even if he weredepraved enough to think of destroying the constitution by militaryviolence, he was not imbecile enough to imagine that the Dutch brigade, or five such brigades, would suffice for his purpose. But such men, while they fully acquitted him of the design attributed to him byfactious malignity, could not acquit him of a partiality which it wasnatural that he should feel, but which it would have been wise in himto hide, and with which it was impossible that his subjects shouldsympathise. He ought to have known that nothing is more offensive tofree and proud nations than the sight of foreign uniforms and standards. Though not much conversant with books, he must have been acquainted withthe chief events in the history of his own illustrious House; and hecould hardly have been ignorant that his great grandfather had commenceda long and glorious struggle against despotism by exciting the StatesGeneral of Ghent to demand that all Spanish troops should be withdrawnfrom the Netherlands. The final parting between the tyrant and thefuture deliverer was not an event to be forgotten by any of the raceof Nassau. "It was the States, Sir, " said the Prince of Orange. Philipseized his wrist with a convulsive grasp, and exclaimed, "Not theStates, but you, you, you. "

William, however, determined to try whether a request made by himselfin earnest and almost supplicating terms would induce his subjects toindulge his national partiality at the expense of their own. None ofhis ministers could flatter him with any hope of success. But on thissubject he was too much excited to hear reason. He sent down to theCommons a message, not merely signed by himself according to the usualform, but written throughout with his own hand. He informed them thatthe necessary preparations had been made for sending away the guards whocame with him to England, and that they would immediately embark, unlessthe House should, out of consideration for him, be disposed to retainthem, which he should take very kindly. When the message had been read, a member proposed that a day might be fixed for the consideration of thesubject. But the chiefs of the majority would not consent to anything which might seem to indicate hesitation, and moved the previousquestion. The ministers were in a false position. It was out of theirpower to answer Harley when he sarcastically declared that he did notsuspect them of having advised His Majesty on this occasion. If, hesaid, those gentlemen had thought it desirable that the Dutch brigadeshould remain in the kingdom, they would have done so before. There hadbeen many opportunities of raising the question in a perfectlyregular manner during the progress of the Disbanding Bill. Of thoseopportunities nobody had thought fit to avail himself; and it was nowtoo late to reopen the question. Most of the other members who spokeagainst taking the message into consideration took the same line, declined discussing points which might have been discussed when theDisbanding Bill was before the House, and declared merely that theycould not consent to any thing so unparliamentary as the repealing of anAct which had just been passed. But this way of dealing with the messagewas far too mild and moderate to satisfy the implacable malice of Howe. In his courtly days he had vehemently called on the King to use theDutch for the purpose of quelling the insubordination of the Englishregiments. "None but the Dutch troops, " he said, "are to be trusted. " Hewas now not ashamed to draw a parallel between those very Dutch troopsand the Popish Kernes whom James had brought over from Munster andConnaught to enslave our island. The general feeling was such thatthe previous question was carried without a division. A Committee wasimmediately appointed to draw up an address explaining the reasons whichmade it impossible for the House to comply with His Majesty's wish. Atthe next sitting the Committee reported; and on the report there wasan animated debate. The friends of the government thought the proposedaddress offensive. The most respectable members of the majority feltthat it would be ungraceful to aggravate by harsh language the painwhich must be caused by their conscientious opposition to the King'swishes. Some strong expressions were therefore softened down; somecourtly phrases were inserted; but the House refused to omit onesentence which almost reproachfully reminded the King that in hismemorable Declaration of 1688 he had promised to send back all theforeign forces as soon as he had effected the deliverance of thiscountry. The division was, however, very close. There were one hundredand fifty-seven votes for omitting this passage, and one hundred andsixty-three for retaining it. [18]

The address was presented by the whole House. William's answer was asgood as it was possible for him, in the unfortunate position in which hehad placed himself, to return. It showed that he was deeply hurt; but itwas temperate and dignified. Those who saw him in private knew that hisfeelings had been cruelly lacerated. His body sympathised with his mind. His sleep was broken. His headaches tormented him more than ever. Fromthose whom he had been in the habit of considering as his friends, andwho had failed him in the recent struggle, he did not attempt to concealhis displeasure. The lucrative see of Worcester was vacant; and somepowerful Whigs of the cider country wished to obtain it for JohnHall, Bishop of Bristol. One of the Foleys, a family zealous for theRevolution, but hostile to standing armies, spoke to the King on thesubject. "I will pay as much respect to your wishes, " said William, "asyou and yours have paid to mine. " Lloyd of St. Asaph was translated toWorcester. 

The Dutch Guards immediately began to march to the coast. After all theclamour which had been raised against them, the populace witnessedtheir departure rather with sorrow than with triumph. They had been longdomiciled here; they had been honest and inoffensive; and many of themwere accompanied by English wives and by young children who talked nolanguage but English. As they traversed the capital, not a single shoutof exultation was raised; and they were almost everywhere greeted withkindness. One rude spectator, indeed, was heard to remark that Hans madea much better figure, now that he had been living ten years on the fatof the land, than when he first came. "A pretty figure you would havemade, " said a Dutch soldier, "if we had not come. " And the retort wasgenerally applauded. It would not, however, be reasonable to infer fromthe signs of public sympathy and good will with which the foreignerswere dismissed that the nation wished them to remain. It was probablybecause they were going that they were regarded with favour by many whowould never have seen them relieve guard at St. James's without blacklooks and muttered curses. 

Side by side with the discussion about the land force had beenproceeding a discussion, scarcely less animated, about the navaladministration. The chief minister of marine was a man whom it had oncebeen useless and even perilous to attack in the Commons. It was to nopurpose that, in 1693, grave charges, resting on grave evidence, hadbeen brought against the Russell who had conquered at La Hogue. The nameof Russell acted as a spell on all who loved English freedom. The nameof La Hogue acted as a spell on all who were proud of the glory ofthe English arms. The accusations, unexamined and unrefuted, werecontemptuously flung aside; and the thanks of the House were votedto the accused commander without one dissentient voice. But times hadchanged. The Admiral still had zealous partisans; but the fame of hisexploits had lost their gloss; people in general were quick to discernhis faults; and his faults were but too discernible. That he had carriedon a traitorous correspondence with Saint Germains had not been proved, and had been pronounced by the representatives of the people to bea foul calumny. Yet the imputation had left a stain on his name. Hisarrogant, insolent and quarrelsome temper made him an object of hatred. His vast and growing wealth made him an object of envy. What hisofficial merits and demerits really were it is not easy to discoverthrough the mist made up of factious abuse and factious panegyric. Oneset of writers described him as the most ravenous of all the plunderersof the poor overtaxed nation. Another set asserted that under him theships were better built and rigged, the crews were better disciplinedand better tempered, the biscuit was better, the beer was better, theslops were better, than under any of his predecessors; and yet that thecharge to the public was less than it had been when the vessels wereunseaworthy, when the sailors were riotous, when the food was alive withvermin, when the drink tasted like tanpickle, and when the clothesand hammocks were rotten. It may, however, be observed that these tworepresentations are not inconsistent with each other; and there isstrong reason to believe that both are, to a great extent, true. Orfordwas covetous and unprincipled; but he had great professional skill andknowledge, great industry, and a strong will. He was therefore an usefulservant of the state when the interests of the state were not opposed tohis own; and this was more than could be said of some who had precededhim. He was, for example, an incomparably better administrator thanTorrington. For Torrington's weakness and negligence caused ten times asmuch mischief as his rapacity. But, when Orford had nothing to gainby doing what was wrong, he did what was right, and did it ably anddiligently. Whatever Torrington did not embezzle he wasted. Orford mayhave embezzled as much as Torrington; but he wasted nothing. 

Early in the session, the House of Commons resolved itself into aCommittee on the state of the Navy. This Committee sate at intervalsduring more than three months. Orford's administration underwent aclose scrutiny, and very narrowly escaped a severe censure. A resolutioncondemning the manner in which his accounts had been kept was lost byonly one vote. There were a hundred and forty against him, and a hundredand forty-one for him. When the report was presented to the House, another attempt was made to put a stigma upon him. It was moved that theKing should be requested to place the direction of maritime affairsin other hands. There were a hundred and sixty Ayes to a hundred andsixty-four Noes. With this victory, a victory hardly to be distinguishedfrom a defeat, his friends were forced to be content. An address settingforth some of the abuses in the naval department, and beseeching KingWilliam to correct them, was voted without a division. In one of thoseabuses Orford was deeply interested. He was First Lord of the Admiralty;and he had held, ever since the Revolution, the lucrative place ofTreasurer of the Navy. It was evidently improper that two offices, oneof which was meant to be a check on the other, should be united in thesame person; and this the Commons represented to the King. 

Questions relating to the military and naval Establishments occupiedthe attention of the Commons so much during the session that, until theprorogation was at hand, little was said about the resumption of theCrown grants. But, just before the Land Tax Bill was sent up to theLords, a clause was added to it by which seven Commissioners wereempowered to take account of the property forfeited in Ireland duringthe late troubles. The selection of those Commissioners the Housereserved to itself. Every member was directed to bring a list containingthe names of seven persons who were not members; and the seven nameswhich appeared in the greatest number of lists were inserted in thebill. The result of the ballot was unfavourable to the government. Fourof the seven on whom the choice fell were connected with the opposition;and one of them, Trenchard, was the most conspicuous of the pamphleteerswho had been during many months employed in raising a cry against thearmy. 

The Land Tax Bill, with this clause tacked to it, was carried to theUpper House. The Peers complained, and not without reason, of this modeof proceeding. It may, they said, be very proper that Commissionersshould be appointed by Act of Parliament to take account of theforfeited property in Ireland. But they should be appointed by aseparate Act. Then we should be able to make amendments, to ask forconferences, to give and receive explanations. The Land Tax Bill wecannot amend. We may indeed reject it; but we cannot reject it withoutshaking public credit, without leaving the kingdom defenceless, withoutraising a mutiny in the navy. The Lords yielded, but not without aprotest which was signed by some strong Whigs and some strong Tories. The King was even more displeased than the Peers. "This Commission, " hesaid, in one of his private letters, "will give plenty of trouble nextwinter. " It did indeed give more trouble than he at all anticipated, andbrought the nation nearer than it has ever since been to the verge ofanother revolution. 

And now the supplies had been voted. The spring was brightening andblooming into summer. The lords and squires were sick of London; andthe King was sick of England. On the fourth day of May he prorogued theHouses with a speech very different from the speeches with which he hadbeen in the habit of dismissing the preceding Parliament. He uttered notone word of thanks or praise. He expressed a hope that, when they shouldmeet again, they would make effectual provision for the public safety. "I wish, " these were his concluding words, "no mischief may happen inthe mean time. " The gentlemen who thronged the bar withdrew in wrath, and, as they could not take immediate vengeance, laid up his reproachesin their hearts against the beginning of the next session. 

The Houses had broken up; but there was still much to be done before theKing could set out for Loo. He did not yet perceive that the true wayto escape from his difficulties was to form an entirely new ministrypossessing the confidence of the majority which had, in the latesession, been found so unmanageable. But some partial changes he couldnot help making. The recent votes of the Commons forced him seriouslyto consider the state of the Board of Admiralty. It was impossible thatOrford could continue to preside at that Board and be at the same timeTreasurer of the Navy. He was offered his option. His own wish was tokeep the Treasurership, which was both the more lucrative and the moresecure of his two places. But it was so strongly represented to him thathe would disgrace himself by giving up great power for the sake of gainswhich, rich and childless as he was, ought to have been beneath hisconsideration, that he determined to remain at the Admiralty. He seemsto have thought that the sacrifice which he had made entitled him togovern despotically the department at which he had been persuaded toremain. But he soon found that the King was determined to keep in hisown hands the power of appointing and removing the junior Lords. One ofthese Lords, especially, the First Commissioner hated, and was bent onejecting, Sir George Rooke, who was Member of Parliament for Portsmouth. Rooke was a brave and skilful officer, and had, therefore, though a Toryin politics, been suffered to keep his place during the ascendency ofthe Whig junto. Orford now complained to the King that Rooke had beenin correspondence with the factious opposition which had given somuch trouble, and had lent the weight of his professional and officialauthority to the accusations which had been brought against the navaladministration. The King spoke to Rooke, who declared that Orford hadbeen misinformed. "I have a great respect for my Lord; and on properoccasions I have not failed to express it in public. There havecertainly been abuses at the Admiralty which I am unable to defend. Whenthose abuses have been the subject of debate in the House of Commons, Ihave sate silent. But, whenever any personal attack has been made onmy Lord, I have done him the best service that I could. " William wassatisfied, and thought that Orford should have been satisfied too. But that haughty and perverse nature could be content with nothing butabsolute dominion. He tendered his resignation, and could not be inducedto retract it. He said that he could be of no use. It would be easy tosupply his place; and his successors should have his best wishes. Hethen retired to the country, where, as was reported and may easily bebelieved, he vented his ill humour in furious invectives against theKing. The Treasurership of the Navy was given to the Speaker Littleton. The Earl of Bridgewater, a nobleman of very fair character and of someexperience in business, became First Lord of the Admiralty. 

Other changes were made at the same time. There had during some timebeen really no Lord President of the Council. Leeds, indeed, was stillcalled Lord President, and, as such, took precedence of dukes of oldercreation; but he had not performed any of the duties of his office sincethe prosecution instituted against him by the Commons in 1695 had beensuddenly stopped by an event which made the evidence of his guilt atonce legally defective and morally complete. It seems strange that astatesman of eminent ability, who had been twice Prime Minister, shouldhave wished to hold, by so ignominious a tenure, a place which can havehad no attraction for him but the salary. To that salary, however, Leedshad clung, year after year; and he now relinquished it with a very badgrace. He was succeeded by Pembroke; and the Privy Seal which Pembrokelaid down was put into the hands of a peer of recent creation, ViscountLonsdale. Lonsdale had been distinguished in the House of Commons as SirJohn Lowther, and had held high office, but had quitted public life inweariness and disgust, and had passed several years in retirement at hishereditary seat in Cumberland. He had planted forests round his house, and had employed Verrio to decorate the interior with gorgeousfrescoes which represented the gods at their banquet of ambrosia. Veryreluctantly, and only in compliance with the earnest and almost angryimportunity of the King, Lonsdale consented to leave his magnificentretreat, and again to encounter the vexations of public life. 

Trumball resigned the Secretaryship of State; and the Seals which hehad held were given to Jersey, who was succeeded at Paris by the Earl ofManchester. 

It is to be remarked that the new Privy Seal and the new Secretary ofState were moderate Tories. The King had probably hoped that, by callingthem to his councils, he should conciliate the opposition. But thedevice proved unsuccessful; and soon it appeared that the old practiceof filling the chief offices of state with men taken from variousparties, and hostile to one another, or, at least, unconnected with oneanother, was altogether unsuited to the new state of affairs; and that, since the Commons had become possessed of supreme power, the only way toprevent them from abusing that power with boundless folly and violencewas to intrust the government to a ministry which enjoyed theirconfidence. 

While William was making these changes in the great offices of state, achange in which he took a still deeper interest was taking place in hisown household. He had laboured in vain during many months to keepthe peace between Portland and Albemarle. Albemarle, indeed, wasall courtesy, good humour, and submission; but Portland would notbe conciliated. Even to foreign ministers he railed at his rival andcomplained of his master. The whole Court was divided between thecompetitors, but divided very unequally. The majority took the sideof Albemarle, whose manners were popular and whose power was evidentlygrowing. Portland's few adherents were persons who, like him, hadalready made their fortunes, and who did not therefore think it worththeir while to transfer their homage to a new patron. One of thesepersons tried to enlist Prior in Portland's faction, but with verylittle success. "Excuse me, " said the poet, "if I follow your exampleand my Lord's. My Lord is a model to us all; and you have imitated himto good purpose. He retires with half a million. You have large grants, a lucrative employment in Holland, a fine house. I have nothing of thekind. A court is like those fashionable churches into which we havelooked at Paris. Those who have received the benediction are instantlyaway to the Opera House or the wood of Boulogne. Those who have notreceived the benediction are pressing and elbowing each other to getnear the altar. You and my Lord have got your blessing, and are quiteright to take yourselves off with it. I have not been blest, and mustfight my way up as well as I can. " Prior's wit was his own. But hisworldly wisdom was common to him with multitudes; and the crowd ofthose who wanted to be lords of the bedchamber, rangers of parks, andlieutenants of counties, neglected Portland and tried to ingratiatethemselves with Albemarle. 

By one person, however, Portland was still assiduously courted; and thatperson was the King. Nothing was omitted which could soothe an irritatedmind. Sometimes William argued, expostulated and implored during twohours together. But he found the comrade of his youth an altered man, unreasonable, obstinate and disrespectful even before the public eye. The Prussian minister, an observant and impartial witness, declared thathis hair had more than once stood on end to see the rude discourtesywith which the servant repelled the gracious advances of the master. Over and over William invited his old friend to take the long accustomedseat in his royal coach, that seat which Prince George himself had neverbeen permitted to invade; and the invitation was over and over declinedin a way which would have been thought uncivil even between equals. A sovereign could not, without a culpable sacrifice of his personaldignity, persist longer in such a contest. Portland was permitted towithdraw from the palace. To Heinsius, as to a common friend, Williamannounced this separation in a letter which shows how deeply hisfeelings had been wounded. "I cannot tell you what I have suffered. Ihave done on my side every thing that I could do to satisfy him; but itwas decreed that a blind jealousy should make him regardless of everything that ought to have been dear to him. " To Portland himself the Kingwrote in language still more touching. "I hope that you will oblige mein one thing. Keep your key of office. I shall not consider you as boundto any attendance. But I beg you to let me see you as often as possible. That will be a great mitigation of the distress which you have causedme. For, after all that has passed, I cannot help loving you tenderly. "

Thus Portland retired to enjoy at his ease immense estates scatteredover half the shires of England, and a hoard of ready money, such, itwas said, as no other private man in Europe possessed. His fortune stillcontinued to grow. For, though, after the fashion of his countrymen, he laid out large sums on the interior decoration of his houses, on hisgardens, and on his aviaries, his other expenses were regulated withstrict frugality. His repose was, however, during some years notuninterrupted. He had been trusted with such grave secrets, andemployed in such high missions, that his assistance was still frequentlynecessary to the government; and that assistance was given, not, asformerly, with the ardour of a devoted friend, but with the exactnessof a conscientious servant. He still continued to receive letters fromWilliam; letters no longer indeed overflowing with kindness, but alwaysindicative of perfect confidence and esteem. 

The chief subject of those letters was the question which had been for atime settled in the previous autumn at Loo, and which had been reopenedin the spring by the death of the Electoral Prince of Bavaria. 

As soon as that event was known at Paris, Lewis directed Tallard tosound William as to a new treaty. The first thought which occurred toWilliam was that it might be possible to put the Elector of Bavaria inhis son's place. But this suggestion was coldly received at Versailles, and not without reason. If, indeed, the young Francis Joseph had livedto succeed Charles, and had then died a minor without issue, thecase would have been very different. Then the Elector would have beenactually administering the government of the Spanish monarchy, and, supported by France, England and the United Provinces, might withoutmuch difficulty have continued to rule as King the empire which he hadbegun to rule as Regent. He would have had also, not indeed a right, butsomething which to the vulgar would have looked like a right, to be hisson's heir. Now he was altogether unconnected with Spain. No morereason could be given for selecting him to be the Catholic King than forselecting the Margrave of Baden or the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Somethingwas said about Victor Amadeus of Savoy, and something about the King ofPortugal; but to both there were insurmountable objections. It seemed, therefore, that the only choice was between a French Prince and anAustrian Prince; and William learned, with agreeable surprise, thatLewis might possibly be induced to suffer the younger Archduke to beKing of Spain and the Indies. It was intimated at the same time that theHouse of Bourbon would expect, in return for so great a concession tothe rival House of Habsburg, greater advantages than had been thoughtsufficient when the Dauphin consented to waive his claims in favour ofa candidate whose elevation could cause no jealousies. What Lewisdemanded, in addition to the portion formerly assigned to France, wasthe Milanese. With the Milanese he proposed to buy Lorraine fromits Duke. To the Duke of Lorraine this arrangement would have beenbeneficial, and to the people of Lorraine more beneficial still. Theywere, and had long been, in a singularly unhappy situation. Lewisdomineered over them as if they had been his subjects, and troubledhimself as little about their happiness as if they had been his enemies. Since he exercised as absolute a power over them as over the Normans andBurgundians, it was desirable that he should have as great an interestin their welfare as in the welfare of the Normans and Burgundians. 

On the basis proposed by France William was willing to negotiate; and, when, in June 1699, he left Kensington to pass the summer at Loo, theterms of the treaty known as the Second Treaty of Partition were verynearly adjusted. The great object now was to obtain the consent of theEmperor. That consent, it should seem, ought to have been readily andeven eagerly given. Had it been given, it might perhaps have savedChristendom from a war of eleven years. But the policy of Austria was, at that time, strangely dilatory and irresolute. It was in vain thatWilliam and Heinsius represented the importance of every hour. "TheEmperor's ministers go on dawdling, " so the King wrote to Heinsius, "notbecause there is any difficulty about the matter, not because they meanto reject the terms, but solely because they are people who can make uptheir minds to nothing. " While the negotiation at Vienna was thus drawnout into endless length, evil tidings came from Madrid. 

Spain and her King had long been sunk so low that it seemed impossiblefor him to sink lower. Yet the political maladies of the monarchy andthe physical maladies of the monarch went on growing, and exhibitedevery day some new and frightful symptom. Since the death of theBavarian Prince, the Court had been divided between the Austrianfaction, of which the Queen and the leading ministers Oropesa and Melgarwere the chiefs, and the French faction, of which the most importantmember was Cardinal Portocarrero, Archbishop of Toledo. At length anevent which, as far as can now be judged, was not the effect of a deeplymeditated plan, and was altogether unconnected with the disputes aboutthe succession, gave the advantage to the adherents of France. Thegovernment, having committed the great error of undertaking to supplyMadrid with food, committed the still greater error of neglecting toperform what it had undertaken. The price of bread doubled. Complaintswere made to the magistrates, and were heard with the indolent apathycharacteristic of the Spanish administration from the highest to thelowest grade. Then the populace rose, attacked the house of Oropesa, poured by thousands into the great court of the palace, and insisted onseeing the King. The Queen appeared in a balcony, and told the riotersthat His Majesty was asleep. Then the multitude set up a roar of fury. "It is false; we do not believe you. We will see him. " "He has slept toolong, " said one threatening voice; "and it is high time that he shouldwake. " The Queen retired weeping; and the wretched being on whosedominions the sun never set tottered to the window, bowed as hehad never bowed before, muttered some gracious promises, waved ahandkerchief in the air, bowed again, and withdrew. Oropesa, afraid ofbeing torn to pieces, retired to his country seat. Melgar made someshow of resistance, garrisoned his house, and menaced the rabble witha shower of grenades, but was soon forced to go after Oropesa; and thesupreme power passed to Portocarrero. 

Portocarrero was one of a race of men of whom we, happily for us, have seen very little, but whose influence has been the curse of RomanCatholic countries. He was, like Sixtus the Fourth and Alexander theSixth, a politician made out of an impious priest. Such politicians aregenerally worse than the worst of the laity, more merciless than anyruffian that can be found in camps, more dishonest than any pettifoggerwho haunts the tribunals. The sanctity of their profession has anunsanctifying influence on them. The lessons of the nursery, the habitsof boyhood and of early youth, leave in the minds of the great majorityof avowed infidels some traces of religion, which, in seasons ofmourning and of sickness, become plainly discernible. But it is scarcelypossible that any such trace should remain in the mind of the hypocritewho, during many years, is constantly going through what he considersas the mummery of preaching, saying mass, baptizing, shriving. When anecclesiastic of this sort mixes in the contests of men of the world, heis indeed much to be dreaded as an enemy, but still more to be dreadedas an ally. From the pulpit where he daily employs his eloquence toembellish what he regards as fables, from the altar whence he dailylooks down with secret scorn on the prostrate dupes who believe that hecan turn a drop of wine into blood, from the confessional where he dailystudies with cold and scientific attention the morbid anatomy of guiltyconsciences, he brings to courts some talents which may move the envyof the more cunning and unscrupulous of lay courtiers; a rare skill inreading characters and in managing tempers, a rare art of dissimulation, a rare dexterity in insinuating what it is not safe to affirm or topropose in explicit terms. There are two feelings which often preventan unprincipled layman from becoming utterly depraved and despicable, domestic feeling, and chivalrous feeling. His heart may be softened bythe endearments of a family. His pride may revolt from the thought ofdoing what does not become a gentleman. But neither with the domesticfeeling nor with the chivalrous feeling has the wicked priest anysympathy. His gown excludes him from the closest and most tender ofhuman relations, and at the same time dispenses him from the observationof the fashionable code of honour. 

Such a priest was Portocarrero; and he seems to have been a consummatemaster of his craft. To the name of statesman he had no pretensions. Thelofty part of his predecessor Ximenes was out of the range, not more ofhis intellectual, than his moral capacity. To reanimate a paralysedand torpid monarchy, to introduce order and economy into a bankrupttreasury, to restore the discipline of an army which had become a mob, to refit a navy which was perishing from mere rottenness, these wereachievements beyond the power, beyond even the ambition, of that ignoblenature. But there was one task for which the new minister was admirablyqualified, that of establishing, by means of superstitious terror, anabsolute dominion over a feeble mind; and the feeblest of all minds wasthat of his unhappy sovereign. Even before the riot which had made thecardinal supreme in the state, he had succeeded in introducing into thepalace a new confessor selected by himself. In a very short time theKing's malady took a new form. That he was too weak to lift his foodto his misshapen mouth, that, at thirty-seven, he had the bald head andwrinkled face of a man of seventy, that his complexion was turning fromyellow to green, that he frequently fell down in fits and remained longinsensible, these were no longer the worst symptoms of his malady. He had always been afraid of ghosts and demons; and it had long beennecessary that three friars should watch every night by his restless bedas a guard against hobgoblins. But now he was firmly convinced that hewas bewitched, that he was possessed, that there was a devil within him, that there were devils all around him. He was exorcised according to theforms of his Church; but this ceremony, instead of quieting him, scaredhim out of almost all the little reason that nature had given him. Inhis misery and despair he was induced to resort to irregular modes ofrelief. His confessor brought to court impostors who pretended that theycould interrogate the powers of darkness. The Devil was called up, swornand examined. This strange deponent made oath, as in the presence ofGod, that His Catholic Majesty was under a spell, which had been laid onhim many years before, for the purpose of preventing the continuation ofthe royal line. A drug had been compounded out of the brains and kidneysof a human corpse, and had been administered in a cup of chocolate. This potion had dried up all the sources of life; and the best remedyto which the patient could now resort would be to swallow a bowl ofconsecrated oil every morning before breakfast. Unhappily, the authorsof this story fell into contradictions which they could excuse only bythrowing the blame on Satan, who, they said, was an unwilling witness, and a liar from the beginning. In the midst of their conjuring, theInquisition came down upon them. It must be admitted that, if the HolyOffice had reserved all its terrors for such cases, it would not nowhave been remembered as the most hateful judicature that was ever knownamong civilised men. The subaltern impostors were thrown into dungeons. But the chief criminal continued to be master of the King and ofthe kingdom. Meanwhile, in the distempered mind of Charles one maniasucceeded another. A longing to pry into those mysteries of the gravefrom which human beings avert their thoughts had long been hereditaryin his house. Juana, from whom the mental constitution of her posterityseems to have derived a morbid taint, had sate, year after year, by thebed on which lay the ghastly remains of her husband, apparelled in therich embroidery and jewels which he had been wont to wear while living. Her son Charles found an eccentric pleasure in celebrating his ownobsequies, in putting on his shroud, placing himself in the coffin, covering himself with the pall; and lying as one dead till the requiemhad been sung, and the mourners had departed leaving him alone in thetomb. Philip the Second found a similar pleasure in gazing on the hugechest of bronze in which his remains were to be laid, and especially onthe skull which, encircled with the crown of Spain, grinned at him fromthe cover. Philip the Fourth, too, hankered after burials and burialplaces, gratified his curiosity by gazing on the remains of his greatgrandfather, the Emperor, and sometimes stretched himself out at fulllength like a corpse in the niche which he had selected for himselfin the royal cemetery. To that cemetery his son was now attracted bya strange fascination. Europe could show no more magnificent place ofsepulture. A staircase encrusted with jasper led down from the statelychurch of the Escurial into an octagon situated just beneath the highaltar. The vault, impervious to the sun, was rich with gold and preciousmarbles, which reflected the blaze from a huge chandelier of silver. On the right and on the left reposed, each in a massy sarcophagus, the departed kings and queens of Spain. Into this mausoleum the Kingdescended with a long train of courtiers, and ordered the coffins to beunclosed. His mother had been embalmed with such consummate skill thatshe appeared as she had appeared on her death bed. The body of hisgrandfather too seemed entire, but crumbled into dust at the firsttouch. From Charles neither the remains of his mother nor those of hisgrandfather could draw any sign of sensibility. But, when the gentle andgraceful Louisa of Orleans, the miserable man's first wife, she whohad lighted up his dark existence with one short and pale gleam ofhappiness, presented herself, after the lapse of ten years, to his eyes, his sullen apathy gave way. "She is in heaven, " he cried; "and I shallsoon be there with her;" and, with all the speed of which his limbs werecapable, he tottered back to the upper air. 

Such was the state of the Court of Spain when, in the autumn of 1699, itbecame known that, since the death of the Electoral Prince of Bavaria, the governments of France, of England and of the United Provinces, werebusily engaged in framing a second Treaty of Partition. That Castilianswould be indignant at learning that any foreign potentate meditated thedismemberment of that empire of which Castile was the head might havebeen foreseen. But it was less easy to foresee that William would bethe chief and indeed almost the only object of their indignation. If themeditated partition really was unjustifiable, there could be no doubtthat Lewis was far more to blame than William. For it was by Lewis, andnot by William, that the partition had been originally suggested; and itwas Lewis, and not William, who was to gain an accession of territoryby the partition. Nobody could doubt that William would most gladlyhave acceded to any arrangement by which the Spanish monarchy, could bepreserved entire without danger to the liberties of Europe, and that hehad agreed to the division of that monarchy solely for the purpose ofcontenting Lewis. Nevertheless the Spanish ministers carefully avoidedwhatever could give offence to Lewis, and indemnified themselves byoffering a gross indignity to William. The truth is that their pridehad, as extravagant pride often has, a close affinity with meanness. They knew that it was unsafe to insult Lewis; and they believed thatthey might with perfect safety insult William. Lewis was absolute masterof his large kingdom. He had at no great distance armies and fleetswhich one word from him would put in motion. If he were provoked, the white flag might in a few days be again flying on the walls ofBarcelona. His immense power was contemplated by the Castilians withhope as well as with fear. He and he alone, they imagined, could avertthat dismemberment of which they could not bear to think. Perhapshe might yet be induced to violate the engagements into which he hadentered with England and Holland, if one of his grandsons were namedsuccessor to the Spanish throne. He, therefore, must be respected andcourted. But William could at that moment do little to hurt or to help. He could hardly be said to have an army. He could take no step whichwould require an outlay of money without the sanction of the House ofCommons; and it seemed to be the chief study of the House of Commons tocross him and to humble him. The history of the late session was knownto the Spaniards principally by inaccurate reports brought by Irishfriars. And, had those reports been accurate, the real nature of aParliamentary struggle between the Court party and the Country partycould have been but very imperfectly understood by the magnates ofa realm in which there had not, during several generations, been anyconstitutional opposition to the royal pleasure. At one time it wasgenerally believed at Madrid, not by the mere rabble, but by Grandeeswho had the envied privilege of going in coaches and four through thestreets of the capital, that William had been deposed, that he hadretired to Holland, that the Parliament had resolved that there shouldbe no more kings, that a commonwealth had been proclaimed, and that aDoge was about to be appointed and, though this rumour turned out to befalse, it was but too true that the English government was, just atthat conjuncture, in no condition to resent slights. Accordingly, theMarquess of Canales, who represented the Catholic King at Westminster, received instructions to remonstrate in strong language, and was notafraid to go beyond those instructions. He delivered to the Secretaryof State a note abusive and impertinent beyond all example and allendurance. His master, he wrote, had learnt with amazement that KingWilliam, Holland and other powers, --for the ambassador, prudent even inhis blustering, did not choose to name the King of France, --were engagedin framing a treaty, not only for settling the succession to the Spanishcrown, but for the detestable purpose of dividing the Spanish monarchy. The whole scheme was vehemently condemned as contrary to the law ofnature and to the law of God. The ambassador appealed from the King ofEngland to the Parliament, to the nobility, and to the whole nation, andconcluded by giving notice that he should lay the whole case before thetwo Houses when next they met. 

The style of this paper shows how strong an impression had been made onforeign nations by the unfortunate events of the late session. The King, it was plain, was no longer considered as the head of the government. Hewas charged with having committed a wrong; but he was not asked to makereparation. He was treated as a subordinate officer who had beenguilty of an offence against public law, and was threatened with thedispleasure of the Commons, who, as the real rulers of the state, werebound to keep their servants in order. The Lords justices read thisoutrageous note with indignation, and sent it with all speed to Loo. Thence they received, with equal speed, directions to send Canalesout of the country. Our ambassador was at the same time recalled fromMadrid; and all diplomatic intercourse between England and Spain wassuspended. 

It is probable that Canales would have expressed himself in a lessunbecoming manner, had there not already existed a most unfortunatequarrel between Spain and William, a quarrel in which William wasperfectly blameless, but in which the unanimous feeling of the EnglishParliament and of the English nation was on the side of Spain. 

It is necessary to go back some years for the purpose of tracing theorigin and progress of this quarrel. Few portions of our history aremore interesting or instructive; but few have been more obscured anddistorted by passion and prejudice. The story is an exciting one; and ithas generally been told by writers whose judgment had been perverted bystrong national partiality. Their invectives and lamentations have stillto be temperately examined; and it may well be doubted whether, evennow, after the lapse of more than a century and a half, feelings hardlycompatible with temperate examination will not be stirred up in manyminds by the name of Darien. In truth that name is associated withcalamities so cruel that the recollection of them may not unnaturallydisturb the equipoise even of a fair and sedate mind. 

The man who brought these calamities on his country was not a merevisionary or a mere swindler. He was that William Paterson whose name ishonourably associated with the auspicious commencement of a new era inEnglish commerce and in English finance. His plan of a national bank, having been examined and approved by the most eminent statesmen who satein the Parliament house at Westminster and by the most eminent merchantswho walked the Exchange of London, had been carried into execution withsignal success. He thought, and perhaps thought with reason, that hisservices had been ill requited. He was, indeed, one of the originalDirectors of the great corporation which owed its existence to him; buthe was not reelected. It may easily be believed that his colleagues, citizens of ample fortune and of long experience in the practical partof trade, aldermen, wardens of companies, heads of firms well known inevery Burse throughout the civilised world, were not well pleased tosee among them in Grocers' Hall a foreign adventurer whose whole capitalconsisted in an inventive brain and a persuasive tongue. Some of themwere probably weak enough to dislike him for being a Scot; some wereprobably mean enough to be jealous of his parts and knowledge; and evenpersons who were not unfavourably disposed to him might have discovered, before they had known him long, that, with all his cleverness, he wasdeficient in common sense; that his mind was full of schemes which, at the first glance, had a specious aspect, but which, on closerexamination, appeared to be impracticable or pernicious; and that thebenefit which the public had derived from one happy project formed byhim would be very dearly purchased if it were taken for granted thatall his other projects must be equally happy. Disgusted by what heconsidered as the ingratitude of the English, he repaired to theContinent, in the hope that he might be able to interest the traders ofthe Hanse Towns and the princes of the German Empire in his plans. Fromthe Continent he returned unsuccessful to London; and then at length thethought that he might be more justly appreciated by his countrymen thanby strangers seems to have risen in his mind. Just at this time hefell in with Fletcher of Saltoun, who happened to be in England. Theseeccentric men soon became intimate. Each of them had his monomania; andthe two monomaniac suited each other perfectly. Fletcher's whole soulwas possessed by a sore, jealous, punctilious patriotism. His heart wasulcerated by the thought of the poverty, the feebleness, the politicalinsignificance of Scotland, and of the indignities which she hadsuffered at the hand of her powerful and opulent neighbour. When hetalked of her wrongs his dark meagre face took its sternest expression;his habitual frown grew blacker, and his eyes flashed more than theirwonted fire. Paterson, on the other hand, firmly believed himself tohave discovered the means of making any state which would follow hiscounsel great and prosperous in a time which, when compared with thelife of an individual, could hardly be called long, and which, in thelife of a nation, was but as a moment. There is not the least reasonto believe that he was dishonest. Indeed he would have found moredifficulty in deceiving others had he not begun by deceiving himself. His faith to his own schemes was strong even to martyrdom; and theeloquence with which he illustrated and defended them had all the charmof sincerity and of enthusiasm. Very seldom has any blunder committedby fools, or any villany devised by impostors, brought on any societymiseries so great as the dreams of these two friends, both of them menof integrity and both of them men of parts, were destined to bring onScotland. 

In 1695 the pair went down together to their native country. TheParliament of that country was then about to meet under the presidencyof Tweeddale, an old acquaintance and country neighbour of Fletcher. On Tweeddale the first attack was made. He was a shrewd, cautious, oldpolitician. Yet it should seem that he was not able to hold out againstthe skill and energy of the assailants. Perhaps, however, he wasnot altogether a dupe. The public mind was at that moment violentlyagitated. Men of all parties were clamouring for an inquiry into theslaughter of Glencoe. There was reason to fear that the session whichwas about to commence would be stormy. In such circumstances the LordHigh Commissioner might think that it would be prudent to appease theanger of the Estates by offering an almost irresistible bait to theircupidity. If such was the policy of Tweeddale, it was, for themoment, eminently successful. The Parliament, which met burning withindignation, was soothed into good humour. The blood of the murderedMacdonalds continued to cry for vengeance in vain. The schemes ofPaterson, brought forward under the patronage of the ministers of theCrown, were sanctioned by the unanimous voice of the Legislature. 

The great projector was the idol of the whole nation. Men spoke tohim with more profound respect than to the Lord High Commissioner. Hisantechamber was crowded with solicitors desirous to catch some drops ofthat golden shower of which he was supposed to be the dispenser. To beseen walking with him in the High Street, to be honoured by him with aprivate interview of a quarter of an hour, were enviable distinctions. He, after the fashion of all the false prophets who have deludedthemselves and others, drew new faith in his own lie from the credulityof his disciples. His countenance, his voice, his gestures, indicatedboundless self-importance. When he appeared in public he looked, --suchis the language of one who probably had often seen him, --like Atlasconscious that a world was on his shoulders. But the airs which he gavehimself only heightened the respect and admiration which he inspired. His demeanour was regarded as a model. Scotch men who wished to bethought wise looked as like Paterson as they could. 

His plan, though as yet disclosed to the public only by glimpses, was applauded by all classes, factions and sects, lords, merchants, advocates, divines, Whigs and Jacobites, Cameronians and Episcopalians. In truth, of all the ten thousand bubbles of which history has preservedthe memory, none was ever more skilfully puffed into existence; noneever soared higher, or glittered more brilliantly; and none ever burstwith a more lamentable explosion. There was, however, a certain mixtureof truth in the magnificent day dream which produced such fatal effects. 

Scotland was, indeed, not blessed with a mild climate or a fertile soil. But the richest spots that had ever existed on the face of the earth hadbeen spots quite as little favoured by nature. It was on a bare rock, surrounded by deep sea, that the streets of Tyre were piled up to adizzy height. On that sterile crag were woven the robes of Persiansatraps and Sicilian tyrants; there were fashioned silver bowls andchargers for the banquets of kings; and there Pomeranian amber was setin Lydian gold to adorn the necks of queens. In the warehouses werecollected the fine linen of Egypt and the odorous gums of Arabia; theivory of India, and the tin of Britain. In the port lay fleets of greatships which had weathered the storms of the Euxine and the Atlantic. Powerful and wealthy colonies in distant parts of the world looked upwith filial reverence to the little island; and despots, who trampledon the laws and outraged the feelings of all the nations between theHydaspes and the Aegean, condescended to court the population of thatbusy hive. At a later period, on a dreary bank formed by the soil whichthe Alpine streams swept down to the Adriatic, rose the palaces ofVenice. Within a space which would not have been thought large enoughfor one of the parks of a rude northern baron were collected richesfar exceeding those of a northern kingdom. In almost every one of theprorate dwellings which fringed the Great Canal were to be seen plate, mirrors, jewellery, tapestry, paintings, carving, such as might movethe envy of the master of Holyrood. In the arsenal were munitions of warsufficient to maintain a contest against the whole power of the OttomanEmpire. And, before the grandeur of Venice had declined, anothercommonwealth, still less favoured, if possible, by nature, hadrapidly risen to a power and opulence which the whole civilised worldcontemplated with envy and admiration. On a desolate marsh overhung byfogs and exhaling diseases, a marsh where there was neither wood norstone, neither firm earth nor drinkable water, a marsh from which theocean on one side and the Rhine on the other were with difficulty keptout by art, was to be found the most prosperous community in Europe. The wealth which was collected within five miles of the Stadthouse ofAmsterdam would purchase the fee simple of Scotland. And why shouldthis be? Was there any reason to believe that nature had bestowed on thePhoenician, on the Venetian, or on the Hollander, a larger measure ofactivity, of ingenuity, of forethought, of self command, than on thecitizen of Edinburgh or Glasgow? The truth was that, in all thosequalities which conduce to success in life, and especially in commerciallife, the Scot had never been surpassed; perhaps he had never beenequalled. All that was necessary was that his energy should take aproper direction, and a proper direction Paterson undertook to give. 

His esoteric project was the original project of Christopher Columbus, extended and modified. Columbus had hoped to establish a communicationbetween our quarter of the world and India across the great westernocean. But he was stopped by an unexpected obstacle. The Americancontinent, stretching far north and far south into cold and inhospitableregions, presented what seemed an insurmountable barrier to hisprogress; and, in the same year in which he first set foot on thatcontinent, Gama reached Malabar by doubling the Cape of Good Hope. Theconsequence was that during two hundred years the trade of Europe withthe remoter parts of Asia had been carried on by rounding the immensepeninsula of Africa. Paterson now revived the project of Columbus, andpersuaded himself and others that it was possible to carry that projectinto effect in such a manner as to make his country the greatestemporium that had ever existed on our globe. 

For this purpose it was necessary to occupy in America some spot whichmight be a resting place between Scotland and India. It was true thatalmost every habitable part of America had already been seized by someEuropean power. Paterson, however, imagined that one province, the mostimportant of all, had been overlooked by the short-sighted cupidity ofvulgar politicians and vulgar traders. The isthmus which joined thetwo great continents of the New World remained, according to him, unappropriated. Great Spanish viceroyalties, he said, lay on the eastand on the west; but the mountains and forests of Darien were abandonedto rude tribes which followed their own usages and obeyed their ownprinces. He had been in that part of the world, in what character wasnot quite clear. Some said that he had gone thither to convert theIndians, and some that he had gone thither to rob the Spaniards. But, missionary or pirate, he had visited Darien, and had brought away nonebut delightful recollections. The havens, he averred, were capaciousand secure; the sea swarmed with turtle; the country was so mountainousthat, within nine degrees of the equator, the climate was temperate;and yet the inequalities of the ground offered no impediment to theconveyance of goods. Nothing would be easier than to construct roadsalong which a string of mules or a wheeled carriage might in the courseof a single day pass from sea to sea. The soil was, to the depth ofseveral feet, a rich black mould, on which a profusion of valuable herbsand fruits grew spontaneously, and on which all the choicest productionsof tropical regions might easily be raised by human industry and art;and yet the exuberant fertility of the earth had not tainted the purityof the air. Considered merely as a place of residence, the isthmus wasa paradise. A colony placed there could not fail to prosper, even if ithad no wealth except what was derived from agriculture. But agriculturewas a secondary object in the colonization of Darien. Let but thatprecious neck of land be occupied by an intelligent, an enterprising, a thrifty race; and, in a few years, the whole trade between India andEurope must be drawn to that point. The tedious and perilous passageround Africa would soon be abandoned. The merchant would no longerexpose his cargoes to the mountainous billows and capricious galesof the Antarctic seas. The greater part of the voyage from Europe toDarien, and the whole voyage from Darien to the richest kingdoms ofAsia, would be a rapid yet easy gliding before the trade winds over blueand sparkling waters. The voyage back across the Pacific would, in thelatitude of Japan, be almost equally speedy and pleasant. Time, labour, money, would be saved. The returns would come in more quickly. Fewerhands would be required to navigate the ships. The loss of a vesselwould be a rare event. The trade would increase fast. In a short timeit would double; and it would all pass through Darien. Whoever possessedthat door of the sea, that key of the universe, --such were the boldfigures which Paterson loved to employ, --would give law to bothhemispheres; and would, by peaceful arts, without shedding one drop ofblood, establish an empire as splendid as that of Cyrus or Alexander. Ofthe kingdoms of Europe, Scotland was, as yet, the poorest and the leastconsidered. If she would but occupy Darien, if she would but become onegreat free port, one great warehouse for the wealth which the soil ofDarien might produce, and for the still greater wealth which would bepoured into Darien from Canton and Siam, from Ceylon and the Moluccas, from the mouths of the Ganges and the Gulf of Cambay, she would at oncetake her place in the first rank among nations. No rival would be ableto contend with her either in the West Indian or in the East Indiantrade. The beggarly country, as it had been insolently called by theinhabitants of warmer and more fruitful regions, would be the great martfor the choicest luxuries, sugar, rum, coffee, chocolate, tobacco, thetea and porcelain of China, the muslin of Dacca, the shawls of Cashmere, the diamonds of Golconda, the pearls of Karrack, the delicious birds'nests of Nicobar, cinnamon and pepper, ivory and sandal wood. FromScotland would come all the finest jewels and brocade worn by duchessesat the balls of St. James's and Versailles. From Scotland would comeall the saltpetre which would furnish the means of war to the fleets andarmies of contending potentates. And on all the vast riches which wouldbe constantly passing through the little kingdom a toll would be paidwhich would remain behind. There would be a prosperity such as mightseem fabulous, a prosperity of which every Scotchman, from the peer tothe cadie, would partake. Soon, all along the now desolate shores of theForth and Clyde, villas and pleasure grounds would be as thick as alongthe edges of the Dutch canals. Edinburgh would vie with London andParis; and the baillie of Glasgow or Dundee would have as stately andwell furnished a mansion, and as fine a gallery of pictures, as anyburgomaster of Amsterdam. 

This magnificent plan was at first but partially disclosed to thepublic. A colony was to be planted; a vast trade was to be openedbetween both the Indies and Scotland; but the name of Darien was as yetpronounced only in whispers by Paterson and by his most confidentialfriends. He had however shown enough to excite boundless hopes anddesires. How well he succeeded in inspiring others with his own feelingsis sufficiently proved by the memorable Act to which the Lord HighCommissioner gave the Royal sanction on the 26th of June 1695. By thisAct some persons who were named, and such other persons as should joinwith them, were formed into a corporation, which was to be named theCompany of Scotland trading to Africa and the Indies. The amount of thecapital to be employed was not fixed by law; but it was provided thatone half of the stock at least must be held by Scotchmen residentin Scotland, and that no stock which had been originally held by aScotchman resident in Scotland should ever be transferred to any buta Scotchman resident in Scotland. An entire monopoly of the trade withAsia, Africa and America, for a term of thirty-one years, was grantedto the Company. All goods imported by the Company were during twenty-oneyears to be duty free, with the exception of foreign sugar and tobacco. Sugar and tobacco grown on the Company's own plantations were exemptedfrom all taxation. Every member and every servant of the Company was tobe privileged against impressment and arrest. If any of these privilegedpersons was impressed or arrested, the Company was authorised to releasehim, and to demand the assistance both of the civil and of the militarypower. The Company was authorised to take possession of unoccupiedterritories in any part of Asia, Africa or America, and there to plantcolonies, to build towns and forts, to impose taxes, and to providemagazines, arms and ammunition, to raise troops, to wage war, toconclude treaties; and the King was made to promise that, if any foreignstate should injure the Company, he would interpose, and would, at thepublic charge, obtain reparation. Lastly it was provided that, in orderto give greater security and solemnity to this most exorbitant grant, the whole substance of the Act should be set forth in Letters Patent towhich the Chancellor was directed to put the Great Seal without delay. 

The letters were drawn; the Great Seal was affixed; the subscriptionbooks were opened; the shares were fixed at a hundred pounds sterlingeach; and from the Pentland Firth to the Solway Firth every man who hada hundred pounds was impatient to put down his name. About two hundredand twenty thousand pounds were actually paid up. This may not, at firstsight, appear a large sum to those who remember the bubbles of 1825 andof 1845, and would assuredly not have sufficed to defray the charge ofthree months of war with Spain. Yet the effort was marvellous whenit may be affirmed with confidence that the Scotch people voluntarilycontributed for the colonisation of Darien a larger proportion oftheir substance than any other people ever, in the same space of time, voluntarily contributed to any commercial undertaking. A great part ofScotland was then as poor and rude as Iceland now is. There were five orsix shires which did not altogether contain so many guineas and crownsas were tossed about every day by the shovels of a single goldsmithin Lombard Street. Even the nobles had very little ready money. Theygenerally took a large part of their rents in kind, and were thus able, on their own domains, to live plentifully and hospitably. But there weremany esquires in Kent and Somersetshire who received from their tenantsa greater quantity of gold and silver than a Duke of Cordon or aMarquess of Atholl drew from extensive provinces. The pecuniaryremuneration of the clergy was such as would have moved the pity of themost needy curate who thought it a privilege to drink his ale and smokehis pipe in the kitchen of an English manor house. Even in the fertileMerse there were parishes of which the minister received only fromfour to eight pounds sterling in cash. The official income of the LordPresident of the Court of Session was only five hundred a year; thatof the Lord Justice Clerk only four hundred a year. The land tax ofthe whole kingdom was fixed some years later by the Treaty of Union atlittle more than half the land tax of the single county of Norfolk. Fourhundred thousand pounds probably bore as great a ratio to the wealth ofScotland then as forty millions would bear now. 

The list of the members of the Darien Company deserves to be examined. The number of shareholders was about fourteen hundred. The largestquantity of stock registered in one name was three thousand pounds. Theheads of three noble houses took three thousand pounds each, the Dukeof Hamilton, the Duke of Queensbury and Lord Belhaven, a man of ability, spirit and patriotism, who had entered into the design with enthusiasmnot inferior to that of Fletcher. Argyle held fifteen hundred pounds. John Dalrymple, but too well known as the Master of Stair, had justsucceeded to his father's title and estate, and was now Viscount Stair. He put down his name for a thousand pounds. The number of Scotch peerswho subscribed was between thirty and forty. The City of Edinburgh, inits corporate capacity, took three thousand pounds, the City of Glasgowthree thousand, the City of Perth two thousand. But the great majorityof the subscribers contributed only one hundred or two hundred poundseach. A very few divines who were settled in the capital or in otherlarge towns were able to purchase shares. It is melancholy to see in theroll the name of more than one professional man whose paternal anxietyled him to lay out probably all his hardly earned savings in purchasinga hundred pound share for each of his children. If, indeed, Paterson'spredictions had been verified, such a share would, according to thenotions of that age and country, have been a handsome portion for thedaughter of a writer or a surgeon. 

That the Scotch are a people eminently intelligent, wary, resolute andself possessed, is obvious to the most superficial observation. Thatthey are a people peculiarly liable to dangerous fits of passion anddelusions of the imagination is less generally acknowledged, but isnot less true. The whole kingdom seemed to have gone mad. Paterson hadacquired an influence resembling rather that of the founder of a newreligion, that of a Mahomet, that of a Joseph Smith, than that of acommercial projector. Blind faith in a religion, fanatical zeal for areligion, are too common to astonish us. But such faith and zeal seemstrangely out of place in the transactions of the money market. It istrue that we are judging after the event. But before the event materialssufficient for the forming of a sound judgment were within the reach ofall who cared to use them. It seems incredible that men of sense, whohad only a vague and general notion of Paterson's scheme, shouldhave staked every thing on the success of that scheme. It seems moreincredible still that men to whom the details of that scheme had beenconfided should not have looked into any of the common books of historyor geography in which an account of Darien might have been found, andshould not have asked themselves the simple question, whether Spainwas likely to endure a Scotch colony in the midst of her Transatlanticdominions. It was notorious that she claimed the sovereignty of theisthmus on specious, nay, on solid, grounds. A Spaniard had been thefirst discoverer of the coast of Darien. A Spaniard had built a townand established a government on that coast. A Spaniard had, with greatlabour and peril, crossed the mountainous neck of land, had seen rollingbeneath him the vast Pacific, never before revealed to European eyes, had descended, sword in hand, into the waves up to his girdle, and hadthere solemnly taken possession of sea and shore in the name of theCrown of Castile. It was true that the region which Paterson describedas a paradise had been found by the first Castilian settlers to be aland of misery and death. The poisonous air, exhaled from rank jungleand stagnant water, had compelled them to remove to the neighbouringhaven of Panama; and the Red Indians had been contemptuously permittedto live after their own fashion on the pestilential soil. But that soilwas still considered, and might well be considered, by Spain as her own. In many countries there were tracts of morass, of mountain, of forest, in which governments did not think it worth while to be at the expenseof maintaining order, and in which rude tribes enjoyed by connivancea kind of independence. It was not necessary for the members of theCompany of Scotland trading to Africa and the Indies to look very farfor an example. In some highland districts, not more than a hundredmiles from Edinburgh, dwelt clans which had always regarded theauthority of King, Parliament, Privy Council and Court of Session, quiteas little as the aboriginal population of Darien regarded the authorityof the Spanish Viceroys and Audiences. Yet it would surely have beenthought an outrageous violation of public law in the King of Spain totake possession of Appin and Lochaber. And would it be a less outrageousviolation of public law in the Scots to seize on a province in the verycentre of his possessions, on the plea that this province was in thesame state in which Appin and Lochaber had been during centuries?

So grossly unjust was Paterson's scheme; and yet it was less unjustthan impolitic. Torpid as Spain had become, there was still one point onwhich she was exquisitely sensitive. The slightest encroachment of anyother European power even on the outskirts of her American dominionssufficed to disturb her repose and to brace her paralysed nerves. Toimagine that she would tamely suffer adventurers from one of the mostinsignificant kingdoms of the Old World to form a settlement in themidst of her empire, within a day's sail of Portobello on one side andof Carthagena on the other, was ludicrously absurd. She would have beenjust as likely to let them take possession of the Escurial. It was, therefore, evident that, before the new Company could even begin itscommercial operations, there must be a war with Spain and a completetriumph over Spain. What means had the Company of waging such a war, and what chance of achieving such a triumph? The ordinary revenue ofScotland in time of peace was between sixty and seventy thousand a year. The extraordinary supplies granted to the Crown during the war withFrance had amounted perhaps to as much more. Spain, it is true, wasno longer the Spain of Pavia and Lepanto. But, even in her decay, she possessed in Europe resources which exceeded thirty fold thoseof Scotland; and in America, where the struggle must take place, thedisproportion was still greater. The Spanish fleets and arsenals weredoubtless in wretched condition. But there were Spanish fleets; therewere Spanish arsenals. The galleons, which sailed every year fromSeville to the neighbourhood of Darien and from the neighbourhood ofDarien back to Seville, were in tolerable condition, and formed, bythemselves, a considerable armament. Scotland had not a single shipof the line, nor a single dockyard where such a ship could be built. A marine sufficient to overpower that of Spain must be, not merelyequipped and manned, but created. An armed force sufficient to defendthe isthmus against the whole power of the viceroyalties of Mexico andPeru must be sent over five thousand miles of ocean. What was thecharge of such an expedition likely to be? Oliver had, in the precedinggeneration, wrested a West Indian island from Spain; but, in order to dothis, Oliver, a man who thoroughly understood the administration of war, who wasted nothing, and who was excellently served, had been forced tospend, in a single year, on his navy alone, twenty times the ordinaryrevenue of Scotland; and, since his days, war had been constantlybecoming more and more costly. 

It was plain that Scotland could not alone support the charge of acontest with the enemy whom Paterson was bent on provoking. And whatassistance was she likely to have from abroad? Undoubtedly the vastcolonial empire and the narrow colonial policy of Spain were regardedwith an evil eye by more than one great maritime power. But there wasno great maritime power which would not far rather have seen the isthmusbetween the Atlantic and the Pacific in the hands of Spain than in thehands of the Darien Company. Lewis could not but dread whatever tendedto aggrandise a state governed by William. To Holland the East Indiatrade was as the apple of her eye. She had been the chief gainer by thediscoveries of Gama; and it might be expected that she would do allthat could be done by craft, and, if need were, by violence, ratherthan suffer any rival to be to her what she had been to Venice. Englandremained; and Paterson was sanguine enough to flatter himself thatEngland might be induced to lend her powerful aid to the Company. He andLord Belhaven repaired to London, opened an office in Clement's Lane, formed a Board of Directors auxiliary to the Central Board at Edinburgh, and invited the capitalists of the Royal Exchange to subscribe for thestock which had not been reserved for Scotchmen resident in Scotland. A few moneyed men were allured by the bait; but the clamour of the Citywas loud and menacing; and from the City a feeling of indignation spreadfast through the country. In this feeling there was undoubtedly a largemixture of evil. National antipathy operated on some minds, religiousantipathy on others. But it is impossible to deny that the anger whichPaterson's schemes excited throughout the south of the island was, inthe main, just and reasonable. Though it was not yet generally known inwhat precise spot his colony was to be planted, there could be littledoubt that he intended to occupy some part of America; and there couldbe as little doubt that such occupation would be resisted. There wouldbe a maritime war; and such a war Scotland had no means of carrying on. The state of her finances was such that she must be quite unable to fitout even a single squadron of moderate size. Before the conflict hadlasted three months, she would have neither money nor credit left. These things were obvious to every coffeehouse politician; and it wasimpossible to believe that they had escaped the notice of men so ableand well informed as some who sate in the Privy Council and Parliamentat Edinburgh. In one way only could the conduct of these schemers beexplained. They meant to make a dupe and a tool of the Southron. The twoBritish kingdoms were so closely connected, physically and politically, that it was scarcely possible for one of them to be at peace with apower with which the other was at war. If the Scotch drew King Williaminto a quarrel, England must, from regard to her own dignity whichwas bound up with his, support him in it. She was to be tricked into abloody and expensive contest in the event of which she had no interest;nay, into a contest in which victory would be a greater calamity to herthan defeat. She was to lavish her wealth and the lives of her seamen, in order that a set of cunning foreigners might enjoy a monopoly bywhich she would be the chief sufferer. She was to conquer and defendprovinces for this Scotch Corporation; and her reward was to be thather merchants were to be undersold, her customers decoyed away, herexchequer beggared. There would be an end to the disputes betweenthe old East India Company and the new East India Company; for bothCompanies would be ruined alike. The two great springs of revenue wouldbe dried up together. What would be the receipt of the Customs, whatof the Excise, when vast magazines of sugar, rum, tobacco, coffee, chocolate, tea, spices, silks, muslins, all duty free, should be formedalong the estuaries of the Forth and of the Clyde, and along the borderfrom the mouth of the Esk to the mouth of the Tweed? What army, whatfleet, would be sufficient to protect the interests of the governmentand of the fair trader when the whole kingdom of Scotland should beturned into one great smuggling establishment? Paterson's plan wassimply this, that England should first spend millions in defence ofthe trade of his Company, and should then be plundered of twice as manymillions by means of that very trade. 

The cry of the city and of the nation was soon echoed by thelegislature. When the Parliament met for the first time after thegeneral election of 1695, Rochester called the attention of the Lordsto the constitution and designs of the Company. Several witnesses weresummoned to the bar, and gave evidence which produced a powerful effecton the House. "If these Scots are to have their way, " said one peer, "Ishall go and settle in Scotland, and not stay here to be made a beggar. "The Lords resolved to represent strongly to the King the injustice ofrequiring England to exert her power in support of an enterprise which, if successful, must be fatal to her commerce and to her finances. Arepresentation was drawn up and communicated to the Commons. The Commonseagerly concurred, and complimented the Peers on the promptitude withwhich their Lordships had, on this occasion, stood forth to protect thepublic interests. The two Houses went up together to Kensington withthe address. William had been under the walls of Namur when the Actfor incorporating the Company had been touched with his sceptre atEdinburgh, and had known nothing about that Act till his attention hadbeen called to it by the clamour of his English subjects. He now said, in plain terms, that he had been ill served in Scotland, but that hewould try to find a remedy for the evil which bad been brought to hisnotice. The Lord High Commissioner Tweeddale and Secretary Johnstonewere immediately dismissed. But the Act which had been passed by theirmanagement still continued to be law in Scotland, nor was it in theirmaster's power to undo what they had done. 

The Commons were not content with addressing the throne. They institutedan inquiry into the proceedings of the Scotch Company in London. Belhaven made his escape to his own country, and was there beyond thereach of the Serjeant-at-Arms. But Paterson and some of his confederateswere severely examined. It soon appeared that the Board which wassitting in Clement's Lane had done things which were certainly imprudentand perhaps illegal. The Act of Incorporation empowered the detectors totake and to administer to their servants an oath of fidelity. But thatAct was on the south of the Tweed a nullity. Nevertheless the directorshad, in the heart of the City of London, taken and administered thisoath, and had thus, by implication, asserted that the powers conferredon them by the legislature of Scotland accompanied them to England. Itwas resolved that they had been guilty of a high crime and misdemeanour, and that they should be impeached. A committee was appointed to framearticles of impeachment; but the task proved a difficult one; and theprosecution was suffered to drop, not however till the few Englishcapitalists who had at first been friendly to Paterson's project hadbeen terrified into renouncing all connection with him. 

Now, surely, if not before, Paterson ought to have seen that his projectcould end in nothing but shame to himself and ruin to his worshippers. From the first it had been clear that England alone could protect hisCompany against the enmity of Spain; and it was now clear that Spainwould be a less formidable enemy than England. It was impossible thathis plan could excite greater indignation in the Council of the Indiesat Madrid, or in the House of Trade at Seville, than it had excited inLondon. Unhappily he was given over to a strong delusion, and the blindmultitude eagerly followed their blind leader. Indeed his dupes weremaddened by that which should have sobered them. The proceedings of theParliament which sate at Westminster, proceedings just and reasonablein substance, but in manner doubtless harsh and insolent, had rousedthe angry passions of a nation, feeble indeed in numbers and in materialresources, but eminently high spirited. The proverbial pride of theScotch was too much for their proverbial shrewdness. The votes ofthe English Lords and Commons were treated with marked contempt. Thepopulace of Edinburgh burned Rochester in effigy. Money was pouredfaster than ever into the treasury of the Company. A stately house, inMilne Square, then the most modern and fashionable part of Edinburgh, was purchased and fitted up at once as an office and a warehouse. Shipsadapted both for war and for trade were required; but the means ofbuilding such ships did not exist in Scotland; and no firm in the southof the island was disposed to enter into a contract which might notimprobably be considered by the House of Commons as an impeachableoffence. It was necessary to have recourse to the dockyards of Amsterdamand Hamburg. At an expense of fifty thousand pounds a few vessels wereprocured, the largest of which would hardly have ranked as sixtieth inthe English navy; and with this force, a force not sufficient to keepthe pirates of Sallee in check, the Company threw down the gauntlet toall the maritime powers in the world. 

It was not till the summer of 1698 that all was ready for the expeditionwhich was to change the face of the globe. The number of seamen andcolonists who embarked at Leith was twelve hundred. Of the colonistsmany were younger sons of honourable families, or officers who had beendisbanded since the peace. It was impossible to find room for all whowere desirous of emigrating. It is said that some persons who had vainlyapplied for a passage hid themselves in dark corners about the ships, and, when discovered, refused to depart, clung to the rigging, andwere at last taken on shore by main force. This infatuation is the moreextraordinary because few of the adventurers knew to what place theywere going. All that was quite certain was that a colony was to beplanted somewhere, and to be named Caledonia. The general opinion wasthat the fleet would steer for some part of the coast of America. Butthis opinion was not universal. At the Dutch Embassy in Saint James'sSquare there was an uneasy suspicion that the new Caledonia would befounded among those Eastern spice islands with which Amsterdam had longcarried on a lucrative commerce. 

The supreme direction of the expedition was entrusted to a Council ofSeven. Two Presbyterian chaplains and a preceptor were on board. A cargohad been laid in which was afterwards the subject of much mirth to theenemies of the Company, slippers innumerable, four thousand periwigs ofall kinds from plain bobs to those magnificent structures which, in thatage, towered high above the foreheads and descended to the elbows ofmen of fashion, bales of Scotch woollen stuffs which nobody within thetropics could wear, and many hundreds of English bibles which neitherSpaniard nor Indian could read. Paterson, flushed with pride and hope, not only accompanied the expedition, but took with him his wife, acomely dame, whose heart he had won in London, where she had presidedover one of the great coffeehouses in the neighbourhood of the RoyalExchange. At length on the twenty-fifth of July the ships, followed bymany tearful eyes, and commended to heaven in many vain prayers, sailedout of the estuary of the Forth. 

The voyage was much longer than a voyage to the Antipodes now is; andthe adventurers suffered much. The rations were scanty; there werebitter complaints both of the bread and of the meat; and, when thelittle fleet, after passing round the Orkneys and Ireland, touched atMadeira, those gentlemen who had fine clothes among their baggage wereglad to exchange embroidered coats and laced waistcoats for provisionsand wine. From Madeira the adventurers ran across the Atlantic, landedon an uninhabited islet lying between Porto Rico and St. Thomas, tookpossession of this desolate spot in the name of the Company, set up atent, and hoisted the white cross of St. Andrew. Soon, however, theywere warned off by an officer who was sent from St. Thomas to informthem that they were trespassing on the territory of the King of Denmark. They proceeded on their voyage, having obtained the services of an oldbuccaneer who knew the coast of Central America well. Under his pilotagethey anchored on the first of November close to the Isthmus of Darien. One of the greatest princes of the country soon came on board. Thecourtiers who attended him, ten or twelve in number, were stark naked;but he was distinguished by a red coat, a pair of cotton drawers, andan old hat. He had a Spanish name, spoke Spanish, and affected the gravedeportment of a Spanish don. The Scotch propitiated Andreas, as he wascalled, by a present of a new hat blazing with gold lace, and assuredhim that, if he would trade with them, they would treat him better thanthe Castilians had done. 

A few hours later the chiefs of the expedition went on shore, tookformal possession of the country, and named it Caledonia. They werepleased with the aspect of a small peninsula about three miles in lengthand a quarter of a mile in breadth, and determined to fix here the cityof New Edinburgh, destined, as they hoped, to be the great emporiumof both Indies. The peninsula terminated in a low promontory of aboutthirty acres, which might easily be turned into an island by digging atrench. The trench was dug; and on the ground thus separated fromthe main land a fort was constructed; fifty guns were placed on theramparts; and within the enclosures houses were speedily built andthatched with palm leaves. 

Negotiations were opened with the chieftains, as they were called, whogoverned the neighbouring tribes. Among these savage rulers were foundas insatiable a cupidity, as watchful a jealousy, and as punctilious apride, as among the potentates whose disputes had seemed likely to makethe Congress of Ryswick eternal. One prince hated the Spaniards becausea fine rifle had been taken away from him by the Governor of Portobelloon the plea that such a weapon was too good for a red man. Another lovedthe Spaniards because they had given him a stick tipped with silver. Onthe whole, the new comers succeeded in making friends of the aboriginalrace. One mighty monarch, the Lewis the Great of the isthmus, who worewith pride a cap of white reeds lined with red silk and adorned with anostrich feather, seemed well inclined to the strangers, received themhospitably in a palace built of canes and covered with palmetto royal, and regaled them with calabashes of a sort of ale brewed from Indiancorn and potatoes. Another chief set his mark to a treaty of peace andalliance with the colony. A third consented to become a vassal of theCompany, received with great delight a commission embellished withgold thread and flowered riband, and swallowed to the health of his newmasters not a few bumpers of their own brandy. 

Meanwhile the internal government of the colony was organised accordingto a plan devised by the directors at Edinburgh. The settlers weredivided into bands of fifty or sixty; each band chose a representative;and thus was formed an assembly which took the magnificent name ofParliament. This Parliament speedily framed a curious code. The firstarticle provided that the precepts, instructions, examples, commands andprohibitions expressed and contained in the Holy Scriptures should havethe full force and effect of laws in New Caledonia, an enactment whichproves that those who drew it up either did not know what the HolyScriptures contained or did not know what a law meant. There is anotherprovision which shows not less clearly how far these legislators werefrom understanding the first principles of legislation. "Benefitsreceived and good services done shall always be generously andthankfully compensated, whether a prior bargain hath been made or not;and, if it shall happen to be otherwise, and the Benefactor obligedjustly to complain of the ingratitude, the Ungrateful shall in such casebe obliged to give threefold satisfaction at the least. " An article muchmore creditable to the little Parliament, and much needed in a communitywhich was likely to be constantly at war, prohibits, on pain of death, the violation of female captives. 

By this time all the Antilles and all the shores of the Gulf of Mexicowere in a ferment. The new colony was the object of universal hatred. The Spaniards began to fit out armaments. The chiefs of the Frenchdependencies in the West Indies eagerly offered assistance tothe Spaniards. The governors of the English settlements put forthproclamations interdicting all communication with this nest ofbuccaneers. Just at this time, the Dolphin, a vessel of fourteen guns, which was the property of the Scotch Company, was driven on shore bystress of weather under the walls of Carthagena. The ship and cargo wereconfiscated, the crew imprisoned and put in irons. Some of the sailorswere treated as slaves, and compelled to sweep the streets and to workon the fortifications. Others, and among them the captain, were sentto Seville to be tried for piracy. Soon an envoy with a flag of trucearrived at Carthagena, and, in the name of the Council of Caledonia, demanded the release of the prisoners. He delivered to the authorities aletter threatening them with the vengeance of the King of Great Britain, and a copy of the Act of Parliament by which the Company had beencreated. The Castilian governor, who probably knew that William, asSovereign of England, would not, and, as Sovereign of Scotland, couldnot, protect the squatters who had occupied Darien, flung away bothletter and Act of Parliament with a gesture of contempt, called for aguard, and was with difficulty dissuaded from throwing the messengerinto a dungeon. The Council of Caledonia, in great indignation, issuedletters of mark and reprisal against Spanish vessels. What every man ofcommon sense must have foreseen had taken place. The Scottish flag hadbeen but a few months planted on the walls of New Edinburgh; and alreadya war, which Scotland, without the help of England, was utterly unableto sustain, had begun. 

By this time it was known in Europe that the mysterious voyage of theadventurers from the Forth had ended at Darien. The ambassador of theCatholic King repaired to Kensington, and complained bitterly to Williamof this outrageous violation of the law of nations. Preparations weremade in the Spanish ports for an expedition against the intruders; andin no Spanish port were there more fervent wishes for the success ofthat expedition than in the cities of London and Bristol. In Scotland, on the other hand, the exultation was boundless. In the parish churchesall over the kingdom the ministers gave public thanks to God for havingvouchsafed thus far to protect and bless the infant colony. At someplaces a day was set apart for religious exercises on this account. Inevery borough bells were rung; bonfires were lighted; and candles wereplaced in the windows at night. During some months all the reports whicharrived from the other side of the Atlantic were such as to excite hopeand joy in the north of the island, and alarm and envy in the south. Thecolonists, it was asserted, had found rich gold mines, mines in whichthe precious metal was far more abundant and in a far purer state thanon the coast of Guinea. Provisions were plentiful. The rainy season hadnot proved unhealthy. The settlement was well fortified. Sixty guns weremounted on the ramparts. An immense crop of Indian corn was expected. The aboriginal tribes were friendly. Emigrants from various quarterswere coming in. The population of Caledonia had already increased fromtwelve hundred to ten thousand. The riches of the country, --these arethe words of a newspaper of that time, --were great beyond imagination. The mania in Scotland rose to the highest point. Munitions of war andimplements of agriculture were provided in large quantities. Multitudeswere impatient to emigrate to the land of promise. 

In August 1699 four ships, with thirteen hundred men on board, weredespatched by the Company to Caledonia. The spiritual care of theseemigrants was entrusted to divines of the Church of Scotland. One ofthese was that Alexander Shields whose Hind Let Loose proves that inhis zeal for the Covenant he had forgotten the Gospel. To another, JohnBorland, we owe the best account of the voyage which is now extant. TheGeneral Assembly had charged the chaplains to divide the colonists intocongregations, to appoint ruling elders, to constitute a presbytery, and to labour for the propagation of divine truth among the Paganinhabitants of Darien. The second expedition sailed as the first hadsailed, amidst the acclamations and blessings of all Scotland. Duringthe earlier part of September the whole nation was dreaming a delightfuldream of prosperity and glory; and triumphing, somewhat maliciously, in the vexation of the English. But, before the close of that month, itbegan to be rumoured about Lombard Street and Cheapside that letters hadarrived from Jamaica with strange news. The colony from which so muchhad been hoped and dreaded was no more. It had disappeared from the faceof the earth. The report spread to Edinburgh, but was received therewith scornful incredulity. It was an impudent lie devised by someEnglishmen who could not bear to see that, in spite of the votes of theEnglish Parliament, in spite of the proclamations of the governors ofthe English colonies, Caledonia was waxing great and opulent. Nay, theinventor of the fable was named. It was declared to be quite certainthat Secretary Vernon was the man. On the fourth of October was putforth a vehement contradiction of the story. 

On the fifth the whole truth was known. Letters were received from NewYork announcing that a few miserable men, the remains of the colonywhich was to have been the garden, the warehouse, the mart, of the wholeworld, their bones peeping through their skin, and hunger and feverwritten in their faces, had arrived in the Hudson. 

The grief, the dismay and the rage of those who had a few hours beforefancied themselves masters of all the wealth of both Indies may easilybe imagined. The Directors, in their fury, lost all self command, and, in their official letters, railed at the betrayers of Scotland, thewhite-livered deserters. The truth is that those who used these hardwords were far more deserving of blame than the wretches whom they hadsent to destruction, and whom they now reviled for not staying to beutterly destroyed. Nothing had happened but what might easily havebeen foreseen. The Company had, in childish reliance on the word of anenthusiastic projector, and in defiance of facts known to every educatedman in Europe, taken it for granted that emigrants born and bred withinten degrees of the Arctic Circle would enjoy excellent health withinten degrees of the Equator. Nay, statesmen and scholars had been deludedinto the belief that a country which, as they might have read in booksso common as those of Hakluyt and Purchas, was noted even among tropicalcountries for its insalubrity, and had been abandoned by the Spaniardssolely on account of its insalubrity, was a Montpelier. Nor had any ofPaterson's dupes considered how colonists from Fife or Lothian, who hadnever in their lives known what it was to feel the heat of a distressingmidsummer day, could endure the labour of breaking clods and carryingburdens under the fierce blaze of a vertical sun. It ought to have beenremembered that such colonists would have to do for themselves whatEnglish, French, Dutch, and Spanish colonists employed Negroes orIndians to do for them. It was seldom indeed that a white freeman inBarbadoes or Martinique, in Guiana or at Panama, was employed in severebodily labour. But the Scotch who settled at Darien must at first bewithout slaves, and must therefore dig the trench round their town, build their houses, cultivate their fields, hew wood, and draw water, with their own hands. Such toil in such an atmosphere was too much forthem. The provisions which they had brought out had been of no goodquality, and had not been improved by lapse of time or by change ofclimate. The yams and plantains did not suit stomachs accustomed to goodoatmeal. The flesh of wild animals and the green fat of the turtle, aluxury then unknown in Europe, went but a small way; and supplies werenot to be expected from any foreign settlement. During the cool months, however, which immediately followed the occupation of the isthmus therewere few deaths. But, before the equinox, disease began to make fearfulhavoc in the little community. The mortality gradually rose to ten ortwelve a day. Both the clergymen who had accompanied the expeditiondied. Paterson buried his wife in that soil which, as he had assuredhis too credulous countrymen, exhaled health and vigour. He was himselfstretched on his pallet by an intermittent fever. Still he would notadmit that the climate of his promised land was bad. There could not bea purer air. This was merely the seasoning which people who passed fromone country to another must expect. In November all would be well again. But the rate at which the emigrants died was such that none of themseemed likely to live till November. Those who were not laid on theirbeds were yellow, lean, feeble, hardly able to move the sick and tobury the dead, and quite unable to repel the expected attack of theSpaniards. The cry of the whole community was that death was all aroundthem, and that they must, while they still had strength to weigh ananchor or spread a sail, fly to some less fatal region. The men andprovisions were equally distributed among three ships, the Caledonia, the Unicorn, and the Saint Andrew. Paterson, though still too ill to sitin the Council, begged hard that he might be left behind with twenty orthirty companions to keep up a show of possession, and to await thenext arrivals from Scotland. So small a number of people, he said, might easily subsist by catching fish and turtles. But his offer wasdisregarded; he was carried, utterly helpless, on board of the SaintAndrew; and the vessel stood out to sea. 

The voyage was horrible. Scarcely any Guinea slave ship has ever hadsuch a middle passage. Of two hundred and fifty persons who were onboard of the Saint Andrew, one hundred and fifty fed the sharks of theAtlantic before Sandy Hook was in sight. The Unicorn lost almost allits officers, and about a hundred and forty men. The Caledonia, thehealthiest ship of the three, threw overboard a hundred corpses. Thesqualid survivors, as if they were not sufficiently miserable, ragedfiercely against one another. Charges of incapacity, cruelty, brutalinsolence, were hurled backward and forward. The rigid Presbyteriansattributed the calamities of the colony to the wickedness of Jacobites, Prelatists, Sabbath-breakers, Atheists, who hated in others that imageof God which was wanting in themselves. The accused malignants, on theother hand, complained bitterly of the impertinence of meddling fanaticsand hypocrites. Paterson was cruelly reviled, and was unable todefend himself. He had been completely prostrated by bodily andmental suffering. He looked like a skeleton. His heart was broken. Hisinventive faculties and his plausible eloquence were no more; and heseemed to have sunk into second childhood. 

Meanwhile the second expedition had been on the seas. It reached Darienabout four months after the first settlers had fled. The new comers hadfully expected to find a flourishing young town, secure fortifications, cultivated fields, and a cordial welcome. They found a wilderness. Thecastle of New Edinburgh was in ruins. The huts had been burned. The sitemarked out for the proud capital which was to have been the Tyre, theVenice, the Amsterdam of the eighteenth century was overgrown withjungle, and inhabited only by the sloth and the baboon. The hearts ofthe adventurers sank within them. For their fleet had been fitted out, not to plant a colony, but to recruit a colony already planted andsupposed to be prospering. They were therefore worse provided withevery necessary of life than their predecessors had been. Some feebleattempts, however, were made to restore what had perished. A new fortwas constructed on the old ground; and within the ramparts was built ahamlet, consisting of eighty or ninety cabins, generally of twelve feetby ten. But the work went on languidly. The alacrity which is the effectof hope, the strength which is the effect of union, were alike wantingto the little community. From the councillors down to the humblestsettlers all was despondency and discontent. The stock of provisions wasscanty. The stewards embezzled great part of it. The rations were small;and soon there was a cry that they were unfairly distributed. Factionswere formed. Plots were laid. One ringleader of the malecontents washanged. The Scotch were generally, as they still are, a religiouspeople; and it might therefore have been expected that the influence ofthe divines to whom the spiritual charge of the colony had been confidedwould have been employed with advantage for the preserving of order andthe calming of evil passions. Unfortunately those divines seem to havebeen at war with almost all the rest of the society. They describedtheir companions as the most profligate of mankind, and declared that itwas impossible to constitute a presbytery according to the directionsof the General Assembly; for that persons fit to be ruling elders ofa Christian Church were not to be found among the twelve or thirteenhundred emigrants. Where the blame lay it is now impossible to decide. All that can with confidence be said is that either the clergymen musthave been most unreasonably and most uncharitably austere, or the laymenmust have been most unfavourable specimens of the nation and class towhich they belonged. 

It may be added that the provision by the General Assembly for thespiritual wants of the colony was as defective as the provision made fortemporal wants by the directors of the Company. Nearly one third of theemigrants who sailed with the second expedition were Highlanders, whodid not understand a word of English; and not one of the four chaplainscould speak a word of Gaelic. It was only through interpreters that apastor could communicate with a large portion of the Christian flockof which he had charge. Even by the help of interpreters he could notimpart religious instruction to those heathen tribes which the Churchof Scotland had solemnly recommended to his care. In fact, the colonistsleft behind them no mark that baptized men had set foot on Darien, except a few Anglo-Saxon curses, which, having been uttered morefrequently and with greater energy than any other words in our language, had caught the ear and been retained in the memory of the nativepopulation of the isthmus. 

The months which immediately followed the arrival of the new comers werethe coolest and most salubrious of the year. But, even in those months, the pestilential influence of a tropical sun, shining on swamps rankwith impenetrable thickets of black mangroves, began to be felt. Themortality was great; and it was but too clear that, before the summerwas far advanced, the second colony would, like the first, have tochoose between death and flight. But the agony of the inevitabledissolution was shortened by violence. A fleet of eleven vessels underthe flag of Castile anchored off New Edinburgh. At the same time anirregular army of Spaniards, Creoles, negroes, mulattoes and Indiansmarched across the isthmus from Panama; and the fort was blockaded atonce by sea and land. 

A drummer soon came with a message from the besiegers, but a messagewhich was utterly unintelligible to the besieged. Even after all that wehave seen of the perverse imbecility of the directors of the Company, itmust be thought strange that they should have sent a colony to a remotepart of the world, where it was certain that there must be constantintercourse, peaceable or hostile, with Spaniards, and yet should nothave taken care that there should be in the whole colony a single personwho knew a little Spanish. 

With some difficulty a negotiation was carried on in such French andsuch Latin as the two parties could furnish. Before the end of Marcha treaty was signed by which the Scotch bound themselves to evacuateDarien in fourteen days; and on the eleventh of April they departed, amuch less numerous body than when they arrived. In little more than fourmonths, although the healthiest months of the year, three hundred menout of thirteen hundred had been swept away by disease. Of the survivorsvery few lived to see their native country again. Two of the shipsperished at sea. Many of the adventurers, who had left their homesflushed with hopes of speedy opulence, were glad to hire themselves outto the planters of Jamaica, and laid their bones in that land of exile. Shields died there, worn out and heart broken. Borland was the onlyminister who came back. In his curious and interesting narrative, heexpresses his feelings, after the fashion of the school in which hehad been bred, by grotesque allusions to the Old Testament, and by aprofusion of Hebrew words. On his first arrival, he tells us, he foundNew Edinburgh a Ziklag. He had subsequently been compelled to dwell inthe tents of Kedar. Once, indeed, during his sojourn, he had fallenin with a Beer-lahai-roi, and had set up his Ebenezer; but in generalDarien was to him a Magor Missabib, a Kibroth-hattaavah. The sad storyis introduced with the words in which a great man of old, deliveredover to the malice of the Evil Power, was informed of the death of hischildren and of the ruin of his fortunes: "I alone am escaped to tellthee. "

CHAPTER XXV. 

 Trial of Spencer Cowper--Duels--Discontent of the Nation--Captain Kidd--Meeting of Parliament--Attacks on Burnet--Renewed Attack on Somers--Question of the Irish Forfeitures: Dispute between the Houses--Somers again attacked--Prorogation of Parliament--Death of James the Second--The Pretender recognised as King--Return of the King--General Election--Death of William

THE passions which had agitated the Parliament during the late sessioncontinued to ferment in the minds of men during the recess, and, havingno longer a vent in the senate, broke forth in every part of the empire, destroyed the peace of towns, brought into peril the honour and thelives of innocent men, and impelled magistrates to leave the benchof justice and attack one another sword in hand. Private calamities, private brawls, which had nothing to do with the disputes between courtand country, were turned by the political animosities of that unhappysummer into grave political events. 

One mournful tale, which called forth the strongest feelings of thecontending factions, is still remembered as a curious part of thehistory of our jurisprudence, and especially of the history of ourmedical jurisprudence. No Whig member of the lower House, with thesingle exception of Montague, filled a larger space in the public eyethan William Cowper. In the art of conciliating an audience, Cowper waspreeminent. His graceful and engaging eloquence cast a spell on juries;and the Commons, even in those stormy moments when no other defender ofthe administration could obtain a hearing, would always listen to him. He represented Hertford, a borough in which his family had considerableinfluence; but there was a strong Tory minority among the electors, andhe had not won his seat without a hard fight, which had left behind itmany bitter recollections. His younger brother Spencer, a man of partsand learning, was fast rising into practice as a barrister on the HomeCircuit. 

At Hertford resided an opulent Quaker family named Stout. A pretty youngwoman of this family had lately sunk into a melancholy of a kind notvery unusual in girls of strong sensibility and lively imagination whoare subject to the restraints of austere religious societies. Her dress, her looks, her gestures, indicated the disturbance of her mind. Shesometimes hinted her dislike of the sect to which she belonged. Shecomplained that a canting waterman who was one of the brotherhood hadheld forth against her at a meeting. She threatened to go beyond sea, to throw herself out of window, to drown herself. To two or three ofher associates she owned that she was in love; and on one occasion sheplainly said that the man whom she loved was one whom she never couldmarry. In fact, the object of her fondness was Spencer Cowper, who wasalready married. She at length wrote to him in language which she neverwould have used if her intellect had not been disordered. He, like anhonest man, took no advantage of her unhappy state of mind, and did hisbest to avoid her. His prudence mortified her to such a degree thaton one occasion she went into fits. It was necessary, however, that heshould see her, when he came to Hertford at the spring assizes of1699. For he had been entrusted with some money which was due to heron mortgage. He called on her for this purpose late one evening, anddelivered a bag of gold to her. She pressed him to be the guest of herfamily; but he excused himself and retired. The next morning she wasfound dead among the stakes of a mill dam on the stream calledthe Priory River. That she had destroyed herself there could be noreasonable doubt. The coroner's inquest found that she had drownedherself while in a state of mental derangement. But her family wasunwilling to admit that she had shortened her own life, and looked aboutfor somebody who might be accused of murdering her. The last personwho could be proved to have been in her company was Spencer Cowper. Itchanced that two attorneys and a scrivener, who had come down from townto the Hertford assizes, had been overheard, on that unhappy night, talking over their wine about the charms and flirtations of the handsomeQuaker girl, in the light way in which such subjects are sometimesdiscussed even at the circuit tables and mess tables of our more refinedgeneration. Some wild words, susceptible of a double meaning, were usedabout the way in which she had jilted one lover, and the way in whichanother lover would punish her for her coquetry. On no better groundsthan these her relations imagined that Spencer Cowper had, with theassistance of these three retainers of the law, strangled her, andthrown her corpse into the water. There was absolutely no evidence ofthe crime. There was no evidence that any one of the accused had anymotive to commit such a crime; there was no evidence that Spencer Cowperhad any connection with the persons who were said to be his accomplices. One of those persons, indeed, he had never seen. But no story istoo absurd to be imposed on minds blinded by religious and politicalfanaticism. The Quakers and the Tories joined to raise a formidableclamour. The Quakers had, in those days, no scruples about capitalpunishments. They would, indeed, as Spencer Cowper said bitterly, buttoo truly, rather send four innocent men to the gallows than let it bebelieved that one who had their light within her had committed suicide. The Tories exulted in the prospect of winning two seats from the Whigs. The whole kingdom was divided between Stouts and Cowpers. At the summerassizes Hertford was crowded with anxious faces from London and fromparts of England more distant than London. The prosecution was conductedwith a malignity and unfairness which to us seem almost incredible; and, unfortunately, the dullest and most ignorant judge of the twelve wason the bench. Cowper defended himself and those who were said to be hisaccomplices with admirable ability and self possession. His brother, much more distressed than himself, sate near him through the long agonyof that day. The case against the prisoners rested chiefly on the vulgarerror that a human body, found, as this poor girl's body had been found, floating in water, must have been thrown into the water while stillalive. To prove this doctrine the counsel for the Crown called medicalpractitioners, of whom nothing is now known except that some of themhad been active against the Whigs at Hertford elections. To confirmthe evidence of these gentlemen two or three sailors were put into thewitness box. On the other side appeared an array of men of science whosenames are still remembered. Among them was William Cowper, not a kinsmanof the defendant, but the most celebrated anatomist that England hadthen produced. He was, indeed, the founder of a dynasty illustrious inthe history of science; for he was the teacher of William Cheselden, and William Cheselden was the teacher of John Hunter. On the same sideappeared Samuel Garth, who, among the physicians of the capital, had norival except Radcliffe, and Hans Sloane, the founder of the magnificentmuseum which is one of the glories of our country. The attempt of theprosecutors to make the superstitions of the forecastle evidence forthe purpose of taking away the lives of men was treated by thesephilosophers with just disdain. The stupid judge asked Garth what hecould say in answer to the testimony of the seamen. "My Lord, " repliedGarth, "I say that they are mistaken. I will find seamen in abundance toswear that they have known whistling raise the wind. "

The jury found the prisoners Not guilty; and the report carried back toLondon by persons who had been present at the trial was that everybodyapplauded the verdict, and that even the Stouts seemed to be convincedof their error. It is certain, however, that the malevolence of thedefeated party soon revived in all its energy. The lives of the fourmen who had just been absolved were again attacked by means of the mostabsurd and odious proceeding known to our old law, the appeal ofmurder. This attack too failed. Every artifice of chicane was atlength exhausted; and nothing was left to the disappointed sect and thedisappointed faction except to calumniate those whom it had been foundimpossible to murder. In a succession of libels Spencer Cowper was heldup to the execration of the public. But the public did him justice. Herose to high eminence in his profession; he at length took his seat, with general applause, on the judicial bench, and there distinguishedhimself by the humanity which he never failed to show to unhappy menwho stood, as he had once stood, at the bar. Many who seldom troublethemselves about pedigrees may be interested by learning that he wasthe grandfather of that excellent man and excellent poet William Cowper, whose writings have long been peculiarly loved and prized by the membersof the religious community which, under a strong delusion, sought toslay his innocent progenitor. [19]

Though Spencer Cowper had escaped with life and honour, the Tories hadcarried their point. They had secured against the next election thesupport of the Quakers of Hertford; and the consequence was thatthe borough was lost to the family and to the party which had latelypredominated there. 

In the very week in which the great trial took place at Hertford, afeud arising out of the late election for Buckinghamshire very nearlyproduced fatal effects. Wharton, the chief of the Buckinghamshire Whigs, had with difficulty succeeded in bringing in his brother as one ofthe knights of the shire. Graham Viscount Cheyney, of the kingdom ofScotland, had been returned at the head of the poll by the Tories. Thetwo noblemen met at the quarter sessions. In England Cheyney was beforethe Union merely an Esquire. Wharton was undoubtedly entitled to takeplace of him, and had repeatedly taken place of him without any dispute. But angry passions now ran so high that a decent pretext for indulgingthem was hardly thought necessary. Cheyney fastened a quarrel onWharton. They drew. Wharton, whose cool good humoured courage and skillin fence were the envy of all the swordsmen of that age, closed with hisquarrelsome neighbour, disarmed him, and gave him his life. 

A more tragical duel had just taken place at Westminster. ConwaySeymour, the eldest son of Sir Edward Seymour, had lately come of age. He was in possession of an independent fortune of seven thousand poundsa year, which he lavished in costly fopperies. The town had nicknamedhim Beau Seymour. He was displaying his curls and his embroidery inSaint James's Park on a midsummer evening, after indulging too freely inwine, when a young officer of the Blues named Kirke, who was as tipsy ashimself, passed near him. "There goes Beau Seymour, " said Kirke. Seymourflew into a rage. Angry words were exchanged between the foolish boys. They immediately went beyond the precincts of the Court, drew, andexchanged some pushes. Seymour was wounded in the neck. The woundwas not very serious; but, when his cure was only half completed, herevelled in fruit, ice and Burgundy till he threw himself into a violentfever. Though a coxcomb and a voluptuary, he seems to have had somefine qualities. On the last day of his life he saw Kirke. Kirke imploredforgiveness; and the dying man declared that he forgave as he hoped tobe forgiven. There can be no doubt that a person who kills another in aduel is, according to law, guilty of murder. But the law had never beenstrictly enforced against gentlemen in such cases; and in this casethere was no peculiar atrocity, no deep seated malice, no suspicion offoul play. Sir Edward, however, vehemently declared that he wouldhave life for life. Much indulgence is due to the resentment of anaffectionate father maddened by the loss of a son. But there is buttoo much reason to believe that the implacability of Seymour was theimplacability, not of an affectionate father, but of a factious andmalignant agitator. He tried to make what is, in the jargon of our time, called political capital out of the desolation of his house and theblood of his first born. A brawl between two dissolute youths, a brawldistinguished by nothing but its unhappy result from the hundred brawlswhich took place every month in theatres and taverns, he magnified intoan attack on the liberties of the nation, an attempt to introduce amilitary tyranny. The question was whether a soldier was to be permittedto insult English gentlemen, and, if they murmured, to cut theirthroats? It was moved in the Court of King's Bench that Kirke shouldeither be brought to immediate trial or admitted to bail. Shower, ascounsel for Seymour, opposed the motion. But Seymour was not content toleave the case in Shower's hands. In defiance of all decency, he went toWestminster Hall, demanded a hearing, and pronounced a harangue againststanding armies. "Here, " he said, "is a man who lives on money taken outof our pockets. The plea set up for taxing us in order to support himis that his sword protects us, and enables us to live in peace andsecurity. And is he to be suffered to use that sword to destroy us?"Kirke was tried and found guilty of manslaughter. In his case, as in thecase of Spencer Cowper, an attempt was made to obtain a writ of appeal. The attempt failed; and Seymour was disappointed of his revenge; but hewas not left without consolation. If he had lost a son, he had found, what he seems to have prized quite as much, a fertile theme forinvective. 

The King, on his return from the Continent, found his subjects inno bland humour. All Scotland, exasperated by the fate of the firstexpedition to Darien, and anxiously waiting for news of the second, called loudly for a Parliament. Several of the Scottish peers carried toKensington an address which was subscribed by thirty-six of their body, and which earnestly pressed William to convoke the Estates at Edinburgh, and to redress the wrongs which had been done to the colony of NewCaledonia. A petition to the same effect was widely circulated amongthe commonalty of his Northern kingdom, and received, if report couldbe trusted, not less than thirty thousand signatures. Discontent was farfrom being as violent in England as in Scotland. Yet in England therewas discontent enough to make even a resolute prince uneasy. The timedrew near at which the Houses must reassemble; and how were the Commonsto be managed? Montague, enraged, mortified, and intimidated by thebaiting of the last session, was fully determined not again to appearin the character of chief minister of finance. The secure and luxuriousretreat which he had, some months ago, prepared for himself was awaitinghim. He took the Auditorship, and resigned his other places. Smithbecame Chancellor of the Exchequer. A new commission of Treasury issued;and the first name was that of Tankerville. He had entered on hiscareer, more than twenty years before, with the fairest hopes, young, noble, nobly allied, of distinguished abilities, of graceful manners. There was no more brilliant man of fashion in the theatre and in thering. There was no more popular tribune in Guildhall. Such was thecommencement of a life so miserable that all the indignation excited bygreat faults is overpowered by pity. A guilty passion, amounting to amadness, left on the moral character of the unhappy man a stain at whicheven libertines looked grave. He tried to make the errors of his privatelife forgotten by splendid and perilous services to a public cause; and, having endured in that cause penury and exile, the gloom of a dungeon, the prospect of a scaffold, the ruin of a noble estate, he was sounfortunate as to be regarded by the party for which he had sacrificedevery thing as a coward, if not a traitor. Yet, even against suchaccumulated disasters and disgraces, his vigorous and aspiring mindbore up. His parts and eloquence gained for him the ear of the Houseof Lords; and at length, though not till his constitution was so brokenthat he was fitter for flannel and cushions than for a laborious officeat Whitehall, he was put at the head of one of the most importantdepartments of the administration. It might have been expected that thisappointment would call forth clamours from widely different quarters;that the Tories would be offended by the elevation of a rebel; thatthe Whigs would set up a cry against the captain to whose treacheryor faintheartedness they had been in the habit of imputing the rout ofSedgemoor; and that the whole of that great body of Englishmen whichcannot be said to be steadily Whig or Tory, but which is zealous fordecency and the domestic virtues, would see with indignation asignal mark of royal favour bestowed on one who had been convicted ofdebauching a noble damsel, the sister of his own wife. But so capriciousis public feeling that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to find, in any of the letters, essays, dialogues, and poems which bear the dateof 1699 or of 1700, a single allusion to the vices or misfortunes of thenew First Lord of the Treasury. It is probable that his infirm healthand his isolated position were his protection. The chiefs of theopposition did not fear him enough to hate him. The Whig junto was stilltheir terror and their abhorrence. They continued to assail Montague andOrford, though with somewhat less ferocity than while Montague had thedirection of the finances, and Orford of the marine. But the utmostspite of all the leading malecontents were concentrated on one object, the great magistrate who still held the highest civil post in the realm, and who was evidently determined to hold it in defiance of them. It wasnot so easy to get rid of him as it had been to drive his colleaguesfrom office. His abilities the most intolerant Tories were forcedgrudgingly to acknowledge. His integrity might be questioned in namelesslibels and in coffeehouse tattle, but was certain to come forth brightand pure from the most severe Parliamentary investigation. Nor was heguilty of those faults of temper and of manner to which, more thanto any grave delinquency, the unpopularity of his associates is to beascribed. He had as little of the insolence and perverseness of Orfordas of the petulance and vaingloriousness of Montague. One of the mostsevere trials to which the head and heart of man can be put is great andrapid elevation. To that trial both Montague and Somers were put. It wastoo much for Montague. But Somers was found equal to it. He was the sonof a country attorney. At thirty-seven he had been sitting in a stuffgown on a back bench in the Court of King's Bench. At forty-two hewas the first lay dignitary of the realm, and took precedence of theArchbishop of York, and of the Duke of Norfolk. He had risen from alower point than Montague, had risen as fast as Montague, had risen ashigh as Montague, and yet had not excited envy such as dogged Montaguethrough a long career. Garreteers, who were never weary of calling thecousin of the Earls of Manchester and Sandwich an upstart, could not, without an unwonted sense of shame, apply those words to the Chancellor, who, without one drop of patrician blood in his veins, had taken hisplace at the head of the patrician order with the quiet dignity of a manennobled by nature. His serenity, his modesty, his selfcommand, proofeven against the most sudden surprises of passion, his selfrespect, which forced the proudest grandees of the kingdom to respect him, hisurbanity, which won the hearts of the youngest lawyers of the ChanceryBar, gained for him many private friends and admirers among the mostrespectable members of the opposition. But such men as Howe and Seymourhated him implacably; they hated his commanding genius much; they hatedthe mild majesty of his virtue still more. They sought occasion againsthim everywhere; and they at length flattered themselves that they hadfound it. 

Some years before, while the war was still raging, there had been loudcomplaints in the city that even privateers of St. Malo's and Dunkirkcaused less molestation to trade than another class of marauders. TheEnglish navy was fully employed in the Channel, in the Atlantic, and inthe Mediterranean. The Indian Ocean, meanwhile, swarmed with pirates ofwhose rapacity and cruelty frightful stories were told. Many of thesemen, it was said, came from our North American colonies, and carriedback to those colonies the spoils gained by crime. Adventurers whodurst not show themselves in the Thames found a ready market for theirillgotten spices and stuffs at New York. Even the Puritans of NewEngland, who in sanctimonious austerity surpassed even their brethren ofScotland, were accused of conniving at the wickedness which enabled themto enjoy abundantly and cheaply the produce of Indian looms and Chinesetea plantations. 

In 1695 Richard Coote, Earl of Bellamont, an Irish peer who sate inthe English House of Commons, was appointed Governor of New Yorkand Massachusets. He was a man of eminently fair character, upright, courageous and independent. Though a decided Whig, he had distinguishedhimself by bringing before the Parliament at Westminster some tyrannicalacts done by Whigs at Dublin, and particularly the execution, if it isnot rather to be called the murder, of Gafney. Before Bellamont sailedfor America, William spoke strongly to him about the freebooting whichwas the disgrace of the colonies. "I send you, my Lord, to New York, " hesaid, "because an honest and intrepid man is wanted to put these abusesdown, and because I believe you to be such a man. " Bellamont exertedhimself to justify the high opinion which the King had formed of him. Itwas soon known at New York that the Governor who had just arrived fromEngland was bent on the suppression of piracy; and some colonists inwhom he placed great confidence suggested to him what they may perhapshave thought the best mode of attaining that object. There was then inthe settlement a veteran mariner named William Kidd. He had passed mostof his life on the waves, had distinguished himself by his seamanship, had had opportunities of showing his valour in action with the French, and had retired on a competence. No man knew the Eastern seas better. Hewas perfectly acquainted with all the haunts of the pirates who prowledbetween the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Malacca; and he wouldundertake, if he were entrusted with a single ship of thirty or fortyguns, to clear the Indian Ocean of the whole race. The brigantines ofthe rovers were numerous, no doubt; but none of them was large; oneman of war, which in the royal navy would hardly rank as a fourth rate, would easily deal with them all in succession; and the lawful spoils ofthe enemies of mankind would much more than defray the charges of theexpedition. Bellamont was charmed with this plan, and recommended it tothe King. The King referred it to the Admiralty. The Admiralty raiseddifficulties, such as are perpetually raised by public boards when anydeviation, whether for the better or for the worse, from the establishedcourse of proceeding is proposed. It then occurred to Bellamont that hisfavourite scheme might be carried into effect without any cost to thestate. A few public spirited men might easily fit out a privateer whichwould soon make the Arabian Gulph and the Bay of Bengal secure highwaysfor trade. He wrote to his friends in England imploring, remonstrating, complaining of their lamentable want of public spirit. Six thousandpounds would be enough. That sum would be repaid, and repaid with largeinterest, from the sale of prizes; and an inestimable benefit wouldbe conferred on the kingdom and on the world. His urgency succeeded. Shrewsbury and Romney contributed. Orford, though, as first Lord of theAdmiralty, he had been unwilling to send Kidd to the Indian ocean with aking's ship, consented to subscribe a thousand pounds. Somers subscribedanother thousand. A ship called the Adventure Galley was equipped in theport of London; and Kidd took the command. He carried with him, besidesthe ordinary letters of marque, a commission under the Great Sealempowering him to seize pirates, and to take them to some place wherethey might be dealt with according to law. Whatever right the Kingmight have to the goods found in the possession of these malefactors hegranted, by letters patent, to the persons who had been at the expenseof fitting out the expedition, reserving to himself only one tenth partof the gains of the adventure, which was to be paid into the treasury. With the claim of merchants to have back the property of which they hadbeen robbed His Majesty of course did not interfere. He granted away, and could grant away, no rights but his own. 

The press for sailors to man the royal navy was at that time so hot thatKidd could not obtain his full complement of hands in the Thames. Hecrossed the Atlantic, visited New York, and there found volunteers inabundance. At length, in February 1697, he sailed from the Hudson with acrew of more than a hundred and fifty men, and in July reached the coastof Madagascar. 

It is possible that Kidd may at first have meant to act in accordancewith his instructions. But, on the subject of piracy, he held thenotions which were then common in the North American colonies; and mostof his crew were of the same mind. He found himself in a sea which wasconstantly traversed by rich and defenceless merchant ships; and he hadto determine whether he would plunder those ships or protect them. Thegain which might be made by plundering them was immense, and might besnatched without the dangers of a battle or the delays of a trial. Therewards of protecting the lawful trade were likely to be comparativelysmall. Such as they were, they would be got only by first fighting withdesperate ruffians who would rather be killed than taken, and bythen instituting a proceeding and obtaining a judgment in a Court ofAdmiralty. The risk of being called to a severe reckoning might notunnaturally seem small to one who had seen many old buccaneers livingin comfort and credit at New York and Boston. Kidd soon threw off thecharacter of a privateer, and became a pirate. He established friendlycommunications, and exchanged arms and ammunition, with the mostnotorious of those rovers whom his commission authorised him to destroy, and made war on those peaceful traders whom he was sent to defend. Hebegan by robbing Mussulmans, and speedily proceeded from Mussulmans toArmenians, and from Armenians to Portuguese. The Adventure Galley tooksuch quantities of cotton and silk, sugar and coffee, cinnamon andpepper, that the very foremast men received from a hundred to twohundred pounds each, and that the captain's share of the spoil wouldhave enabled him to live at home as an opulent gentleman. With therapacity Kidd had the cruelty of his odious calling. He burned houses;he massacred peasantry. His prisoners were tied up and beaten with nakedcutlasses in order to extort information about their concealed hoards. One of his crew, whom he had called a dog, was provoked into exclaiming, in an agony of remorse, "Yes, I am a dog; but it is you that have mademe so. " Kidd, in a fury, struck the man dead. 

News then travelled very slowly from the eastern seas to England. But, in August 1698, it was known in London that the Adventure Galley fromwhich so much had been hoped was the terror of the merchants of Surat, and of the villagers of the coast of Malabar. It was thought probablethat Kidd would carry his booty to some colony. Orders were thereforesent from Whitehall to the governors of the transmarine possessionsof the Crown, directing them to be on the watch for him. He meanwhile, having burned his ship and dismissed most of his men, who easily foundberths in the sloops of other pirates, returned to New York with themeans, as he flattered himself, of making his peace and of livingin splendour. He had fabricated a long romance to which Bellamont, naturally unwilling to believe that he had been duped and had been themeans of duping others, was at first disposed to listen with favour. Butthe truth soon came out. The governor did his duty firmly; and Kidd wasplaced in close confinement till orders arrived from the Admiralty thathe should be sent to England. 

To an intelligent and candid judge of human actions it will not appearthat any of the persons at whose expense the Adventure Galley was fittedout deserved serious blame. The worst that could be imputed even toBellamont, who had drawn in all the rest, was that he had been led intoa fault by his ardent zeal for the public service, and by the generosityof a nature as little prone to suspect as to devise villanies. Hisfriends in England might surely be pardoned for giving credit to hisrecommendation. It is highly probable that the motive which induced someof them to aid his design was genuine public spirit. But, if we supposethem to have had a view to gain, it was to legitimate gain. Theirconduct was the very opposite of corrupt. Not only had they taken nomoney. They had disbursed money largely, and had disbursed it with thecertainty that they should never be reimbursed unless the outlay provedbeneficial to the public. That they meant well they proved by stakingthousands on the success of their plan; and, if they erred in judgment, the loss of those thousands was surely a sufficient punishment for suchan error. On this subject there would probably have been no differenceof opinion had not Somers been one of the contributors. About the otherpatrons of Kidd the chiefs of the opposition cared little. Bellamont wasfar removed from the political scene. Romney could not, and Shrewsburywould not, play a first part. Orford had resigned his employments. ButSomers still held the Great Seal, still presided in the House of Lords, still had constant access to the closet. The retreat of his friends hadleft him the sole and undisputed head of that party which had, inthe late Parliament, been a majority, and which was, in the presentParliament, outnumbered indeed, disorganised and disheartened, but stillnumerous and respectable. His placid courage rose higher and higherto meet the dangers which threatened him. He provided for himselfno refuge. He made no move towards flight; and, without uttering oneboastful word, gave his enemies to understand, by the mild firmness ofhis demeanour, that he dared them to do their worst. 

In their eagerness to displace and destroy him they overreachedthemselves. Had they been content to accuse him of lending hiscountenance, with a rashness unbecoming his high place, to anillconcerted scheme, that large part of mankind which judges of a plansimply by the event would probably have thought the accusation wellfounded. But the malice which they bore to him was not to be sosatisfied. They affected to believe that he had from the first beenaware of Kidd's character and designs. The Great Seal had been employedto sanction a piratical expedition. The head of the law had laid downa thousand pounds in the hope of receiving tens of thousands when hisaccomplices should return, laden with the spoils of ruined merchants. Itwas fortunate for the Chancellor that the calumnies of which he was theobject were too atrocious to be mischievous. 

And now the time had come at which the hoarded illhumour of six monthswas at liberty to explode. On the sixteenth of November the Housesmet. The King, in his speech, assured them in gracious and affectionatelanguage that he was determined to do his best to merit their love byconstant care to preserve their liberty and their religion, by a pureadministration of justice, by countenancing virtue, by discouragingvice, by shrinking from no difficulty or danger when the welfare of thenation was at stake. "These, " he said, "are my resolutions; and I ampersuaded that you are come together with purposes on your part suitableto these on mine. Since then our aims are only for the general good, let us act with confidence in one another, which will not fail, byGod's blessing, to make me a happy king, and you a great and flourishingpeople. "

It might have been thought that no words less likely to give offence hadever been uttered from the English throne. But even in those words themalevolence of faction sought and found matter for a quarrel. The gentleexhortation, "Let us act with confidence in one another, " must meanthat such confidence did not now exist, that the King distrusted theParliament, or that the Parliament had shown an unwarrantable distrustof the King. Such an exhortation was nothing less than a reproach;and such a reproach was a bad return for the gold and the blood whichEngland had lavished in order to make and to keep him a greatsovereign. There was a sharp debate, in which Seymour took part. Withcharacteristic indelicacy and want of feeling he harangued the Commonsas he had harangued the Court of King's Bench, about his son's death, and about the necessity of curbing the insolence of military men. Therewere loud complaints that the events of the preceding session had beenmisrepresented to the public, that emissaries of the Court, in everypart of the kingdom, declaimed against the absurd jealousies or stillmore absurd parsimony which had refused to His Majesty the means ofkeeping up such an army as might secure the country against invasion. Even justices of the peace, it was said, even deputy-lieutenants, hadused King James and King Lewis as bugbears, for the purpose of stirringup the people against honest and thrifty representatives. Angryresolutions were passed, declaring it to be the opinion of the Housethat the best way to establish entire confidence between the King andthe Estates of the Realm would be to put a brand on those evil adviserswho had dared to breathe in the royal ear calumnies against a faithfulParliament. An address founded on these resolutions was voted; manythought that a violent rupture was inevitable. But William returned ananswer so prudent and gentle that malice itself could not prolong thedispute. By this time, indeed, a new dispute had begun. The addresshad scarcely been moved when the House called for copies of the papersrelating to Kidd's expedition. Somers, conscious of innocence, knew thatit was wise as well as right to be perfectly ingenuous, and resolvedthat there should be no concealment. His friends stood manfully by him, and his enemies struck at him with such blind fury that their blowsinjured only themselves. Howe raved like a maniac. "What is to become ofthe country, plundered by land, plundered by sea? Our rulers have laidhold on our lands, our woods, our mines, our money. And all this is notenough. We cannot send a cargo to the farthest ends of the earth, butthey must send a gang of thieves after it. " Harley and Seymour triedto carry a vote of censure without giving the House time to read thepapers. But the general feeling was strongly for a short delay. Atlength, on the sixth of December, the subject was considered in acommittee of the whole House. Shower undertook to prove that the letterspatent to which Somers had put the Great Seal were illegal. Cowperreplied to him with immense applause, and seems to have completelyrefuted him. Some of the Tory orators had employed what was then afavourite claptrap. Very great men, no doubt, were concerned in thisbusiness. But were the Commons of England to stand in awe of great men?Would not they have the spirit to censure corruption and oppressionin the highest places? Cowper answered finely that assuredly the Houseought not to be deterred from the discharge of any duty by the fear ofgreat men, but that fear was not the only base and evil passion of whichgreat men were the objects, and that the flatterer who courted theirfavour was not a worse citizen than the envious calumniator who tookpleasure in bringing whatever was eminent down to his own level. Atlength, after a debate which lasted from midday till nine at night, andin which all the leading members took part, the committee divided onthe question that the letters patent were dishonourable to the King, inconsistent with the law of nations, contrary to the statutes of therealm, and destructive of property and trade. The Chancellor's enemieshad felt confident of victory, and had made the resolution so strong inorder that it might be impossible for him to retain the Great Seal. Theysoon found that it would have been wise to propose a gentler censure. Great numbers of their adherents, convinced by Cowper's arguments, or unwilling to put a cruel stigma on a man of whose genius andaccomplishments the nation was proud, stole away before the door wasclosed. To the general astonishment there were only one hundred andthirty-three Ayes to one hundred and eighty-nine Noes. That the City ofLondon did not consider Somers as the destroyer, and his enemies as theprotectors, of trade, was proved on the following morning by the mostunequivocal of signs. As soon as the news of his triumph reached theRoyal Exchange, the price of stocks went up. 

Some weeks elapsed before the Tories ventured again to attack him. Inthe meantime they amused themselves by trying to worry another personwhom they hated even more bitterly. When, in a financial debate, the arrangements of the household of the Duke of Gloucester wereincidentally mentioned, one or two members took the opportunity ofthrowing reflections on Burnet. Burnet's very name sufficed to raiseamong the High Churchmen a storm of mingled merriment and anger. TheSpeaker in vain reminded the orators that they were wandering from thequestion. The majority was determined to have some fun with the RightReverend Whig, and encouraged them to proceed. Nothing appears to havebeen said on the other side. The chiefs of the opposition inferred fromthe laughing and cheering of the Bishop's enemies, and from the silenceof his friends, that there would be no difficulty in driving from Court, with contumely, the prelate whom of all prelates they most detested, asthe personification of the latitudinarian spirit, a Jack Presbyter inlawn sleeves. They, therefore, after the lapse of a few hours, movedquite unexpectedly an address requesting the King to remove the Bishopof Salisbury from the place of preceptor to the young heir apparent. But it soon appeared that many who could not help smiling at Burnet'sweaknesses did justice to his abilities and virtues. The debate was hot. The unlucky Pastoral Letter was of course not forgotten. It was askedwhether a man who had proclaimed that England was a conquered country, aman whose servile pages the English Commons had ordered to be burnedby the hangman, could be a fit instructor for an English Prince. Somereviled the Bishop for being a Socinian, which he was not, and somefor being a Scotchman, which he was. His defenders fought his battlegallantly. "Grant, " they said, "that it is possible to find, amidst animmense mass of eloquent and learned matter published in defence of theProtestant religion and of the English Constitution, a paragraph which, though well intended, was not well considered, is that error of anunguarded minute to outweigh the services of more than twenty years? Ifone House of Commons, by a very small majority, censured a little tractof which his Lordship was the author, let it be remembered that anotherHouse of Commons unanimously voted thanks to him for a work of verydifferent magnitude and importance, the History of the Reformation. And, as to what is said about his birthplace, is there not already ill humourenough in Scotland? Has not the failure of that unhappy expedition toDarien raised a sufficiently bitter feeling against us throughout thatkingdom? Every wise and honest man is desirous to soothe the angrypassions of our neighbours. And shall we, just at this moment, exasperate those passions by proclaiming that to be born on the northof the Tweed is a disqualification for all honourable trust?" Theministerial members would gladly have permitted the motion to bewithdrawn. But the opposition, elated with hope, insisted on dividing, and were confounded by finding that, with all the advantage of asurprise, they were only one hundred and thirty-three to one hundred andseventy-three. Their defeat would probably have been less complete, hadnot all those members who were especially attached to the Princess ofDenmark voted in the majority or absented themselves. Marlborough usedall his influence against the motion; and he had strong reasons fordoing so. He was by no means well pleased to see the Commons engaged indiscussing the characters and past lives of the persons who were placedabout the Duke of Gloucester. If the High Churchmen, by reviving oldstories, succeeded in carrying a vote against the Preceptor, it wasby no means unlikely that some malicious Whig might retaliate onthe Governor. The Governor must have been conscious that he was notinvulnerable; nor could he absolutely rely on the support of thewhole body of Tories; for it was believed that their favourite leader, Rochester, thought himself the fittest person to superintend theeducation of his grand nephew. 

From Burnet the opposition went back to Somers. Some Crown propertynear Reigate had been granted to Somers by the King. In this transactionthere was nothing that deserved blame. The Great Seal ought always tobe held by a lawyer of the highest distinction; nor can such a lawyerdischarge his duties in a perfectly efficient manner unless, with theGreat Seal, he accepts a peerage. But he may not have accumulated afortune such as will alone suffice to support a peerage; his peerageis permanent; and his tenure of the Great Seal is precarious. In a fewweeks he may be dismissed from office, and may find that he has lost alucrative profession, that he has got nothing but a costly dignity, thathe has been transformed from a prosperous barrister into a mendicantlord. Such a risk no wise man will run. If, therefore, the state is tobe well served in the highest civil post, it is absolutely necessarythat a provision should be made for retired Chancellors. The Sovereignis now empowered by Act of Parliament to make such a provision out ofthe public revenue. In old times such a provision was ordinarily madeout of the hereditary domain of the Crown. What had been bestowed onSomers appears to have amounted, after all deductions, to a net incomeof about sixteen hundred a year, a sum which will hardly shock us whohave seen at one time five retired Chancellors enjoying pensions of fivethousand a year each. For the crime, however, of accepting this grantthe leaders of the opposition hoped that they should be able to punishSomers with disgrace and ruin. One difficulty stood in the way. All thathe had received was but a pittance when compared with the wealth withwhich some of his persecutors had been loaded by the last two kings ofthe House of Stuart. It was not easy to pass any censure on him whichshould not imply a still more severe censure on two generations ofGranvilles, on two generations of Hydes, and on two generations ofFinches. At last some ingenious Tory thought of a device by which itmight be possible to strike the enemy without wounding friends. The grants of Charles and James had been made in time of peace; andWilliam's grant to Somers had been made in time of war. Malice eagerlycaught at this childish distinction. It was moved that any ministerwho had been concerned in passing a grant for his own benefit while thenation was under the heavy taxes of the late war had violated his trust;as if the expenditure which is necessary to secure to the country a goodadministration of justice ought to be suspended by war; or as if it werenot criminal in a government to squander the resources of the state intime of peace. The motion was made by James Brydges, eldest son of theLord Chandos, the James Brydges who afterwards became Duke of Chandos, who raised a gigantic fortune out of war taxes, to squander it incomfortless and tasteless ostentation, and who is still rememberedas the Timon of Pope's keen and brilliant satire. It was remarked asextraordinary that Brydges brought forward and defended his motionmerely as the assertion of an abstract truth, and avoided all mentionof the Chancellor. It seemed still more extraordinary that Howe, whosewhole eloquence consisted in cutting personalities, named nobody on thisoccasion, and contented himself with declaiming in general terms againstcorruption and profusion. It was plain that the enemies of Somers wereat once urged forward by hatred and kept back by fear. They knewthat they could not carry a resolution directly condemning him. They, therefore, cunningly brought forward a mere speculative propositionwhich many members might be willing to affirm without scrutinising itseverely. But, as soon as the major premise had been admitted, the minorwould be without difficulty established; and it would be impossible toavoid coming to the conclusion that Somers had violated his trust. Suchtactics, however, have very seldom succeeded in English parliaments;for a little good sense and a little straightforwardness are quitesufficient to confound them. A sturdy Whig member, Sir Rowland Gwyn, disconcerted the whole scheme of operations. "Why this reserve?" hesaid, "Everybody knows your meaning. Everybody sees that you have notthe courage to name the great man whom you are trying to destroy. " "Thatis false, " cried Brydges; and a stormy altercation followed. It soonappeared that innocence would again triumph. The two parties seemed tohave exchanged characters for one day. The friends of the government, who in the Parliament were generally humble and timorous, took a hightone, and spoke as it becomes men to speak who are defending persecutedgenius and virtue. The malecontents, generally so insolent andturbulent, seemed to be completely cowed. They abased themselves solow as to protest, what no human being could believe, that they had nointention of attacking the Chancellor, and had framed their resolutionwithout any view to him. Howe, from whose lips scarcely any thing everdropped but gall and poison, went so far as to say: "My Lord Somers isa man of eminent merit, of merit so eminent that, if he had made a slip, we might well overlook it. " At a late hour the question was put; and themotion was rejected by a majority of fifty in a house of four hundredand nineteen members. It was long since there had been so large anattendance at a division. 

The ignominious failure of the attacks on Somers and Burnet seemed toprove that the assembly was coming round to a better temper. But thetemper of a House of Commons left without the guidance of a ministryis never to be trusted. "Nobody can tell today, " said an experiencedpolitician of that time, "what the majority may take it into their headsto do tomorrow. " Already a storm was gathering in which the Constitutionitself was in danger of perishing, and from which none of the threebranches of the legislature escaped without serious damage. 

The question of the Irish forfeitures had been raised; and aboutthat question the minds of men, both within and without the walls ofParliament, were in a strangely excitable state. Candid and intelligentmen, whatever veneration they may feel for the memory of William, must find it impossible to deny that, in his eagerness to enrich andaggrandise his personal friends, he too often forgot what was due tohis own reputation and to the public interest. It is true that in givingaway the old domains of the Crown he did only what he had a right todo, and what all his predecessors had done; nor could the most factiousopposition insist on resuming his grants of those domains withoutresuming at the same time the grants of his uncles. But between thosedomains and the estates recently forfeited in Ireland there was adistinction, which would not indeed have been recognised by thejudges, but which to a popular assembly might well seem to be of graveimportance. In the year 1690 a Bill had been brought in for applying theIrish forfeitures to the public service. That Bill passed the Commons, and would probably, with large amendments, have passed the Lords, hadnot the King, who was under the necessity of attending the Congress atthe Hague, put an end to the session. In bidding the Houses farewellon that occasion, he assured them that he should not dispose of theproperty about which they had been deliberating, till they should havehad another opportunity of settling that matter. He had, as he thought, strictly kept his word; for he had not disposed of this property tillthe Houses had repeatedly met and separated without presenting to himany bill on the subject. They had had the opportunity which he hadassured them that they should have. They had had more than one suchopportunity. The pledge which he had given had therefore been amplyredeemed; and he did not conceive that he was bound to abstain longerfrom exercising his undoubted prerogative. But, though it could hardlybe denied that he had literally fulfilled his promise, the generalopinion was that such a promise ought to have been more than literallyfulfilled. If his Parliament, overwhelmed with business which could notbe postponed without danger to his throne and to his person, had beenforced to defer, year after year, the consideration of so large andcomplex a question as that of the Irish forfeitures, it ill becamehim to take advantage of such a laches with the eagerness of a shrewdattorney. Many persons, therefore, who were sincerely attached to hisgovernment, and who on principle disapproved of resumptions, thought thecase of these forfeitures an exception to the general rule. 

The Commons had at the close of the last session tacked to the Land TaxBill a clause impowering seven Commissioners, who were designated byname, to take account of the Irish forfeitures; and the Lords and theKing, afraid of losing the Land Tax Bill, had reluctantly consented tothis clause. During the recess, the commissioners had visited Ireland. They had since returned to England. Their report was soon laid beforeboth Houses. By the Tories, and by their allies the republicans, it waseagerly hailed. It had, indeed, been framed for the express purposeof flattering and of inflaming them. Three of the commissioners hadstrongly objected to some passages as indecorous, and even calumnious;but the other four had overruled every objection. Of the four the chiefwas Trenchard. He was by calling a pamphleteer, and seems not to havebeen aware that the sharpness of style and of temper which may betolerated in a pamphlet is inexcusable in a state paper. He was certainthat he should be protected and rewarded by the party to which he owedhis appointment, and was delighted to have it in his power to publish, with perfect security and with a semblance of official authority, bitterreflections on King and ministry, Dutch favourites, French refugees, andIrish Papists. The consequence was that only four names were subscribedto the report. The three dissentients presented a separate memorial. Asto the main facts, however, there was little or no dispute. It appearedthat more than a million of Irish acres, or about seventeenhundred thousand English acres, an area equal to that of Middlesex, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshiretogether, had been forfeited during the late troubles. But of thevalue of this large territory very different estimates were formed. The commissioners acknowledged that they could obtain no certaininformation. In the absence of such information they conjectured theannual rent to be about two hundred thousand pounds, and the fee simpleto be worth thirteen years' purchase, that is to say, about two millionssix hundred thousand pounds. They seem not to have been aware that muchof the land had been let very low on perpetual leases, and that much wasburdened with mortgages. A contemporary writer, who was evidently wellacquainted with Ireland, asserted that the authors of the report hadvalued the forfeited property in Carlow at six times the real marketprice, and that the two million six hundred thousand pounds, of whichthey talked, would be found to shrink to about half a million, which, asthe exchanges then stood between Dublin and London, would have dwindledto four hundred thousand pounds by the time that it reached the EnglishExchequer. It was subsequently proved, beyond all dispute, that thisestimate was very much nearer the truth than that which had been formedby Trenchard and Trenchard's colleagues. 

Of the seventeen hundred thousand acres which had been forfeited, abovea fourth part had been restored to the ancient proprietors in conformitywith the civil articles of the treaty of Limerick. About one seventhof the remaining three fourths had been given back to unhappy families, which, though they could not plead the letter of the treaty, had beenthought fit objects of clemency. The rest had been bestowed, partly onpersons whose seances merited all and more than all that they obtained, but chiefly on the King's personal friends. Romney had obtained aconsiderable share of the royal bounty. But of all the grants thelargest was to Woodstock, the eldest son of Portland; the next was toAlbemarle. An admirer of William cannot relate without pain that hedivided between these two foreigners an extent of country larger thanHertfordshire. 

This fact, simply reported, would have sufficed to excite a strongfeeling of indignation in a House of Commons less irritable andquerulous than that which then sate at Westminster. But Trenchard andhis confederates were not content with simply reporting the fact. Theyemployed all their skill to inflame the passions of the majority. Theyat once applied goads to its anger and held out baits to its cupidity. 

They censured that part of William's conduct which deserved highpraise even more severely than that part of his conduct for which it isimpossible to set up any defence. They told the Parliament that the oldproprietors of the soil had been treated with pernicious indulgence;that the capitulation of Limerick had been construed in a manner fartoo favourable to the conquered race; and that the King had suffered hiscompassion to lead him into the error of showing indulgence to many whocould not pretend that they were within the terms of the capitulation. Even now, after the lapse of eight years, it might be possible, byinstituting a severe inquisition, and by giving proper encouragement toinformers, to prove that many Papists, who were still permitted to enjoytheir estates, had taken the side of James during the civil war. Therewould thus be a new and plentiful harvest of confiscations. The fourbitterly complained that their task had been made more difficult bythe hostility of persons who held office in Ireland, and by the secretinfluence of great men who were interested in concealing the truth. These grave charges were made in general terms. No name was mentioned;no fact was specified; no evidence was tendered. 

Had the report stopped here, those who drew it up might justly havebeen blamed for the unfair and ill natured manner in which they haddischarged their functions; but they could not have been accused ofusurping functions which did not belong to them for the purpose ofinsulting the Sovereign and exasperating the nation. But these menwell knew in what way and for what purpose they might safely venture toexceed their commission. The Act of Parliament from which they derivedtheir powers authorised them to report on estates forfeited during thelate troubles. It contained not a word which could be construed into anauthority to report on the old hereditary domain of the Crown. With thatdomain they had as little to do as with the seignorage levied on tinin the Duchy of Cornwall, or with the church patronage of the Duchy ofLancaster. But they had discovered that a part of that domain had beenalienated by a grant which they could not deny themselves the pleasureof publishing to the world. It was indeed an unfortunate grant, a grantwhich could not be brought to light without much mischief and muchscandal. It was long since William had ceased to be the lover ofElisabeth Villiers, long since he had asked her counsel or listened toher fascinating conversation except in the presence of other persons. She had been some years married to George Hamilton, a soldier who haddistinguished himself by his courage in Ireland and Flanders, and whoprobably held the courtier like doctrine that a lady is not dishonouredby having been the paramour of a king. William was well pleased with themarriage, bestowed on the wife a portion of the old Crown property inIreland, and created the husband a peer of Scotland by the title ofEarl of Orkney. Assuredly William would not have raised his character byabandoning to poverty a woman whom he had loved, though with a criminallove. He was undoubtedly bound, as a man of humanity and honour, toprovide liberally for her; but he should have provided for her ratherby saving from his civil list than by alienating his hereditary revenue. The four malecontent commissioners rejoiced with spiteful joy over thisdiscovery. It was in vain that the other three represented that thegrant to Lady Orkney was one with which they had nothing to do, andthat, if they went out of their way to hold it up to obloquy, they mightbe justly said to fly in the King's face. "To fly in the King's face!"said one of the majority; "our business is to fly in the King's face. Wewere sent here to fly in the King's face. " With this patriotic object aparagraph about Lady Orkney's grant was added to the report, a paragraphtoo in which the value of that grant was so monstrously exaggerated thatWilliam appeared to have surpassed the profligate extravagance ofhis uncle Charles. The estate bestowed on the countess was valued attwenty-four thousand pounds a year. The truth seems to be that theincome which she derived from the royal bounty, after making allowancefor incumbrances and for the rate of exchange, was about four thousandpounds. 

The success of the report was complete. The nation and itsrepresentatives hated taxes, hated foreign favourites, and hated IrishPapists; and here was a document which held out the hope that Englandmight, at the expense of foreign courtiers and of popish Celts, berelieved from a great load of taxes. Many, both within and withoutthe walls of Parliament, gave entire faith to the estimate which thecommissioners had formed by a wild guess, in the absence of trustworthyinformation. They gave entire faith also to the prediction that a strictinquiry would detect many traitors who had hitherto been permitted toescape with impunity, and that a large addition would thus be madeto the extensive territory which had already been confiscated. It waspopularly said that, if vigorous measures were taken, the gain to thekingdom would be not less than three hundred thousand pounds a year; andalmost the whole of this sum, a sum more than sufficient to defray thewhole charge of such an army as the Commons were disposed to keep upin time of peace, would be raised by simply taking away what had beenunjustifiably given to Dutchmen, who would still retain immense wealthtaken out of English pockets, or unjustifiably left to Irishmen, who thought it at once the most pleasant and the most pious of allemployments to cut English throats. The Lower House went to work withthe double eagerness of rapacity and of animosity. As soon as the reportof the four and the protest of the three had been laid on the tableand read by the clerk, it was resolved that a Resumption Bill shouldbe brought in. It was then resolved, in opposition to the plainestprinciples of justice, that no petition from any person who might thinkhimself aggrieved by this bill should ever be received. It was necessaryto consider how the commissioners should be remunerated for theirservices; and this question was decided with impudent injustice. Itwas determined that the commissioners who had signed the report shouldreceive a thousand pounds each. But a large party thought that thedissentient three deserved no recompense; and two of them were merelyallowed what was thought sufficient to cover the expense of theirjourney to Ireland. This was nothing less than to give notice to everyman who should ever be employed in any similar inquiry that, if hewished to be paid, he must report what would please the assembly whichheld the purse of the state. In truth the House was despotic, and wasfast contracting the vices of a despot. It was proud of its antipathy tocourtiers; and it was calling into existence a new set of courtiers whowould study all its humours, who would flatter all its weaknesses, whowould prophesy to it smooth things, and who would assuredly be, in norespect, less greedy, less faithless, or less abject than the sycophantswho bow in the antechambers of kings. 

Indeed the dissentient commissioners had worse evils to apprehend thanthat of being left unremunerated. One of them, Sir Richard Levinz, hadmentioned in private to his friends some disrespectful expressionswhich had been used by one of his colleagues about the King. What hehad mentioned in private was, not perhaps very discreetly, repeatedby Montague in the House. The predominant party eagerly seized theopportunity of worrying both Montague and Levinz. A resolution implyinga severe censure on Montague was carried. Levinz was brought to the barand examined. The four were also in attendance. They protested that hehad misrepresented them. Trenchard declared that he had always spoken ofHis Majesty as a subject ought to speak of an excellent sovereign, whohad been deceived by evil counsellors, and who would be grateful tothose who should bring the truth to his knowledge. He vehemently deniedthat he had called the grant to Lady Orkney villainous. It was aword that he never used, a word that never came out of the mouth of agentleman. These assertions will be estimated at the proper value bythose who are acquainted with Trenchard's pamphlets, pamphlets in whichthe shocking word villainous will without difficulty be found, and whichare full of malignant reflections on William. [20] But the House wasdetermined not to believe Levinz. He was voted a calumniator, and sentto the Tower, as an example to all who should be tempted to speak truthwhich the Commons might not like to hear. 

Meanwhile the bill had been brought in, and was proceeding easily. Itprovided that all the property which had belonged to the Crown at thetime of the accession of James the Second, or which had been forfeitedto the Crown since that time, should be vested in trustees. Thesetrustees were named in the bill; and among them were the fourcommissioners who had signed the report. All the Irish grants of Williamwere annulled. The legal rights of persons other than the grantees weresaved. But of those rights the trustees were to be judges, and judgeswithout appeal. A claimant who gave them the trouble of attending tohim, and could not make out his case, was to be heavily fined. Rewardswere offered to informers who should discover any property which wasliable to confiscation, and which had not yet been confiscated. Thougheight years had elapsed since an arm had been lifted up in the conqueredisland against the domination of the Englishry, the unhappy childrenof the soil, who had been suffered to live, submissive and obscure, on their hereditary fields, were threatened with a new and severeinquisition into old offences. 

Objectionable as many parts of the bill undoubtedly were, nobody whoknew the House of Commons believed it to be possible to carry anyamendment. The King flattered himself that a motion for leaving at hisdisposal a third part of the forfeitures would be favourably received. There can be little doubt that a compromise would have been willinglyaccepted twelve months earlier. But the report had made all compromiseimpossible. William, however, was bent on trying the experiment; andVernon consented to go on what he considered as a forlorn hope. He madehis speech and his motion; but the reception which he met with was suchthat he did not venture to demand a division. This feeble attemptat obstruction only made the impetuous current chafe the more. Howeimmediately moved two resolutions; one attributing the load of debts andtaxes which lay on the nation to the Irish grants; the other censuringall who had been concerned in advising or passing those grants. Nobodywas named; not because the majority was inclined to show any tendernessto the Whig ministers, but because some of the most objectionable grantshad been sanctioned by the Board of Treasury when Godolphin and Seymour, who had great influence with the country party, sate at that board. 

Howe's two resolutions were laid before the King by the Speaker, inwhose train all the leaders of the opposition appeared at Kensington. Even Seymour, with characteristic effrontery, showed himself there asone of the chief authors of a vote which pronounced him guilty of abreach of duty. William's answer was that he had thought himself boundto reward out of the forfeited property those who had served him well, and especially those who had borne a principal part in the reduction ofIreland. The war, he said, had undoubtedly left behind it a heavy debt;and he should be glad to see that debt reduced by just and effectualmeans. This answer was but a bad one; and, in truth, it washardly possible for him to return a good one. He had done what wasindefensible; and, by attempting to defend himself, he made his caseworse. It was not true that the Irish forfeitures, or one fifth part ofthem, had been granted to men who had distinguished themselves in theIrish war; and it was not judicious to hint that those forfeitures couldnot justly be applied to the discharge of the public debts. The Commonsmurmured, and not altogether without reason. "His Majesty tells us, "they said, "that the debts fall to us and the forfeitures to him. Weare to make good out of the purses of Englishmen what was spent upon thewar; and he is to put into the purses of Dutchmen what was got by thewar. " When the House met again, Howe moved that whoever had advisedthe King to return such an answer was an enemy to His Majesty and thekingdom; and this resolution was carried with some slight modification. 

To whatever criticism William's answer might be open, he had said onething which well deserved the attention of the House. A small part ofthe forfeited property had been bestowed on men whose services to thestate well deserved a much larger recompense; and that part could notbe resumed without gross injustice and ingratitude. An estate of verymoderate value had been given, with the title of Earl of Athlone, toGinkell, whose skill and valour had brought the war in Ireland to atriumphant close. Another estate had been given, with the title of Earlof Galway, to Rouvigny, who, in the crisis of the decisive battle, atthe very moment when Saint Ruth was waving his hat, and exclaimingthat the English should be beaten back to Dublin, had, at the head ofa gallant body of horse, struggled through the morass, turned the leftwing of the Celtic army, and retrieved the day. But the predominantfaction, drunk with insolence and animosity, made no distinction betweencourtiers who had been enriched by injudicious partiality and warriorswho had been sparingly rewarded for great exploits achieved in defenceof the liberties and the religion of our country. Athlone was aDutchman; Galway was a Frenchman; and it did not become a goodEnglishman to say a word in favour of either. 

Yet this was not the most flagrant injustice of which the Commons wereguilty. According to the plainest principles of common law and of commonsense, no man can forfeit any rights except those which he has. All thedonations which William had made he had made subject to this limitation. But by this limitation the Commons were too angry and too rapacious tobe bound. They determined to vest in the trustees of the forfeited landsan estate greater than had ever belonged to the forfeiting landholders. Thus innocent persons were violently deprived of property which wastheirs by descent or by purchase, of property which had been strictlyrespected by the King and by his grantees. No immunity was granted evento men who had fought on the English side, even to men who had lined thewalls of Londonderry and rushed on the Irish guns at Newton Butler. 

In some cases the Commons showed indulgence; but their indulgence wasnot less unjustifiable, nor of less pernicious example, than theirseverity. The ancient rule, a rule which is still strictly maintained, and which cannot be relaxed without danger of boundless profusion andshameless jobbery, is that whatever the Parliament grants shall begranted to the Sovereign, and that no public bounty shall be bestowed onany private person except by the Sovereign. 

The Lower House now, contemptuously disregarding both principles andprecedents, took on itself to carve estates out of the forfeituresfor persons whom it was inclined to favour. To the Duke of Ormondespecially, who ranked among the Tories and was distinguished by hisdislike of the foreigners, marked partiality was shown. Some of hisfriends, indeed, hoped that they should be able to insert in the billa clause bestowing on him all the confiscated estates in the county ofTipperary. But they found that it would be prudent in them to contentthemselves with conferring on him a boon smaller in amount, but equallyobjectionable in principle. He had owed very large debts to persons whohad forfeited to the Crown all that belonged to them. Those debts weretherefore now due from him to the Crown. The House determined to makehim a present of the whole, that very House which would not consentto leave a single acre to the general who had stormed Athlone, who hadgained the battle of Aghrim, who had entered Galway in triumph, and whohad received the submission of Limerick. 

That a bill so violent, so unjust, and so unconstitutional would passthe Lords without considerable alteration was hardly to be expected. Theruling demagogues, therefore, resolved to join it with the bill whichgranted to the Crown a land tax of two shillings in the pound for theservice of the next year, and thus to place the Upper House under thenecessity of either passing both bills together without the change of aword, or rejecting both together, and leaving the public creditor unpaidand the nation defenceless. 

There was great indignation among the Peers. They were not indeed moredisposed than the Commons to approve of the manner in which the Irishforfeitures had been granted away; for the antipathy to the foreigners, strong as it was in the nation generally, was strongest in the highestranks. Old barons were angry at seeing themselves preceded by newearls from Holland and Guelders. Garters, gold keys, white staves, rangerships, which had been considered as peculiarly belonging to thehereditary grandees of the realm, were now intercepted by aliens. Every English nobleman felt that his chance of obtaining a share ofthe favours of the Crown was seriously diminished by the competitionof Bentincks and Keppels, Auverquerques and Zulesteins. But, though theriches and dignities heaped on the little knot of Dutch courtiers mightdisgust him, the recent proceedings of the Commons could not but disgusthim still more. The authority, the respectability, the existence of hisorder were threatened with destruction. Not only, --such were thejust complaints of the Peers, --not only are we to be deprived of thatcoordinate legislative power to which we are, by the constitution of therealm, entitled. We are not to be allowed even a suspensive veto. We arenot to dare to remonstrate, to suggest an amendment, to offer a reason, to ask for an explanation. Whenever the other House has passed a billto which it is known that we have strong objections, that bill is tobe tacked to a bill of supply. If we alter it, we are told that weare attacking the most sacred privilege of the representatives of thepeople, and that we must either take the whole or reject the whole. Ifwe reject the whole, public credit is shaken; the Royal Exchange is inconfusion; the Bank stops payment; the army is disbanded; the fleetis in mutiny; the island is left, without one regiment, without onefrigate, at the mercy of every enemy. The danger of throwing out a billof supply is doubtless great. Yet it may on the whole be better that weshould face that danger, once for all, than that we should consent tobe, what we are fast becoming, a body of no more importance than theConvocation. 

Animated by such feelings as these, a party in the Upper House was eagerto take the earliest opportunity of making a stand. On the fourth ofApril, the second reading was moved. Near a hundred lords were present. Somers, whose serene wisdom and persuasive eloquence had seldom beenmore needed, was confined to his room by illness; and his place on thewoolsack was supplied by the Earl of Bridgewater. Several orators, bothWhig and Tory, objected to proceeding farther. But the chiefs of bothparties thought it better to try the almost hopeless experiment ofcommitting the bill and sending it back amended to the Commons. Thesecond reading was carried by seventy votes to twenty-three. It wasremarked that both Portland and Albemarle voted in the majority. 

In the Committee and on the third reading several amendments wereproposed and carried. Wharton, the boldest and most active of the Whigpeers, and the Lord Privy Seal Lonsdale, one of the most moderate andreasonable of the Tories, took the lead, and were strenuously supportedby the Lord President Pembroke, and by the Archbishop of Canterbury, whoseems on this occasion to have a little forgotten his habitual sobrietyand caution. Two natural sons of Charles the Second, Richmond andSouthampton, who had strong personal reasons for disliking resumptionbills, were zealous on the same side. No peer, however, as far as cannow be discovered, ventured to defend the way in which William haddisposed of his Irish domains. The provisions which annulled the grantsof those domains were left untouched. But the words of which the effectwas to vest in the parliamentary trustees property which had neverbeen forfeited to the King, and had never been given away by him, werealtered; and the clauses by which estates and sums of money were, in defiance of constitutional principle and of immemorial practice, bestowed on persons who were favourites of the Commons, were so farmodified as to be, in form, somewhat less exceptionable. The bill, improved by these changes, was sent down by two judges to the LowerHouse. 

The Lower House was all in a flame. There was now no difference ofopinion there. Even those members who thought that the Resumption Billand the Land Tax Bill ought not to have been tacked together, yet feltthat, since those bills had been tacked together, it was impossible toagree to the amendments made by the Lords without surrendering oneof the most precious privileges of the Commons. The amendmentswere rejected without one dissentient voice. It was resolved that aconference should be demanded; and the gentlemen who were to manage theconference were instructed to say merely that the Upper House had noright to alter a money bill; that the point had long been settled andwas too clear for argument; that they should leave the bill with theLords, and that they should leave with the Lords also the responsibilityof stopping the supplies which were necessary for the public service. Several votes of menacing sound were passed at the same sitting. It wasMonday the eighth of April. Tuesday the ninth was allowed to theother House for reflection and repentance. It was resolved that on theWednesday morning the question of the Irish forfeitures should again betaken into consideration, and that every member who was in town shouldbe then in his place on peril of the highest displeasure of the House. It was moved and carried that every Privy Councillor who had beenconcerned in procuring or passing any exorbitant grant for his ownbenefit had been guilty of a high crime and misdemeanour. Lest thecourtiers should flatter themselves that this was meant to be a mereabstract proposition, it was ordered that a list of the members ofthe Privy Council should be laid on the table. As it was thought notimprobable that the crisis might end in an appeal to the constituentbodies, nothing was omitted which could excite out of doors a feelingin favour of the bill. The Speaker was directed to print and publish thereport signed by the four Commissioners, not accompanied, as in commonjustice it ought to have been, by the protest of the three dissentients, but accompanied by several extracts from the journals which were thoughtlikely to produce an impression favourable to the House and unfavourableto the Court. All these resolutions passed without any division, and without, as far as appears, any debate. There was, indeed, muchspeaking, but all on one side. Seymour, Harley, Howe, Harcourt, Shower, Musgrave, declaimed, one after another, about the obstinacy of the otherHouse, the alarming state of the country, the dangers which threatenedthe public peace and the public credit. If, it was said, none butEnglishmen sate in the Parliament and in the Council, we might hope thatthey would relent at the thought of the calamities which impend overEngland. But we have to deal with men who are not Englishmen, with menwho consider this country as their own only for evil, as their property, not as their home; who, when they have gorged themselves with ourwealth, will, without one uneasy feeling, leave us sunk in bankruptcy, distracted by faction, exposed without defence to invasion. "A new war, "said one of these orators, "a new war, as long, as bloody, and ascostly as the last, would do less mischief than has been done by theintroduction of that batch of Dutchmen among the barons of the realm. "Another was so absurd as to call on the House to declare that whoevershould advise a dissolution would be guilty of high treason. A thirdgave utterance to a sentiment which it is difficult to understand howany assembly of civilised and Christian men, even in a moment of strongexcitement, should have heard without horror. "They object to tacking;do they? Let them take care that they do not provoke us to tack inearnest. How would they like to have bills of supply with bills ofattainder tacked to them?" This atrocious threat, worthy of the tribuneof the French Convention in the worst days of the Jacobin tyranny, seems to have passed unreprehended. It was meant--such at least was theimpression at the Dutch embassy--to intimidate Somers. He wasconfined by illness. He had been unable to take any public part in theproceedings of the Lords; and he had privately blamed them for engagingin a conflict in which he justly thought that they could not bevictorious. Nevertheless, the Tory leaders hoped that they might beable to direct against him the whole force of the storm which they hadraised. Seymour, in particular, encouraged by the wild and almost savagetemper of his hearers, harangued with rancorous violence against thewisdom and the virtue which presented the strongest contrast to his ownturbulence, insolence, faithlessness, and rapacity. No doubt, he said, the Lord Chancellor was a man of parts. Anybody might be glad to havefor counsel so acute and eloquent an advocate. But a very good advocatemight be a very bad minister; and, of all the ministers who had broughtthe kingdom into difficulties, this plausible, fair-spoken person wasthe most dangerous. Nor was the old reprobate ashamed to add that he wasafraid that his Lordship was no better than a Hobbist in religion. 

After a long sitting the members separated; but they reassembled earlyon the morning of the following day, Tuesday the ninth of April. Aconference was held; and Seymour, as chief manager for the Commons, returned the bill and the amendments to the Peers in the manner whichhad been prescribed to him. From the Painted Chamber he went back to theLower House, and reported what had passed. "If, " he said, "I may ventureto judge by the looks and manner of their Lordships, all will go right. "But within half an hour evil tidings came through the Court of Requestsand the lobbies. The Lords had divided on the question whether theywould adhere to their amendments. Forty-seven had voted for adhering, and thirty-four for giving way. The House of Commons broke up withgloomy looks, and in great agitation. All London looked forward to thenext day with painful forebodings. The general feeling was in favourof the bill. It was rumoured that the majority which had determined tostand by the amendments had been swollen by several prelates, by severalof the illegitimate sons of Charles the Second, and by several needy andgreedy courtiers. The cry in all the public places of resort was thatthe nation would be ruined by the three B's, Bishops, Bastards, andBeggars. On Wednesday the tenth, at length, the contest came to adecisive issue. Both Houses were early crowded. The Lords demanded aconference. It was held; and Pembroke delivered back to Seymour thebill and the amendments, together with a paper containing a concise, but luminous and forcible, exposition of the grounds on which the Lordsconceived themselves to be acting in a constitutional and strictlydefensive manner. This paper was read at the bar; but, whatever effectit may now produce on a dispassionate student of history, it producednone on the thick ranks of country gentlemen. It was instantly resolvedthat the bill should again be sent back to the Lords with a peremptoryannouncement that the Commons' determination was unalterable. 

The Lords again took the amendments into consideration. During the lastforty-eight hours, great exertions had been made in various quarters toavert a complete rupture between the Houses. The statesmen of the juntowere far too wise not to see that it would be madness to continue thestruggle longer. It was indeed necessary, unless the King and the Lordswere to be of as little weight in the State as in 1648, unless theHouse of Commons was not merely to exercise a general control over thegovernment, but to be, as in the days of the Rump, itself the wholegovernment, the sole legislative chamber, the fountain from which wereto flow all those favours which had hitherto been in the gift of theCrown, that a determined stand should be made. But, in order that such astand might be successful, the ground must be carefully selected; fora defeat might be fatal. The Lords must wait for some occasion onwhich their privileges would be bound up with the privileges of allEnglishmen, for some occasion on which the constituent bodies would, if an appeal were made to them, disavow the acts of the representativebody; and this was not such an occasion. The enlightened and largeminded few considered tacking as a practice so pernicious that itwould be justified only by an emergency which would justify a resort tophysical force. But, in the many, tacking, when employed for a popularend, excited little or no disapprobation. The public, which seldomtroubles itself with nice distinctions, could not be made to understandthat the question at issue was any other than this, whether a sum whichwas vulgarly estimated at millions, and which undoubtedly amounted tosome hundreds of thousands, should be employed in paying the debts ofthe state and alleviating the load of taxation, or in making Dutchmen, who were already too rich, still richer. It was evident that on thatquestion the Lords could not hope to have the country with them, and that, if a general election took place while that question wasunsettled, the new House of Commons would be even more mutinous andimpracticable than the present House. Somers, in his sick chamber, had given this opinion. Orford had voted for the bill in every stage. Montague, though no longer a minister, had obtained admission to theroyal closet, and had strongly represented to the King the dangers whichthreatened the state. The King had at length consented to let it beunderstood that he considered the passing of the bill as on the wholethe less of two great evils. It was soon clear that the temper of thePeers had undergone a considerable alteration since the precedingday. Scarcely any, indeed, changed sides. But not a few abstained fromvoting. Wharton, who had at first spoken powerfully for the amendments, left town for Newmarket. On the other hand, some Lords who had not yettaken their part came down to give a healing vote. Among them were thetwo persons to whom the education of the young heir apparent hadbeen entrusted, Marlborough and Burnet. Marlborough showed his usualprudence. He had remained neutral while by taking a part he must haveoffended either the House of Commons or the King. He took a part as soonas he saw that it was possible to please both. Burnet, alarmed for thepublic peace, was in a state of great excitement, and, as was usual withhim when in such a state, forgot dignity and decorum, called out "stuff"in a very audible voice while a noble Lord was haranguing in favour ofthe amendments, and was in great danger of being reprimanded at the baror delivered over to Black Rod. The motion on which the division tookplace was that the House do adhere to the amendments. There were fortycontents and thirty-seven not contents. Proxies were called; and thenumbers were found to be exactly even. In the House of Lords there is nocasting vote. When the numbers are even, the non contents have it. Themotion to adhere had therefore been negatived. But this was not enough. It was necessary that an affirmative resolution should be moved to theeffect that the House agreed to the bill without amendments; and, if thenumbers should again be equal, this motion would also be lost. It wasan anxious moment. Fortunately the Primate's heart failed him. He hadobstinately fought the battle down to the last stage. But he probablyfelt that it was no light thing to take on himself, and to bring on hisorder, the responsibility of throwing the whole kingdom into confusion. He started up and hurried out of the House, beckoning to some of hisbrethren. His brethren followed him with a prompt obedience, which, serious as the crisis was, caused no small merriment. In consequence ofthis defection, the motion to agree was carried by a majority of five. Meanwhile the members of the other House had been impatiently waitingfor news, and had been alternately elated and depressed by the reportswhich followed one another in rapid succession. At first it wasconfidently expected that the Peers would yield; and there was generalgood humour. Then came intelligence that the majority of the Lordspresent had voted for adhering to the amendments. "I believe, " so Vernonwrote the next day, "I believe there was not one man in the House thatdid not think the nation ruined. " The lobbies were cleared; the backdoors were locked; the keys were laid on the table; the Serjeant at Armswas directed to take his post at the front door, and to suffer no memberto withdraw. An awful interval followed, during which the angry passionsof the assembly seemed to be subdued by terror. Some of the leadersof the opposition, men of grave character and of large property, stoodaghast at finding that they were engaged, --they scarcely knew how, --ina conflict such as they had not at all expected, in a conflict in whichthey could be victorious only at the expense of the peace and order ofsociety. Even Seymour was sobered by the greatness and nearness of thedanger. Even Howe thought it advisable to hold conciliatory language. Itwas no time, he said, for wrangling. Court party and country party wereEnglishmen alike. Their duty was to forget all past grievances, and tocooperate heartily for the purpose of saving the country. 

In a moment all was changed. A message from the Lords was announced. It was a message which lightened many heavy hearts. The bill had beenpassed without amendments. 

The leading malecontents, who, a few minutes before, scared by findingthat their violence had brought on a crisis for which they were notprepared, had talked about the duty of mutual forgiveness and closeunion, instantly became again as rancorous as ever. One danger, theysaid, was over. So far well. But it was the duty of the representativesof the people to take such steps as might make it impossible that thereshould ever again be such danger. Every adviser of the Crown, who hadbeen concerned in the procuring or passing of any exorbitant grant, ought to be excluded from all access to the royal ear. A list of theprivy councillors, furnished in conformity with the order made twodays before, was on the table. That list the clerk was ordered to read. Prince George of Denmark and the Archbishop of Canterbury passed withoutremark. But, as soon as the Chancellor's name had been pronounced, therage of his enemies broke forth. Twice already, in the course of thatstormy session, they had attempted to ruin his fame and his fortunes;and twice his innocence and his calm fortitude had confounded all theirpolitics. Perhaps, in the state of excitement to which the House hadbeen wrought up, a third attack on him might be successful. Oratorafter orator declaimed against him. He was the great offender. He wasresponsible for all the grievances of which the nation complained. He had obtained exorbitant grants for himself. He had defended theexorbitant grants obtained by others. He had not, indeed, been able, inthe late debates, to raise his own voice against the just demands of thenation. But it might well be suspected that he had in secret promptedthe ungracious answer of the King and encouraged the pertinaciousresistance of the Lords. Sir John Levison Gower, a noisy and acrimoniousTory, called for impeachment. But Musgrave, an abler and moreexperienced politician, saw that, if the imputations which theopposition had been in the habit of throwing on the Chancellor wereexhibited with the precision of a legal charge, their futility wouldexcite universal derision, and thought it more expedient to move thatthe House should, without assigning any reason, request the King toremove Lord Somers from His Majesty's counsels and presence for ever. Cowper defended his persecuted friend with great eloquence and effect;and he was warmly supported by many members who had been zealous for theresumption of the Irish grants. Only a hundred and six members went intothe lobby with Musgrave; a hundred and sixty-seven voted against him. Such a division, in such a House of Commons, and on such a day, issufficient evidence of the respect which the great qualities of Somershad extorted even from his political enemies. 

The clerk then went on with the list. The Lord President and the LordPrivy Seal, who were well known to have stood up strongly for theprivileges of the Lords, were reviled by some angry members; but nomotion was made against either. And soon the Tories became uneasy intheir turn; for the name of the Duke of Leeds was read. He was one ofthemselves. They were very unwilling to put a stigma on him. Yet howcould they, just after declaiming against the Chancellor for acceptinga very moderate and well earned provision, undertake the defence ofa statesman who had, out of grants, pardons and bribes, accumulateda princely fortune? There was actually on the table evidence that HisGrace was receiving from the bounty of the Crown more than thrice asmuch as had been bestowed on Somers; and nobody could doubt that HisGrace's secret gains had very far exceeded those of which there wasevidence on the table. It was accordingly moved that the House, whichhad indeed been sitting massy hours, should adjourn. The motion waslost; but neither party was disposed to move that the consideration ofthe list should be resumed. It was however resolved, without a division, that an address should be presented to the King, requesting that noperson not a native of his dominions, Prince George excepted, mightbe admitted to the Privy Council either of England or of Ireland. Theevening was now far spent. The candles had been some time lighted;and the House rose. So ended one of the most anxious, turbulent, andvariously eventful days in the long Parliamentary History of England. 

What the morrow would have produced if time had been allowed for arenewal of hostilities can only be guessed. The supplies had been voted. The King was determined not to receive the address which requested himto disgrace his dearest and most trusty friends. Indeed he would haveprevented the passing of that address by proroguing Parliament on thepreceding day, had not the Lords risen the moment after they had agreedto the Resumption Bill. He had actually come from Kensington to theTreasury for that purpose; and his robes and crown were in readiness. He now took care to be at Westminster in good time. The Commons hadscarcely met when the knock of Black Rod was heard. They repaired tothe other House. The bills were passed; and Bridgewater, by theroyal command, prorogued the Parliament. For the first time since theRevolution the session closed without a speech from the throne. Williamwas too angry to thank the Commons, and too prudent to reprimand them. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The health of James had been during some years declining and he had atlength, on Good Friday, 1701, suffered a shock from which he had neverrecovered. While he was listening in his chapel to the solemn serviceof the day, he fell down in a fit, and remained long insensible. Somepeople imagined that the words of the anthem which his choristers werechanting had produced in him emotions too violent to be borne by anenfeebled body and mind. For that anthem was taken from the plaintiveelegy in which a servant of the true God, chastened by many sorrows andhumiliations, banished, homesick, and living on the bounty of strangers, bewailed the fallen throne and the desolate Temple of Sion: "Remember, O Lord, what is come upon us; consider and behold our reproach. Ourinheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens; the crown isfallen from our head. Wherefore dose thou forget us for ever?"

The King's malady proved to be paralytic. Fagon, the first physician ofthe French Court, and, on medical questions, the oracle of all Europe, prescribed the waters of Bourbon. Lewis, with all his usual generosity, sent to Saint Germains ten thousand crowns in gold for the chargesof the journey, and gave orders that every town along the road shouldreceive his good brother with all the honours due to royalty. [21]

James, after passing some time at Bourbon, returned to the neighbourhoodof Paris with health so far reestablished that he was able to takeexercise on horseback, but with judgment and memory evidently impaired. On the thirteenth of September, he had a second fit in his chapel; andit soon became clear that this was a final stroke. He rallied the lastenergies of his failing body and mind to testify his firm belief inthe religion for which he had sacrificed so much. He received the lastsacraments with every mark of devotion, exhorted his son to hold fastto the true faith in spite of all temptations, and entreated Middleton, who, almost alone among the courtiers assembled in the bedchamber, professed himself a Protestant, to take refuge from doubt and error inthe bosom of the one infallible Church. After the extreme unction hadbeen administered, James declared that he pardoned all his enemies, andnamed particularly the Prince of Orange, the Princess of Denmark, andthe Emperor. The Emperor's name he repeated with peculiar emphasis:"Take notice, father, " he said to the confessor, "that I forgive theEmperor with all my heart. " It may perhaps seem strange that he shouldhave found this the hardest of all exercises of Christian charity. But it must be remembered that the Emperor was the only Roman CatholicPrince still living who had been accessory to the Revolution, andthat James might not unnaturally consider Roman Catholics who had beenaccessory to the Revolution as more inexcusably guilty than heretics whomight have deluded themselves into the belief that, in violating theirduty to him, they were discharging their duty to God. 

While James was still able to understand what was said to him, andmake intelligible answers, Lewis visited him twice. The English exilesobserved that the Most Christian King was to the last considerate andkind in the very slightest matters which concerned his unfortunateguest. He would not allow his coach to enter the court of SaintGermains, lest the noise of the wheels should be heard in the sick room. In both interviews he was gracious, friendly, and even tender. But hecarefully abstained from saying anything about the future positionof the family which was about to lose its head. Indeed he could saynothing, for he had not yet made up his own mind. Soon, however, itbecame necessary for him to form some resolution. On the sixteenth Jamessank into a stupor which indicated the near approach of death. While helay in this helpless state, Madame de Maintenon visited his consort. Tothis visit many persons who were likely to be well informed attributeda long series of great events. We cannot wonder that a woman shouldhave been moved to pity by the misery of a woman; that a devout RomanCatholic should have taken a deep interest in the fate of a familypersecuted, as she conceived, solely for being Roman Catholics; or thatthe pride of the widow of Scarron should have been intensely gratifiedby the supplications of a daughter of Este and a Queen of England. From mixed motives, probably, the wife of Lewis promised her powerfulprotection to the wife of James. 

Madame de Maintenon was just leaving Saint Germains when, on the brow ofthe hill which overlooks the valley of the Seine, she met her husband, who had come to ask after his guest. It was probable at this moment thathe was persuaded to form a resolution, of which neither he nor she bywhom he was governed foresaw the consequences. Before he announced thatresolution, however, he observed all the decent forms of deliberation. Acouncil was held that evening at Marli, and was attended by the princesof the blood and by the ministers of state. The question was propounded, whether, when God should take James the Second of England to himself, France should recognise the Pretender as King James the Third?

The ministers were, one and all, against the recognition. Indeed, itseems difficult to understand how any person who had any pretensionsto the name of statesman should have been of a different opinion. Torcytook his stand on the ground that to recognise the Prince of Wales wouldbe to violate the Treaty of Ryswick. This was indeed an impregnableposition. By that treaty His Most Christian Majesty had bound himselfto do nothing which could, directly or indirectly, disturb the existingorder of things in England. And in what way, except by an actualinvasion, could he do more to disturb the existing order of things inEngland than by solemnly declaring, in the face of the whole world, thathe did not consider that order of things as legitimate, that he regardedthe Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement as nullities, and the Kingin possession as an usurper? The recognition would then be a breach offaith; and, even if all considerations of morality were set aside, it was plain that it would, at that moment, be wise in the Frenchgovernment to avoid every thing which could with plausibility berepresented as a breach of faith. The crisis was a very peculiar one. The great diplomatic victory won by France in the preceding year hadexcited the fear and hatred of her neighbours. Nevertheless there was, as yet, no great coalition against her. The House of Austria, indeed, had appealed to arms. But with the House of Austria alone the House ofBourbon could easily deal. Other powers were still looking in doubt toEngland for the signal; and England, though her aspect was sullen andmenacing, still preserved neutrality. That neutrality would not havelasted so long, if William could have relied on the support of hisParliament and of his people. In his Parliament there were agents ofFrance, who, though few, had obtained so much influence by clamouringagainst standing armies, profuse grants, and Dutch favourites, that theywere often blindly followed by the majority; and his people, distractedby domestic factions, unaccustomed to busy themselves about continentalpolitics, and remembering with bitterness the disasters and burdens ofthe last war, the carnage of Landen, the loss of the Smyrna fleet, theland tax at four shillings in the pound, hesitated about engagingin another contest, and would probably continue to hesitate while hecontinued to live. He could not live long. It had, indeed, often beenprophesied that his death was at hand; and the prophets had hithertobeen mistaken. But there was now no possibility of mistake. His coughwas more violent than ever; his legs were swollen; his eyes, once brightand clear as those of a falcon, had grown dim; he who, on the day of theBoyne, had been sixteen hours on the backs of different horses, couldnow with great difficulty creep into his state coach. [22] The vigorousintellect, and the intrepid spirit, remained; but on the body fiftyyears had done the work of ninety. In a few months the vaults ofWestminster would receive the emaciated and shattered frame which wasanimated by the most far-sighted, the most daring, the most commandingof souls. In a few months the British throne would be filled by a womanwhose understanding was well known to be feeble, and who was believed tolean towards the party which was averse from war. To get over those fewmonths without an open and violent rupture should have been the firstobject of the French government. Every engagement should have beenpunctually fulfilled; every occasion of quarrel should have beenstudiously avoided. Nothing should have been spared which could quietthe alarms and soothe the wounded pride of neighbouring nations. 

The House of Bourbon was so situated that one year of moderation mightnot improbably be rewarded by thirty years of undisputed ascendency. Was it possible the politic and experienced Lewis would at such aconjuncture offer a new and most galling provocation, not only toWilliam, whose animosity was already as great as it could be, but tothe people whom William had hitherto been vainly endeavouring to inspirewith animosity resembling his own? How often, since the Revolution of1688, had it seemed that the English were thoroughly weary of the newgovernment. And how often had the detection of a Jacobite plot, or theapproach of a French armament, changed the whole face of things. All atonce the grumbling had ceased, the grumblers had crowded to sign loyaladdresses to the usurper, had formed associations in support of hisauthority, had appeared in arms at the head of the militia, crying Godsave King William. So it would be now. Most of those who had taken apleasure in crossing him on the question of his Dutch guards, on thequestion of his Irish grants, would be moved to vehement resentment whenthey learned that Lewis had, in direct violation of a treaty, determinedto force on England a king of his own religion, a king bred in his owndominions, a king who would be at Westminster what Philip was at Madrid, a great feudatory of France. 

These arguments were concisely but clearly and strongly urged by Torcyin a paper which is still extant, and which it is difficult to believethat his master can have read without great misgivings. [23] On one sidewere the faith of treaties, the peace of Europe, the welfare of France, nay the selfish interest of the House of Bourbon. On the other side werethe influence of an artful woman, and the promptings of vanity which, wemust in candour acknowledge, was ennobled by a mixture of compassion andchivalrous generosity. The King determined to act in direct oppositionto the advice of all his ablest servants; and the princes of the bloodapplauded his decision, as they would have applauded any decision whichhe had announced. Nowhere was he regarded with a more timorous, a moreslavish, respect than in his own family. 

On the following day he went again to Saint Germains, and, attended bya splendid retinue, entered James's bedchamber. The dying man scarcelyopened his heavy eyes, and then closed them again. "I have something, "said Lewis, "of great moment to communicate to Your Majesty. " Thecourtiers who filled the room took this as a signal to retire, and werecrowding towards the door, when they were stopped by that commandingvoice: "Let nobody withdraw. I come to tell Your Majesty that, wheneverit shall please God to take you from us, I will be to your son what Ihave been to you, and will acknowledge him as King of England, Scotlandand Ireland. " The English exiles who were standing round the couch fellon their knees. Some burst into tears. Some poured forth praises andblessings with clamour such as, was scarcely becoming in such a placeand at such a time. Some indistinct murmurs which James uttered, andwhich were drowned by the noisy gratitude of his attendants, wereinterpreted to mean thanks. But from the most trustworthy accounts itappears that he was insensible to all that was passing around him. [24]

As soon as Lewis was again at Marli, he repeated to the Court assembledthere the announcement which he had made at Saint Germains. The wholecircle broke forth into exclamations of delight and admiration. What piety! What humanity! What magnanimity! Nor was this enthusiasmaltogether feigned. For, in the estimation of the greater part of thatbrilliant crowd, nations were nothing and princes every thing. Whatcould be more generous, more amiable, than to protect an innocent boy, who was kept out of his rightful inheritance by an ambitious kinsman?The fine gentlemen and fine ladies who talked thus forgot that, besidesthe innocent boy and that ambitious kinsman, five millions and a halfof Englishmen were concerned, who were little disposed to considerthemselves as the absolute property of any master, and who were stillless disposed to accept a master chosen for them by the French King. 

James lingered three days longer. He was occasionally sensible during afew minutes, and, during one of these lucid intervals, faintly expressedhis gratitude to Lewis. On the sixteenth he died. His Queen retiredthat evening to the nunnery of Chaillot, where she could weep and prayundisturbed. She left Saint Germains in joyous agitation. A heraldmade his appearance before the palace gate, and, with sound of trumpet, proclaimed, in Latin, French and English, King James the Third ofEngland and Eighth of Scotland. The streets, in consequence doubtless oforders from the government, were illuminated; and the townsmen with loudshouts wished a long reign to their illustrious neighbour. The poor ladreceived from his ministers, and delivered back to them, the seals oftheir offices, and held out his hand to be kissed. One of the first actsof his mock reign was to bestow some mock peerages in conformity withdirections which he found in his father's will. Middleton, who had asyet no English title, was created Earl of Monmouth. Perth, who had stoodhigh in the favour of his late master, both as an apostate from theProtestant religion, and as the author of the last improvements on thethumb screw, took the title of Duke. 

Meanwhile the remains of James were escorted, in the dusk of theevening, by a slender retinue to the Chapel of the English Benedictinesat Paris, and deposited there in the vain hope that, at some futuretime, they would be laid with kingly pomp at Westminster among thegraves of the Plantagenets and Tudors. 

Three days after these humble obsequies Lewis visited Saint Germains inform. On the morrow the visit was returned. The French Court was now atVersailles; and the Pretender was received there, in all points, as hisfather would have been, sate in his father's arm chair, took, as hisfather had always done, the right hand of the great monarch, and worethe long violet coloured mantle which was by ancient usage the mourninggarb of the Kings of France. There was on that day a great concourseof ambassadors and envoys; but one well known figure was wanting. Manchester had sent off to Loo intelligence of the affront which hadbeen offered to his country and his master, had solicited instructions, and had determined that, till these instructions should arrive, he wouldlive in strict seclusion. He did not think that he should be justifiedin quitting his post without express orders; but his earnest hope wasthat he should be directed to turn his back in contemptuous defiance onthe Court which had dared to treat England as a subject province. 

As soon as the fault into which Lewis had been hurried by pity, bythe desire of applause, and by female influence was complete andirreparable, he began to feel serious uneasiness. His ministers weredirected to declare everywhere that their master had no intention ofaffronting the English government, that he had not violated the Treatyof Ryswick, that he had no intention of violating it, that he had merelymeant to gratify an unfortunate family nearly related to himself byusing names and observing forms which really meant nothing, and thathe was resolved not to countenance any attempt to subvert the throneof William. Torcy, who had, a few days before, proved by irrefragablearguments that his master could not, without a gross breach of contract, recognise the Pretender, imagined that sophisms which had not imposed onhimself might possibly impose on others. He visited the English embassy, obtained admittance, and, as was his duty, did his best to excuse thefatal act which he had done his best to prevent. Manchester's answer tothis attempt at explanation was as strong and plain as it could be inthe absence of precise instructions. The instructions speedily arrived. The courier who carried the news of the recognition to Loo arrived therewhen William was at table with some of his nobles and some princes ofthe German Empire who had visited him in his retreat. The King said nota word; but his pale cheek flushed; and he pulled his hat over hiseyes to conceal the changes of his countenance. He hastened to send offseveral messengers. One carried a letter commanding Manchester to quitFrance without taking leave. Another started for London with a despatchwhich directed the Lords Justices to send Poussin instantly out ofEngland. 

England was already in a flame when it was first known there thatJames was dying. Some of his eager partisans formed plans and madepreparations for a great public manifestation of feeling in differentparts of the island. But the insolence of Lewis produced a burst ofpublic indignation which scarcely any malecontent had the courage toface. 

In the city of London, indeed, some zealots, who had probably swallowedtoo many bumpers to their new Sovereign, played one of those senselesspranks which were characteristic of their party. They dressed themselvesin coats bearing some resemblance to the tabards of heralds, rodethrough the streets, halted at some places, and muttered something whichnobody could understand. It was at first supposed that they were merelya company of prize fighters from Hockley in the Hole who had takenthis way of advertising their performances with back sword, sword andbuckler, and single falchion. But it was soon discovered that thesegaudily dressed horsemen were proclaiming James the Third. In an instantthe pageant was at an end. The mock kings at arms and pursuivants threwaway their finery and fled for their lives in all directions, followedby yells and showers of stones. [25] Already the Common Council ofLondon had met, and had voted, without one dissentient voice, an addressexpressing the highest resentment at the insult which France had offeredto the King and the kingdom. A few hours after this address had beenpresented to the Regents, the Livery assembled to choose a LordMayor. Duncombe, the Tory candidate, lately the popular favourite, wasrejected, and a Whig alderman placed in the chair. All over the kingdom, corporations, grand juries, meetings of magistrates, meetings offreeholders, were passing resolutions breathing affection to William, and defiance to Lewis. It was necessary to enlarge the "London Gazette"from four columns to twelve; and even twelve were too few to hold themultitude of loyal and patriotic addresses. In some of those addressessevere reflections were thrown on the House of Commons. Our delivererhad been ungratefully requited, thwarted, mortified, denied the meansof making the country respected and feared by neighbouring states. Thefactious wrangling, the penny wise economy, of three disgraceful yearshad produced the effect which might have been expected. His Majestywould never have been so grossly affronted abroad, if he had not firstbeen affronted at home. But the eyes of his people were opened. He hadonly to appeal from the representatives to the constituents; and hewould find that the nation was still sound at heart. 

Poussin had been directed to offer to the Lords Justices explanationssimilar to those with which Torcy had attempted to appease Manchester. A memorial was accordingly drawn up and presented to Vernon; but Vernonrefused to look at it. Soon a courier arrived from Loo with the letterin which William directed his vicegerents to send the French agent outof the kingdom. An officer of the royal household was charged with theexecution of the order. He repaired to Poussin's lodgings; but Poussinwas not at home; he was supping at the Blue Posts, a tavern muchfrequented by Jacobites, the very tavern indeed at which Charnock andhis gang had breakfasted on the day fixed for the murderous ambuscadeof Turnham Green. To this house the messenger went; and there he foundPoussin at table with three of the most virulent Tory members of theHouse of Commons, Tredenham, who returned himself for Saint Mawes;Hammond, who had been sent to Parliament by the high churchmen of theUniversity of Cambridge; and Davenant, who had recently, at Poussin'ssuggestion, been rewarded by Lewis for some savage invectives againstthe Whigs with a diamond ring worth three thousand pistoles. This supperparty was, during some weeks, the chief topic of conversation. Theexultation of the Whigs was boundless. These then were the true Englishpatriots, the men who could not endure a foreigner, the men who wouldnot suffer His Majesty to bestow a moderate reward on the foreigners whohad stormed Athlone, and turned the flank of the Celtic army at Aghrim. It now appeared they could be on excellent terms with a foreigner, provided only that he was the emissary of a tyrant hostile to theliberty, the independence, and the religion of their country. TheTories, vexed and abashed, heartily wished that, on that unlucky day, their friends had been supping somewhere else. Even the bronze ofDavenant's forehead was not proof to the general reproach. He defendedhimself by pretending that Poussin, with whom he had passed whole days, who had corrected his scurrilous pamphlets, and who had paid him hisshameful wages, was a stranger to him, and that the meeting at the BluePosts was purely accidental. If his word was doubted, he was willing torepeat his assertion on oath. The public, however, which had formed avery correct notion of his character, thought that his word was worth asmuch as his oath, and that his oath was worth nothing. 

Meanwhile the arrival of William was impatiently expected. From Loohe had gone to Breda, where he had passed some time in reviewing histroops, and in conferring with Marlborough and Heinsius. He had hopedto be in England early in October. But adverse winds detained himthree weeks at the Hague. At length, in the afternoon of the fourth ofNovember, it was known in London that he had landed early that morningat Margate. Great preparations were made for welcoming him to hiscapital on the following day, the thirteenth anniversary of his landingin Devonshire. But a journey across the bridge, and along Cornhill andCheapside, Fleet Street, and the Strand, would have been too great aneffort for his enfeebled frame. He accordingly slept at Greenwich, andthence proceeded to Hampton Court without entering London. His returnwas, however, celebrated by the populace with every sign of joy andattachment. The bonfires blazed, and the gunpowder roared, all night. Inevery parish from Mile End to Saint James's was to be seen enthroned onthe shoulders of stout Protestant porters a pope, gorgeous in robesof tinsel and triple crown of pasteboard; and close to the ear of HisHoliness stood a devil with horns, cloven hoof, and a snaky tail. 

Even in his country house the king could find no refuge from theimportunate loyalty of his people. Reputations from cities, counties, universities, besieged him all day. He was, he wrote to Heinsius, quiteexhausted by the labour of hearing harangues and returning answers. Thewhole kingdom meanwhile was looking anxiously towards Hampton Court. Most of the ministers were assembled there. The most eminent men of theparty which was out of power had repaired thither, to pay their dutyto their sovereign, and to congratulate him on his safe return. It wasremarked that Somers and Halifax, so malignantly persecuted a few monthsago by the House of Commons, were received with such marks of esteemand kindness as William was little in the habit of vouchsafing to hisEnglish courtiers. The lower ranks of both the great factions wereviolently agitated. The Whigs, lately vanquished and dispirited, werefull of hope and ardour. The Tories, lately triumphant and secure, were exasperated and alarmed. Both Whigs and Tories waited with intenseanxiety for the decision of one momentous and pressing question. Wouldthere be a dissolution? On the seventh of November the King propoundedthat question to his Privy Council. It was rumoured, and is highlyprobable, that Jersey, Wright and Hedges advised him to keep theexisting Parliament. But they were not men whose opinion was likely tohave much weight with him; and Rochester, whose opinion might have hadsome weight, had set out to take possession of his Viceroyalty justbefore the death of James, and was still at Dublin. William, however, had, as he owned to Heinsius, some difficulty in making up his mind. Hehad no doubt that a general election would give him a better House ofCommons; but a general election would cause delay; and delay might causemuch mischief. After balancing these considerations, during some hours, he determined to dissolve. 

The writs were sent out with all expedition; and in three days the wholekingdom was up. Never--such was the intelligence sent from the DutchEmbassy to the Hague--had there been more intriguing, more canvassing, more virulence of party feeling. It was in the capital that the firstgreat contests took place. The decisions of the Metropolitan constituentbodies were impatiently expected as auguries of the general result. Allthe pens of Grub Street, all the presses of Little Britain, were hardat work. Handbills for and against every candidate were sent to everyvoter. The popular slogans on both sides were indefatigably repeated. Presbyterian, Papist, Tool of Holland, Pensioner of France, were theappellations interchanged between the contending factions. The Whigcry was that the Tory members of the last two Parliaments had, from amalignant desire to mortify the King, left the kingdom exposed to dangerand insult, had unconstitutionally encroached both on the legislatureand on the judicial functions of the House of Lords, had turned theHouse of Commons into a new Star Chamber, had used as instruments ofcapricious tyranny those privileges which ought never to be employed butin defence of freedom, had persecuted, without regard to law, to naturaljustice, or to decorum, the great Commander who had saved the stateat La Hogue, the great Financier who had restored the currency andreestablished public credit, the great judge whom all persons notblinded by prejudice acknowledged to be, in virtue, in prudence, in learning and eloquence, the first of living English jurists andstatesmen. The Tories answered that they had been only too moderate, only too merciful; that they had used the Speaker's warrant and thepower of tacking only too sparingly; and that, if they ever again hada majority, the three Whig leaders who now imagined themselves secureshould be impeached, not for high misdemeanours, but for high treason. It soon appeared that these threats were not likely to be very speedilyexecuted. Four Whig and four Tory candidates contested the City ofLondon. The show of hands was for the Whigs. A poll was demanded; andthe Whigs polled nearly two votes to one. Sir John Levison Gower, who was supposed to have ingratiated himself with the whole body ofshopkeepers by some parts of his parliamentary conduct, was put up forWestminster on the Tory interest; and the electors were reminded bypuffs in the newspapers of the services which he had rendered totrade. But the dread of the French King, the Pope, and the Pretender, prevailed; and Sir John was at the bottom of the poll. Southwark notonly returned Whigs, but gave them instructions of the most Whiggishcharacter. 

In the country, parties were more nearly balanced than in the capital. Yet the news from every quarter was that the Whigs had recovered partat least of the ground which they had lost. Wharton had regained hisascendency in Buckinghamshire. Musgrave was rejected by Westmoreland. Nothing did more harm to the Tory candidates than the story of Poussin'sfarewell supper. We learn from their own acrimonious invectives that theunlucky discovery of the three members of Parliament at the BluePosts cost thirty honest gentlemen their seats. One of the criminals, Tredenham, escaped with impunity. For the dominion of his family overthe borough of St. Mawes was absolute even to a proverb. The other twohad the fate which they deserved. Davenant ceased to sit for Bedwin. Hammond, who had lately stood high in the favour of the University ofCambridge, was defeated by a great majority, and was succeeded by theglory of the Whig party, Isaac Newton. 

There was one district to which the eyes of hundreds of thousands wereturned with anxious interest, Gloucestershire. Would the patriotic andhigh spirited gentry and yeomanry of that great county again confidetheir dearest interests to the Impudent Scandal of parliaments, therenegade, the slanderer, the mountebank, who had been, during thirteenyears, railing at his betters of every party with a spite restrained bynothing but the craven fear of corporal chastisement, and who had in thelast Parliament made himself conspicuous by the abject court which hehad paid to Lewis and by the impertinence with which he had spoken ofWilliam. 

The Gloucestershire election became a national affair. Portmanteaus fullof pamphlets and broadsides were sent down from London. Every freeholderin the county had several tracts left at his door. In every marketplace, on the market day, papers about the brazen forehead, the viperoustongue, and the white liver of Jack Howe, the French King's buffoon, flew about like flakes in a snow storm. Clowns from the Cotswold Hillsand the forest of Dean, who had votes, but who did not know theirletters, were invited to hear these satires read, and were askedwhether they were prepared to endure the two great evils which werethen considered by the common people of England as the inseparableconcomitants of despotism, to wear wooden shoes, and to live on frogs. The dissenting preachers and the clothiers were peculiarly zealous. ForHowe was considered as the enemy both of conventicles and of factories. Outvoters were brought up to Gloucester in extraordinary numbers. In thecity of London the traders who frequented Blackwell Hall, then the greatemporium for woollen goods, canvassed actively on the Whig side. 

[Here the revised part ends. --EDITOR. ]

Meanwhile reports about the state of the King's health were constantlybecoming more and more alarming. His medical advisers, both English andDutch, were at the end of their resources. He had consulted by letterall the most eminent physicians of Europe; and, as he was apprehensivethat they might return flattering answers if they knew who he was, hehad written under feigned names. To Fagon he had described himself as aparish priest. Fagon replied, somewhat bluntly, that such symptoms couldhave only one meaning, and that the only advice which he had to giveto the sick man was to prepare himself for death. Having obtainedthis plain answer, William consulted Fagon again without disguise, andobtained some prescriptions which were thought to have a little retardedthe approach of the inevitable hour. But the great King's days werenumbered. Headaches and shivering fits returned on him almost daily. Hestill rode and even hunted; [26] but he had no longer that firm seat orthat perfect command of the bridle for which he had once been renowned. Still all his care was for the future. The filial respect and tendernessof Albemarle had been almost a necessary of life to him. But it was ofimportance that Heinsius should be fully informed both as to the wholeplan of the next campaign and as to the state of the preparations. Albemarle was in full possession of the King's views on these subjects. He was therefore sent to the Hague. Heinsius was at that time sufferingfrom indisposition, which was indeed a trifle when compared with themaladies under which William was sinking. But in the nature of Williamthere was none of that selfishness which is the too common vice ofinvalids. On the twentieth of February he sent to Heinsius a letter inwhich he did not even allude to his own sufferings and infirmities. "Iam, " he said, "infinitely concerned to learn that your health is not yetquite reestablished. May God be pleased to grant you a speedy recovery. I am unalterably your good friend, William. " Those were the last linesof that long correspondence. 

On the twentieth of February William was ambling on a favourite horse, named Sorrel, through the park of Hampton Court. He urged his horse tostrike into a gallop just at the spot where a mole had been at work. Sorrel stumbled on the mole-hill, and went down on his knees. The Kingfell off, and broke his collar bone. The bone was set; and he returnedto Kensington in his coach. The jolting of the rough roads of that timemade it necessary to reduce the fracture again. To a young and vigorousman such an accident would have been a trifle. But the frame of Williamwas not in a condition to bear even the slightest shock. He felt thathis time was short, and grieved, with a grief such as only noble spiritsfeel, to think that he must leave his work but half finished. It waspossible that he might still live until one of his plans should becarried into execution. He had long known that the relation in whichEngland and Scotland stood to each other was at best precarious, andoften unfriendly, and that it might be doubted whether, in an estimateof the British power, the resources of the smaller country ought notto be deducted from those of the larger. Recent events had proved that, without doubt, the two kingdoms could not possibly continue for anotheryear to be on the terms on which they had been during the precedingcentury, and that there must be between them either absolute union ordeadly enmity. Their enmity would bring frightful calamities, not onthemselves alone, but on all the civilised world. Their union wouldbe the best security for the prosperity of both, for the internaltranquillity of the island, for the just balance of power among Europeanstates, and for the immunities of all Protestant countries. On thetwenty-eighth of February the Commons listened with uncovered heads tothe last message that bore William's sign manual. An unhappy accident, he told them, had forced him to make to them in writing a communicationwhich he would gladly have made from the throne. He had, in the firstyear of his reign, expressed his desire to see an union accomplishedbetween England and Scotland. He was convinced that nothing could moreconduce to the safety and happiness of both. He should think ithis peculiar felicity if, before the close of his reign, some happyexpedient could be devised for making the two kingdoms one; and he, inthe most earnest manner, recommended the question to the considerationof the Houses. It was resolved that the message should betaken intoconsideration on Saturday, the seventh of March. 

But on the first of March humours of menacing appearance showedthemselves in the King's knee. On the fourth of March he was attacked byfever; on the fifth his strength failed greatly; and on the sixth he wasscarcely kept alive by cordials. The Abjuration Bill and a money billwere awaiting his assent. That assent he felt that he should not be ableto give in person. He therefore ordered a commission to be preparedfor his signature. His hand was now too weak to form the letters ofhis name, and it was suggested that a stamp should be prepared. On theseventh of March the stamp was ready. The Lord Keeper and the clerks ofthe parliament came, according to usage, to witness the signing of thecommission. But they were detained some hours in the antechamber whilehe was in one of the paroxysms of his malady. Meanwhile the Houses weresitting. It was Saturday, the seventh, the day on which the Commonshad resolved to take into consideration the question of the union withScotland. But that subject was not mentioned. It was known that the Kinghad but a few hours to live; and the members asked each other anxiouslywhether it was likely that the Abjuration and money bills would bepassed before he died. After sitting long in the expectation of amessage, the Commons adjourned till six in the afternoon. By that timeWilliam had recovered himself sufficiently to put the stamp on theparchment which authorised his commissioners to act for him. In theevening, when the Houses had assembled, Black Rod knocked. The Commonswere summoned to the bar of the Lords; the commission was read, theAbjuration Bill and the Malt Bill became laws, and both Houses adjournedtill nine o'clock in the morning of the following day. The following daywas Sunday. But there was little chance that William would live throughthe night. It was of the highest importance that, within the shortestpossible time after his decease, the successor designated by the Billof Rights and the Act of Succession should receive the homage of theEstates of the Realm, and be publicly proclaimed in the Council: and themost rigid Pharisee in the Society for the Reformation of Manners couldhardly deny that it was lawful to save the state, even on the Sabbath. 

The King meanwhile was sinking fast. Albemarle had arrived at Kensingtonfrom the Hague, exhausted by rapid travelling. His master kindly badehim go to rest for some hours, and then summoned him to make his report. That report was in all respects satisfactory. The States General werein the best temper; the troops, the provisions and the magazines werein the best order. Every thing was in readiness for an early campaign. William received the intelligence with the calmness of a man whosework was done. He was under no illusion as to his danger. "I am fastdrawing, " he said, "to my end. " His end was worthy of his life. Hisintellect was not for a moment clouded. His fortitude was the moreadmirable because he was not willing to die. He had very lately said toone of those whom he most loved: "You know that I never feared death;there have been times when I should have wished it; but, now that thisgreat new prospect is opening before me, I do wish to stay here a littlelonger. " Yet no weakness, no querulousness, disgraced the noble closeof that noble career. To the physicians the King returned his thanksgraciously and gently. "I know that you have done all that skilland learning could do for me; but the case is beyond your art; and Isubmit. " From the words which escaped him he seemed to be frequentlyengaged in mental prayer. Burnet and Tenison remained many hours inthe sick room. He professed to them his firm belief in the truth of theChristian religion, and received the sacrament from their hands withgreat seriousness. The antechambers were crowded all night with lordsand privy councillors. He ordered several of them to be called in, and exerted himself to take leave of them with a few kind and cheerfulwords. Among the English who were admitted to his bedside wereDevonshire and Ormond. But there were in the crowd those who felt as noEnglishman could feel, friends of his youth who had been true to him, and to whom he had been true, through all vicissitudes of fortune; whohad served him with unalterable fidelity when his Secretaries of State, his Treasury and his Admiralty had betrayed him; who had never on anyfield of battle, or in an atmosphere tainted with loathsome and deadlydisease, shrunk from placing their own lives in jeopardy to save his, and whose truth he had at the cost of his own popularity rewardedwith bounteous munificence. He strained his feeble voice to thankAuverquerque for the affectionate and loyal services of thirty years. To Albemarle he gave the keys of his closet, and of his private drawers. "You know, " he said, "what to do with them. " By this time he couldscarcely respire. "Can this, " he said to the physicians, "last long?" Hewas told that the end was approaching. He swallowed a cordial, and askedfor Bentinck. Those were his last articulate words. Bentinck instantlycame to the bedside, bent down, and placed his ear close to the King'smouth. The lips of the dying man moved; but nothing could be heard. TheKing took the hand of his earliest friend, and pressed it tenderly tohis heart. In that moment, no doubt, all that had cast a slight passingcloud over their long and pure friendship was forgotten. It was nowbetween seven and eight in the morning. He closed his eyes, and gaspedfor breath. The bishops knelt down and read the commendatory prayer. When it ended William was no more. 

When his remains were laid out, it was found that he wore next to hisskin a small piece of black silk riband. The lords in waiting orderedit to be taken off. It contained a gold ring and a lock of the hair ofMary. 

*****

[Footnote 1: Evelyn saw the Mentz edition of the Offices among LordSpencer's books in April 1699. Markland in his preface to the Sylvae ofStatius acknowledges his obligations to the very rare Parmesan editionin Lord Spencer's collection. As to the Virgil of Zarottus, whichhis Lordship bought for 46L, see the extracts from Warley's Diary, inNichols's Literary Anecdotes, i. 90. ]

[Footnote 2: The more minutely we examine the history of the decline andfall of Lacedaemon, the more reason we shall find to admire the sagacityof Somers. The first great humiliation which befel the Lacedaemonianswas the affair of Sphacteria. It is remarkable that on this occasionthey were vanquished by men who made a trade of war. The force whichCleon carried out with him from Athens to the Bay of Pyles, and to whichthe event of the conflict is to be chiefly ascribed, consisted entirelyof mercenaries, archers from Scythia and light infantry from Thrace. Thevictory gained by the Lacedaemonians over a great confederate armyat Tegea retrieved that military reputation which the disaster ofSphacteria had impaired. Yet even at Tegea it was signally proved thatthe Lacedaemonians, though far superior to occasional soldiers, were notequal to professional soldiers. On every point but one the allies wereput to rout; but on one point the Lacedaemonians gave way; and that wasthe point where they were opposed to a brigade of a thousand Argives, picked men, whom the state to which they belonged had during many yearstrained to war at the public charge, and who were, in fact a standingarmy. After the battle of Tegea, many years elapsed before theLacedaemonians sustained a defeat. At length a calamity befel them whichastonished all their neighbours. A division of the army of Agesilaus wascut off and destroyed almost to a man; and this exploit, which seemedalmost portentous to the Greeks of that age, was achieved by Iphicrates, at the head of a body of mercenary light infantry. But it was from theday of Leuctya that the fall of Spate became rapid and violent. Sometime before that day the Thebans had resolved to follow the exampleset many years before by the Argives. Some hundreds of athletic youths, carefully selected, were set apart, under the names of the City Band andthe Sacred Band, to form a standing army. Their business was war. Theyencamped in the citadel; they were supported at the expense of thecommunity; and they became, under assiduous training, the first soldiersin Greece. They were constantly victorious till they were opposedto Philip's admirably disciplined phalanx at Charonea; and even atChaeronea they were not defeated but slain in their ranks, fighting tothe last. It was this band, directed by the skill of great captains, which gave the decisive blow to the Lacedaemonian power. It is to beobserved that there was no degeneracy among the Lacedaemonians. Evendown to the time of Pyrrhus they seem to have been in all militaryqualities equal to their ancestors who conquered at Plataea. But theirancestors at Plataea had not such enemies to encounter. ]

[Footnote 3: L'Hermitage, Dec. 3/13 7/17, 1697. ]

[Footnote 4: Commons' Journals, Dec. 3. 1697. L'Hermitage, Dec 7/17. ]

[Footnote 5: L'Hermitage, Dec. 15/24. , Dec. 14/24. , Journals. ]

[Footnote 6: The first act of Farquhar's Trip to the Jubilee, thepassions which about his time agitated society are exhibited with muchspirit. Alderman Smuggler sees Colonel Standard and exclaims, "There'sanother plague of the nation a red coat and feather. " "I'm disbanded, "says the Colonel. "This very morning, in Hyde Park, my brave regiment, athousand men that looked like lions yesterday, were scattered and lookedas poor and simple as the herd of deer that grazed beside them. " "Fal alderal!" cries the Alderman: "I'll have a bonfire this night, as high asthe monument. " "A bonfire!" answered the soldier; "then dry, withered, ill nature! had not those brave fellows' swords' defended you, yourhouse had been a bonfire ere this about your ears. "]

[Footnote 7: L'Hermitage, January 11/21]

[Footnote 8: That a portion at least of the native population of Irelandlooked to the Parliament at Westminster for protection against thetyranny of the Parliament at Dublin appears from a paper entitled TheCase of the Roman Catholic Nation of Ireland. This paper, written in1711 by one of the oppressed race and religion, is in a MS. Belonging toLord Fingall. The Parliament of Ireland is accused of treating the Irishworse than the Turks treat the Christians, worse than the Egyptianstreated the Israelites. "Therefore, " says the writer, "they (theIrish) apply themselves to the present Parliament of Great Britain asa Parliament of nice honour and stanch justice. .. Their request then isthat this great Parliament may make good the Treaty of Limerick in allthe Civil Articles. " In order to propitiate those to whom he makes thisappeal, he accuses the Irish Parliament of encroaching on the supremeauthority of the English Parliament, and charges the colonists generallywith ingratitude to the mother country to which they owe so much. ]

[Footnote 9: London Gazette, Jan 6. 1697/8; Postman of the same date;Van Cleverskirke, Jan. 7/17; L'Hermitage, Jan. 4/14/, 7/17; Evelyn'sDiary; Ward's London Spy; William to Heinsius, Jan. 7/17. "The loss, "the King writes, "is less to me than it would be to another person, for I cannot live there. Yet it is serious. " So late as 1758 Johnsondescribed a furious Jacobite as firmly convinced that William burneddown Whitehall in order to steal the furniture. Idler, No. 10. Pope, in Windsor Forest, a poem which has a stronger tinge of Toryism thananything else that he ever wrote, predicts the speedy restoration of thefallen palace. 

 "I see, I see, where two fair cities bend their ample bow, a new Whitehall ascend. "

See Ralph's bitter remarks on the fate of Whitehall. ]

[Footnote 10: As to the Czar: London Gazette; Van Citters, 1698; Jan. 11/21. 14/24 Mar 11/21, Mar 29/April 8; L'Hermitage 11/21, 18/28, Jan25/Feb 4, Feb 1/11 8/18, 11/21 Feb 22/Mar 4; Feb 25/Mar 7, Mar 1/4, Mar29/April 8/ April 22/ May 2 See also Evelyn's Diary; Burnet Postman, Jan. 13. 15. , Feb. 10 12, 24. ; Mar. 24. 26. 31. As to Russia, seeHakluyt, Purchas, Voltaire, St. Simon. Estat de Russie par Margeret, Paris, 1607. State of Russia, London, 1671. La Relation des TroisAmbassades de M. Le Comte de Carlisle, Amsterdam, 1672. (There is anEnglish translation from this French original. ) North's Life of DudleyNorth. Seymour's History of London, ii. 426. Pepys and Evelyn on theRussian Embassies; Milton's account of Muscovy. On the personal habitsof the Czar see the Memoirs of the Margravine of Bayreuth. ]

[Footnote 11: It is worth while to transcribe the words of theengagement which Lewis, a chivalrous and a devout prince, violatedwithout the smallest scruple. "Nous, Louis, par la grace de Dieu, Roitres Chretien de France et de Navarre, promettons pour notre honneur, enfoi et parole de Roi, jurons sue la croix, les saints Evangiles, etles canons de la Messe, que nous avons touches, que nous observeronset accomplirons entierement de bonne foi tous et chacun des points etarticles contenus au traite de paix, renonciation, et amitie. "]

[Footnote 12: George Psalmanazar's account of the state of the southof France at this time is curious. On the high road near Lyons hefrequently passed corpses fastened to posts. "These, " he says, "were thebodies of highwaymen, or rather of soldiers, sailors, mariners and evengalley slaves, disbanded after the peace of Reswick, who, having neitherhome nor occupation, used to infest the roads in troops, plunder townsand villages, and, when taken, were hanged at the county town by dozens, or even scores sometimes, after which their bodies were thus exposedalong the highway in terrorem. "]

[Footnote 13: "Il est de bonne foi dans tout ce qu'il fait. Son procedeest droit et sincere. " Tallard to Lewis, July 3. 1698. ]

[Footnote 14: "Le Roi d'Angleterre, Sire, va tres sincerement jusqu'apresent; et j'ose dire que s'il entre une fois en traite avec VotreMajeste, il le tiendra de bonne foi. "--"Si je l'ose dire a V. M. , ilest tres penetrant, et a l'esprit juste. Il s'apercevra bientôt qu'onbarguigne si les choses trainent trop de long. " July 8. ]

[Footnote 15: I will quote from the despatches of Lewis to Tallard threeor four passages which show that the value of the kingdom of the TwoSicilies was quite justly appreciated at Versailles. "A l'egard duroyaume de Naples et de Sicile le roi d'Angleterre objectera que lesplaces de ces etats entre mes mains me rendront maitre du commerce dela Mediteranee. Vous pourrez en ce cas laissez entendre, comme de vousmeme, qu'il serait si difficile de conserver ces royaumes unis a macouronne, que les depenses necessaires pour y envoyer des secoursseraient si grands, et qu'autrefois il a tant coute a la France pour lesmaintenir dans son obeissance, que vraisemblablement j'etablirois un roipour les gouverner, et que peut-etre ce serait le partage d'un de mespetits-fils qui voudroit regner independamment. " April 7/17 1698. "Lesroyaumes de Naples et de Sicile ne peuvent se regarder comme un partagedont mon fils puisse se contenter pour lui tenir lieu de tous sesdroits. Les exemples du passe n'ont que trop appris combien ces etatscontent a la France le peu d'utilite dont ils sont pour elle, et ladifficulte de les conserver. " May 16. 1698. "Je considere la cession deces royaumes comme une source continuelle de depenses et d'embarras. Iln'en a que trop coute a la France pour les conserver; et l'experiencea fait voir la necessite indispensable d'y entretenir toujours destroupes, et d'y envoyer incessamment des vaisseaux, et combien toutesces peines ont ete inutiles. " May 29. 1698. It would be easy to citeother passages of the same kind. But these are sufficient to vindicatewhat I have said in the text. ]

[Footnote 16: Dec. 20/30 1698. ]

[Footnote 17: Commons' Journals, February 24. 27. ; March 9. 1698/9 Inthe Vernon Correspondence a letter about the East India question whichbelongs to the year 1699/1700 is put under the date of Feb. 10 1698. Thetruth is that this most valuable correspondence cannot be used to goodpurpose by any writer who does not do for himself all that the editorought to have done. ]

[Footnote 18: I doubt whether there be extant a sentence of worseEnglish than that on which the House divided. It is not merely inelegantand ungrammatical but is evidently the work of a man of puzzledunderstanding, probably of Harley. "It is Sir, to your loyal Commonsan unspeakable grief, that any thing should be asked by Your Majesty'smessage to which they cannot consent, without doing violence to thatconstitution Your Majesty came over to restore and preserve; and did, atthat time, in your gracious declaration promise, that all those foreignforces which came over with you should be sent back. "]

[Footnote 19: It is curious that all Cowper's biographers with whom I amacquainted, Hayley, Southey, Grimshawe Chalmers, mention the judge, thecommon ancestor of the poet, of his first love Theodora Cowper, andof Lady Hesketh; but that none of those biographers makes the faintestallusion to the Hertford trial, the most remarkable event in the historyof the family; nor do I believe that any allusion to that trial can befound in any of the poet's numerous letters. ]

[Footnote 20: I give an example of Trenchard's mode of showing hisprofound respect for an excellent Sovereign. He speaks thus of thecommencement of the reign of Henry the Third. "The kingdom was recentlydelivered from a bitter tyrant, King John, and had likewise got rid oftheir perfidious deliverer, the Dauphin of France, who after the Englishhad accepted him for their King, had secretly vowed their extirpation. "]

[Footnote 21: Life of James; St. Simon; Dangeau. ]

[Footnote 22: Poussin to Torcy April 28/May 8 1701 "Le roi d'Angleterretousse plus qu'il n'a jamais fait, et ses jambes sont fort enfles. Je levis hier sortir du preche de Saint James. Je le trouve fort casse, lesyeux eteints, et il eut beaucoup de peine a monter en carrosse. "]

[Footnote 23: Memoire sur la proposition de reconnoitre au prince desGalles le titre du Roi de la Grande Bretagne, Sept. 9/19, 1701. ]

[Footnote 24: By the most trustworthy accounts I mean those of St. Simonand Dangeau. The reader may compare their narratives with the Life ofJames. ]

[Footnote 25: Lettres Historiques Mois de Novembre 1701. ]

[Footnote 26: Last letter to Heinsius. ]