The Project Gutenberg EBook of History of England from James II
#12 in our series by Thomas Babington Macaulay    [Volume 5]

Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.

This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.

Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.


**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**

**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**

*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****


Title: The History of England from the Accession of James II, Vol. 5

Author: Thomas Babington Macaulay

Release Date: May, 2001 [EBook #2614]
[This file was last updated on March 28, 2002]

Edition: 11

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND ***




E-Text created by Martin Adamson
martin@grassmarket.freeserve.co.uk




Transcriber's note:  Footnotes are indicated in the main text by
numbers at the appropriate place.  The footnotes themselves are
placed at the end of the text.  They can be searched for in
the format FN 1, FN 2, FN 3 etc. Alternatively, if your
software allows it the reader can copy footnotes to a second
document window.





The History of England from the Accession of James the Second


by Thomas Babington Macaulay




Volume V

(Chapters XXIII-XXV)




PREFACE TO THE FIFTH VOLUME.

I HAVE thought it right to publish that portion of the
continuation of the "History of England" which was fairly
transcribed and revised by Lord Macaulay. It is given to the
world precisely as it was left: no connecting link has been
added; no reference verified; no authority sought for or
examined. It would indeed have been possible, with the help I
might have obtained from his friends, to have supplied much that
is wanting; but I preferred, and I believe the public will
prefer, that the last thoughts of the great mind passed away from
among us should be preserved sacred from any touch but his own.
Besides the revised manuscript, a few pages containing the first
rough sketch of the last two months of William's reign are all
that is left. From this I have with some difficulty deciphered
the account of the death of William. No attempt has been made to
join it on to the preceding part, or to supply the corrections
which would have been given by the improving hand of the author.
But, imperfect as it must be, I believe it will be received with
pleasure 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
assistance given 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 after midnight. On the following morning the Parliament met;
and one of the most laborious sessions of that age commenced.

Among the questions which it was necessary that the Houses should
speedily decide, one stood forth preeminent in interest and
importance. Even in the first transports of joy with which the
bearer of the treaty of Ryswick had been welcomed to England, men
had eagerly and anxiously asked one another what was to be done
with that army which had been formed in Ireland and Belgium, which
had learned, in many hard campaigns, to obey and to conquer, and
which now consisted of eighty-seven thousand excellent soldiers.
Was any part of this great force to be retained in the service of
the State? And, if any part, what part? The last two kings had,
without the consent of the legislature, maintained military
establishments in time of peace. But that they had done this in
violation of the fundamental laws of England was acknowledged by
all jurists, and had been expressly affirmed in the Bill of
Rights. It was therefore impossible for William, now that the
country was threatened by no foreign and no domestic enemy, to
keep up even a single battalion without the sanction of the
Estates of the Realm; and it 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
it appeared 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 would still be indispensably necessary to us. The growth
of the empire has left us no choice. The regions which we have
colonized or conquered since the accession of the House of
Hanover contain a population exceeding twenty-fold that which the
House of Stuart governed. There are now more English soldiers on
the other side of the tropic of Cancer in time of peace than
Cromwell had under his command in time of war. All the troops of
Charles II. would not have been sufficient to garrison the posts
which we now occupy in the Mediterranean Sea alone. The regiments
which defend the remote dependencies of the Crown cannot be duly
recruited and relieved, unless a force far larger than that which
James collected in the camp at Hounslow for the purpose of
overawing his capital be constantly kept up within the kingdom.
The old national antipathy to permanent military establishments,
an antipathy which was once reasonable and salutary, but which
lasted some time after it had become unreasonable and noxious,
has gradually yielded to the irresistible force of circumstances.
We have made the discovery, that an army may be so constituted as
to be in the highest degree efficient against an enemy, and yet
obsequious to the civil magistrate. We have long ceased to
apprehend danger to law and to freedom from the license of
troops, and from the ambition of victorious generals. An alarmist
who should now talk such language, as was common five generations
ago, who should call for the entire disbanding of the land force;
of the realm, and who should gravely predict that the warriors of
Inkerman and Delhi would 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 the Revolution our
ancestors had known a standing army only as an instrument of
lawless power. Judging by their own experience, they thought it
impossible that such an army should exist without danger to the
rights both of the Crown and of the people. One class of
politicians was never weary of repeating that an Apostolic
Church, a loyal gentry, an ancient nobility, a sainted King, had
been foully outraged by the Joyces and the Prides; another class
recounted the atrocities committed by the Lambs of Kirke, and by
the Beelzebubs and Lucifers of Dundee; and both classes, agreeing
in scarcely any thing else, were disposcd to agree in aversion to
the red coats.

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

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 Chamberlain of the Royal Household, sworn of the Privy
Council, and named one of the Lords Justices who were to
administer the government during the summer had caused great
uneasiness among plain men who remembered all the windings and
doublings of his long career. In truth, his countrymen were unjust
to him. For they thought him, not only an unprincipled and
faithless politician, which he was, but a deadly enemy of the
liberties of 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 the vicissitudes of his life. For these
objects he had passed from Church to Church and from faction to
faction, had joined the most turbulent of oppositions without any
zeal for freedom, and had served the most arbitrary of monarchs
without any zeal for monarchy; had voted for the Exclusion Bill
without being a Protestant, and had adored the Host without being
a Papist; had sold his country at once to both the great parties
which divided the Continent; had taken money from France, and had
sent intelligence to Holland. As far, however, as he could be said
to have any opinions, his opinions were Whiggish. Since his return
from exile, his influence had been generally exerted in favour of
the Whig party. It was by his counsel that the Great Seal had been
entrusted to Somers, that Nottingham had been sacrificed to
Russell, and that Montague had been preferred to Fox. It was by
his dexterous management that the Princess Anne had been detached
from the opposition, and that Godolphin had been removed from the
head of the hoard of Treasury. The party which Sunderland had done
so much to serve now held a new pledge for his fidelity. His only
son, Charles Lord Spencer, was just entering on public life. The
precocious maturity of the young man's intellectual and moral
character had excited hopes which were not destined to be
realized. His knowledge of ancient literature, and his skill in
imitating the styles of the masters of Roman eloquence, were
applauded by veteran scholars. The sedateness of his deportment
and the apparent regularity of his life delighted austere
moralists. He was known indeed to have one expensive taste; but it
was a taste of the most respectable kind. He loved books, and was
bent or forming the most magnificent private library in England.
While other heirs of noble houses were inspecting patterns of
steinkirks and sword knots, dangling after actresses, or betting
on fighting cocks, he was in pursuit of the Mentz editions of
Tully's Offices, of the Parmesan Statius, and of the inestimable
Virgin of Zarottus.1 It was natural that high expectations should
be formed of the virtue and wisdom of a youth whose very luxury
and prodigality had a grave and erudite air, and that even
discerning men should be unable to detect the vices which were
hidden under that show of premature sobriety.

Spencer was a Whig, unhappily for the Whig party, which, before
the unhonoured and unlamented close of his life, was more than
once brought to the verge of ruin by his violent temper and his
crooked politics. His Whiggism differed widely from that of his
father. It was not a languid, speculative, preference of one
theory of government to another, but a fierce and dominant
passion. Unfortunately, though an ardent, it was at the same time
a corrupt and degenerate, Whiggism; a Whiggism so narrow and
oligarchical as to be little, if at all, preferable to the worst
forms of Toryism. The young lord's imagination had been
fascinated by those swelling sentiments of liberty which abound
in the Latin poets and orators; and he, like those poets and
orators, meant by liberty something very different from the only
liberty which is of importance to the happiness of mankind. Like
them, he could see no danger to liberty except from kings. A
commonwealth, oppressed and pillaged by such men as Opimius and
Verres, was free, because it had no king. A member of the Grand
Council of Venice, who passed his whole life under tutelage and
in 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 for anonymous accusations against him, and whom the
Inquisitors of State could, at any moment, and for any or no
reason, arrest, torture, fling into the Grand Canal, was free,
because he had no king. To curtail, for the benefit of a small
privileged class, prerogatives which the Sovereign possesses and
ought to possess for the benefit of the whole nation, was the
object on which Spencer's heart was set. During many years he was
restrained by older and wiser men; and it was not till those whom
he had early been accustomed to respect had passed away, and till
he was himself at the head of affairs, that he openly attempted
to obtain for the hereditary nobility a precarious and invidious
ascendency in 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
member for Tiverton, and had, during two sessions, conducted
himself as a steady and zealous Whig.

The party to which he had attached himself might perhaps have
reasonably considered him as a hostage sufficient to ensure the
good faith of his father; for the Earl was approaching that time
of life at which even the most ambitious and rapacious men
generally toil rather for their children than for themselves. But
the distrust which Sunderland inspired was such as no guarantee
could quiet. Many fancied that he was,--with what object they
never took the trouble to inquire,--employing the same arts which
had ruined James for the purpose of ruining William. Each prince
had had his weak side. One was too much a Papist, and the other
too much a soldier, for such a nation as this. The same
intriguing sycophant who had encouraged the Papist in one fatal
error was now encouraging the soldier in another. It might well
be apprehended that, under the influence of this evil counsellor,
the nephew might alienate as many hearts by trying to make
England a military country as the uncle had alienated by trying
to make her a Roman Catholic country.

The parliamentary conflict on the great question of a standing
army was preceded by a literary conflict. In the autumn of 1697
began a controversy of no common interest and importance. The
press was now free. An exciting and momentous political question
could be fairly discussed. Those who held uncourtly opinions
could express those opinions without resorting to illegal
expedients and employing the agency of desperate men. The
consequence was that the dispute was carried on, though with
sufficient keenness, yet, on the whole, with a decency which
would have been thought extraordinary in the days of the
censorship.

On this occasion the Tories, though they felt strongly, wrote but
little. The paper war was almost entirely carried on between two
sections of the Whig party. The combatants on both sides were
generally anonymous. But it was well known that one of the
foremost champions of the malecontent Whigs was John Trenchard,
son of the late Secretary of State. Preeminent among the
ministerial Whigs was one in whom admirable vigour and quickness
of intellect were united to a not less admirable moderation and
urbanity, one who looked on the history of past ages with the eye
of a practical statesman, and on the events which were passing
before him with the eye of a philosophical historian. It was not
necessary for him to name himself. He could be none but Somers.

The pamphleteers who recommended the immediate and entire
disbanding of the army had an easy task. If they were
embarrassed, it was only by the abundance of the matter from
which they had to make their selection. On their side were
claptraps and historical commonplaces without number, the
authority of a crowd of illustrious names, all the prejudices,
all the traditions, of both the parties in the state. These
writers laid it down as a fundamental principle of political
science that a standing army and a free constitution could not
exist together. What, they asked, had destroyed the noble
commonwealths of Greece? What had enslaved the mighty Roman
people? What had turned the Italian republics of the middle ages
into lordships and duchies? How was it that so many of the
kingdoms of modern Europe had been transformed from limited into
absolute monarchies? The States General of France, the Cortes of
Castile, the Grand Justiciary of Arragon, what had been fatal to
them all? History was ransacked for instances of adventurers who,
by the help of mercenary troops, 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 and Augustus Caesar,
Carthage besieged by her own mercenaries, Rome put up to auction
by her own Praetorian cohorts, Sultan Osman butchered by his own
Janissaries, Lewis Sforza sold into captivity by his own
Switzers. But the favourite instance was taken from the recent
history of our own land. Thousands still living had seen the
great usurper, who, strong in the power of the sword, had
triumphed over both royalty and freedom. The Tories were reminded
that his soldiers had guarded the scaffold before the Banqueting
House. The Whigs were reminded that those same soldiers had taken
the mace from the table of the House of Commons. From such evils,
it was said, no country could be secure which was cursed with a
standing army. And what were the advantages which could be set
off against such evils? Invasion was the bugbear with which the
Court tried to frighten the nation. But we were not children to
be scared by nursery tales. We were at peace; and, even in time
of war, an enemy who should attempt to invade us would probably
be intercepted by our fleet, and would 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 modern history. What
was the Lacedaemonian phalanx in the best days of Lacedaemon?
What was, the Roman legion in the best days of Rome? What were
the armies which conquered at Cressy, at Poitiers, at Agincourt,
at Halidon, or at Flodden? What was that mighty array which
Elizabeth reviewed at Tilbury? In the fourteenth, fifteenth, and
sixteenth centuries Englishmen who did not live by the trade of
war had made war with success and glory. Were the English of the
seventeenth century so degenerate that they could not be trusted
to play the men for their own homesteads and parish churches?

For such reasons as these the disbanding of the forces was
strongly recommended. Parliament, it was said, might perhaps,
from respect and tenderness for the person of His Majesty, permit
him to have guards enough to escort his coach and to pace the
rounds before his palace. But this was the very utmost that it
would be right to concede. The defence of the realm ought to be
confided to the sailors and the militia. Even the Tower ought to
have no garrison except the trainbands of the Tower Hamlets.

It must be evident to every intelligent and dispassionate man
that these declaimers contradicted themselves. If an army
composed of regular troops really was far more efficient than an
army composed of husbandmen taken from the plough and burghers
taken from the counter, how could the country be safe with no
defenders but husbandmen and burghers, when a great prince, who
was our nearest neighbour, who had a few months before been our
enemy, and who might, in a few months, be our enemy again, kept
up not less than a hundred and fifty thousand regular troops? If,
on the other hand, the spirit of the English people was such that
they would, with little or no training, encounter and defeat the
most formidable array of veterans from the continent, was it not
absurd to apprehend that such a people could be reduced to
slavery by a few regiments of their own countrymen? But our
ancestors were generally so much blinded by prejudice that this
inconsistency passed unnoticed. They were secure where they ought
to have been wary, and timorous where they might well have been
secure. They were not shocked by hearing the same man maintain,
in the same breath, that, if twenty thousand professional
soldiers were kept up, the liberty and property of millions of
Englishmen would be at the mercy of the Crown, and yet that those
millions of Englishmen, fighting for liberty and property, would
speedily annihilate an invading army composed of fifty or sixty
thousand of the conquerors of Steinkirk and Landen. Whoever
denied the former proposition was called a tool of the Court.
Whoever denied the latter was accused of insulting and slandering
the nation.

Somers was too wise to oppose himself directly to the strong
current of popular feeling. With rare dexterity he took the tone,
not of an advocate, but of a judge. The danger which seemed so
terrible to many honest friends of liberty he did not venture to
pronounce altogether visionary. But he reminded his countrymen
that a choice between dangers was sometimes all that was left to
the wisest of mankind. No lawgiver had 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 one evil was to draw
near to another. That which, considered merely with reference to
the internal polity of England, might be, to a certain extent,
objectionable, might be absolutely essential to her rank among
European Powers, and even to her independence. All that a
statesman could do in such a case was to weigh inconveniences
against each other, and carefully to observe which way the scale
leaned. The evil of having regular soldiers, and the evil of not
having them, Somers set forth and compared in a little treatise,
which was once widely renowned as the Balancing Letter, and which
was admitted, even by the malecontents, to be an able and
plausible composition. He well knew that mere names exercise a
mighty influence on the public mind; that the most perfect
tribunal which a legislator could construct would be unpopular if
it were called the Star Chamber; that the most judicious tax
which a financier could devise would excite murmurs if it were
called the Shipmoney; and that the words Standing Army then had
to English ears a sound as unpleasing as either Shipmoney or Star
Chamber. He declared therefore that he abhorred the thought of a
standing army. What he recommended was, not a standing, but a
temporary army, an army of which Parliament would annually fix
the number, an army for which Parliament would annually frame a
military code, an army which would cease to exist as soon as
either the Lords or the Commons should think that its services
were not needed. From such an army surely the danger to public
liberty 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 were disbanded was such as might well disturb the firmest
mind. Suppose a war with the greatest power in Christendom to
break out suddenly, and to find us without one battalion of
regular infantry, without one squadron of regular cavalry; what
disasters might we not reasonably apprehend? It was idle to say
that a descent could not take place without ample notice, and
that we should have time to raise and discipline a great force.
An absolute prince, whose orders, given in profound secresy, were
promptly 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, might be ready to strike a blow long before we
were prepared to parry it. We might be appalled by learning that
ships from widely remote parts, and troops from widely remote
garrisons, had assembled at a single point within sight of our
coast. To trust to our fleet was to trust to the winds and the
waves. The breeze which was favourable to the invader might
prevent our men of war from standing out to sea. Only nine years
ago this had actually happened. The Protestant wind, before which
the Dutch armament had run full sail down the Channel, had driven
King James's navy back into the Thames. It must then be
acknowledged to be not improbable that the enemy might land. And,
if he landed, what would he find? An open country; a rich
country; provisions everywhere; not a river but which could be
forded; no natural fastnesses such as protect the fertile plains
of Italy; no artificial fastnesses such as, at every step, impede
the progress of a conqueror in the Netherlands. Every thing must
then be staked on the steadiness of the militia; and it was
pernicious flattery to represent the militia as equal to a
conflict in the field with veterans whose whole life had been a
preparation for the day of battle. The instances which it was the
fashion to cite of the great achievements of soldiers taken from
the threshing floor and the shopboard were fit only for a
schoolboy's theme. Somers, who had studied ancient literature
like a man,--a rare thing in his time,--said that those instances
refuted the doctrine which they were meant to prove. He disposed
of much idle declamation about the Lacedaemonians by saying, most
concisely, correctly and happily, that the Lacedaemonian
commonwealth really was a standing army which threatened all the
rest of 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 the loom, and the petty gains of trade, he
contemptuously abandoned to men of a lower caste. His whole
existence from childhood to old age was one long military
training. Meanwhile the Athenian, the Corinthian, the Argive,
the Theban, gave his chief attention to his oliveyard or his
vineyard, his warehouse or his workshop, and took up his shield
and spear only for short terms and at long intervals. The
difference therefore between a Lacedaemonian phalanx and any
other phalanx was long as great as the difference between a
regiment of the French household troops and a regiment of the
London trainbands. Lacedaemon consequently continued to be
dominant in Greece till other states began to employ regular
troops. Then her supremacy was at an end. She was great while she
was a standing army among militias. She fell when she had to
contend with other standing armies. The lesson which is really to
be learned from her ascendency and from her decline is this, that
the occasional soldier is no match for the professional soldier.2

The same lesson Somers drew from the history of Rome; and every
scholar who really understands that history will admit that he
was in the right. The finest militia that ever existed was
probably that of Italy in the third century before Christ. It
might have been thought that seven or eight hundred thousand
fighting men, who assuredly wanted neither natural courage nor
public spirit, would have been able to protect their own hearths
and altars against an invader. An invader came, bringing with him
an army small and exhausted by a march over the snows of the
Alps, but familiar with battles and sieges. At the head of this
army he traversed the peninsula to and fro, gained a succession
of victories against immense numerical odds, slaughtered the
hardy youth of Latium like 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 gradually taught his
adversaries how to resist him.

It was idle to repeat the names of great battles won, in the
middle ages, by men who did not make war their chief calling;
those battles proved only that one militia might beat another,
and not that a militia could beat a regular army. As idle was it
to declaim about the camp at Tilbury. We had indeed reason to be
proud of the spirit which all classes of Englishmen, gentlemen
and yeomen, peasants and burgesses, had so signally displayed in
the great crisis of 1588. But we had also reason to be thankful
that, with all their spirit, they were not brought face to face
with the Spanish battalions. Somers related an anecdote, well
worthy to be remembered, which had been preserved by tradition in
the noble house of De Vere. One of the most illustrious men of
that house, a captain who had acquired much experience and much
fame in the Netherlands, had, in the crisis of peril, been
summoned back to England by Elizabeth, and rode with her through
the endless ranks of shouting pikemen. She asked him what he
thought of the army. "It is," he said, "a brave army." There was
something in his tone or manner which showed that he meant more
than his words expressed. The Queen insisted on his speaking out.
"Madam," he said, "Your Grace's army is brave indeed. I have not
in the world the name of a coward, and yet I am the greatest
coward 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, cannot think of such a battle without dismay." De
Vere was doubtless in the right. 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 that which Hannibal waged
in Italy, and that the invaders would not have been driven out
till many cities had been sacked, till many counties had been
wasted, and till multitudes of our stout-hearted rustics and
artisans had perished in the carnage of days not less terrible
than those of Thrasymene and Cannae.

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

The words with which the King opened the session brought the
great question to a speedy issue. "The circumstances," he said,
"of affairs abroad 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 of effecting that under the notion of
a peace which they could not bring to pass by war."

The speech was well received; for that Parliament was thoroughly
well affected to the Government. The members had, like the rest
of the community, been put into high good humour by the return of
peace and by the revival of trade. They were indeed still under
the influence of the feelings of the preceding day; and they had
still in their ears the thanksgiving sermons and thanksgiving
anthems; all the bonfires had hardly burned out; and the rows of
lamps and candles had hardly been taken down. Many, therefore,
who did not assent to all that the King had said, joined in a
loud hum of approbation when he concluded.3 As soon as the
Commons had retired to their own chamber, they resolved to
present an address assuring His Majesty that they would stand by
him in 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 of inflaming the country gentlemen against the
ministry, ventured to make some uncourtly remarks; but he gave so
much offence that he was hissed down, and did not venture to
demand a division.4

The friends of the Government were greatly elated by the
proceedings of this day. During the following week hopes were
entertained that the Parliament might be induced to vote a peace
establishment of thirty thousand men. But these hopes were
delusive. The hum with which William's speech had been received,
and the hiss which had drowned the voice of Seymour, had been
misunderstood. The Commons were indeed warmly attached to the
King's person and government, and quick to resent any
disrespectful mention of his name. But the members who were
disposed to let him have even half as many troops as he thought
necessary were a minority. On the tenth of December his speech
was considered in a Committee of the whole House; and Harley came
forward as the chief of the opposition. He did not, like some hot
headed men, among both the Whigs and the Tories, contend that
there ought to be no regular soldiers. But he maintained that it
was unnecessary to keep up, after the peace of Ryswick, a larger
force than had been kept up after the peace of Nimeguen. He
moved, therefore, that the military establishment should be
reduced to what it had been in the year 1680. The Ministers found
that, on this occasion, neither their honest nor their dishonest
supporters could be trusted. For, in the minds of the most
respectable men, the prejudice against standing armies was of too
long growth and too deep root to be at once removed; and those
means by which the Court might, at another time, have secured the
help of venal politicians were, at that moment, of less avail
than usual. The Triennial Act was beginning to produce its
effects. A general election was at hand. Every member who had
constituents was desirous to please them; and it was certain that
no member would please his constituents by voting for a standing
army; and the resolution moved by Harvey was strongly supported
by Howe, was carried, was reported to the House on the following
day, and, after a debate in which several orators made a great
display of their knowledge of ancient and modern history, was
confirmed by one hundred and eighty-five votes to one hundred and
forty-eight.5

In this debate the fear and hatred with which many of the best
friends of the Government regarded Sunderland were unequivocally
manifested. "It is easy," such was the language of several
members, "it is easy to guess by whom that unhappy sentence was
inserted in the speech from the Throne. No person well acquainted
with the disastrous and disgraceful history of the last two
reigns can doubt who the minister is, who is now whispering evil
counsel in the ear of a third master." The Chamberlain, thus
fiercely attacked, was very feebly defended. There was indeed in the
House of Commons a small knot of his creatures; and they were men
not destitute of a certain kind of ability; but their moral
character was 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 was the late Speaker, Trevor, who had, from
the chair, put the question whether he was or was not a rogue,
and had been forced to pronounce that the Ayes had it. A third
was Charles Duncombe, long the greatest goldsmith of Lombard
Street, and now one of the greatest landowners of the North
Riding of Yorkshire. Possessed of a private fortune equal to that
of any duke, he had not thought it beneath him to accept the
place of Cashier of the Excise, and had perfectly understood
how to make that place lucrative; but he had recently been
ejected from office by Montague, who thought, with good reason,
that he was not a man to be trusted. Such advocates as Trevor,
Guy and Duncombe could do little for Sunderland in debate. The
statesmen of the junto would do nothing for him. They had
undoubtedly owed much to him. His influence, cooperating with
their own great abilities and with the force of circumstances,
had induced the King to commit the direction of the internal
administration of the realm to a Whig Cabinet. But the distrust
which the old traitor and apostate inspired was not to be
overcome. The ministers could not be sure that he was not, while
smiling on them, whispering in confidential tones to them,
pouring out, as it might seem, all his heart to them, really
calumniating them in the closet or suggesting to the opposition
some ingenious mode of attacking them. They had very recently
been thwarted by him. They were bent on making Wharton a
Secretary of State, and had therefore looked forward with
impatience to the retirement of Trumball, who was indeed hardly
equal to the duties of his great place. To their surprise and
mortification they learned, on the eve of the meeting of
Parliament, that Trumball had suddenly resigned, and Vernon, the
Under Secretary, had been summoned to Kensington, and had
returned thence with the seals. Vernon was a zealous Whig, and
not personally unacceptable to the chiefs of his party. But the
Lord Chancellor, the First Lord of the Treasury, and the First
Lord of the Admiralty, might not unnaturally think it strange
that a post of the highest importance should have been filled up
in opposition to their known wishes, and with a haste and a
secresy which plainly showed that the King did not wish to be
annoyed by their remonstrances. The Lord Chamberlain pretended
that he had done all in his power to serve Wharton. But the Whig
chiefs were not men to be duped by the professions of so
notorious a liar. Montague bitterly described him as a fireship,
dangerous at best, but on the whole most dangerous as a consort,
and least dangerous when showing hostile colours. Smith, who was
the most efficient of Montague's lieutenants, both in the
Treasury and in the Parliament, cordially sympathised 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 from the Court and the Council that evil adviser
who had misled His Majesty's royal uncles, had betrayed the
liberties of the people, and had abjured the Protestant religion.

Sunderland had been uneasy from the first moment at which his
name had been mentioned in the House of Commons. He was now in an
agony of terror. The whole enigma of his life, an enigma of which
many unsatisfactory and some absurd explanations have been
propounded, is at once solved if we consider him as a man
insatiably greedy of wealth and power, and yet nervously
apprehensive of danger. He rushed with ravenous eagerness at
every bait which was offered to his cupidity. But any ominous
shadow, any threatening murmur, sufficed to stop him in his full
career, and to make him change his course or bury himself in a
hiding place. He ought to have thought himself fortunate indeed,
when, after all the crimes which he had committed, he found
himself again enjoying his picture gallery and his woods at
Althorpe, sitting in the House of Lords, admitted to the royal
closet, pensioned from the Privy Purse, consulted about the most
important affairs of state. But his ambition and avarice would
not suffer him to rest till he held a high and lucrative office,
till he was a regent of the kingdom. The consequence was, as
might have been expected, a violent clamour; and that clamour he
had not the spirit to face.

His friends assured him that the threatened address would not be
carried. Perhaps a hundred and sixty members might vote for it;
but hardly more. "A hundred and sixty!" he cried: "No minister
can stand against a hundred and sixty. I am sure that I will not
try." It must be remembered that a hundred and sixty votes in a
House of five hundred and thirteen members would correspond to
more than two hundred votes in the present House of Commons; a
very formidable minority on the unfavourable side of a question
deeply affecting the personal character of a public man. William,
unwilling to part with a servant whom he knew to be unprincipled,
but whom he did not consider as more unprincipled than many other
English politicians, and in whom he had found much of a very
useful sort of knowledge, and of a very useful sort of ability,
tried to induce the ministry to come to the rescue. It was
particularly important to soothe Wharton, who had been
exasperated by his recent disappointment, and had probably
exasperated the other members of the junto. He was sent for to
the palace. The King himself intreated him to be reconciled to
the Lord Chamberlain, and to prevail on the Whig leaders in the
Lower House to oppose any motion which Dyke or Norris might make.
Wharton answered in a manner which made it clear that from him no
help was to be expected. Sunderland's terrors now became
insupportable. He had requested some of his friends to come to
his house that he might consult them; they came at the appointed
hour, but found that he had gone to Kensington, and had left word
that he should soon be back. When he joined them, they observed
that he had not the gold key which is the badge of the Lord
Chamberlain, and asked where it was. "At Kensington," answered
Sunderland. They found that he had tendered his resignation, and
that it had been, after a long struggle, accepted. They blamed
his haste, and told him that, since he had summoned them to
advise him on that day, he might at least have waited till the
morrow. "To morrow," he exclaimed, "would have ruined me. To
night has saved me."

Meanwhile, both the disciples of Somers and the disciples of
Trenchard were grumbling at Harley's resolution. The disciples of
Somers maintained that, if it was right to have an army at all,
it must be right to have an efficient army. The disciples of
Trenchard complained that a great principle had been shamefully
given up. On the vital issue, Standing Army or no Standing Army,
the Commons had pronounced an erroneous, a fatal decision.
Whether that army should consist of five regiments or of fifteen
was hardly worth debating. The great dyke which kept out
arbitrary power had been broken. It was idle to say that the
breach was narrow; for it would soon be widened by the flood
which would rush in. The war of pamphlets raged more fiercely
than ever. At the same time alarming symptoms began to appear
among the men of the sword. They saw themselves every day
described in print as the scum of society, as mortal enemies of
the liberties of their country. Was it reasonable,--such was the
language of some scribblers,--that an honest gentleman should pay
a heavy land tax, in order to support in idleness and luxury a
set of fellows who requited him by seducing his dairy maids and
shooting his partridges? Nor was it only in Grub Street tracts
that such reflections were to be found. It was known all over the
town that uncivil things had been said of the military profession
in the House of Commons, and that Jack Howe, in particular, had,
on this subject, given the rein to his wit and to his ill nature.
Some rough and daring veterans, marked with the scars of
Steinkirk and singed with the smoke of Namur, threatened
vengeance for these insults. The writers and speakers who had
taken the greatest liberties went in constant fear of being
accosted by fierce-looking captains, and required to make an
immediate choice between fighting and being caned. One gentleman,
who had made himself conspicuous by the severity of his language,
went about with pistols in his pockets. Howe, whose courage was
not proportionate to his malignity and petulance, was so much
frightened, that he retired into the country. The King, well
aware that a single blow given, at that critical conjuncture, by
a soldier to a member of Parliament might produce disastrous
consequences, ordered the officers of the army to their quarters,
and, by the vigorous exertion of his authority and influence,
succeeded in preventing all outrage.6

All this time the feeling in favour of a regular force seemed to
be growing in the House of Commons. The resignation of Sunderland
had put many honest gentlemen in good humour. The Whig leaders
exerted themselves to rally their followers, held meetings at the
"Rose," and represented strongly the dangers to which the country
would be exposed, if defended only by a militia. The opposition
asserted that neither bribes nor promises were spared. The
ministers at length flattered themselves that Harley's resolution
might be rescinded. On the eighth of January they again tried
their strength, and were again defeated, though by a smaller
majority than before. A hundred and sixty-four members divided
with them. A hundred and eighty-eight were for adhering to the
vote of the eleventh of December. It was remarked that on this
occasion the 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
words of the resolution of the eleventh of December the most
favourable sense that they could be made to bear. They did indeed
admit of very different interpretations. The force which was
actually in England in 1680 hardly amounted to five thousand men.
But the garrison of Tangier and the regiments in the pay of the
Batavian federation, which, as they were available for the
defence of England against a foreign or domestic enemy, might be
said to be in some sort part of the English army, amounted to at
least five thousand more. The construction which the ministers
put on the resolution of the eleventh of December was, that the
army was to consist of ten thousand men; and in this construction
the House acquiesced. It was not held to be necessary that the
Parliament should, as in our time, fix the amount of the land
force. The Commons thought that they sufficiently limited the
number of soldiers by limiting the sum which was to be expended
in maintaining soldiers. What that sum should be was a question
which raised much debate. Harley was unwilling to give more than
three hundred thousand pounds. Montague struggled for four
hundred thousand. The general sense of the House was that Harley
offered too little, and that Montague demanded too much. At last,
on the fourteenth of January, a vote was taken for three hundred
and fifty thousand pounds. Four days later the House resolved to
grant half-pay to the disbanded officers till they should be
otherwise provided for. The half-pay was meant to be a retainer
as well as a reward. The effect of this important vote therefore
was that, whenever a new war should break out, the nation would
be able to command the services of many gentlemen of great
military experience. The ministry afterwards succeeded in
obtaining, much against the will of a portion of the opposition,
a separate vote for three thousand marines.

A Mutiny Act, which had been passed in 1697, expired in the
spring of 1698. As yet no such Act had been passed except in time
of war; and the temper of the Parliament and of the nation was
such that the ministers did not venture to ask, in time of peace,
for a renewal of powers unknown to the constitution. For the
present, therefore, the soldier was again, as in the times which
preceded the Revolution, subject to exactly the same law which
governed the citizen.

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

It was not merely by pecuniary liberality that the Parliament
testified attachment to the Sovereign. A bill was rapidly passed
which withheld the benefit of the Habeas Corpus Act, during
twelve months more, from Bernardi and some other conspirators who
had been concerned in the Assassination Plot, but whose guilt,
though demonstrated to the conviction of every reasonable man,
could not be proved by two witnesses. At the same time new
securities were provided against a new danger which threatened
the government. The peace had put an end to the apprehension that
the throne of William might be subverted by foreign arms, but
had, at the same time, facilitated domestic treason. It was no
longer necessary for an agent from Saint Germains to cross the
sea in a fishing boat, under the constant dread of being
intercepted by a cruiser. 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 to travel up to town on foot. He came
openly by the Calais packet, walked into the best inn at Dover,
and ordered posthorses for London. Meanwhile young Englishmen of
quality and fortune were hastening in crowds to Paris. They would
naturally wish to see him who had once been their king; and this
curiosity, though in itself innocent, might have evil
consequences. Artful tempters would doubtless be on the watch for
every such traveller; and many such travellers might be well
pleased to be courteously accosted, in a foreign land, by
Englishmen of honourable name, distinguished appearance, and
insinuating address. It was not to be expected that a lad fresh
from the university would be able to refute all the sophisms and
calumnies which might be breathed in his ear by dexterous and
experienced seducers. Nor would it be strange if he should, in no
long time, accept an invitation to a private audience at Saint
Germains, should be charmed by the graces of Mary of Modena,
should find something engaging in the childish innocence of the
Prince of Wales, should kiss the hand of James, and should return
home an ardent Jacobite. An Act was therefore passed forbidding
English subjects to hold any intercourse orally, or by writing,
or by message, with the exiled family. A day was fixed after
which no English subject, who had, during the late war, gone into
France without the royal permission or borne arms against his
country was to be permitted to reside in this kingdom, except
under a special license from the King. Whoever infringed these
rules incurred the penalties of high treason.

The dismay was at first great among the malecontents. For English
and Irish Jacobites, who had served under the standards of Lewis
or hung about the Court of Saint Germains, had, since the peace,
come over in multitudes to England. It was computed that
thousands were within the scope of the new Act. But the severity
of that Act was mitigated by a beneficent administration. Some
fierce and stubborn non-jurors who would not debase themselves by
asking for any indulgence, and some conspicuous enemies of the
government who had asked for indulgence in vain, were under the
necessity of taking refuge on the Continent. But the great
majority of those offenders who promised to live peaceably under
William's rule obtained his permission to remain in their native
land.

In the case of one great offender there were some circumstances
which attracted general interest, and which might furnish a good
subject to a novelist or a dramatist. Near fourteen years before
this time, Sunderland, then Secretary of State to Charles the
Second, had married his daughter Lady Elizabeth Spencer to
Donough Macarthy, Earl of Clancarty, the lord of an immense
domain in Munster. Both the bridegroom and the bride were mere
children, the bridegroom only fifteen, the bride only eleven.
After the ceremony they were separated; and many years full of
strange vicissitudes elapsed before they again met. The boy soon
visited his estates in Ireland. He had been bred a member of the
Church of England; but his opinions and his practice were loose.
He found himself among kinsmen who were zealous Roman Catholics.
A Roman Catholic king was on the throne. To turn Roman Catholic
was the best recommendation to favour both at Whitehall and at
Dublin Castle. Clancarty speedily changed his religion, and from
a dissolute Protestant became a dissolute Papist. After the
Revolution he followed the fortunes of James; sate in the Celtic
Parliament which met at the King's Inns; commanded a regiment in
the Celtic army; was forced to surrender himself to Marlborough
at Cork; was sent to England, and was imprisoned in the Tower.
The Clancarty estates, which were supposed to yield a rent of not
much less than ten thousand a year, were confiscated. They were
charged with an annuity to the Earl's brother, and with another
annuity to his wife; but the greater part was bestowed by the
King on Lord Woodstock, the eldest son of Portland; During some
time, the prisoner's life was not safe. For the popular voice
accused him of outrages for which the utmost license of civil war
would not furnish a plea. It is said that he was threatened with
an appeal of murder by the widow of a Protestant clergyman who
had been put to death during the troubles. After passing three
years in confinement, Clancarty made his escape to the Continent,
was graciously received at St. Germains, and was entrusted with
the command of a corps of Irish refugees. When the treaty of
Ryswick had put an end to the hope that the banished dynasty
would be restored by foreign arms, he flattered himself that he
might be able to make his peace with the English Government. But
he was grievously disappointed. The interest of his wife's family
was undoubtedly more than sufficient to obtain a pardon for him.
But on that interest he could not reckon. The selfish, base,
covetous, father-in-law was not at all desirous to have a
highborn beggar and the posterity of a highborn beggar to
maintain. The ruling passion of the brother-in-law was a stern
and acrimonious party spirit. He could not bear to think that he
was so nearly connected with an enemy of the Revolution and of
the Bill of Rights, and would with pleasure have seen the odious
tie severed even by the hand of the executioner. There was one,
however, from whom the ruined, expatriated, proscribed young
nobleman might hope to find a kind reception. He stole across the
Channel in disguise, presented himself at Sunderland'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 a sick bed
at Windsor. By this fiction he obtained admission, made himself
known to his wife, whose thoughts had probably been constantly
fixed on him during many years, and prevailed on her to give him
the most tender proofs of an affection sanctioned by the laws
both of God and of man. The secret was soon discovered and
betrayed by a waiting woman. Spencer learned that very night that
his sister had admitted her husband to her apartment. The
fanatical young Whig, burning with animosity which he mistook for
virtue, and eager to emulate the Corinthian who assassinated his
brother, and the Roman who passed sentence of death on his son,
flew to Vernon's office, gave information that the Irish rebel,
who had once already escaped from custody, was in hiding hard by,
and procured a warrant and a guard of soldiers. Clancarty was
found in the arms of his wife, and dragged to the Tower. She
followed him and implored permission to partake his cell. These
events produced a great stir throughout the society of London.
Sunderland professed everywhere that he heartily approved of his
son's conduct; but the public had made up its mind about
Sunderland's veracity, and paid very little attention to his
professions on this or on any other subject. In general,
honourable men of both parties, whatever might be their opinion
of Clancarty, felt great compassion for his mother who was dying
of a broken heart, and his poor young wife who was begging
piteously to be admitted within the Traitor's Gate. Devonshire
and Bedford joined with Ormond to ask for mercy. The aid of a
still more powerful intercessor was called in. Lady Russell was
esteemed by the King as a valuable friend; she was venerated by
the nation generally as a saint, the widow of a martyr; and, when
she deigned to solicit favours, it was scarcely possible that she
should solicit in vain. She naturally felt a strong sympathy for
the unhappy couple, who were parted by the walls of that gloomy
old fortress in which she had herself exchanged the last sad
endearments with one whose image was never absent from her. She
took Lady Clancarty with her to the palace, obtained access to
William, and put a petition into his hand. Clancarty was pardoned
on condition that he should leave the kingdom and never return to
it. A pension was granted to him, small when compared with the
magnificent inheritance which he had forfeited, but quite
sufficient to enable him to live like a gentleman on the
Continent. He retired, 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 land tax was reduced from four shillings in the
pound to three. But nine expensive campaigns had left a heavy
arrear behind them; and it was plain that the public burdens
must, even in the time of peace, be such as, before the
Revolution, would have been thought more than sufficient to
support a vigorous war. A country gentleman was in no very good
humour, when he compared the sums which were now exacted from him
with those which he had been in the habit of paying under the
last two kings; his discontent became stronger when he compared
his own situation with that of courtiers, and above all of Dutch
courtiers, who had been enriched by grants of Crown property; and
both interest and envy made him willing to listen to politicians
who assured him that, if those grants were resumed, he might be
relieved from another shilling.

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

There can be no doubt that the Sovereign was, by the old polity
of the realm, competent to give or let the domains of the Crown
in such manner as seemed good to him. No statute defined the
length of the term which he might grant, or the amount of the
rent which he must reserve. He might part with the fee simple of
a forest extending over a hundred square miles in consideration
of a tribute of a brace of hawks to be delivered annually to his
falconer, or of a napkin of fine linen to be laid on the royal
table at the coronation banquet. In fact, there had been hardly a
reign since the Conquest, in which great estates had not been
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 the
Parliaments of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Of those
laws the last was that which, in the year 1485, immediately after
the battle of Bosworth, annulled the donations of the kings of
the House of York. More than two hundred years had since elapsed
without any Resumption Act. An estate derived from the royal
liberality had long been universally thought as secure as an
estate which had descended from father to son since the
compilation of Domesday Book. No title was considered as more
perfect than that of the Russells to Woburn, given by Henry the
Eighth to 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 by the first Earl of Salisbury. The Long
Parliament did not, even in that celebrated instrument of
nineteen articles, which was framed expressly for the purpose of
making the King a mere Doge, propose to restrain him from dealing
according to his pleasure with his parks and his castles, his
fisheries and his mines. After the Restoration, under the
government of an easy prince, who had indeed little disposition
to give, but who could not bear to refuse, many noble private
fortunes were carved out of the property of the Crown. Some of
the persons who were thus enriched, Albemarle, for example,
Sandwich and Clarendon, might be thought to have fairly earned
their master's favour by their services. Others had merely amused
his leisure or pandered to his vices. His mistresses were
munificently rewarded. Estates sufficient to support the highest
rank in the peerage were distributed among his illegitimate
children. That these grants, however prodigal, were strictly
legal, was tacitly admitted by the Estates of the Realm, when, in
1689, they recounted and condemned the unconstitutional acts of
the kings of the House of Stuart. Neither in the Declaration of
Right nor in the Bill of Rights is there a word on the subject.
William, therefore, thought himself at liberty to give away his
hereditary domains as freely as his predecessors had given away
theirs. There was much murmuring at the profusion with which he
rewarded his Dutch favourites; and we have seen that, on one
occasion in the year 1696, the House of Commons interfered for
the purpose of restraining his liberality. An address was
presented requesting him not to grant to Portland an extensive
territory in North Wales. But it is to be observed that, though
in this address a strong opinion was expressed that the grant
would be mischievous, the Commons did not deny, and must
therefore be considered as having admitted, that it would be
perfectly legal. The King, however, yielded; and Portland was
forced to content himself with ten or twelve manors scattered
over various counties from Cumberland to Sussex.

It seems, therefore, clear that our princes were, by the law of
the land, competent to do what they would with their hereditary
estates. It is perfectly true that the law was defective, and
that the profusion with which mansions, abbeys, chaces, warrens,
beds of ore, whole streets, whole market towns, had been bestowed
on courtiers was greatly to be lamented. Nothing could have been
more proper than to pass a prospective statute tying up in strict
entail the little which still remained of the Crown property. But
to annul by a retrospective statute patents, which in Westminster
Hall were held to be legally valid, would have been simply
robbery. Such robbery must necessarily have made all property
insecure; and a statesman must be short-sighted indeed who
imagines that what makes property insecure can really make
society prosperous.

But it is vain to expect that men who are inflamed by anger, who
are suffering distress, and who fancy that it is in their power
to obtain immediate relief from their distresses at the expense
of those who have excited their anger, will reason as calmly as
the historian who, biassed neither by interest nor passion,
reviews the events of a past age. The public burdens were heavy.
To whatever extent the grants of royal domains were revoked,
those burdens would be lightened. Some of the recent grants had
undoubtedly been profuse. Some of the living grantees were
unpopular. A cry was raised which soon became formidably loud.
All the Tories, all the malecontent Whigs, and multitudes who,
without being either Tories or malecontent Whigs, disliked taxes
and disliked Dutchmen, called for a resumption of all the Crown
property which King William had, as it was phrased, been deceived
into giving away.

On the seventh of February 1698, this subject, destined to
irritate the public mind at intervals during many years, was
brought under the consideration of the House of Commons. The
opposition asked leave to bring in a bill vacating all grants of
Crown property which had been made since the Revolution. The
ministers were in a great strait; the public feeling was strong;
a general election was approaching; it was dangerous and it would
probably be vain to encounter the prevailing sentiment directly.
But the shock which could not be resisted might be eluded. The
ministry accordingly professed to find no fault with the proposed
bill, except that it did not go far enough, and moved for leave
to bring in two more bills, one for annulling the grants of James
the Second, the other for annulling the grants of Charles the
Second. The Tories were caught in their own snare. For most of
the grants of Charles and James had been made to Tories; and a
resumption of those grants would have reduced some of the chiefs
of the Tory party to poverty. Yet it was impossible to draw a
distinction between the grants of William and those of his two
predecessors. Nobody could pretend that the law had been altered
since his accession. If, therefore, the grants of the Stuarts
were legal, so were his; if his grants were illegal, so were the
grants of his uncles. And, if both his grants and the grants of
his uncles were illegal, it was absurd to say that the mere lapse
of time made a difference. For not only was it part of the
alphabet of the law that there was no prescription against the
Crown, but the thirty-eight years which had elapsed since the
Restoration would not have sufficed to bar a writ of right
brought by a private demandant against a wrongful tenant. Nor
could it be pretended that William had bestowed his favours less
judiciously than Charles and James. Those who were least friendly
to the Dutch would hardly venture to say that Portland, Zulestein
and Ginkell was less deserving of the royal bounty than the
Duchess of Cleveland 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 that moment the scheme was doomed.
Everybody affected to be for it; and everybody was really against
it. The three bills were brought in together, 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 were some episodes which deserve to be related. Those
members, a numerous body, who envied and dreaded Montague readily
became the unconscious tools of the cunning malice of Sunderland,
whom Montague had refused to defend in Parliament, and who,
though detested by the opposition, contrived to exercise some
influence over that party through the instrumentality of Charles
Duncombe. Duncombe indeed had his own reasons for hating
Montague, who had turned him out of the place of Cashier of the
Excise. A serious charge was brought against the Board of
Treasury, and especially against its chief. He was the inventor
of Exchequer Bills; and they were popularly called Montague's
notes. He had induced the Parliament to enact that those bills,
even when at a discount in the market, should be received at par
by the collectors of the revenue. This enactment, if honestly
carried into effect, would have been unobjectionable. But it was
strongly rumoured that there had been foul play, peculation, even
forgery. Duncombe threw the most serious imputations on the Board
of Treasury, and pretended that he had been put out of his office
only because he was too shrewd to be deceived, and too honest 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 the result not only
disappointed but utterly confounded the accusers. The persecuted
minister obtained both a complete acquittal, and a signal
revenge. Circumstances were discovered which seemed to indicate
that Duncombe himself was not blameless. The clue was followed;
he was severely cross-examined; he lost his head; made one
unguarded admission after another, and was at length compelled to
confess, on the floor of the House, that he had been guilty of an
infamous fraud, which, but for his own confession, it would have
been scarcely possible to bring home to him. He had been ordered
by the Commissioners of the Excise to pay ten thousand pounds
into the Exchequer for the public service. He had in his hands,
as cashier, more than double that sum in good milled silver. With
some of this money he bought Exchequer Bills which were then at a
considerable discount; he paid those bills in; and he pocketed
the discount, which amounted to about four hundred pounds. Nor
was this all. In order to make it appear that the depreciated
paper, which he had fraudulently substituted for silver, had been
received by him in payment of taxes, he had employed a knavish
Jew to forge endorsements of names, some real and some imaginary.
This scandalous story, wrung out of his own lips, was heard by
the opposition with consternation and shame, by the ministers and
their friends with vindictive exultation. It was resolved,
without any division, that he should be sent to the Tower, that
he should be kept close prisoner there, that he should be
expelled from the House. Whether any further punishment could be
inflicted on him was a perplexing question. The English law
touching forgery became, at a later period, barbarously severe;
but, in 1698, it was absurdly lax. The prisoner's offence was
certainly not a felony; and lawyers apprehended that there would
be much difficulty in convicting him even of a misdemeanour. But
a recent precedent was fresh in the minds of all men. The weapon
which had reached Fenwick might reach Duncombe. A bill of pains
and penalties was brought in, and carried through the earlier
stages with less opposition than might have been expected. Some
Noes might perhaps be uttered; but no members ventured to say
that the Noes had it. The Tories were mad with shame and
mortification, at finding that their rash attempt to ruin an
enemy had produced no effect except the ruin of a friend. In
their rage, they eagerly caught at a new hope of revenge, a hope
destined to end, as their former hope had ended, in discomfiture
and disgrace. They learned, from the agents of Sunderland, as
many people suspected, but certainly from informants who were
well acquainted with the offices about Whitehall, that some
securities forfeited to the Crown in Ireland had been bestowed by
the King ostensibly on one Thomas Railton, but really on the
Chancellor of the Exchequer. The value of these securities was
about ten thousand pounds. On the sixteenth of February this
transaction was brought without any notice under the
consideration of the House of Commons by Colonel Granville, a
Tory member, nearly related to the Earl of Bath. Montague was
taken completely by surprise, but manfully avowed the whole
truth, and defended what he had done. The orators of the
opposition declaimed against him with great animation and
asperity. "This gentleman," they said, "has at once violated
three distinct duties. He is a privy councillor, and, as such, is
bound to advise the Crown with a view, not to his own selfish
interests, but to the general good. He is the first minister of
finance, and is, as such, bound to be a thrifty manager of the
royal treasure. He is a member of this House, and is, as such,
bound to see that the burdens borne by his constituents are not
made heavier by 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 money out of the Treasury. The
member for Westminster puts into his pocket money which his
constituents must be taxed to replace." The surprise was
complete; the onset was formidable; but the Whig majority, after
a moment of dismay and wavering, rallied firmly round their
leader. Several speakers declared that they highly approved of
the prudent liberality with which His Majesty had requited the
services of a most able, diligent and trusty counsellor. It was
miserable economy indeed to grudge a reward of a few thousands to
one who had made the State richer by millions. Would that all the
largesses of former kings had been as well bestowed! How those
largesses had been bestowed none knew better than some of the
austere patriots who harangued so loudly against the avidity of
Montague. If there is, it was said, a House in England which has
been gorged with undeserved riches by the prodigality of weak
sovereigns, it is the House of Bath. Does it lie in the mouth of
a son of that house to blame the judicious munificence of a wise
and good King? Before the Granvilles complain that distinguished
merit has been rewarded with ten thousand pounds, let them refund
some part of the hundreds 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 made must be heard in his own defence, and must then leave the
House. The Opposition insisted that Montague should retire. His
friends maintained that 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 two hundred and nine. This decisive
result astonished both parties. The Tories lost heart and hope.
The joy of the Whigs was boundless. It was instantly moved that
the Honourable Charles Montague, Esquire, Chancellor of the
Exchequer, for his good services to this Government does deserve
His Majesty's favour. The Opposition, completely cowed, did not
venture to demand another division. Montague scornfully thanked
them for the inestimable service which they had done him. But for
their malice he never should have had the honour and happiness of
being solemnly pronounced by the Commons of England a benefactor
of his country. As to the grant which had been the subject of
debate, he was perfectly ready to give it up, if his accusers
would engage to follow his example.

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

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

That Duncombe had been guilty of shameful dishonesty was
acknowledged by all men of sense and honour in the party to which
he belonged. He had therefore little right to expect indulgence
from the party which he had unfairly and malignantly assailed.
Yet it is not creditable to the Whigs that they should have been
so much disgusted by his frauds, or so much irritated by his
attacks, as to have been bent on punishing him in a manner
inconsistent with all the principles which governments ought to
hold most sacred.

Those who concurred in the proceeding against Duncombe tried to
vindicate their conduct by citing as an example the proceeding
against Fenwick. So dangerous is it to violate, on any pretence,
those principles which the experience of ages has proved to be
the safeguards of all that is most precious to a community.
Twelve months had hardly elapsed since the legislature had, in
very peculiar circumstances, and for very plausible reasons,
taken upon itself to try and to punish a great criminal whom it
was impossible to reach in the ordinary course of justice; and
already the breach then made in the fences which protect the
dearest rights of Englishmen was widening fast. What had last
year been defended only as a rare exception seemed now to be
regarded as the ordinary rule. Nay, the bill of pains and
penalties which now had an easy passage through the House of
Commons was infinitely more objectionable than the bill which had
been so obstinately resisted at every stage in the preceding
session.

The writ of attainder against Fenwick was not, as the vulgar
imagined and still imagine, objectionable because it was
retrospective. It is always to be remembered that retrospective
legislation is bad in principle only when it affects the
substantive law. Statutes creating new crimes or increasing the
punishment of old crimes ought in no case to be retrospective.
But statutes which merely alter the procedure, if they are in
themselves good statutes, ought to be retrospective. To take
examples 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 the authors of that Act might feel against the
ruffian who had broken the Barberini Vase, they knew that they
could not, without the most serious detriment to the
commonwealth, pass a law for scourging him. On the other hand the
Act which allowed the affirmation of a Quaker to be received in
criminal cases allowed, and most justly and reasonably, such
affirmation to be received in the case of a past as well as of a
future misdemeanour or felony. If we try the Act which attainted
Fenwick by these rules we shall find that almost all the numerous
writers who have condemned it have condemned it on wrong grounds.
It made no retrospective change in the substantive law. The crime
was not new. It was high treason as defined by the Statute of
Edward the Third. The punishment was not new. It was the
punishment which had been inflicted on traitors of ten
generations. All that was new was the procedure; and, if the new
procedure had been intrinsically better than the old procedure,
the new procedure might with perfect propriety have been
employed. But the procedure employed in Fenwick's case was the
worst possible, and would have been the worst possible if it had
been established from time immemorial. However clearly political
crime may have been defined by ancient laws, a man accused of it
ought not to be tried by a crowd of five hundred and thirteen
eager politicians, of whom he 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 much or as little as they
choose of the accusation and of the defence, who are exposed,
during the investigation, to every kind of corrupting influence,
who are inflamed by all the passions which animated debates
naturally excite, who cheer one orator and cough down another,
who are roused from sleep to cry Aye or No, or who are hurried
half drunk from their suppers to divide. For this reason, and for
no other, the attainder of Fenwick is to be condemned. It was
unjust and of evil example, not because it was a retrospective
Act, but because it was an act essentially judicial, performed by
a body destitute of all judicial qualities.

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

It may be thought a strange proposition that the bill against
Duncombe was a worse bill than the bill against Fenwick, because
the bill against Fenwick struck at life, and the bill against
Duncombe struck only at property. Yet this apparent paradox is a
sober truth. Life is indeed more precious than property. But the
power of arbitrarily taking away the lives of men is infinitely
less likely to be abused than the power of arbitrarily taking
away their property. Even the lawless classes of society
generally shrink from blood. They commit thousands of offences
against property to one murder; and most of the few murders which
they do commit are committed for the purpose of facilitating or
concealing some offence against property. The unwillingness of
juries to find a fellow creature guilty of a capital felony even
on the clearest evidence is notorious; and it may well be
suspected that they frequently violate their oaths in favour of
life. In civil suits, on the other hand, they too often forget
that their duty is merely to give the plaintiff a compensation
for evil suffered; and, if the conduct of the defendant has moved
their indignation and his fortune is known to be large, they turn
themselves into a criminal tribunal, and, under the name of
damages, impose a large fine. As housebreakers are more likely to
take plate and jewellery than to cut throats; as juries are far
more likely to err on the side of pecuniary severity in assessing
damages than to send to the gibbet any man who has not richly
deserved it; so a legislature, which should be so unwise as to
take on itself the functions properly belonging to the Courts of
Law, would be far more likely to pass Acts of Confiscation than
Acts of Attainder. We naturally feel pity even for a bad man
whose head is about to fall. But, when a bad man is compelled to
disgorge his ill-gotten gains, we naturally feel a vindictive
pleasure, in which there is much danger that we may be tempted to
indulge too largely.

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

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

His property was supposed to amount to considerably more than
four hundred thousand pounds. Two thirds of that property were
equivalent to about sevenpence in the pound on the rental of the
kingdom as assessed to the land tax. If, therefore, two thirds of
that property could have been brought into the Exchequer, the
land tax for 1699, a burden most painfully felt by the class
which had the chief power in England, might have been reduced
from three shillings to two and fivepence. Every squire of a
thousand a year in the House of Commons would have had thirty
pounds more to spend; and that sum might well have made to him
the whole difference between being at ease and being pinched
during twelve months. If the bill had passed, if the gentry and
yeomanry of the kingdom had found that it was possible for them
to obtain a welcome remission of taxation by imposing on a
Shylock or an Overreach, by a retrospective law, a fine not
heavier than his misconduct might, in a moral view, seem to have
deserved, it is impossible to believe that they would not soon
have recurred to so simple and agreeable a resource. In every age
it is easy to find rich men who have done bad things for which
the law has provided no punishment or an inadequate punishment.
The estates of such men would soon have been considered as a fund
applicable to the public service. As often as it was necessary to
vote an extraordinary supply to the Crown, the Committee of Ways
and Means would have looked about for some unpopular capitalist
to plunder. Appetite would have grown with indulgence.
Accusations would have been eagerly welcomed. Rumours and
suspicions would have been received as proofs. The wealth of the
great goldsmiths of the Royal Exchange would have become as
insecure as that of a Jew under the Plantagenets, as that of a
Christian under a Turkish Pasha. Rich men would have tried to
invest their acquisitions in some form in which they could lie
closely hidden and could be speedily removed. In no long time it
would have been found that of all financial resources the least
productive is robbery, and that the public had really paid far
more dearly for Duncombe's hundreds of thousands than if it had
borrowed them at fifty per cent.

These considerations had more weight with the Lords than with the
Commons. Indeed one of the principal uses of the Upper House is
to defend the vested rights of property in cases in which those
rights are unpopular, and are attacked on grounds which to
shortsighted politicians seem valid. An assembly composed of men
almost all of whom have inherited opulence, and who are not under
the necessity of paying court to constituent bodies, will not
easily be hurried by passion or seduced by sophistry into
robbery. As soon as the bill for punishing Duncombe had been read
at the table of the Peers, it became clear that there would be a
sharp contest. Three great Tory noblemen, Rochester, Nottingham
and Leeds, headed the opposition; and they were joined by some
who did not ordinarily act with them. At an early stage of the
proceedings a new and perplexing question was raised. How did it
appear that the facts set forth in the preamble were true, that
Duncombe had committed the frauds for which it was proposed to
punish him in so extraordinary a manner? In the House of Commons,
he had been taken by surprise; he had made admissions of which he
had not foreseen the consequences; and he had then been so much
disconcerted by the severe manner in which he had been
interrogated that he had at length avowed everything. But he had
now had time to prepare himself; he had been furnished with
advice by counsel; and, when he was placed at the bar of the
Peers, he refused to criminate himself and defied his persecutors
to prove him guilty. He was sent back to the Tower. The Lords
acquainted the Commons with the difficulty which had arisen. A
conference was held in the Painted Chamber; and there Hartington,
who appeared for the Commons, declared that he was authorized, by
those who had sent him, to assure the Lords that Duncombe had, in
his place in Parliament, owned the misdeeds which he now
challenged his accusers to bring home to him. The Lords, however,
rightly thought that it would be a strange and a dangerous thing
to receive a declaration of the House of Commons in its
collective character as conclusive evidence of the fact that a
man had committed a crime. The House of Commons was under none of
those restraints which were thought necessary in ordinary cases
to protect innocent defendants against false witnesses. The House
of Commons could not be sworn, could not be cross-examined, could
not be indicted, imprisoned, pilloried, mutilated, for perjury.
Indeed the testimony of the House of Commons in its collective
character was of less value than the uncontradicted testimony of
a single member. For it was only the testimony of the majority of
the House. There might be a large respectable minority whose
recollections might materially differ from the recollections of
the majority. This indeed was actually the case. For there had
been a dispute among those who had heard Duncombe's confession as
to the precise extent of what he had confessed; and there had
been a division; and the statement which the Upper House was
expected to receive as decisive on the point of fact had been at
last carried only by ninety votes to sixty-eight. It should seem
therefore that, whatever moral conviction the Lords might feel of
Duncombe's guilt, they were bound, as righteous judges, to
absolve him.

After much animated debate, they divided; and the bill was lost
by forty-eight votes to forty-seven. It was proposed by some of
the minority that proxies should be called; but this scandalous
proposition was strenuously resisted; and the House, to its great
honour, resolved that on questions which were substantially
judicial, though they might be in form legislative, no peer who
was absent should be allowed to have a 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 now Bishop of Oxford, should have been impelled by
party spirit to record their dissent from a decision which all
sensible and candid men will now pronounce to have been just and
salutary. Somers was present; but his name is not attached to the
protest which was subscribed by his brethren of the junto. We may
therefore not unreasonably infer that, on this as on many other
occasions, that wise and virtuous statesman disapproved of the
violence of his friends.

In rejecting the bill, the Lords had only exercised their
indisputable right. But they immediately proceeded to take a step
of which the legality was not equally clear. Rochester moved that
Duncombe should be set at liberty. The motion was carried; a
warrant for the discharge of the prisoner was sent to the Tower,
and was obeyed without hesitation by Lord Lucas, who was
Lieutenant of that fortress. As soon as this was known, the anger
of the Commons broke forth with violence. It was by their order
that the upstart Duncombe had been put in ward. He was their
prisoner; and it was monstrous insolence in the Peers to release
him. The Peers defended what they had done by arguments which
must be allowed to have been ingenious, if not satisfactory. It
was quite true that Duncombe had originally been committed to the
Tower by the Commons. But, it was said, the Commons, by sending a
penal bill against him to the Lords, did, by necessary
implication, send him also to the Lords. For it was plainly
impossible for the Lords to pass the bill without hearing what he
had to say against it. The Commons had felt this, and had not
complained when he had, without their consent, been brought from
his place of confinement, and set at the bar of the Peers. From
that moment he was the prisoner of the Peers. He had been taken
back from the bar to the Tower, not by virtue of the Speaker's
warrant, of which the force was 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
no effect on the Commons. Indeed, violent as the spirit of party
was in those times, it was less violent than the spirit of caste.
Whenever a dispute arose between the two Houses, many members of
both forgot that they were Whigs or Tories, and remembered only
that they were Patricians or Plebeians. On this occasion nobody
was louder in asserting the privileges of the representatives of
the people in opposition to the encroachments of the nobility
than Harley. Duncombe was again arrested by the Serjeant at Arms,
and remained in confinement till the end of the session. Some
eager men were for addressing the King to turn Lucas out of
office. This was not done; but during several days the ill humour
of the Lower House showed itself by a studied discourtesy. One of
the members was wanted as a witness in a matter which the Lords
were investigating. They sent two judges with a message
requesting the permission of the Commons to examine him. At any
other time the judges would have been called in immediately, and
the permission would have been granted as of course. But on this
occasion the judges were kept waiting some hours at the door; and
such difficulties were made about the permission that the Peers
desisted from urging a request which seemed likely to be
ungraciously refused.

The attention of the Parliament was, during the remainder of the
session, chiefly occupied by commercial questions. Some of those
questions required so much investigation, and gave occasion to so
much dispute, that the prorogation did not take place till the
fifth of July. There was consequently some illness and much
discontent among both Lords and Commons. For, in that age, the
London season usually ended soon after the first notes of the
cuckoo had been heard, and before the poles had been decked for
the dances and mummeries which welcomed the genial May day of the
ancient calendar. Since the year of the Revolution, a year which
was an exception to all ordinary rules, the members of the two
Houses had never been detained from their woods and haycocks even
so late as the beginning of June.

The Commons had, soon after they met, appointed a Committee to
enquire into the state of trade, and had referred to this
Committee several petitions from merchants and manufacturers who
complained that they were in danger of being undersold, and who
asked for additional protection.

A highly curious report on the importation of silks and the
exportation of wool was soon presented to the House. It was in
that age believed by all but a very few speculative men that the
sound commercial policy was to keep out of the country the
delicate and brilliantly tinted textures of southern looms, and
to keep in the country the raw material on which most of our own
looms were employed. It was now fully proved that, during eight
years of war, the textures which it was thought desirable to keep
out had been constantly coming in, and the material which it was
thought desirable to keep in had been constantly going out. This
interchange, 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 had been passing and repassing between Kent and Picardy.
The loading and unloading had taken place sometimes in Romney
Marsh, sometimes on the beach under the cliffs between Dover and
Folkstone. All the inhabitants of the south eastern coast were in
the plot. It was a common saying among them that, if a gallows
were set up every quarter of a mile along the coast, the trade
would still go on briskly. It had been discovered, some years
before, that the vessels and the hiding places which were
necessary to the business of the smuggler had frequently afforded
accommodation to the traitor. The report contained fresh evidence
upon this point. It was proved that one of the contrabandists had
provided the vessel in which the ruffian O'Brien had carried Scum
Goodman over to France.

The inference which ought to have been drawn from these facts was
that the prohibitory system was absurd. That system had not
destroyed the trade which was so much dreaded, but had merely
called into existence a desperate race of men who, accustomed to
earn their daily bread by the breach of an unreasonable law, soon
came to regard the most reasonable laws with contempt, and,
having begun by eluding the custom house officers, ended by
conspiring against the throne. And, if, in time of war, when the
whole Channel was dotted with our cruisers, it had been found
impossible to prevent the regular exchange of the fleeces of
Cotswold for the alamodes of Lyons, what chance was there that
any machinery which could be employed in time of peace would be
more efficacious? The politicians of the seventeenth century,
however, were of opinion that sharp laws sharply administered
could not fail to save Englishmen from the intolerable grievance
of selling dear what could be best produced by themselves, and of
buying cheap what could be best produced by others. The penalty
for importing French silks was made more severe. An Act was
passed which gave to a joint stock company an absolute monopoly
of lustrings for a term of fourteen years. The fruit of these
wise counsels was such as might have been foreseen. French silks
were still imported; and, long before the term of fourteen years
had expired, the funds of the Lustring Company had been spent,
its offices had been shut up, and its very name had been
forgotten at Jonathan's and Garraway's.

Not content with prospective legislation, the Commons unanimously
determined to treat the offences which the Committee had brought
to light as high crimes against the State, and to employ against
a few cunning mercers in Nicholas Lane and the Old Jewry all the
gorgeous and cumbrous machinery which ought to be reserved for
the delinquencies of great Ministers and Judges. It was
resolved, without a division, that several Frenchmen and one
Englishman who had been deeply concerned in the contraband trade
should be impeached. Managers were appointed; articles were drawn
up; preparations were made for fitting up Westminster Hall with
benches and scarlet hangings; and at one time it was thought that
the trials would last till the partridge shooting began. But the
defendants, having little hope of acquittal, and not wishing that
the Peers should come to the business of fixing the punishment in
the temper which was likely to be the effect of an August passed
in London, very wisely declined to give their lordships
unnecessary trouble, and pleaded guilty. The sentences were
consequently lenient. The French offenders were merely fined; and
their fines probably did not amount to a fifth part of the sums
which they had realised by unlawful traffic. The Englishman who
had been active in managing the escape of Goodman was both fined
and imprisoned.

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

The person who on this occasion came forward as the champion of
the colonists, the forerunner of Swift and of Grattan, was
William Molyneux. He would have rejected the name of Irishman as
indignantly as a citizen of Marseilles or Cyrene, proud of his
pure Greek blood, and fully qualified to send a chariot to the
Olympic race course, would have rejected the name of Gaul or
Libyan. He was, in the phrase of that time, an English gentleman
of family and fortune born in Ireland. He had studied at the
Temple, had travelled on the Continent, had become well known to
the most eminent scholars and philosophers of Oxford and
Cambridge, had been elected a member of the Royal Society of
London, and had been one of the founders of the Royal Society of
Dublin. In the days of Popish ascendancy he had taken refuge
among his friends here; he had returned to his home when the
ascendancy of his own caste had been reestablished; and he had
been chosen to represent the University of Dublin in the House of
Commons. He had made great efforts to promote the manufactures of
the kingdom in which he resided; and he had found those efforts
impeded by an Act of the English Parliament which laid severe
restrictions on the exportation of woollen goods from Ireland. In
principle this Act was altogether indefensible. Practically it
was altogether unimportant. Prohibitions were not needed to
prevent the Ireland of the seventeenth century from being a great
manufacturing country; nor could the most liberal bounties have
made her so. The jealousy of commerce, however, is as fanciful
and unreasonable as the jealousy of love. The clothiers of Wilts
and Yorkshire were weak enough to imagine that they should be
ruined by the competition of a half barbarous island, an island
where there was far less capital than in England, where there was
far less security for life and property than in England, and
where there was far less industry and energy among the labouring
classes than in England. Molyneux, on the other hand, had the
sanguine temperament of a projector. He imagined that, but for
the tyrannical interference of strangers, a Ghent would spring up
in Connemara, and a Bruges in the Bog of Allen. And what right
had strangers to interfere? Not content with showing that the law
of which he complained was absurd and unjust, he undertook to
prove that it was null and void. Early in the year 1698 he
published and dedicated to the King a treatise in which it was
asserted in plain terms that the English Parliament had no
authority over Ireland.

Whoever considers without passion or prejudice the great
constitutional question which was thus for the first time raised
will probably be of opinion that Molyneux was in error. The right
of the Parliament of England to legislate for Ireland rested on
the broad general principle that the paramount authority of the
mother country extends over all colonies planted by her sons in
all parts of the world. This principle was the subject of much
discussion at the time of the American troubles, and was then
maintained, without any reservation, not only by the English
Ministers, but by Burke and all the adherents of Rockingham, and
was admitted, with one single reservation, even by the Americans
themselves. Down to the moment of separation the Congress fully
acknowledged the competency of the King, Lords and Commons to
make laws, of any kind but one, for Massachusetts and Virginia.
The only power which such men as Washington and Franklin denied
to the Imperial legislature was the power of taxing. Within
living memory, Acts which have made great political and social
revolutions in our Colonies have been passed in this country; nor
has the validity of those Acts ever been questioned; and
conspicuous among them were the law of 1807 which abolished the
slave trade, and the law of 1833 which abolished slavery.

The doctrine that the parent state has supreme power over the
colonies is 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 and stronger, it will be wise
in the home government to be more and more indulgent. No
sensible parent deals with a son of twenty in the same way as
with a son of ten. Nor will any government not infatuated treat
such a province as Canada or Victoria in the way in which it
might be proper to treat a little band of emigrants who have just
begun to build their huts on a barbarous shore, and to whom the
protection of the flag of a great nation is indispensably
necessary. Nevertheless, there cannot really be more than one
supreme power in a society. If, therefore, a time comes at which
the mother country finds it expedient altogether to abdicate her
paramount authority over a colony, one of two courses ought to be
taken. There ought to be complete incorporation, if such
incorporation be possible. If not, there ought to be complete
separation. Very few propositions in polities can be so perfectly
demonstrated as this, that parliamentary government cannot be
carried on by two really equal and independent parliaments in one
empire.

And, if we admit the general rule to be that the English
parliament is competent to legislate for colonies planted by
English subjects, what reason was there for considering the case
of the colony in Ireland as an exception? For it is to be
observed that the whole question was between the mother country
and the colony. The aboriginal inhabitants, more than five sixths
of the population, had no more interest in the matter than the
swine or the poultry; or, if they had an interest, it was for
their interest that the caste which domineered over them should
not be emancipated from all external control. They were no more
represented in the parliament which sate at Dublin than in the
parliament which sate at Westminster. They had less to dread from
legislation at Westminster than from legislation at Dublin. They
were, indeed, likely to obtain but a very scanty measure of
justice from the English Tories, a more scanty measure still from
the English Whigs; but the most acrimonious English Whig did not
feel towards them that intense antipathy, compounded of hatred,
fear and scorn, with which they were regarded by the Cromwellian
who dwelt among them.8 For the Irishry Molyneux, though boasting
that he was the champion of liberty, though professing to have
learned his political principles from Locke's writings, and
though confidently expecting Locke's applause, asked nothing but
a more cruel and more hopeless slavery. What he claimed was that,
as respected the colony to which he belonged, England should
forego rights which she has exercised and is still exercising
over every other colony that she has ever planted. 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 of the
support of England. Twice, within the memory of men then living,
the natives had attempted to throw off the alien yoke; twice the
intruders had been in imminent danger of extirpation; twice
England had come to the rescue, and had put down the Celtic
population under the feet of her own progeny. Millions of English
money had been expended in the struggle. English blood had flowed
at the Boyne and at Athlone, at Aghrim and at Limerick. The
graves of thousands of English soldiers had been dug in the
pestilential morass of Dundalk. It was owing to the exertions and
sacrifices of the English people that, from the basaltic pillars
of Ulster to the lakes of Kerry, the Saxon settlers were
trampling on the children of the soil. The colony in Ireland was
therefore emphatically a dependency; a dependency, not merely by
the common law of the realm, but by the nature of things. It was
absurd to claim independence for a community which could not
cease to be dependent without ceasing to exist.

Molyneux soon found that he had ventured on a perilous
undertaking. A member of the English House of Commons complained
in his place that a book which attacked the most precious
privileges of the supreme legislature was in circulation. The
volume was produced; some passages were read; and a Committee was
appointed to consider the whole subject. The Committee soon
reported that the obnoxious pamphlet was only one of several
symptoms which indicated a spirit such as ought to be suppressed.
The Crown of Ireland had been most improperly described in public
instruments as an imperial Crown. The Irish Lords and Commons had
presumed, not only to reenact an English Act passed expressly for
the purpose of binding them, but to reenact it with alterations.
The alterations were indeed small; but the alteration even of a
letter was tantamount to a declaration of independence. Several
addresses were voted without a division. The King was entreated
to discourage all encroachments of subordinate powers on the
supreme authority of the English legislature, to bring to justice
the pamphleteer who had dared to question that authority, to
enforce the Acts which had been passed for the protection of the
woollen manufactures of England, and to direct the industry and
capital of Ireland into the channel of the linen trade, a trade
which might grow and flourish in Leinster and Ulster without
exciting the smallest jealousy at Norwich or at Halifax.

The King promised to do what the Commons asked; but in truth
there was little to be done. The Irish, conscious of their
impotence, submitted without a murmur. The Irish woollen
manufacture languished and disappeared, as it would, in all
probability, have languished and disappeared if it had been left
to itself. Had Molyneux lived a few months longer he would
probably have been impeached. But the close of the session was
approaching; and before the Houses met again a timely death had
snatched him from their vengeance; and the momentous question
which had been first stirred by him slept a deep sleep till it
was revived 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
the summer the most important respected India. Four years had
elapsed since the House of Commons had decided that all
Englishmen had an equal right to traffic in the Asiatic Seas,
unless prohibited by Parliament; and in that decision the King
had thought it prudent to acquiesce. Any merchant of London or
Bristol might now fit out a ship for Bengal or for China, without
the least apprehension of being molested by the Admiralty or sued
in the Courts of Westminster. No wise man, however, was disposed
to stake a large sum on such a venture. For the vote which
protected him from annoyance here left him exposed to serious
risks on the other side of the Cape of Good Hope. The Old
Company, though its exclusive privileges were no more, and though
its dividends had greatly diminished, was still in existence, and
still retained its castles and warehouses, its fleet of fine
merchantmen, and its able and zealous factors, thoroughly
qualified by a long experience to transact business both in the
palaces and in the bazaars of the East, and accustomed to look
for direction to the India House alone. The private trader
therefore still ran great risk of being treated as a smuggler, if
not as a pirate. He might indeed, if he was wronged, apply for
redress to the tribunals of his country. But years must elapse
before his cause could be heard; his witnesses must be conveyed
over fifteen thousand miles of sea; and in the meantime he was a
ruined man. The experiment of free trade with India had therefore
been tried under every disadvantage, or, to speak more correctly,
had not been tried at all. The general opinion had always been
that some restriction was necessary; and that opinion had been
confirmed by all that had happened since the old restrictions had
been removed. The doors of the House of Commons were again
besieged by the two great contending factions of the City. The
Old Company offered, in return for a monopoly secured by law, a
loan of seven hundred thousand pounds; and the whole body of
Tories was for accepting the offer. But those indefatigable
agitators who had, ever since the Revolution, been striving to
obtain a share in the trade of the Eastern seas 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 was to obtain for the State, as the price of the monopoly, a
sum much larger than the Old Company was able to give. The other
was to promote the interest of his own party. Nowhere was the
conflict between Whigs and Tories sharper than in the City of
London; and the influence of the City of London was felt to the
remotest corner of the realm. To elevate the Whig section of that
mighty commercial aristocracy which congregated under the arches
of the Royal Exchange, and to depress the Tory section, had long
been one of Montague's favourite schemes. He had already formed
one citadel in the heart of that great emporium; and he now
thought that it might be in his power to erect and garrison a
second stronghold in a position scarcely less commanding. It had
often been said, in times of civil war, that whoever was master
of the Tower and of Tilbury Fort was master of London. The
fastnesses by means of which Montague proposed to keep the
capital obedient in times of peace and of constitutional
government 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
his opponents were united, his adherents were divided. Most of
those who were for a New Company thought that the New Company
ought, like the Old Company, to trade on a joint stock. But there
were some who held that our commerce with India would be best
carried on by means of what is called a regulated Company. There
was a Turkey Company, the members of which contributed to a
general fund, and had in return the exclusive privilege of
trafficking with the Levant; but those members trafficked, each
on his own account; they forestalled each other; they undersold
each other; one became rich; another became bankrupt. The
Corporation meanwhile watched over the common interest of all the
members, furnished the Crown with the means of maintaining an
embassy at Constantinople, and placed at several important ports
consuls and vice-consuls, whose business was to keep the Pacha
and the Cadi in good humour, and to arbitrate in disputes among
Englishmen. Why might not the same system be found to answer in
regions lying still further to the east? Why should not every
member of the New Company be at liberty to export European
commodities to the countries beyond the Cape, and to bring back
shawls, saltpetre and bohea to England, while the Company, in its
collective capacity, might treat with Asiatic potentates, or
exact reparation from them, and might be entrusted with powers
for the administration of justice 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
intricate that it cannot without some pains be understood. He
wanted two millions to extricate the State from its financial
embarrassments. That sum he proposed to raise by a loan at eight
per cent. The lenders might be either individuals or
corporations. But they were all, individuals and corporations, to
be united in a new corporation, which was to be called the
General Society. Every member of the General Society, whether
individual or corporation, might trade separately with India to
an extent not exceeding the amount which such member had advanced
to the government. But all the members or any of them might, if
they so thought fit, give up the privilege of trading separately,
and unite themselves under a royal Charter for the purpose of
trading in common. Thus the General Society was, by its original
constitution, a regulated company; but it was provided that
either the whole Society or any part of it might become a joint
stock company.

The opposition to the scheme was vehement and pertinacious. The
Old Company presented petition after petition. The Tories, with
Seymour at their head, appealed both to the good faith and to the
compassion of Parliament. 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. On the other side there
was no want of plausible topics or of skill to use them. Was it
not strange that those who talked so much about the Charter
should have altogether overlooked the very clause of the Charter
on which the whole question turned? That clause expressly
reserved to the government power of revocation, after three
years' notice, if the Charter should not appear to be beneficial
to the public. The Charter had not been found beneficial to the
public; the three years' notice should 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 the privileges of the Old
Company were perpetual, when the very instrument which created
those privileges expressly declared them to be terminable, what
right had he to blame the Parliament, which was bound to do the
best for the State, for not saving him, at the expense of the
State, from the natural punishment of his own folly? It was
evident that nothing was proposed inconsistent with strict
justice. And what right had the Old Company to more than strict
justice? These petitioners who implored the legislature to deal
indulgently with them in their adversity, how had they used their
boundless prosperity? Had not the India House recently been the
very den of corruption, the tainted spot from which the plague
had spread to the Court and the Council, to the House of Commons
and the House of Lords? Were the disclosures of 1695 forgotten,
the eighty thousand pounds of secret service money disbursed in
one year, the enormous bribes direct and indirect, Seymour's
saltpetre contracts, Leeds's bags of golds? By the malpractices
which the inquiry in the Exchequer Chamber then brought to light,
the Charter had been forfeited; and it would have been well if
the forfeiture had been immediately enforced. "Had not time then
pressed," said Montague, "had it not been necessary that the
session should close, it is probable that the petitioners, who
now cry out that they cannot get justice, would have got more
justice than they desired. If they had been called to account for
great and real wrong in 1695, we should not have had them here
complaining of imaginary wrong in 1698."

The fight was protracted by the obstinacy and dexterity of the
Old Company and its friends from the first week of May to the
last week in June. It seems that many even of Montague's
followers doubted whether the promised two millions would be
forthcoming. His enemies confidently predicted that the General
Society would be as complete a failure as the Land Bank had been
in the year before the last, and that he would in the autumn find
himself in charge of an empty exchequer. His activity and
eloquence, however, prevailed. On the twenty-sixth of June, after
many laborious sittings, the question was put that this Bill do
pass, and was carried by one hundred and fifteen votes to
seventy-eight. In the upper House, the conflict was short and
sharp. Some peers declared that, in their opinion, the
subscription to the proposed loan, far from amounting to 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 up to them in such a shape that they must either take the
whole or throw out the whole. The privilege of the Commons with
respect to money bills had of late been grossly abused. The Bank
had been created by one money bill; this General Society was to
be created by another money bill. Such a bill the Lords could not
amend; they might indeed reject it; but to reject it was to shake
the foundations of public credit and to leave the kingdom
defenceless. Thus one branch of the legislature was
systematically put under duress by the other, and seemed likely
to be reduced to utter insignificance. It was better that the
government should be once pinched for money than that the House
of Peers should cease to be part of the Constitution. So strong
was this feeling that the Bill was carried only by sixty-five to
forty-eight. It received the royal sanction on the fifth of July.
The King then spoke from the throne. This was the first occasion
on which a King of England had spoken to a Parliament of which
the existence was about to be terminated, not by his own act, but
by the act of the law. He could not, he said, take leave of the
Lords and Gentlemen before him without publicly acknowledging the
great things which they had done for his dignity and for the
welfare of the nation. He recounted the chief services which they
had, during three eventful sessions, rendered to the country.
"These things will," he said, "give a lasting reputation to this
Parliament, and will be a subject of emulation to Parliaments
which shall come after." The Houses were then prorogued.

During the week which followed there was some anxiety as to the
result of the subscription for the stock of the General Society.
If that subscription failed, there would be a deficit; public
credit would be shaken; and Montague would be regarded as a
pretender who had owed his reputation to a mere run of good luck,
and who had tempted chance once too often. But the event was such
as even his sanguine spirit had scarcely ventured to anticipate.
At one in the afternoon of the 14th of July the books were opened
at the Hall of the Company of Mercers in Cheapside. An immense
crowd was already collected in the street. As soon as the doors
were flung wide, wealthy citizens, with their money in their
hands, pressed in, pushing and elbowing each other. The guineas
were paid down faster than the clerks could count them. Before
night six hundred thousand pounds had been subscribed. The next
day the throng was as great. More than one capitalist put down
his name for thirty thousand pounds. To the astonishment of those
ill boding politicians who were constantly repeating that the
war, the debt, the taxes, the grants to Dutch courtiers, had
ruined the kingdom, the sum, which it had been doubted whether
England would be able to raise in many weeks, was subscribed by
London in a few hours. The applications from the provincial towns
and rural districts came too late. The merchants of Bristol had
intended to take three hundred thousand pounds of the stock, but
had waited to learn how the subscription went on before they gave
their final orders; and, by the time that the mail had gone down
to Bristol and returned, there was no more stock to be had.

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

During the long and busy session which had just closed, some
interesting and important events had taken place which may
properly be mentioned here. One of those events was the
destruction of the most celebrated palace in which the sovereigns
of England have ever dwelt. On the evening of the 4th of January,
a woman,--the patriotic journalists and pamphleteers of that time
did not fail to note that she was a Dutchwoman,--who was employed
as a laundress at Whitehall, lighted a charcoal fire in her room
and placed some linen round it. The linen caught fire and burned
furiously. The tapestry, the bedding, the wainscots were soon in
a blaze. The unhappy woman who had done the mischief perished.
Soon the flames burst out of the windows. All Westminster, all
the Strand, all the river were in commotion. Before midnight the
King's apartments, the Queen's apartments, the Wardrobe, the
Treasury, the office of the Privy Council, the office of the
Secretary of State, had been destroyed. The two chapels perished
together; that ancient chapel where Wolsey had heard mass in the
midst of gorgeous copes, golden candlesticks, and jewelled
crosses, and that modern edifice which had been erected for the
devotions of James and had 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 hoped that by this
expedient a stop had been put to the conflagration. But early in
the morning a new fire broke out of the heaps of combustible
matter which the gunpowder had scattered to right and left. The
guard room was consumed. No trace was left of that celebrated
gallery which had witnessed so many balls and pageants, in which
so many maids of honour had listened too easily to the vows and
flatteries of gallants, and in which so many bags of gold had
changed masters at the hazard table. During some time men
despaired of the Banqueting House. The flames broke in on the
south of that beautiful hall, and were with great difficulty
extinguished by the exertions of the guards, to whom Cutts,
mindful of his honourable nickname of the Salamander, set as good
an example 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 the falling masses of stone and timber, before the
fire was effectually subdued. When day broke, the heaps of
smoking ruins spread from Scotland Yard to the Bowling Green,
where the mansion of the Duke of Buccleuch now stands. The
Banqueting House was safe; but the graceful columns and festoons
designed by Inigo were so much defaced and blackened that their
form could hardly be discerned. There had been time to move the
most valuable effects which were moveable. Unfortunately some of
Holbein's finest pictures were painted on the walls, and are
consequently known to us only by copies and engravings. The books
of the Treasury and of the Privy Council were rescued, and are
still preserved. The Ministers whose offices had been burned down
were provided with new offices in the neighbourhood. 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 Council
Office the site of the tennis court.

Notwithstanding the many associations which make the name of
Whitehall still interesting to an Englishman, the old building
was little regretted. It was spacious indeed and commodious, but
mean and inelegant. The people of the capital had been annoyed by
the scoffing way in which foreigners spoke of the principal
residence of our sovereigns, and often said that it was a pity
that the great fire had not spared the old portico of St. Paul's
and the stately arcades of Gresham's Bourse, and taken in
exchange that ugly old labyrinth of dingy brick and plastered
timber. It might now be hoped that we should have a Louvre.
Before the ashes of the old palace were cold, plans for a new
palace were circulated and discussed. But William, who could not
draw his breath in the air of Westminster, was little disposed to
expend a million on a house which it would have been impossible
for him to inhabit. Many blamed him for not restoring the
dwelling of his predecessors; and a few Jacobites, whom evil
temper and repeated disappointments had driven almost mad,
accused him of having burned it down. It was not till long after
his death that Tory writers ceased to call for the rebuilding of
Whitehall, and to complain that the King of England had no better
town house than St. James's, while the delightful spot where the
Tudors and the Stuarts had held their councils and their revels
was covered with the mansions of his jobbing courtiers.9

In the same week in which Whitehall perished, the Londoners were
supplied with a new topic of conversation by a royal visit,
which, of all royal visits, was the least pompous and ceremonious
and yet the most interesting and important. On the 10th of
January a vessel from Holland anchored off Greenwich and was
welcomed with great respect. Peter the First, Czar of Muscovy,
was on board. He took boat with a few attendants and was rowed up
the Thames to Norfolk Street, where a house overlooking the river
had been prepared for his reception.

His journey is an epoch in the history, not only of his own
country, but of 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 is to us. That empire indeed, though
less extensive than at present, was the most extensive that had
ever obeyed a single chief. The dominions of Alexander and of
Trajan were small when compared with the immense area of the
Scythian desert. But in the estimation of statesmen that
boundless expanse of larch forest and morass, where the snow lay
deep during eight months of every year, and where a wretched
peasantry could with difficulty defend their hovels against
troops of famished wolves, was of less account than the two or
three square miles into which were crowded the counting houses,
the warehouses, and the innumerable masts of Amsterdam. On the
Baltic Russia had not then a single port. Her maritime trade with
the other rations of Christendom was entirely carried on at
Archangel, a place which had been created and was supported by
adventurers from our island. In the days of the Tudors, a ship
from England, seeking a north east passage to the land of silk
and spice, had discovered the White Sea. The barbarians who dwelt
on the shores of that dreary gulf had never before seen such a
portent as a vessel of a hundred and sixty tons burden. They fled
in terror; and, when they were pursued and overtaken, prostrated
themselves before the chief of the strangers and kissed his feet.
He succeeded in opening a friendly communication with them; and
from that time there had been a regular commercial intercourse
between our country and the subjects of the Czar. A Russia
Company was incorporated in London. An English factory was built
at Archangel. That factory was indeed, even in the latter part of
the seventeenth century, a rude and mean building. The walls
consisted of trees laid one upon another; and the roof was of
birch bark. This shelter, however, was sufficient in the long
summer day of the Arctic regions. Regularly at that season
several English ships cast anchor in the bay. A fair was held on
the beach. Traders came from a distance of many hundreds of miles
to the only mart where they could exchange hemp and tar, hides
and tallow, wax and honey, the fur of the sable and the
wolverine, and the roe of the sturgeon of the Volga, for
Manchester stuffs, Sheffield knives, Birmingham buttons, sugar
from Jamaica and pepper from Malabar. The commerce in these
articles was open. But there was a secret traffic which was not
less active or less lucrative, though the Russian laws had made
it punishable, and though the Russian divines pronounced it
damnable. In general the mandates of princes and the lessons of
priests were received by the Muscovite with profound reverence.
But the authority of his princes and of his priests united could
not keep him from tobacco. Pipes he could not obtain; but a cow's
horn perforated served his turn. From every Archangel fair rolls
of the best Virginia speedily found their way to Novgorod and
Tobolsk.

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

The English embassies had historians whose narratives may still
be read with interest. Those historians described vividly, and
sometimes bitterly, the savage ignorance and the squalid poverty
of the barbarous country in which they had sojourned. In that
country, they said, there was neither literature nor science,
neither school nor college. It was not till more than a hundred
years after the invention of printing that a single printing
press had been introduced into the Russian empire; and that
printing press had speedily perished in a fire which was supposed
to have been kindled by the priests. Even in the seventeenth
century the library of a prelate of the first dignity consisted
of a few manuscripts. Those manuscripts too were in long rolls;
for the art of bookbinding was unknown. The best educated men
could barely read and write. It was much if the secretary to whom
was entrusted the direction of negotiations with foreign powers
had a sufficient smattering of Dog Latin to make himself
understood. The arithmetic was the arithmetic of the dark ages.
The denary notation was unknown. Even in the Imperial Treasury
the computations were made by the help of balls strung on wires.
Round the person of the Sovereign there was a blaze of gold and
jewels; but even in his most splendid palaces were to be found
the filth and misery of an Irish cabin. So late as the year 1663
the gentlemen of the retinue of the Earl of Carlisle were, in the
city of Moscow, thrust into a single bedroom, and were told that,
if they did not remain together, they would be in danger of being
devoured by rats.

Such was the report which the English legations made of what they
had seen and suffered in Russia; and their evidence was confirmed
by the appearance which the Russian legations made in England.
The strangers spoke no civilised language. Their garb, their
gestures, their salutations, had a wild and barbarous character.
The ambassador and the grandees who accompanied him were so
gorgeous that all London crowded to stare at them, and so filthy
that nobody dared to touch them. They came to the court balls
dropping pearls and vermin. It was said that one envoy cudgelled
the lords of his train whenever they soiled or lost any part of
their finery, and that another had with difficulty been prevented
from putting his son to death for the crime of shaving and
dressing after the French fashion.

Our ancestors therefore were not a little surprised to learn that
a young barbarian, who had, at seventeen years of age, become the
autocrat of the immense region stretching from the confines of
Sweden to those of China, and whose education had been inferior
to that of an English farmer or shopman, had planned gigantic
improvements, had learned enough of some languages of Western
Europe to enable him to communicate with civilised men, had begun
to surround himself with able adventurers from various parts of
the world, had sent many of his young subjects to study
languages, arts and sciences in foreign cities, and finally had
determined to travel as a private man, and to discover, by
personal observation, the secret of the immense prosperity and
power enjoyed by some communities whose whole territory was far
less than the hundredth part of his dominions.

It might have been expected that France would have been the first
object of his curiosity. For the grace and dignity of the French
King, the splendour of the French Court, the discipline of the
French armies, and the genius and learning of the French writers,
were then renowned all over the world. But the Czar's mind had
early taken a strange ply which it retained to the last. His
empire was of all empires the least capable of being made a great
naval power. The Swedish provinces lay between his States and the
Baltic. The Bosporus and the Dardanelles lay between his States
and the Mediterranean. He had access to the ocean only in a
latitude in which navigation is, during a great part of every
year, perilous and difficult. On the ocean he had only a single
port, Archangel; and the whole shipping of Archangel was foreign.
There did not exist a Russian vessel larger than a fishing-boat.
Yet, from some cause which cannot now be traced, he had a taste
for maritime pursuits which amounted to a passion, indeed almost
to a monomania. His imagination was full of sails, yardarms, and
rudders. That large mind, equal to the highest duties of the
general and the statesman, contracted itself to the most minute
details of naval architecture and naval discipline. The chief
ambition of the great conqueror and legislator was to be a good
boatswain and a good ship's carpenter. Holland and England
therefore had for him an attraction which was wanting to the
galleries and terraces of Versailles. He repaired to Amsterdam,
took a lodging in the dockyard, assumed the garb of a pilot, put
down his name on the list of workmen, wielded with his own hand
the caulking iron and the mallet, fixed the pumps, and twisted
the ropes. Ambassadors who came to pay their respects to him were
forced, much against their will, to clamber up the rigging of a
man of war, and found him enthroned on the cross trees.

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 all the stormy rage and hate of a barbarian
tyrant, and above all a strange nervous convulsion which
sometimes transformed his countenance during a few moments, into
an object on which it was impossible to look without terror, the
immense quantities of meat which he devoured, the pints of brandy
which he swallowed, and which, it was said, he had carefully
distilled with his own hands, the fool who jabbered at his feet,
the monkey which grinned at the back of his chair, were, during
some weeks, popular topics of conversation. He meanwhile shunned
the public gaze with 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 was screened from observation by
his attendants. He was desirous to see a sitting 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 small window. He
heard with great interest the royal assent given to a bill for
raising fifteen hundred thousand pounds by land tax, and learned
with amazement that this sum, though larger by one half than the
whole revenue which he could wring from the population of the
immense empire of which he was absolute master, was but a small
part of what the Commons of England voluntarily granted every
year to their constitutional King.

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

He soon became weary of his residence. He found that he was too
far from the objects of his curiosity, and too near to the crowds
to which he was himself an object of curiosity. He accordingly
removed to Deptford, and was there lodged in the house of John
Evelyn, a house which had long been a favourite resort of men of
letters, men of taste and men of science. Here Peter gave himself
up to his favourite pursuits. He navigated a yacht every day up
and down the river. His apartment was crowded with models of
three deckers and two deckers, frigates, sloops and fireships.
The only Englishman of rank in whose society he seemed to take
much pleasure was the eccentric Caermarthen, whose passion for
the sea bore some resemblance to his own, and who was very
competent to give an opinion about every part of a ship from the
stem to the stern. Caermarthen, indeed, became so great a
favourite that he prevailed on the Czar to consent to the
admission of a limited quantity of tobacco into Russia. There was
reason to apprehend that the Russian clergy would cry out against
any relaxation of the ancient rule, and would strenuously
maintain that the practice of smoking was condemned by that text
which declares that man is defiled, not by those things which
enter in at the mouth, but by those which proceed out of it. This
apprehension was expressed by a deputation of merchants who were
admitted to an audience of the Czar; but they were reassured by
the air with which he told them that he knew how to keep priests
in order.

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

The impression which he made on Burnet was not favourable. The
good bishop could not understand that a mind which seemed to be
chiefly occupied with questions about the best place for a
capstan and the best way of rigging a jury mast might be capable,
not merely of ruling an empire, but of creating a nation. He
complained that he had gone to see a great prince, and had found
only an industrious shipwright. Nor does Evelyn seem to have
formed a much more favourable opinion of his august tenant. It
was, indeed, not in the character of tenant that the Czar was
likely to gain the good word of civilised men. With all the high
qualities which were peculiar to himself, he had all the filthy
habits which were then common among his countrymen. To the end of
his life, while disciplining armies, founding schools, framing
codes, organising tribunals, building cities in deserts, joining
distant seas by artificial rivers, he lived in his palace like a
hog in a sty; and, when he was entertained by other sovereigns,
never failed to leave on their tapestried walls and velvet state
beds unequivocal proof that a savage had been there. Evelyn's
house was left in such a state that the Treasury quieted his
complaints with a considerable sum of money.

Towards the close of March the Czar visited Portsmouth, saw a
sham seafight at Spithead, watched every movement of the
contending fleets with intense interest, and expressed in warm
terms his gratitude to the hospitable government which had
provided so delightful a spectacle for his amusement and
instruction. After passing more than three months in England, he
departed in high good humour.10

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

The new diplomatic relations between the two great western powers
were widely different from those which had existed before the
war. During the eighteen years which had elapsed between the
signing of the Treaty of Dover and the Revolution, all the envoys
who had been sent from Whitehall to Versailles had been mere
sycophants of the great King. In England the French ambassador
had been the object of a degrading worship. The chiefs of both
the great parties had been his pensioners and his tools. The
ministers of the Crown had paid him open homage. The leaders of
the opposition had stolen into his house by the back door. Kings
had stooped to implore his good offices, had persecuted him for
money with the importunity of street beggars; and, when they had
succeeded in obtaining from him a box of doubloons or a bill of
exchange, had embraced him with tears of gratitude and joy. But
those days were past. England would never again send a Preston or
a Skelton to bow down before the majesty of France. France would
never again send a Barillon to dictate to the cabinet of England.
Henceforth the intercourse between the two states would be on
terms of perfect equality.

William thought it necessary that the minister who was to
represent him at the French Court should be a man of the first
consideration, and one on whom entire reliance could be reposed.
Portland was chosen for this important and delicate mission; and
the choice was eminently judicious. He had, in the negotiations
of the preceding year, shown more ability than was to be found in
the whole crowd of formalists who had been exchanging notes and
drawing up protocols at Ryswick. Things which had been kept
secret from the plenipotentiaries who had signed the treaty were
well known to him. The clue of the whole foreign policy of
England and Holland was in his possession. His fidelity and
diligence were beyond all praise. These were strong
recommendations. Yet it seemed strange to many that William
should have been willing to part, for a considerable time, from a
companion with whom he had during a quarter of a century lived on
terms of entire confidence and affection. The truth was that the
confidence was still what it had long been, but that the
affection, 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 his native land to his place of splendid
banishment had been firmly united. The aversion which the English
nation felt for them had given him much pain; but he had not been
annoyed by any quarrel among themselves. Zulestein and
Auverquerque had, without a murmur, yielded to Portland the first
place in the royal favour; nor had Portland grudged to Zulestein
and Auverquerque very solid and very signal proofs of their
master's kindness. But a younger rival had lately obtained an
influence which created much jealousy. Among the Dutch gentlemen
who had sailed with the Prince of Orange from Helvoetsluys to
Torbay was one named Arnold Van Keppel. Keppel had a sweet and
obliging temper, winning manners, and a quick, though not a
profound, understanding. Courage, loyalty and secresy were common
between him and Portland. In other points they differed widely.
Portland was naturally the very opposite of a flatterer, and,
having been the intimate friend of the Prince of Orange at a time
when the interval between the House of Orange and the House of
Bentinck was not so wide as it afterwards became, had acquired a
habit of plain speaking which he could not unlearn when the
comrade of his youth had become the sovereign of three kingdoms.
He was a most trusty, but not a very respectful, subject. There
was nothing which he was not ready to do or suffer for William.
But in his intercourse with William he was blunt and sometimes
surly. Keppel, on the other hand, had a great desire to please,
and looked up with unfeigned admiration to a master whom he had
been accustomed, ever since he could remember, to consider as the
first of living men. Arts, therefore, which were neglected by the
elder courtier were assiduously practised by the younger. So
early as the spring of 1691 shrewd observers were struck by the
manner in which Keppel watched every turn of the King's eye, and
anticipated the King's unuttered wishes. Gradually the new
servant rose into favour. He was at length made Earl of Albemarle
and Master of the Robes. But his elevation, though it furnished
the Jacobites with a fresh topic for calumny and ribaldry, was
not so offensive to the nation as the elevation of Portland had
been. Portland's manners were thought dry and haughty; but envy
was disarmed by the blandness of Albemarle's temper 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 Albemarle affected to have forgotten his own country,
and to have become an Englishman in feelings and manners. The
palace was soon disturbed by quarrels in which Portland seems to
have been always the aggressor, and in which he found little
support either among the English or among his own countrymen.
William, indeed, was not the man to discard an old friend for a
new one. He steadily gave, on all occasions, the preference to
the companion of his youthful days. Portland had the first place
in the bed-chamber. He held high command in the army. On all
great occasions he was trusted and consulted. He was far more
powerful in Scotland than the Lord High Commissioner, and far
deeper in the secret of foreign affairs than the Secretary of
State. He wore the Garter, which sovereign princes coveted. Lands
and money had been bestowed on him 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 the Council; and the wealth
which he owed to the royal bounty was a pittance when compared
with the domains and the hoards of Portland. Yet Portland thought
himself aggrieved. He could not bear to see any other person near
him, though below him, in the royal favour. In his fits of
resentful sullenness, he hinted an intention of retiring from the
Court. William omitted nothing that a brother could have done to
soothe and conciliate a brother. Letters are still extant in
which he, with the utmost solemnity, calls God to witness that
his affection for Bentinck still is what it was in their early
days. At length a compromise was made. Portland, disgusted with
Kensington, was not sorry to go to France as ambassador; and
William with deep emotion consented to a separation longer than
had ever taken place during an intimacy of twenty-five years. A
day or two after the new plenipotentiary had set out on his
mission, he received a touching letter from his master. "The
loss of your society," the King wrote, "has affected me more than
you can imagine. I should be very glad if I could believe that
you felt as much pain at quitting me as I felt at seeing you
depart; for then I might hope that you had ceased to doubt the
truth of what I so solemnly declared to you on my oath. Assure
yourself that I never was more sincere. My feeling towards you is
one which nothing but death can alter." It should seem that the
answer returned to these affectionate assurances was not
perfectly gracious; for, when the King next wrote, he gently
complained of an expression which had wounded him severely.

But, though Portland was an unreasonable and querulous friend, he
was a most faithful and zealous minister. His despatches show how
indefatigably he toiled for the interests, and how punctiliously
he guarded the dignity, of the prince by whom he imagined that he
had been unjustly and unkindly treated.

The embassy was the most magnificent that England had ever sent
to any foreign court. Twelve men of honourable birth and ample
fortune, some of whom afterwards filled high offices in the
State, attended the mission at their own charge. Each of them had
his own carriage, his own horses, and his own train of servants.
Two less wealthy persons, who, in different 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 French language,
marked him out as eminently fitted for diplomatic employment. He
had, however, found much difficulty in overcoming an odd
prejudice which his chief had conceived against him. Portland,
with good natural abilities and great expertness in business, was
no scholar. He had probably never read an English book; but he
had a general notion, unhappily but too well founded, that the
wits and poets who congregated at Will's were a most profane and
licentious set; and, being himself a man of orthodox opinions and
regular life, he was not disposed to give his 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
serious subjects seriously, quoted the New Testament appositely,
vindicated Hammond from the charge of popery, and, by way of a
decisive blow, gave the definition of a true Church from the
nineteenth Article. Portland stared at him. "I am glad, Mr.
Prior, to find you so good a Christian. I was afraid that you
were an atheist." "An atheist, my good lord!" cried Prior. "What
could lead your Lordship to entertain such a suspicion?" "Why,"
said Portland, "I knew that you were a poet; and I took it for
granted that you did not believe in God." "My lord," said the
wit, "you do us poets the greatest injustice. Of all people we
are the farthest from atheism. For the atheists do not even
worship the true God, whom the rest of mankind acknowledge; and
we are always invoking and hymning false gods whom everybody else
has renounced." This jest will be perfectly intelligible to all
who remember the eternally recurring allusions to Venus and
Minerva, Mars, Cupid and Apollo, which were meant to 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 little learning 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
more accustomed than the Londoners to magnificent pageantry,
allowed that no minister from any foreign state had ever made so
superb an appearance as Portland. His horses, his liveries, his
plate, were unrivalled. His state carriage, drawn by eight fine
Neapolitan greys decorated with orange ribands, was specially
admired. On the day of his public entry the streets, the
balconies, and the windows were crowded with spectators along a
line of three miles. As he passed over the bridge on which the
statue of Henry IV. stands, he was much amused by hearing one of
the crowd exclaim: "Was it not this gentleman's master that we
burned on this very bridge eight years ago?" The Ambassador's
hotel was constantly thronged from morning to night by visitors
in plumes and embroidery. Several tables were sumptuously spread
every day under his roof; and every English traveller of decent
station and character was welcome to dine there. The board at
which the master of the house presided in person, and at which he
entertained his most distinguished guests, was said to be more
luxurious than that of any prince of the House of Bourbon. For
there the most exquisite cookery of France was set off by a
certain neatness and comfort which then, as now, peculiarly
belonged to England. During the banquet the room was filled with
people of fashion, who went to see the grandees eat and drink.
The expense of all this splendour and hospitality was enormous,
and was exaggerated by report. The cost to the English government
really was fifty thousand pounds in five months. It is probable
that the opulent gentlemen who accompanied the mission as
volunteers laid out nearly as much more from their private
resources.

The malecontents at the coffeehouses of London murmured at this
profusion, and accused William of ostentation. But, as this fault
was never, on any other occasion, imputed to him even by his
detractors, we may not unreasonably attribute to policy what to
superficial or malicious observers seemed to be vanity. He
probably thought it important, at the commencement of a new era
in the relations between the two great kingdoms of the West, to
hold high the dignity of the Crown which he wore. He well knew,
indeed, that the greatness of a prince does not depend on piles
of silver bowls and chargers, trains of gilded coaches, and
multitudes of running footmen in brocade, and led horses in
velvet housings. But he knew also that the subjects of Lewis had,
during the long reign of their magnificent sovereign, been
accustomed to see power constantly associated with pomp, and
would hardly believe that the substance existed unless they were
dazzled by the trappings.

If the object of William was to strike the imagination of the
French people, he completely succeeded. The stately and gorgeous
appearance which the English embassy made on public occasions
was, during some time, the general topic of conversation at
Paris. Portland enjoyed a popularity which contrasts strangely
with the extreme unpopularity which he had incurred in England.
The contrast will perhaps seem less strange when we consider what
immense sums he had accumulated at the expense of the English,
and what immense sums he was laying out for the benefit of the
French. It must also be remembered that he could not confer or
correspond with Englishmen in their own language, and that the
French tongue was at least as familiar to him, as that of his
native Holland. He, therefore, who here was called greedy,
niggardly, dull, brutal, whom one English nobleman had described
as a block of wood, and another as just capable of carrying a
message right, was in the brilliant circles of France considered
as a model of grace, of dignity and of munificence, as a
dexterous negotiator and a finished gentleman. He was the better
liked because he was a Dutchman. For, though fortune had favoured
William, though considerations of policy had induced the Court of
Versailles to acknowledge him, he was still, in the estimation of
that Court, an usurper; and his English councillors and captains
were perjured traitors who richly deserved axes and halters, and
might, perhaps, get what they deserved. But Bentinck was not to
be confounded with Leeds and Marlborough, Orford and Godolphin.
He had broken no oath, had violated no law. He owed no allegiance
to the House of Stuart; and the fidelity and zeal with which he
had discharged his duties to his own country and his own master
entitled him to respect. The noble and powerful 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 to do the honours of Marli; and Lewis graciously
expressed his concern that the frosts of an ungenial spring
prevented the fountains and flower beds from 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 the
couch, a magic circle which the most illustrious foreigners had
hitherto found impassable. The Secretary shared largely in the
attentions which were paid to his chief. The Prince of Conde took
pleasure in talking with him on literary subjects. The courtesy
of the aged Bossuet, the glory of the Church of Rome, was long
gratefully remembered by the young heretic. Boileau had the good
sense and good feeling to exchange a friendly greeting with the
aspiring novice who had administered to him a discipline as
severe as he had administered to Quinault. The great King himself
warmly praised Prior's manners and conversation, a circumstance
which will be thought remarkable when it is remembered that His
Majesty was an excellent model and an excellent judge of
gentlemanlike deportment, and that Prior had passed his boyhood
in drawing corks at a tavern, and his early manhood in the
seclusion of a college. The Secretary did not however carry his
politeness so far as to refrain from asserting, on proper
occasions, the dignity of his country and of his master. He
looked coldly on the twenty-one celebrated pictures in which Le
Brun had represented on the coifing of the gallery of Versailles
the exploits of Lewis. When he was sneeringly asked whether
Kensington Palace could boast of such decorations, he answered,
with spirit and propriety: "No, Sir. The memorials of the great
things which my master has 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.
James was still at Saint Germains; and round the mock King were
gathered a mock Court and Council, a Great Seal and a Privy Seal,
a crowd of garters and collars, white staves and gold keys.
Against the pleasure which the marked attentions of the French
princes and grandees gave to Portland, was to be set off the
vexation which he felt when Middleton crossed his path with the
busy look of a real Secretary of State. But it was with emotions
far deeper that the Ambassador saw on the terraces and in the
antechambers of Versailles men who had been deeply implicated in
plots against the life of his master. He expressed his
indignation loudly and vehemently. "I hope," he said, "that there
is no design in this; that these wretches are not purposely
thrust in my way. When they come near me all my blood runs back
in my veins." His words were reported to Lewis. Lewis employed
Boufflers to smooth matters; and Boufflers took occasion to say
something on the subject as if from himself. Portland easily
divined that in talking with Boufflers he was really talking with
Lewis, and eagerly seized the opportunity of representing the
expediency, the absolute necessity, of removing James to a
greater distance from England. "It was not contemplated,
Marshal," he said, "when we arranged the terms of peace in
Brabant, that a palace in the suburbs of Paris was to continue to
be an asylum for outlaws and murderers." "Nay, my Lord," said
Boufflers, uneasy doubtless on his own account, "you will not; I
am sure, assert that I gave you any pledge that King James would
be required to leave France. You are too honourable 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 positive promise
from you; but remember what passed. I proposed that King James
should retire to Rome or Modena. Then you suggested Avignon; and I
assented. Certainly my regard for you makes me very unwilling to
do anything that would give you pain. But my master's interests
are dearer to me than all the friends that I have in the world
put together. I must tell His Most Christian Majesty all that
passed between us; and I hope that, when I tell him, you will be
present, and that you will be able to bear witness that I have
not put a single word of mine into your mouth."

When Boufflers had argued and expostulated in vain, Villeroy was
sent on the same errand, but had no better success. A few days
later Portland had a long private audience of Lewis. Lewis
declared that he was determined to keep his word, to preserve the
peace of Europe, to abstain from everything which could give just
cause of offence to England, but that, as a man of honour, as a
man of humanity, he could not refuse shelter to an unfortunate
King, his own first cousin. Portland replied that nobody
questioned His Majesty's good faith; but that while Saint
Germains was occupied by its present inmates it would be beyond
even His Majesty's power to prevent eternal plotting between them
and the malecontents on the other side of the Straits of Dover,
and that, while such plotting went on, the peace must necessarily
be insecure. The question was really not one of humanity. It was
not asked, it was not wished, that James should be left
destitute. Nay, the English government was willing to allow him
an income larger than that which he derived from the munificence
of France. Fifty thousand pounds a year, to which in strictness
of law he had no right, awaited his acceptance, if he would only
move to a greater distance from the country which, while he was
near it, could never be at rest. If, in such circumstances, he
refused to move, this was the strongest reason for believing that
he could not safely be suffered to stay. The fact that he thought
the difference between residing at Saint Germains and residing at
Avignon worth more than fifty thousand a year sufficiently proved
that he had not relinquished the hope of being restored to his
throne by means of a rebellion or of something worse. Lewis
answered that on that point his resolution was unalterable. He
never would compel his guest and kinsman to depart. "There is
another matter," said Portland, "about which I have felt it my
duty to make representations. I mean the countenance given to the
assassins." "I know nothing about assassins," said Lewis. "Of
course," answered the Ambassador, "your Majesty knows nothing
about such men. At least your Majesty does not know them for what
they are. But I can point them out, and can furnish ample proofs
of their guilt." He then named Berwick. For the English
Government, which had been willing to make large allowances for
Berwick's peculiar position as long as he confined himself to
acts of open and manly hostility, conceived that he had forfeited
all claim to indulgence by becoming privy to the Assassination
Plot. This man, Portland said, constantly haunted Versailles.
Barclay, whose guilt was of a still deeper dye,--Barclay, the
chief contriver of the murderous ambuscade of Turnham Green,--had
found in France, not only an asylum, but an honourable military
position. The monk who was sometimes called Harrison and
sometimes went by the alias of Johnson, but who, whether Harrison
or Johnson, had been one of the earliest and one of the most
bloodthirsty of Barclays accomplices, was now comfortably settled
as prior of a religious house in 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. It is true
that Berwick was in London towards the close of 1695; but he was
there only for the purpose of ascertaining whether a descent on
England was practicable; and I am confident that he was no party
to any cruel and dishonourable design." In truth Lewis had a
strong personal motive for defending Berwick. The guilt of
Berwick as respected the Assassination 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
to announce that the exiles must make their choice between Saint
Germains and fifty thousand a year; that the protocol of Ryswick
bound the English government to pay to Mary of Modena only what
the law gave her; that the law gave her nothing; that
consequently the English government was bound to nothing; and
that, while she, her husband and her child remained where they
were, she should have nothing. It was hoped that this
announcement would produce a considerable effect even in James's
household; and indeed some of his hungry courtiers and priests
seem to have thought the chance of a restoration so small that it
would be absurd to refuse a splendid income, though coupled with
a condition which might make that small chance somewhat smaller.
But it is certain that, if there was murmuring among the
Jacobites, it was disregarded by James. He was fully resolved not
to move, and was only confirmed in his resolution by learning
that he was regarded by the usurper as a dangerous neighbour.
Lewis paid so much regard to Portland's complaints as to intimate
to Middleton a request, equivalent to a command, that the Lords
and gentlemen who formed the retinue of the banished King of
England would not come to Versailles on days on which the
representative of the actual King was expected there. But at
other places there was constant 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's wish to keep the
peace, and in placing the Ambassador in embarrassing situations.
One day his Excellency, while drawing on his boots for a run with
the Dauphin's celebrated wolf pack, was informed that King James
meant 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 the royal staghounds, he was informed by the Grand Huntsman
that King James might probably come to the rendezvous without any
notice. Melfort was particularly active in laying traps for the
young noblemen and gentlemen of the Legation. The Prince of Wales
was more than once placed in such a situation that they could
scarcely avoid passing close to him. Were they to salute him?
Were they to stand erect and covered while every body else
saluted him? No Englishman zealous for the Bill of Rights and the
Protestant religion would willingly do any thing which could be
construed into an act of homage to a Popish pretender. Yet no
goodnatured and generous man, however firm in his Whig
principles, would willingly offer any thing which could look like
an affront to an innocent and a most unfortunate child.

Meanwhile other matters of grave importance claimed Portland's
attention. There was one matter in particular about which the
French ministers anxiously expected him to say something, but
about which he observed strict silence. How to interpret that
silence they scarcely knew. They were certain only that it could
not be the effect of unconcern. They were well assured that the
subject which he so carefully avoided was never, during two
waking hours together, out of his thoughts or out of the thoughts
of his master. Nay, there was not in all Christendom a single
politician, from the greatest ministers of state down to the
silliest newsmongers of coffeehouses, who really felt that
indifference which the prudent Ambassador of England affected. A
momentous event, which had during many years been constantly
becoming more and more probable, was now certain and near.
Charles the Second of Spain, the last descendant in the male line
of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, would soon die without
posterity. Who would then be the heir to his many kingdoms,
dukedoms, counties, lordships, acquired in different ways, held
by different titles and subject to different laws? That was a
question about which jurists differed, and which it was not
likely that jurists would, even if they were unanimous, be
suffered to decide. Among the claimants were the mightiest
sovereigns of the continent; there was little chance that they
would submit to any arbitration but that of the sword; and it
could not be hoped that, if they appealed to the sword, other
potentates who had no pretension to any part of the disputed
inheritance would long remain neutral. For there was in Western
Europe no government which did not feel that its own prosperity,
dignity and security 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
been of hardly so much account as the Duchy of Savoy or the
Electorate of Brandenburg. But it by no means followed that the
fate of that empire was matter of indifference to the rest of the
world. The paralytic helplessness and drowsiness of the body once
so formidable could not be imputed to any deficiency of the
natural elements of power. The dominions of the Catholic King
were in extent and in population superior to those of Lewis and
of William united. Spain alone, without a single dependency,
ought to have been a kingdom of the first rank; and Spain was but
the nucleus of the Spanish monarchy. The outlying provinces of
that monarchy in Europe would have sufficed to make three highly
respectable states of the second order. One such state might have
been formed in the Netherlands. It would have been a wide expanse
of cornfield, orchard and meadow, intersected by navigable rivers
and canals. At short intervals, in that thickly peopled and
carefully tilled region, rose stately old towns, encircled by
strong fortifications, embellished by fine cathedrals and senate-
houses, and renowned either as seats of learning or as seats of
mechanical industry. A second flourishing principality might have
been created between the Alps and the Po, out of that well
watered garden of olives and mulberry trees which spreads many
miles on every side of the great white temple of Milan. Yet
neither the Netherlands nor the Milanese could, in physical
advantages, vie with the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, a land
which nature had taken pleasure in enriching and adorning, a land
which would have been paradise, if tyranny and superstition had
not, during many ages, lavished all their noxious influences on
the bay of Campania, the plain of Enna, and the sunny banks of
Galesus.

In America the Spanish territories spread from the Equator
northward and southward through all the signs of the Zodiac far
into the temperate zone. Thence came gold and silver to be coined
in all the mints, and curiously 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 of Peru 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 which
separately might have been powerful and highly considered, was
impotent to a degree which moved at once pity and laughter.
Already one most remarkable experiment had been tried on this
strange empire. A small fragment, hardly a three hundredth part
of the whole in extent, hardly a thirtieth part of the whole in
population, had been detached from the rest, had from that moment
begun to display a new energy and to enjoy a new prosperity, and
was now, after the lapse of a hundred and twenty years, far more
feared and reverenced than the huge mass of which it had once
been an obscure corner. What a contrast between the Holland which
Alva had oppressed and plundered, and the Holland from which
William had sailed to deliver England! And who, with such an
example before him, would venture to foretell what changes might
be at hand, if the most languid and torpid of monarchies should
be dissolved, and if every one of the members which had composed
it should enter on an independent existence?

To such a dissolution that monarchy was peculiarly liable. The
King, and the King alone, held it together. The populations which
acknowledged him as their chief either knew nothing of each
other, or regarded each other with positive aversion. The
Biscayan was in no sense the countryman of the Valencian, nor the
Lombard of the Biscayan, nor the Fleeting of the Lombard, nor the
Sicilian of the Fleeting. The Arragonese had never ceased to pine
for their lost independence. Within the memory of many persons
still living the Catalans had risen in rebellion, had entreated
Lewis the Thirteenth of France to become their ruler with the old
title of Count of Barcelona, and had actually sworn fealty to
him. Before the Catalans had been quieted, the Neapolitans had
taken arms, had abjured their foreign master, had proclaimed
their city a republic, and had elected a Loge. In the New World
the small caste of born Spaniards which had the exclusive
enjoyment of power and dignity was hated by Creoles and Indians,
Mestizos and Quadroons. The Mexicans especially had turned their
eyes on a chief who bore the name and had inherited the blood of
the unhappy Montezuma. Thus it seemed that the empire against
which Elizabeth and Henry the Fourth had been scarcely able to
contend would not improbably fall to pieces of itself, and that
the first violent shock from without would scatter the ill-
cemented parts of the huge fabric in all directions.

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

No man of sense, however, out of Castile, when he considered the
nature of the inheritance and the situation of the claimants,
could doubt that a partition was inevitable. Among those
claimants three stood preeminent, the Dauphin, the Emperor
Leopold, and the Electoral Prince of Bavaria.

If the question had been simply one of pedigree, the right of the
Dauphin would have been incontestable. Lewis the Fourteeenth had
married the Infanta Maria Theresa, eldest daughter of Philip the
Fourth and sister of Charles the Second. Her eldest son, the
Dauphin, would therefore, in the regular course of things, have
been her brother's successor. But she had, at the time of her
marriage, renounced, for herself and her posterity, all
pretensions to the Spanish crown.

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

The claim of the Emperor was derived from his mother Mary Anne,
daughter of Philip the Third, and aunt of Charles the Second, and
could not therefore, if nearness of blood alone were to be
regarded, come into competition with the claim of the Dauphin.
But the claim of the Emperor was barred by no renunciation. The
rival pretensions of the great Houses of Bourbon and Habsburg
furnished all Europe with an inexhaustible subject of discussion.
Plausible topics were not wanting to the supporters of either
cause. The partisans of the House of Austria dwelt on the
sacredness of treaties; the partisans of France on the sacredness
of birthright. How, it was asked on one side, can a Christian
king have the effrontery, the impiety, to insist on a claim which
he has with such solemnity renounced in the face of heaven and
earth? How, it was asked on the other side, can the fundamental
laws of a monarchy be annulled by any authority but that of the
supreme legislature? The only body which was competent to take
away from the children of Maria Theresa their hereditary rights
was the Comes. The Comes had not ratified her renunciation. That
renunciation was therefore a nullity; and no swearing, no
signing, no sealing, could turn that nullity into a reality.

Which of these two mighty competitors had the better case may
perhaps be doubted. What could not be doubted was that neither
would obtain the prize without a struggle which would shake the
world. Nor can we justly blame either for refusing to give way to
the other. For, on this occasion, the chief motive which actuated
them was, not greediness, but the fear of degradation and ruin.
Lewis, in resolving to put every thing to hazard rather than
suffer the power of the House of Austria to be doubled; Leopold,
in determining to put every thing to hazard rather than suffer
the power of the House of Bourbon to be doubled; merely obeyed
the law of self preservation. There was therefore one way, and
one alone, by which the great woe which seemed to be coming on
Europe could be averted. Was it possible that the dispute might
be compromised? Might not the two great rivals be induced to make
to a third party concessions such as neither could reasonably be
expected to make to the other?

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

Thus all Europe was divided into the French, the Austrian, and
the Bavarian factions. The contests of these factions were daily
renewed in every place where men congregated, from Stockholm to
Malta, and from Lisbon to Smyrna. But the fiercest and most
obstinate conflict was that which 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 his sole authority
the law which regulated the descent of the Crown, yet, in a case
in which the law was doubtful, it was probable that his subjects
might be disposed to accept the construction which he might put
upon it, and to support the claimant whom be might, either by a
solemn adoption or by will, designate as the rightful heir. It
was also in the power of the reigning sovereign to entrust all
the most important offices in his kingdom, the government of all
the provinces subject to him in the Old and 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. It was difficult
to say to what extent the fate of whole nations might be affected
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
human beings. In old times he would have been exposed as soon as
he came into the world; and to expose him would have been a
kindness. From his birth a blight was on his body and on his
mind. With difficulty his almost imperceptible spark of life had
been screened and fanned into a dim and flickering flame. His
childhood, except when he could be rocked and sung into sickly
sleep, was one long piteous wail. Until he was ten years old his
days were passed on the laps of women; and he has never once
suffered to stand on his ricketty legs. None of those tawny
little urchins, clad in rags stolen from scarecrows, whom Murillo
loved to paint begging or rolling in the sand, owed less to
education than this despotic ruler of thirty millions of
subjects, The most important events in the history of his own
kingdom, the very names of provinces and cities which were among
his most valuable possessions, were unknown to him. It may well
be doubted whether he was aware that Sicily was an island, that
Christopher Columbus had discovered America, or that the English
were not Mahometans. In his youth, however, though too imbecile
for study or for business, he was not incapable of being amused.
He shot, hawked and hunted. He enjoyed with the delight of a true
Spaniard two delightful spectacles, a horse with its bowels gored
out, and a Jew writhing in the fire. The time came when the
mightiest of instincts ordinarily wakens from its repose. It was
hoped that the young King would not prove invincible to female
attractions, and that he would leave a Prince of Asturias to
succeed him. A consort was found for him in the royal family of
France; and her beauty and grace gave him a languid 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. But it 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 the
Imperial House. But the second marriage, like the first, proved
barren; and, long before the King had passed the prime of life,
all the politicians of Europe had begun to take it for granted in
all their calculations that he would be the last descendant, in
the male line, of Charles the Fifth. Meanwhile a sullen and
abject melancholy took possession of his soul. The diversions
which had been the serious employment of his youth became
distasteful to him. He ceased to find pleasure 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 his courtiers.
Sometimes he loitered alone, from sunrise to sunset, in the
dreary and rugged wilderness which surrounds the Escurial. The
hours which he did not waste in listless indolence were divided
between childish sports and childish devotions. He delighted in
rare animals, and still more in dwarfs. When neither strange
beasts nor little men could dispel the black thoughts which
gathered in his mind, he repeated Aves and Credos; he walked in
processions; sometimes he starved himself; sometimes he whipped
himself. At length a complication of maladies completed the ruin
of all his faculties. His stomach failed; nor was this strange;
for in him the malformation of the jaw, characteristic of his
family, was so serious that he could not masticate his food; and
he was in the habit of swallowing ollas and sweetmeats in the
state in which they were set before him. While suffering from
indigestion he was attacked by ague. Every third day his
convulsive tremblings, his dejection, his fits of wandering,
seemed to indicate the approach of dissolution. His misery was
increased by the knowledge that every body was calculating how
long he had to live, and wondering what would become of his
kingdoms when he should be dead. The stately dignitaries of his
household, the physicians who ministered to his diseased body,
the divines whose business was to soothe his not less diseased
mind, the very wife who should have been intent on those gentle
offices by which female tenderness can alleviate even the misery
of hopeless decay, were all 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 the embalmer if they could have been
certain that his successor would be the prince whose interest
they espoused. As yet the party of the Emperor seemed to
predominate. Charles had a faint sort of preference for the House
of Austria, which was his own house, and a faint sort of
antipathy to the House of Bourbon, with which he had been
quarrelling, he did not well know why, ever since he could
remember. His Queen, whom he did not love, but of whom he stood
greatly in awe, was devoted to the interests of her kinsman the
Emperor; and with her was closely leagued the Count of Melgar,
Hereditary Admiral of Castile and Prime Minister.

Such was the state of the question of the Spanish succession at
the time when Portland had his first public audience at
Versailles. The French ministers were certain that he must be
constantly thinking about that question, and were therefore
perplexed by his evident determination to say nothing about it.
They watched his lips in the hope that he would at least let fall
some unguarded word indicating the hopes or fears entertained by
the English and Dutch Governments. But Portland was not a man out
of whom much was to be got in that way. Nature and habit
cooperating had made him the best keeper of secrets in Europe.
Lewis therefore directed Pomponne and Torcy, two ministers of
eminent ability, who had, under himself, the chief direction of
foreign affairs, to introduce the subject which the discreet
confidant of William seemed studiously to avoid. Pomponne and
Torcy accordingly repaired to the English embassy; and there
opened one of the most remarkable negotiations recorded in the
annals of European diplomacy.

The two French statesmen professed in their master's name the
most earnest desire, not only that the peace might remain
unbroken, but that there might be a close union between the
Courts of Versailles and Kensington. One event only seemed likely
to raise new troubles. If the Catholic King should die before it
had been settled who should succeed to his immense dominions,
there was but too much reason to fear that the nations, which
were just beginning to breathe after an exhausting and
devastating struggle of nine years, would be again in arms. His
Most Christian Majesty was therefore desirous to employ the short
interval which might remain, in concerting with the King of
England the means of preserving 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 he knew, that it was not solely or chiefly by the sentiments
of the King of England that the policy of England on a great
occasion would be regulated. The islanders must and would have
their government administered according to certain maxims which
they held sacred; and of those maxims they held none more sacred
than this, that every increase of the power of France ought to be
viewed with extreme jealousy.

Pomponne and Torcy answered that their master was most desirous
to avoid every thing which could excite the jealousy of which
Portland had spoken. But was it of France alone that a nation so
enlightened as the English must be jealous? Was it forgotten that
the House of Austria had once aspired to universal dominion? And
would it be wise in the princes and commonwealths of Europe to
lend their aid for the purpose of reconstructing 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 to
express only the opinions of a private man. He had however now
lived, during some years, among the English, and believed himself
to be pretty well acquainted with their temper. They would not,
he thought, be much alarmed by any augmentation of power which
the Emperor might obtain. The sea was their element. Traffic by
sea was the great source of their wealth; ascendency on the sea
the great object of their ambition. Of the Emperor 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 his Pandours and
Croatians. But France had a great navy. The balance of maritime
power was what would be anxiously watched in London; and the
balance of maritime power would not be affected by an union
between Spain and Austria, but would be most seriously deranged
by an union between Spain and France.

Pomponne and Torcy declared that every thing should be done to
quiet the apprehensions which Portland had described. It was not
contemplated, it was not wished, that France and Spain should be
united. The Dauphin and his eldest son the Duke of Burgundy would
waive their rights. The younger brothers of the Duke of Burgundy,
Philip Duke of Anjou and Charles Duke of Berry, were not named;
but Portland perfectly understood what was meant. There would, he
said, be scarcely less alarm in England if the Spanish dominions
devolved on a grandson of His Most Christian Majesty than if they
were annexed to the French crown. The laudable affection of the
young princes for their country and their family, and their
profound respect for the great monarch from whom they were
descended, would inevitably determine their policy. The two
kingdoms would be one; the two navies would be one; and all other
states would be reduced to vassalage. England would rather see
the Spanish monarchy added to the Emperor's dominions than
governed by one of the younger French princes, who would, though
nominally independent, be really a viceroy of France. But in
truth there was no risk that the Spanish monarchy would be added
to the Emperor's dominions. He and his eldest son the Archduke
Joseph would, no doubt, be as ready to waive their rights as the
Dauphin and the Duke of Burgundy could be; and thus the Austrian
claim to the disputed heritage would pass to the younger Archduke
Charles. A long discussion followed. At length Portland plainly
avowed, always merely as his own private opinion, what was the
opinion of every intelligent man who wished to preserve the peace
of the world. "France is afraid," he said, "of every thing which
can increase the power of the Emperor. All Europe is afraid of
every thing which can increase the power of France. Why not put
an end to all these uneasy feelings at once, by agreeing to place
the Electoral Prince of Bavaria on the throne of Spain?" To this
suggestion no decisive answer was returned. The conference ended;
and a courier started for England with a despatch informing
William of what had passed, and soliciting further instructions.

William, who was, as he had always been, his own Secretary for
Foreign Affairs, did not think it necessary to discuss the
contents of this despatch with any of his English ministers. The
only person whom he consulted was Heinsius. Portland received a
kind letter warmly approving all that he had said in the
conference, and directing him to declare that the English
government sincerely wished to avert the calamities which were
but too likely to follow the death of the King of Spain, and
would therefore be prepared to take into serious consideration
any definite plan which His Most Christian Majesty might think
fit to suggest. "I will own to you," William wrote to his friend,
"that I am so unwilling to be again at war during the short time
which I still have to live, that I will omit nothing that I can
honestly and with a safe conscience do for the purpose of
maintaining peace."

William's message was delivered by Portland to Lewis at a private
audience. In a few days Pomponne and Torcy were authorised to
propose a plan. They fully admitted that all neighbouring states
were entitled to demand the strongest security against the union
of the French and Spanish crowns. Such security should be given.
The Spanish government might be requested to choose between the
Duke of Anjou and the Duke of Berry. The youth who was selected
would, at the utmost, be only fifteen years old, and could not be
supposed to have any very deeply rooted national prejudices. He
should be sent to Madrid without French attendants, should be
educated by Spaniards, should become a Spaniard. It was absurd to
imagine that such a prince would be a mere viceroy of France.
Apprehensions had been sometimes hinted that a Bourbon, seated on
the throne of Spain, might cede his dominions in the Netherlands
to the head of his family. It was undoubtedly important to
England, and all important to Holland, that those provinces
should not become a part of the French monarchy. All danger might
be averted by making them over to the Elector of Bavaria, who was
now governing them as representative of the Catholic King. The
Dauphin would be perfectly willing to renounce them for himself
and for all his descendants. As to what concerned trade, England
and Holland had only to say what they desired, and every thing in
reason should be done to give them satisfaction.

As this plan was, in the main, the same which had been suggested
by the French ministers in the former conference, Portland did
little more than repeat what he had then said. As to the new
scheme respecting the Netherlands, he shrewdly propounded a
dilemma which silenced Pomponne and Torcy.

If renunciations were of any value, the Dauphin and his posterity
were excluded from the Spanish succession; and, if renunciations
were of no value, it was idle to offer England and Holland a
renunciation as a guarantee 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 first thoughts, that it was now the turn of King William
to suggest something, and that whatever he might suggest should
receive the fullest and fairest consideration.

And now the scene of the negotiation was shifted from Versailles
to Kensington. The Count of Tallard had just set out for England
as Ambassador. He was a fine gentleman; he was a brave soldier;
and he was as yet reputed a skilful general. In all the arts and
graces which were priced as qualifications for diplomatic
missions of the highest class, he had, among the brilliant
aristocracy to which he belonged, no superior and only one equal,
the Marquess of Harcourt, who was entrusted with the care of the
interests of the House of Bourbon at Madrid.

Tallard carried with him instructions carefully framed in the
French Foreign Office. He was reminded that his situation would
be widely different from that of his predecessors who had resided
in England before the Revolution. Even his predecessors, however,
had considered it as their duty to study the temper, not only of
the Court, but of the nation. It would now be more than ever
necessary to watch the movements of the public mind. A man of
note was not to be slighted merely because he was out of place.
Such a man, with a great name in the country and a strong
following in Parliament, might exercise as much influence on the
politics of England, and consequently of Europe, as any minister.
The Ambassador must therefore try to be on good terms with those
who were out as well as with those who were in. To this rule,
however, there was one exception which he must constantly bear in
mind. With nonjurors and persons suspected of plotting against
the existing government he must not appear to have any
connection. They must not be admitted into his house. The English
people evidently wished to be at rest, and had given the best
proof of their pacific disposition by insisting on the reduction
of the army. The sure way to stir up jealousies and animosities
which were just sinking to sleep would be to make the French
embassy the head quarters of the Jacobite party. It would be wise
in Tallard to say and to charge his agents to say, on all fit
occasions, and particularly in societies where members of
Parliament might be present, that the Most Christian King had
never been an enemy of the liberties of England. His Majesty had
indeed hoped that it might be in his power to restore his cousin,
but not without the assent of the nation. In the original draft
of the instructions was a curious paragraph which, on second
thoughts, it was determined to omit. The Ambassador was directed
to take proper opportunities of cautioning the English against a
standing army, as the only thing which could really be fatal to
their laws and liberties. This passage was suppressed, no doubt,
because it occurred to Pomponne and Torcy that, with whatever
approbation the English might listen to such language when
uttered by a demagogue of their own race, they might be very
differently affected by hearing it from a French diplomatist, and
might think that there could not be a better reason for arming,
than that Lewis and his emissaries earnestly wished them to
disarm.

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

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

The French embassy made as magnificent an appearance m England as
the English 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 Pall Mall were crowded with gazers who
admired the painting and gilding of his Excellency's carriages,
the surpassing beauty of his horses, and the multitude of his
running footmen, dressed in gorgeous liveries of scarlet and gold
lace. The Ambassador was graciously received at Kensington, and
was invited to accompany William to Newmarket, where the largest
and most splendid Spring Meeting ever known was about to
assemble. The attraction must be supposed to have been great; for
the risks of the journey were not trifling. The peace had, all
over Europe, and nowhere more than in England, turned crowds of
old soldiers into marauders.12 Several aristocratical equipages
had been attacked even in 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 Heath a company of horsemen,
with masks on their faces, waited for the great people who had
been to pay their court to the King at Windsor. Lord Ossulston
escaped with the loss of two horses. The Duke of Saint Albans,
with the help of his servants, beat off the assailants. His
brother the Duke of Northumberland, less strongly guarded, fell
into their hands. They succeeded in stopping thirty or forty
coaches, and rode off with a great booty in guineas, watches and
jewellery. Nowhere, however, does the peal seem to have been so
great as on the Newmarket road. There indeed robbery was
organised on a scale unparalleled in the kingdom since the days
of Robin Hood and Little John. A fraternity of plunderers, thirty
in number according to the lowest estimate, squatted, near
Waltham Cross, under the shades of Epping Forest, and built
themselves huts, from which they sallied forth with sword and
pistol to bid passengers stand. The King and Tallard were
doubtless too well attended to be in jeopardy. But, soon after
they had passed the dangerous spot, there was a fight on the
highway attended with loss of life. A warrant of the Lord Chief
justice broke up the Maroon village for a short time,
but the dispersed thieves soon mustered again, and had the
impudence to bid defiance to the government in a cartel signed,
it was said, with their real names. The civil power was unable to
deal with this frightful evil. It was necessary that, during some
time, cavalry should patrol every evening on the roads near the
boundary between Middlesex and Essex.

The state of those roads, however, though contemporaries
described it as dangerous beyond all example, did not deter men
of rank and fashion from making the joyous pilgrimages to
Newmarket. Half the Dukes in the kingdom were there. Most of the
chief ministers of state swelled the crowd; nor was the
opposition unrepresented. Montague stole two or three days from
the Treasury, and Orford from the Admiralty. Godolphin was there,
looking after his horses and his bets, and probably went away a
richer man than he came. But racing was only one of the many
amusements of that festive season. On fine mornings there was
hunting. For those who preferred hawking choice falcons had been
brought from Holland. On rainy days the cockpit was encircled by
stars and blue ribands. On Sundays William went to church in
state, and the most eminent divines of the neighbouring
University of Cambridge preached before him. He omitted no
opportunity of showing marked civility to Tallard. The Ambassador
informed his Court that his place at table was next to the royal
arm chair, and that his health had been most graciously drunk by
the King.

All this time, both at Kensington and Newmarket, the Spanish
question was the subject of constant and earnest discussion. To
trace all the windings of the negotiation would be tedious. The
general course which it took may easily be described. The object
of William was to place the Electoral Prince of Bavaria on the
Spanish throne. To obtain the consent of Lewis to such an
arrangement seemed all but impossible; but William manoeuvred
with rare skill. Though he frankly acknowledged that he preferred
the Electoral Prince to any other candidate, he professed.
himself desirous to meet, as far as he honourably or safely
could, the wishes of the French King. There were conditions on
which England and Holland might perhaps consent, though not
without reluctance, that a son of the Dauphin should reign at
Madrid, and should be master of the treasures of the New World.
Those conditions were that the Milanese and the Two Sicilies
should belong to the Archduke Charles, that the Elector of
Bavaria should have the Spanish Netherlands, that Lewis should
give up some fortified towns in Artois for the purpose of
strengthening the barrier which protected the United Provinces,
and that some important places both in the Mediterranean sea and
in the Gulf of Mexico should be made over to the English and
Dutch for the security of trade. Minorca and Havanna were
mentioned as what might satisfy England.

Against these terms Lewis exclaimed loudly. Nobody, he said, who
knew with how sensitive a jealousy the Spaniards watched every
encroachment on their colonial empire would believe that they
would ever consent to give up any part of that empire either to
England or to Holland. The demand which was made upon himself was
altogether inadmissible. A barrier was not less necessary to
France than to Holland; and he never would break the iron chain
of frontier fastnesses which was the defence of his own kingdom,
even in order to purchase another kingdom for his grandson. On
that subject he begged that he might hear no more. The
proposition was one which he would not discuss, one to which he
would not listen.

As William, however, resolutely maintained that the terms which
he had offered, hard as they might seem, were the only terms on
which England and Holland could suffer a Bourbon to reign at
Madrid, Lewis began seriously to consider, whether it might not
be on the whole for his interest and that of his family rather to
sell the Spanish crown dear than to buy it dear. He therefore now
offered to withdraw his opposition to the Bavarian claim,
provided a portion of the disputed inheritance were assigned to
him in consideration of his disinterestedness and moderation.
William was perfectly willing and even eager to treat on this
basis. The first demands of Lewis were, as might have been
expected, exorbitantly high. He asked for the kingdom of Navarre,
which would have made him little less than master of the whole
Iberian peninsula, and for the duchy of Luxemburg, which would
have made him more dangerous than ever to the United Provinces.
On both points he encountered a steady resistance. The impression
which, throughout these transactions, the firmness and good faith
of William made on Tallard is remarkable. At first the dexterous
and keen witted Frenchman was all suspicion. He imagined that
there was an evasion in every phrase, a hidden snare in every
offer. But after a time he began to discover that he 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 and sincere."13 "The King of England," he wrote a few
days later, "has hitherto acted with great sincerity; and I
venture to say that, if he once enters into a treaty, he will
steadily adhere to it." But in the same letter the Ambassador
thought it necessary to hint to his master that the diplomatic
chicanery which might be useful in other negotiations would be
all thrown away here. "I must venture to observe to Your Majesty
that the King of England is very sharpsighted, that his judgment
is sound, and that, if we try to spin the negotiation out, he
will very soon perceive that we are trifling with him."14

During some time projects and counterprojects continued to pass
and repass between Kensington and Versailles. Something was
conceded on both sides; and when the session of Parliament ended
there seemed to be fair hopes of a settlement. And now the scene
of the negotiation was again changed. Having been shifted from
France to England, it was shifted from England to Holland. As
soon as William had prorogued the Houses, he was impatient to be
again in his native land. He felt all the glee of a schoolboy who
is leaving harsh masters and quarrelsome comrades to pass the
Christmas holidays at a happy home. That stern and composed face
which had been the same in the pursuit at the Boyne and in the
rout at Landen, and of which the keenest politicians had in vain
tried to read the secrets, now wore an expression but too
intelligible. The English were not a little provoked by seeing
their King so happy. Hitherto his annual 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 had left his people, it
had been in order to put his life in jeopardy for their
independence, their liberty, and their religion. But they had
hoped that, when peace had been restored, when no call of duty
required him 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, or travel from country seat to country seat,
and from cathedral town to cathedral town, making himself
acquainted with every shire of his realm, and giving his hand to
be kissed by multitudes of squires, clergymen and aldermen 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 had
descended to him from ancient princes; that he was sick even of
those mansions which the liberality of Parliament had enabled him
to build and embellish according to his own taste; that he was
sick of Windsor, of Richmond, and of Hampton; that he promised
himself no enjoyment from a progress through those flourishing
and populous counties which he had never seen, Yorkshire and
Norfolk, Cheshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire. 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 as the passing of
the last bill of supply had set him at liberty, he turned his
back on his English subjects; he hastened to his seat in
Guelders, where, during some months, he might be free from the
annoyance of seeing English faces and hearing English words; and
he would with difficulty tear himself away from his favourite
spot when it became absolutely necessary that he should again ask
for English money.

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

Heinsius, whose cooperation was indispensable, would be there.
Portland too would lend his assistance. He had just returned. He
had always considered his mission as an extraordinary mission, of
which the object was to put the relations between the two great
Western powers on a proper footing after a long series of years
during which England had been sometimes the enemy, but never the
equal friend, of France. His task had been well performed; and he
now came back, leaving behind him the reputation of an excellent
minister, firm yet cautious as to substance, dignified yet
conciliating in manner. His last audience at Versailles was
unusually long; and no third person was present. Nothing could be
more gracious than the language and demeanour of Lewis. He
condescended to trace a route for the embassy, and insisted that
Portland should make a circuit for the purpose of inspecting some
of the superb fortresses of the French Netherlands. At every one
of those fortresses the governors and engineers had orders to pay
every attention to the distinguished stranger. Salutes were
everywhere fired to welcome him. A guard of honour was everywhere
in attendance on him. He stopped during three days at Chantilly,
and was entertained there by the Prince of Condé with all that
taste and magnificence for which Chantilly had long been
renowned. There were boar hunts in the morning and concerts in
the evening. Every gentleman of the legation had a gamekeeper
specially assigned to him. The guests, who, in their own island
were accustomed to give extravagant vails at every country house
which they visited, learned, with admiration, that His Highness's
servants were strictly forbidden to receive presents. At his
luxurious table, by a refinement of politeness, choice cider from
the orchards round the Malvern Hills made 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 royal household, and appeared to have been, during the
last few months, making progress in the royal favour. Portland
was angry, and the more angry because he could not but perceive
that his enemies enjoyed his anger, and that even his friends
generally thought it unreasonable; nor did he take any pains to
conceal his vexation. But he was the very opposite of the vulgar
crowd of courtiers who fawn on a master while they betray him. He
neither disguised his ill humour, nor suffered it to interfere
with the discharge of his duties. He gave his prince sullen
looks, short answers, 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 Europe depended, he might be of
use at Loo; and, with devoted loyalty, though with a sore heart
and a gloomy brow, he prepared to attend William thither.

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 no surprise. But that of Marlborough
awakened many recollections and gave occasion to many
speculations. He had once enjoyed a large measure of royal
favour. He had then been dismissed, disgraced, imprisoned. The
Princess Anne, for refusing to discard his wife, had been turned
out of the palace, and deprived of the honours which had often
been enjoyed by persons less near to the throne. Ministers who
were supposed to have great influence in the closet had vainly
tried to overcome the dislike with which their master regarded
the Churchills. It was not till he had been some time reconciled
to his sister in law that he ceased to regard her two favourite
servants as his enemies. So late as the year 1696 he had been
heard to say, "If I had been a private gentleman, my Lord
Marlborough and I must have measured swords." All these things
were now, it seemed, forgotten. The Duke of Gloucester's
household had just been arranged. As he was not yet nine years
old, and the civil list was burdened with a heavy debt, fifteen
thousand pounds was thought for the present a sufficient
provision. The child's literary education was directed by
Burnet, with the title of Preceptor. Marlborough was appointed
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
from which he had been expelled with ignominy; and he was
honoured a few days later with a still higher mark of the King's
confidence, a seat at the board of Regency.

Some persons imagined that they saw in this strange
reconciliation a sign that the influence of Portland was on the
wane and that the influence of Albemarle was growing. For
Marlborough had been many years at feud with Portland, and had
even--a rare event indeed--been so much irritated as to speak of
Portland in coarse and ungentlemanlike terms. With Albemarle, on
the other hand, Marlborough had studiously ingratiated himself by
all the arts which a mind singularly observant and sagacious
could learn from a long experience in courts; and it is possible
that Albemarle may have removed some difficulties. It is hardly
necessary, however, to resort to that supposition for the purpose
of explaining why so wise a man as William forced himself, after
some delay caused by very just and natural resentment, to act
wisely. His opinion of Marlborough's character was probably
unaltered. But he could not help perceiving that Marlborough's
situation was widely different from what it had been a few years
before. That very ambition, that very avarice, which had, in
former times, impelled him to betray two masters, were now
sufficient securities for his fidelity to the order of things
which had been established by the Bill of Rights. If that order
of things could be maintained inviolate, he could scarcely fail
to be, in a few years, the greatest and wealthiest subject in
Europe. His military and political talents might therefore now be
used without any apprehension that they would be turned against
the government which used them. It is to be remembered too that
he derived his importance less from his military and political
talents, great as they were, than from the dominion which,
through the instrumentality of his wife, he exercised over the
mind of the Princess. While he was on good terms with the Court
it was certain that she would lend no countenance to any cabal
which might attack either the title or the prerogatives of her
brother in law. Confident that from this quarter, a quarter once
the darkest and most stormy in the whole political horizon,
nothing but sunshine and calm was now to be expected, William set
out cheerfully on his expedition to his native country.

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
for Holland announced also the names of the first members
returned, in obedience to his writ, by the constituent bodies of
the Realm. The history of those times has been so little studied
that few persons are aware how remarkable an epoch the general
election of 1698 is in the history of the English Constitution.

We have seen that the extreme inconvenience which had resulted
from the capricious and headstrong conduct of the House of
Commons during the years immediately following the Revolution had
forced William to resort to a political
machinery which had been unknown to his predecessors, and of
which the nature and operation were but very imperfectly
understood by himself or by his ablest advisers. For the first
time the administration was confided to a small body of
statesmen, who, on all grave and pressing questions, agreed with
each other and with the majority of the representatives of the
people. The direction of war and of diplomacy the King reserved
to himself; and his servants, conscious that they were less
versed than he in military affairs and in foreign affairs, were
content to leave to him the command of the army, and to know only
what he thought fit to communicate about the instructions which
he gave to his own ambassadors and about the conferences which he
held with the ambassadors of other princes. But, with these
important exceptions, the government was entrusted to what then
began to be called the Ministry.

The first English ministry was gradually formed; nor is it
possible to say quite precisely when it began to exist. But, on
the whole, the date from which the era of ministries may most
properly be reckoned is the day of the meeting of the Parliament
after the general election of 1695. That election had taken place
at a time when peril and distress had called forth all the best
qualities of the nation. The hearts of men were in the struggle
against France for independence, for liberty, and for the
Protestant religion. Everybody knew that such a struggle could
not be carried on without large establishments and heavy taxes.
The government therefore could hardly ask for more than the
country was ready to give. A House of Commons was chosen in which
the Whig party had a decided preponderance. The leaders of that
party had presently been raised, one by one, to the highest
executive offices. The majority, therefore, readily arranged
itself in admirable order under the ministers, and during three
sessions gave them on almost every occasion a cordial support.
The consequence was that the country was rescued from its
dangerous position, and, when that Parliament had lived out its
three years, enjoyed prosperity after a terrible commercial
crisis, peace after a long and sanguinary war, and liberty united
with order after civil troubles which had lasted during two
generations, and in which sometimes order and sometimes liberty
had been in danger of perishing.

Such were the fruits of the general election of 1695. The
ministers had flattered themselves that the general election of
1698 would be equally favourable to them, and that in the new
Parliament the old Parliament would revive. Nor is it strange that
they should have indulged such a hope. Since they had been called
to the direction of affairs every thing had been changed, changed
for the better, and changed chiefly by their wise and resolute
policy, and by the firmness with which their party had stood by
them. There was peace abroad and at home. The sentinels had ceased
to watch by the beacons of Dorsetshire and Sussex. The merchant
ships went forth without fear from the Thames and the Avon.
Soldiers had been disbanded by tens of thousands. Taxes had been
remitted. The value of all public and private securities had
risen. Trade had never been so brisk. Credit had never been so
solid. All over the kingdom the shopkeepers 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. The statesmen
whose administration had been so beneficent might be pardoned if
they expected the gratitude and confidence which they had fairly
earned. But it soon became clear that they had served their
country only too well for their own interest. In 1695 adversity
and danger had made men amenable to that control to which it is
the glory of free nations to submit themselves, the control of
superior minds. In 1698 prosperity and security had made men
querulous, fastidious and unmanageable. The government was
assailed with equal violence from widely different quarters. The
opposition, made up of Tories many of whom carried Toryism to the
length of Jacobitism, and of discontented Whigs some of whom
carried Whiggism to the length of republicanism, called itself the
Country party, a name which had been popular before the words Whig
and Tory 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 special grievances. The whole patronage of the
government, they said, was in Whig hands. The old landed interest,
the old Cavalier interest, had now no share in the favours of the
Crown. Every public office, every bench of justice, every
commission of Lieutenancy, was filled with Roundheads. The Tory
rectors and vicars were not less exasperated. They accused the men
in power of systematically protecting and preferring
Presbyterians, Latitudinarians, Arians, Socinians, Deists,
Atheists. An orthodox divine, a divine who held high the dignity
of the priesthood and the mystical virtue of the sacraments, who
thought schism as great a sin as theft and venerated the Icon as
much as the Gospel, had no more chance of a bishopric or a deanery
than a Papist recusant. Such complaints as these were not likely
to call forth the sympathy of the Whig malecontents. But there
were three war cries in which all the enemies of the government,
from Trenchard to Seymour, could join: No standing army; No grants
of Crown property; and No Dutchmen. Multitudes of honest
freeholders and freemen were weak enough to believe that, unless
the land force, which had already been reduced below what the
public safety required, were altogether disbanded, the nation
would be enslaved, and that, if the estates which the King had
given away were resumed, all direct taxes might be abolished. The
animosity to the Dutch mingled itself both with the animosity to
standing armies and with the animosity to Crown grants. For a
brigade of Dutch troops was part of the military establishment
which was still kept up; and it was to Dutch favourites that
William had been most liberal of the royal domains.

The elections, however, began auspiciously for the government.
The first great contest was in Westminster. It must be remembered
that Westminster was then by far the greatest city in the island,
except only the neighbouring city of London, and contained more
than three times as large a population as Bristol or Norwich,
which came next in size. The right of voting at Westminster was
in the householders paying scot and lot; and the householders
paying scot and lot were many thousands. It is also to be
observed that their political education was much further advanced
than that of the great majority of the electors of the kingdom. A
burgess in a country town, or a forty shilling freeholder in an
agricultural district, then knew little about public affairs
except what he could learn from reading the Postman at the
alehouse, and from hearing, 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 than sense. But the citizen of
Westminster passed his days in the vicinity of the palace, of the
public offices, of the houses of parliament, of the courts of
law. He was familiar with the faces and voices of ministers,
senators and judges. In anxious times he walked in the great Hall
to pick up news. When there was an important trial, he looked
into the Court of King's Bench, and heard Cowper and Harcourt
contending, and Holt moderating between them. When there was an
interesting debate, in the House of Commons, he could at least
squeeze himself into the lobby or the Court of Requests, and hear
who had spoken, and how and what were the numbers on the
division. He lived in a region of coffeehouses, of booksellers'
shops, of clubs, of pamphlets, of newspapers, of theatres where
poignant allusions to the most exciting questions of the day
perpetually called forth applause and hisses, of pulpits where
the doctrines of the High Churchman, of the Low Churchman, of the
Nonjuror, of the Nonconformist, were explained and defended every
Sunday by the most eloquent and learned divines of every
persuasion. At that time, therefore, the metropolitan electors
were, as a class, decidedly superior in intelligence and
knowledge to the provincial electors.

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

At Guildhall the junto was less fortunate. Three ministerial
Aldermen were returned. But the fourth member, Sir John Fleet,
was not only a Tory, but was Governor of the old East India
Company, and had distinguished himself by the pertinacity with
which he had opposed the financial and commercial policy of the
first Lord of the Treasury. While Montague suffered the
mortification of finding that his empire over the city was less
absolute than he had imagined, Wharton, notwithstanding his
acknowledged preeminence in the art of electioneering, underwent
a succession of defeats in boroughs and counties for which he had
expected to name the members. He failed at Brackley, at
Malmesbury and at Cockermouth. He was unable to maintain
possession even of his own strongholds, Wycombe and Aylesbury. He
was beaten in Oxfordshire. The freeholders of Buckinghamshire,
who had been true to him during many years, and who in 1685, when
the Whig party was in the lowest state of depression, had, in
spite of fraud and tyranny, not only placed him at the head of
the poll but put their second votes at his disposal, now rejected
one of his candidates, and could hardly be induced to return the
other, his own brother, by a very small majority.

The elections for Exeter appear to have been in that age observed
by the nation with peculiar interest. For Exeter was not only one
of the largest and most thriving cities in the Kingdom, but was
also the capital of the West of England, and was much frequented
by the gentry of several counties. The franchise was popular.
Party spirit ran high; and the contests were among the fiercest
and the longest of which there is any record in our history.
Seymour had represented Exeter in the Parliament of James, and in
the two first Parliaments of William. In 1695, after a struggle
of several weeks which had attracted much attention not only
here but on the Continent, he had been defeated by two Whig
candidates, and forced to take refuge in a small borough. But
times had changed. He was now returned in his absence by a large
majority; and with him was joined another Tory less able and, if
possible, more unprincipled than himself, Sir Bartholomew Shower.
Shower had been notorious as one of the hangmen of James. When
that cruel King was bent on punishing with death soldiers who
deserted from the army which he kept up in defiance of the
constitution, he found that he could expect no assistance from
Holt, who was the Recorder of London. Holt was accordingly
removed. Shower was made Recorder, and showed his gratitude for
his promotion by sending to Tyburn men who, as every barrister in
the Inns of Court knew, were guilty of no offence at all. He
richly deserved to have been excepted from the Act of Grace, and
left to the vengeance of the laws which he had so foully
perverted. The return which he made for the clemency which spared
him was most characteristic. He missed no opportunity of
thwarting and damaging the Government which had saved him from
the gallows. Having shed innocent blood for the purpose of
enabling James to keep up thirty thousand troops without the
consent of Parliament, he now pretended to think it monstrous
that William should keep up ten thousand with the consent of
Parliament. That a great constituent body should be so forgetful
of the past and so much out of humour with the present as to take
this base and hardhearted pettifogger for a patriot was an omen
which might well justify the most gloomy prognostications.

When the returns were complete, it appeared that the new House of
Commons contained an unusual number of men about whom little was
known, and on whose support neither the government nor the
opposition could with any confidence reckon. The ranks of the
staunch ministerial Whigs were certainly much thinned; but it did
not appear that the Tory ranks were much fuller than before. That
section of the representative body which was Whiggish without
being ministerial had gamed a great accession of strength, and
seemed likely to have, during some time, the fate of the country
in its hands. It was plain that the next session would be a
trying one. Yet it was not impossible that the servants of the
Crown might, by prudent management, succeed in obtaining a
working majority. Towards the close of August the statesmen of
the junto, disappointed and anxious but not hopeless, dispersed
in order to lay in a stock of health and vigour for the next
parliamentary campaign. There were races at that season in the
neighbourhood of Winchenden, Wharton's seat in Buckinghamshire;
and a large party assembled there. Orford, Montague and
Shrewsbury 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 with the water of the springs and the
air of the heath. Just at this moment despatches of the gravest
importance arrived from Guelders at Whitehall.

The long negotiation touching the Spanish succession had at
length been brought to a conclusion. Tallard had joined William
at Loo, and had there met Heinsius and Portland. After much
discussion, the price in consideration of which the House of
Bourbon would consent to waive all claim to Spain and the Indies,
and to support the pretensions of the Electoral Prince of
Bavaria, was definitively settled. The Dauphin was to have the
Province of Guipuscoa, Naples, Sicily and some small Italian
islands which were part of the Spanish monarchy. The Milanese was
allotted to the Archduke Charles. As the Electoral Prince was
still a child, it was agreed that his father, who was then
governing the Spanish Netherlands as Viceroy, should be Regent of
Spain during the minority. Such was the first Partition Treaty, a
treaty which has been during five generations confidently and
noisily condemned, and for which scarcely any writer has ventured
to offer even a timid apology, but which it may perhaps not be
impossible to defend by grave and temperate argument.

It was said, when first the terms of the Partition Treaty were
made public, and has since been many times repeated, that the
English and Dutch Governments, in making this covenant with
France, were guilty of a violation of plighted faith. They had,
it was affirmed, by a secret article of a Treaty of Alliance
concluded in 1689, bound themselves to support the pretensions of
the Emperor to the Spanish throne; and they now, in direct
defiance of that article, agreed to an arrangement by which he
was excluded from the Spanish throne. The truth is that the
secret article will not, whether construed according to the
letter or according to the spirit, bear the sense which has
generally been put upon it. The stipulations of that article were
introduced by a preamble, in which it was set forth that the
Dauphin was preparing to assert by arms his claim to the great
heritage which his mother had renounced, and that there was
reason to believe that he also aspired to the dignity of King of
the Romans. For these reasons, England and the States General,
considering the evil consequences which must follow if he should
succeed in attaining either of his objects, promised to support
with all their power 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 the eldest Archduke was King
of the Romans, and when the Dauphin had, for the sake of peace,
withdrawn his claim to the Spanish Crown, England and the United
Provinces would be bound to go to war for the purpose of
supporting the cause of the Emperor, not against the French but
against his own grandson, against the only prince who could reign
at Madrid without exciting fear and jealousy throughout all
Christendom.

While some persons accused William of breaking faith with the
House of Austria, others accused him of interfering unjustly in
the internal affairs of Spain. In the most ingenious and humorous
political satire extant in our language, Arbuthnot's History of
John Bull, England and Holland are typified by a clothier and a
linendraper, who take upon themselves to settle the estate of a
bedridden old gentleman in their neighbourhood. They meet at the
corner of his park with paper and pencils, a pole, a chain and a
semicircle, measure his fields, calculate the value of his mines,
and then proceed to his house in order to take an inventory of
his plate and furniture. But this pleasantry, excellent as
pleasantry, hardly deserves serious refutation. No person who has
a right to give any opinion at all about politics can think that
the question, whether two of the greatest empires in the world
should be virtually united so as to form one irresistible mass,
was a question with which other states had nothing to do, a
question about which other states could not take counsel together
without being guilty of impertinence as gross as that of a
busybody in private life who should insist on being allowed to
dictate the wills of other people. If the whole Spanish monarchy
should pass to the House of Bourbon, it was highly probable that
in a few years England would cease to be great and free, and that
Holland would be a mere province of France. Such a danger England
and Holland might lawfully have averted by war; and it would be
absurd to say that a danger which may be lawfully averted by war
cannot lawfully be averted by peaceable means. If nations are so
deeply interested in a question that they would be justified in
resorting to arms for the purpose of settling it, they must
surely be sufficiently interested in it to be justified in
resorting to amicable arrangements for the purpose of settling
it. Yet, strange to say, a multitude of writers who have warmly
praised the English and Dutch governments for waging a long and
bloody war in order to prevent the question of the Spanish
succession from being settled in a manner prejudicial to them,
have severely blamed those governments for trying to attain the
same end without the shedding of a drop of blood, without the
addition of a crown to the taxation of any country in
Christendom, and without a moment's interruption of the trade of
the world by land or by sea.

It has been said to have been unjust that three states should
have combined to divide a fourth state without its own consent;
and, in recent times, the partition of the Spanish monarchy which
was meditated in 1698 has been compared to the greatest political
crime which stains the history of modern Europe, the partition of
Poland. But those who hold such language cannot have well
considered the nature of the Spanish monarchy in the seventeenth
century. That monarchy was not a body pervaded by one principle
of vitality and sensation. It was an assemblage of distinct
bodies, none of which had any strong sympathy with the rest, and
some of which had a positive antipathy for each other. The
partition planned at Loo was therefore the very opposite of the
partition of Poland. The partition of Poland was the partition of
a nation. It was such a partition as is effected by hacking a
living man limb from limb. The partition planned at Loo was the
partition of an ill governed empire which was not a nation. It
was such a partition as is effected by setting loose a drove of
slaves who have been fastened together with collars and
handcuffs, and whose union has produced only pain, inconvenience
and mutual disgust. There is not the slightest reason to believe
that the Neapolitans would have preferred the Catholic King to
the Dauphin, or that the Lombards would have preferred the
Catholic King to the Archduke. How little the Guipuscoans would
have disliked separation from Spain and annexation to France we
may judge from the fact that, a few years later, the States of
Guipuscoa actually offered to transfer their allegiance to France
on condition that their peculiar franchises should be held
sacred.

One wound the partition would undoubtedly have inflicted, a wound
on the Castilian pride. But surely the pride which a nation takes
in exercising over other nations a blighting and withering
dominion, a dominion without prudence or energy, without justice
or mercy, is not a feeling entitled to much respect. And even a
Castilian who was not greatly deficient in sagacity must have
seen that an inheritance claimed by two of the greatest
potentates in Europe could hardly pass entire to one claimant;
that a partition was therefore all but inevitable; and that the
question was in truth merely between a partition effected by
friendly compromise and a partition effected by means of a long
and devastating war.

There seems, therefore, to be no ground at all for pronouncing
the terms of the Treaty of Loo unjust to the Emperor, to the
Spanish monarchy considered as a whole, or to any part of that
monarchy. Whether those terms were or were not too favourable to
France is quite another question. It has often been maintained
that she would have gained more by permanently annexing to
herself Guipuscoa, Naples and Sicily than by sending 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 opinion of
William. That he thoroughly understood the politics of Europe is
as certain as that jealousy of the greatness of France was with
him a passion, a ruling passion, almost an infirmity. Before we
blame him, therefore, for making large concessions to the power
which it was the chief business of his life to keep within
bounds, we shall do well to consider whether those concessions
may not, on close examination, be found 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 have been a most formidable addition to
the French monarchy. But a glance at the map ought to have been
sufficient to undeceive those who imagined that the great
antagonist of the House of Bourbon could be so weak as to lay the
liberties of Europe at the feet of that house. A King of France
would, by acquiring territories in the South of Italy, have
really bound himself over to keep the peace; for, as soon as he
was at war with his neighbours, those territories were certain to
be worse than useless to him. They were hostages at the mercy of
his enemies. It would be easy to attack them. It would be hardly
possible to defend them. A French army sent to them by land would
have to force its way through the passes of the Alps, through
Piedmont, through Tuscany, and through the Pontifical States, in
opposition probably to great German armies. A French fleet would
run great risk of being intercepted and destroyed by the
squadrons of England and Holland. Of all this Lewis was perfectly
aware. He repeatedly declared that he should consider the kingdom
of the Two Sicilies as a source, not of strength, but of
weakness. He accepted it at last with murmurs; he seems to have
intended to make it over to one of his younger grandsons; and he
would beyond all doubt have gladly given it in exchange for a
thirtieth part of the same area in the Netherlands.15 But in the
Netherlands England and Holland were determined to allow him
nothing. What he really obtained in Italy was little more than a
splendid provision for a cadet of his house. Guipuscoa was then
in truth the price in consideration of which France consented
that the Electoral Prince of Bavaria should be King of Spain and
the Indies. Guipuscoa, though a small, was doubtless a valuable
province, and was in a military point of view highly important.
But Guipuscoa was not in the Netherlands. Guipuscoa would not
make Lewis a more formidable neighbour to England or to the
United Provinces. And, if the Treaty should be broken off, if the
vast Spanish empire should be struggled for and torn in pieces by
the rival races of Bourbon and Habsburg, was it not possible, was
it not probable, that France might lay her iron grasp, not on
Guipuscoa alone, but on Luxemburg and Namur, on Hainault, Brabant
and Antwerp, on Flanders East and West? Was it certain that the
united force of all her neighbours would be sufficient to compel
her to relinquish her prey? Was it not certain that the contest
would be long and terrible? And would not the English and Dutch
think themselves most fortunate if, after many bloody and costly
campaigns, the French King could be compelled to sign a treaty,
the same, word for word, with that which he was ready uncompelled
to sign now?

William, firmly relying on his own judgment, had not yet, in the
whole course of this momentous negotiation, asked the advice or
employed the agency of any English minister. But the treaty could
not be formally concluded without the instrumentality of one of
the Secretaries of State and of the Great Seal. Portland was
directed to write to Vernon. The King himself wrote to the
Chancellor. Somers was authorised to consult any of his
colleagues whom he might think fit to be entrusted with so high a
secret; and he was requested to give his own opinion of the
proposed arrangement. If that opinion should be favourable, not a
day must be lost. The King of Spain might die at any moment, and
could hardly live till the winter. Full powers must be sent to
Loo, sealed, but with blanks left for the names of the
plenipotentiaries. Strict secresy must be observed; and care must
be taken that the clerks whose duty it was to draw up the
necessary documents should not entertain any suspicion of the
importance of the work which they were performing.

The despatch from Loo found Somers at a distance from all his
political friends, and almost incapacitated by infirmities and by
remedies from attending to serious business, his delicate frame
worn out by the labours and vigils of many months, his head
aching and giddy with the first 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 fully with him. The opinion of
the leading Whig statesmen was communicated to the King in a
letter which was not many months later placed on the records of
Parliament. These statesmen entirely agreed with William in
wishing to see the question of the Spanish succession speedily
and peaceably settled. They apprehended that, if Charles should
die leaving that question unsettled, the immense power of the
French King and the geographical situation of his dominions would
enable him to take immediate possession of the most important
parts of the great inheritance. Whether he was likely to venture
on so bold a course, and whether, if he did venture on it, any
continental government would have the means and the spirit to
withstand him, were questions as to which the English ministers,
with unfeigned deference, submitted their opinion to that of
their master, whose knowledge of the interests and tempers of all
the courts of Europe was unrivalled. But there was one important
point which must not be left out of consideration, and about
which his servants might perhaps be better informed than himself,
the temper of their own country. It was, the Chancellor wrote,
their duty to tell His Majesty that the recent elections had
indicated the public feeling in a manner which had not been
expected, but which could not be mistaken. The spirit which had
borne the nation up through nine years of exertions and
sacrifices seemed to be dead. The people were sick of taxes; they
hated the thought of war. As it would, in such circumstances, be
no easy matter to form a coalition capable of resisting the
pretensions of France, it was most desirable that she should be
induced to withdraw those pretensions; and it was not to be
expected that she would withdraw them without securing for
herself a large compensation. The principle of the Treaty of Loo,
therefore, the English Ministers cordially approved. But whether
the articles of that treaty were or were not too favourable to
the House of Bourbon, and whether the House of Bourbon was likely
faithfully to observe them, were questions about which Somers
delicately hinted that he and his colleagues felt some
misgivings. They had their fears 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; and that, possessed
of Guipuscoa, he would be able at any moment to push an army into
the heart of Castile. But they had been reassured by the thought
that their Sovereign thoroughly understood this department of
politics, that he had fully considered all these things, that he
had neglected no precaution, and that the concessions which he
had made to France were the smallest which could have averted the
calamities impending over Christendom. It was added that the
service which His Majesty had rendered to the House of Bavaria
gave him a right to ask for some return. Would it be too much to
expect, from the gratitude of the prince who was soon to be a
great king, some relaxation of the rigorous system which excluded
the English trade from the Spanish colonies? Such a relaxation
would greatly endear His Majesty to his subjects.

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

The King now had what he wanted from England. The peculiarity of
the Batavian polity threw some difficulties in his way; but every
difficulty gelded to his authority and to the dexterous
management of Heinsius. And in truth the treaty could not but be
favourably regarded by the States General; for it had been
carefully framed with the especial object of preventing France
from obtaining any accession of territory, or influence on the
side of the Netherlands; and Dutchmen, who remembered the
terrible year when the camp of Lewis had been pitched between
Utrecht and Amsterdam, were delighted to find that he was not to
add to his dominions a single fortress in their neighbourhood,
and were quite willing to buy him off with whole provinces under
the Pyrenees and the Apennines. The sanction both of the federal
and of the provincial governments was given with ease and
expedition; and in the evening of the fourth of September 1698,
the treaty was signed. As to the blanks in the English powers,
William had attended to his Chancellor's suggestion, and had
inserted the names of Sir Joseph Williamson, minister at the
Hague, a born Englishman, and of Portland, a naturalised
Englishman. The Grand Pensionary and seven other Commissioners
signed on behalf of the United Provinces. Tallard alone signed
for France. He seems to have been extravagantly elated by what
seemed to be the happy issue of the negotiation in which he had
borne so great a part, and in his next despatch to Lewis boasted
of the new treaty as destined to be the most famous that had been
made during many centuries.

William too was well pleased; and he had reason to be so. Had the
King of Spain died, as all men expected, before the end of that
year, it is highly probable that France would have kept faith
with England and the United Provinces; and it is almost certain
that, if France had kept faith, the treaty would have been
carried into effect without any serious opposition in any
quarter. The Emperor might have complained and threatened; but he
must have submitted; for what could he do? He had no fleet; and
it was therefore impossible for him even to attempt to possess
himself of Castile, of Arragon, of Sicily, of the Indies, in
opposition to the united navies of the three greatest maritime
powers in the world. In fact, the only part of the Spanish empire
which he could hope to seize and hold by force against the will
of the confederates of Loo was the Milanese; and the Milanese the
confederates of Loo had agreed to assign to his family. He would
scarcely have been so mad as to disturb the peace of the world
when the only thing which he had any chance of gaining by war was
offered him without war. The Castilians would doubtless have
resented the dismemberment of the unwieldy body of which they
formed the head. But they would have perceived that by resisting
they were much more likely to lose the Indies than to preserve
Guipuscoa. As to Italy, they could no more make war there than in
the moon. Thus the crisis which had seemed likely to produce an
European war of ten years would have produced nothing worse than
a few angry notes and plaintive manifestoes.

Both the confederate Kings wished their compact to remain a
secret while their brother Charles lived; and it probably would
have remained secret, had it been confided only to the English
and French Ministers. But the institutions of the United
Provinces were not well fitted for the purpose of concealment. It
had been necessary to trust so many deputies and magistrates that
rumours of what had been passing at Loo got abroad. Quiros, the
Spanish Ambassador at the Hague, followed the trail with such
skill and perseverance that he discovered, if not the whole
truth, yet enough to furnish materials for a despatch which
produced much irritation and alarm at Madrid. A council was
summoned, and sate long in deliberation. The grandees of the
proudest of Courts could hardly fail to perceive that their next
sovereign, be he who he might, would find it impossible to avoid
sacrificing part of his defenceless and widely scattered empire
in order to preserve the rest; they could not bear to think that
a single fort, a single islet, in any of the four quarters of the
world was about to escape from the sullen domination of Castile.
To this sentiment all the passions and prejudices of the haughty
race were subordinate. "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 we all go together." In the hope of
averting the threatened dismemberment, the Spanish ministers
advised their master to adopt as his heir the candidate whose
pretensions it was understood that France, England and Holland
were inclined to support. The advice was taken; and it was soon
every where known that His Catholic Majesty had solemnly
designated as his successor his nephew Francis Joseph, Electoral
Prince of Bavaria. France protested against this arrangement,
not, as far as can now be judged, because she meant to violate
the Treaty of Loo, but because it would have been difficult for
her, if she did not protest, to insist on the full execution of
that treaty. Had she silently acquiesced in the nomination of the
Electoral Prince, she would have appeared to admit that the
Dauphin's pretensions were unfounded; and, if she admitted the
Dauphin's pretensions to be unfounded, she could not, without
flagrant injustice, demand several provinces as the price in
consideration of which she would consent to waive those
pretensions. Meanwhile the confederates had secured the
cooperation of a most important person, the Elector of Bavaria,
who was actually Governor of the Netherlands, and was likely to
be in a few months, at farthest, Regent of the whole Spanish
monarchy. He was perfectly sensible that the consent of France,
England and Holland to his son's elevation was worth purchasing
at almost any cost, and, with much alacrity, promised that, when
the time came, he would do all in his power to facilitate the
execution of the Treaty of Partition. He was indeed bound by the
strongest ties to the confederates of Loo. They had, by a secret
article, added to the treaty, agreed that, if the Electoral
Prince should become King of Spain, and then die without issue,
his father should be his heir. The news that young Francis Joseph
had been declared heir to the throne of Spain was welcome to all
the potentates of Europe with the single exception of his
grandfather the Emperor. The vexation and indignation of Leopold
were extreme. But there could be no doubt that, graciously or
ungraciously, he would submit. It would have been madness in him
to contend against all Western Europe on land; and it was
physically impossible for him to wage war on the sea. William was
therefore able to indulge, during some weeks, the pleasing belief
that he had by skill and firmness averted from the civilised
world a general war which had lately seemed to be imminent, and
that he had secured the great community of nations against the
undue predominance of one too powerful member.

But the pleasure and the pride with which he contemplated the
success of his foreign policy gave place to very different
feelings as soon as he again had to deal with our domestic
factions. And, indeed, those who most revere his memory must
acknowledge that, in dealing with these factions, he did not, at
this time, show his wonted statesmanship. For a wise man, he
seems never to have been sufficiently aware how much offence is
given by discourtesy in small things. His ministers had apprised
him that the result of the elections had been unsatisfactory, and
that the temper of the new representatives of the people would
require much management. Unfortunately he did not lay this
intimation to heart. He had by proclamation fixed the opening of
the Parliament for the 29th of November. This was then considered
as a very late day. For the London season began together with
Michaelmas Term; and, even during the war, the King had scarcely
ever failed to receive the compliments of his faithful Lords and
Commons on the fifth of November, the anniversary both of his
birth and of his memorable landing. The numerous members of the
House of Commons who were in town, having their tune on their
hands, formed cabals, and heated themselves and each other by
murmuring at his partiality for the country of his birth. He had
been off to Holland, they said, at the earliest possible moment.
He was now lingering in Holland till the latest possible moment.
This was not the worst. The twenty-ninth of November came; but
the King was not come. It was necessary that the Lords Justices
should prorogue the Parliament to the sixth of December. The
delay was imputed, and justly, to adverse winds. But the
malecontents asked, with some reason, whether His Majesty had not
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 of his Realm for a particular day, he ought not to
have arranged things in such a way that nothing short of a
miracle could have prevented him from keeping that appointment.

Thus the ill humour which a large proportion of the new
legislators had brought up from their country seats became more
and more aced every day, till they entered on their functions.
One question was much agitated during this unpleasant interval.
Who was to be Speaker? The junto wished to place Sir Thomas
Littleton in the chair. He was one of their ablest, most zealous
and most steadfast friends; and had been, both in the House of
Commons and at the Board of Treasury, an invaluable second to
Montague. There was reason indeed to expect a strong opposition.
That Littleton was a Whig was a grave objection to him in the
opinion of the Tories. 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 had failed. Musgrave was talked
of in coffeehouses; but the rumour that he would be proposed soon
died away. Seymour's name was in a few mouths; but Seymour's day
had gone by. He still possessed, indeed, those advantages which
had once made him the first of the country gentlemen of England,
illustrious descent, ample fortune, ready and weighty eloquence,
perfect familiarity with parliamentary business. But all these
things could not do so much to raise him as his moral character
did to drag him down. Haughtiness such as his, though it could
never have been liked, might, if it had been united with elevated
sentiments of 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 the pride of ancestry when found
in company with sordid and ignoble vices, greediness, mendacity,
knavery and impudence; and such was the pride of Seymour. Many,
even of those who were well pleased to see the ministers galled
by his keen and skilful rhetoric, remembered that he had sold
himself more than once, and suspected that he was impatient to
sell himself again. On the very eve of the opening of Parliament,
a little tract entitled "Considerations on the Choice of a
Speaker" was widely circulated, and seems to have produced a
great sensation. The writer cautioned the representatives of the
people, at some length, against Littleton; and then, in even
stronger language, though more concisely, against Seymour; but
did not suggest any third person. The sixth of December came, and
found the Country party, as it called itself, still unprovided
with a candidate. The King, who had not been many hours in
London, took his seat in the House of Lords. The Commons were
summoned to the bar, and were directed to choose a Speaker. They
returned to their Chamber. Hartington proposed Littleton; and the
proposition was seconded by Spencer. No other person was put in
nomination; but there was a warm debate of two hours. Seymour,
exasperated by finding that no party was inclined to support his
pretensions, spoke with extravagant violence. He who could well
remember the military despotism of Cromwell, who had been an
active politician in the days of the Cabal, and who had seen his
own beautiful county turned into a Golgotha by the Bloody
Circuit, declared that the liberties of the nation had never been
in greater danger than at that moment, and that their doom would
be fixed if a courtier should be called to the chair. The
opposition insisted on dividing. Hartington's motion was carried
by two hundred and forty-two votes to a hundred and thirty-five,
Littleton himself, according to the childish old usage which has
descended to our times, voting in the minority. Three days later,
he was presented and approved.

The King then spoke from the throne. He declared his firm
conviction that the Houses were disposed to do whatever was
necessary for the safety, honour and happiness of the kingdom;
and he asked them for nothing more. When they came to consider
the military and naval establishments, they would remember that,
unless England were secure from attack, she could not continue to
hold the high place which she had won for herself among European
powers; her trade would languish; her credit would fail; and even
her internal tranquillity would be in danger. He also expressed a
hope that some progress would be made in the discharge of the
debts contracted during the War. "I think," he said, "an English
Parliament can never make such a mistake as not to hold sacred
all Parliamentary engagements."

The speech appeared to be well received; and during a short time
William flattered himself that the great fault, as he considered
it, of the preceding session would be repaired, that the army
would be augmented, and that he should be able, at the important
conjuncture which was approaching, to speak to foreign powers in
tones of authority, and especially to keep France steady to her
engagements. The Whigs of the junto, better acquainted with the
temper of the country and of the new House of Commons, pronounced
it impossible to carry a vote for a land force of more than ten
thousand men. Ten thousand men would probably be obtained if His
Majesty would authorise his servants to ask in his name for that
number, and to declare that with a smaller number he could not
answer for the public safety. William, firmly convinced that
twenty thousand would be too few, refused to make or empower
others to make a proposition which seemed to him absurd and
disgraceful. Thus, at a moment at which it was peculiarly
desirable that all who bore a part in the executive
administration should act cordially together, there was serious
dissension between him and his ablest councillors. For that
dissension neither he nor they can be severely blamed. They were
differently situated, and necessarily saw the same objects from
different points of view. He, as was natural, considered the
question chiefly as an European question. They, as was natural,
considered it chiefly as an English question. They had found the
antipathy to a standing army insurmountably strong even in the
late Parliament, a Parliament disposed to place large confidence
in them and in their master. In the new Parliament that
antipathy amounted almost to a mania. That liberty, law,
property, could never be secured while the Sovereign had a large
body of regular troops at his command in time of peace, and that
of all regular troops foreign troops were the most to be dreaded,
had, during the recent elections, been repeated in every town
hall and market place, and scrawled upon every dead wall. The
reductions of the preceding year, it was said, even if they had
been honestly carved into effect, would not have been sufficient;
and they had not been honestly carried into effect. On this
subject the ministers pronounced the temper of the Commons to be
such that, if any person high in office were to ask for what His
Majesty thought necessary, there would assuredly be a violent
explosion; the majority would probably be provoked into
disbanding all that remained of the army; and the kingdom would
be left without a single soldier. William, however, could not be
brought to believe that the case was so hopeless. He listened too
easily to some secret adviser, Sunderland was probably the man,
who accused Montague and Somers of cowardice and insincerity.
They had, it was whispered in the royal ear, a majority, whenever
they really wanted one. They were bent upon placing their friend
Littleton in the Speaker's chair; and they had carried their
point triumphantly. They would carry as triumphantly a vote for a
respectable military establishment if the honour of their master
and the safety of their country were as dear to them as the petty
interests of their own faction. It was to no purpose that the
King was told, what was nevertheless perfectly true, that not one
half of the members who had voted for Littleton, could, by any
art or eloquence, be induced to vote for an augmentation of the
land force. While he was urging his ministers to stand up
manfully against the popular prejudice, and while they were
respectfully representing to him that by so standing up they
should only make that prejudice stronger and more noxious, the
day came which the Commons had fixed for taking the royal speech
into consideration. The House resolved itself into a Committee.
The great question was instantly raised; What provision should be
made for the defence of the realm? It was naturally expected that
the confidential advisers of the Crown would propose something.
As they remained silent, Harley took the lead which properly
belonged to them, and moved that the army should not exceed seven
thousand men. Sir Charles Sedley suggested ten thousand. Vernon,
who was present, was of opinion that this number would have been
carved if it had been proposed by one who was known to speak on
behalf of the King. But few members cared to support an amendment
which was certain to be less pleasing to their constituents, and
did not appear to be more pleasing to the Court, than the
original motion. Harley's resolution passed the Committee. On the
morrow it was reported and approved. The House also resolved that
all the seven thousand men who were to be retained should be
natural born English subjects. Other votes were carried without a
single division either in the Committee or when the mace was on
the table.

The King's indignation and vexation were extreme. He was angry
with the opposition, with the ministers, with all England. The
nation seemed to him to be under a judicial infatuation, blind to
dangers which his sagacity perceived to be real, near and
formidable, and morbidly apprehensive of dangers which his
conscience told him were no dangers at all. The perverse
islanders were willing to trust every thing that was most
precious to them, their independence, their property, their laws,
their religion, to the moderation and good faith of France, to
the winds and the waves, to the steadiness and expertness of
battalions of ploughmen commanded by squires; and yet they were
afraid to trust him with the means of protecting them lest he
should use those means for the destruction of the liberties which
he had saved from extreme peril, which he had fenced with new
securities, which he had defended with the hazard of his life,
and which from the day of his accession he had never once
violated. He was attached, and not without reason, to the Blue
Dutch Foot Guards. That brigade had served under him for many
years, and had been eminently distinguished by courage,
discipline and fidelity. In December 1688 that brigade had been
the first in his army to enter the English capital, and had been
entrusted with the important duty of occupying Whitehall and
guarding the person of James. Eighteen months later, that brigade
had been the first to plunge into the waters of the Boyne. Nor
had the conduct of these veteran soldiers been less exemplary in
their quarters than in the field. The vote which required the
King to discard them merely because they were what he himself was
seemed to him a personal affront. All these vexations and
scandals he imagined that his ministers might have averted, if
they had been more solicitous for his honour and for the success
of his great schemes of policy, and less solicitous about their
own popularity. They, on the other hand, continued to assure him,
and, as far as can now be judged, to assure him with perfect
truth, that it was altogether out of their power to effect what
he wished. Something they might perhaps be able to do. Many
members of the House of Commons had said in private that seven
thousand men was too small a number. If His Majesty would let it
be understood that he should consider those who should vote for
ten thousand as having done him good service, there might be
hopes. But there could be no hope if gentlemen found that by
voting for ten thousand they should please nobody, that they
should be held up to the counties and towns which they
represented 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 for not going farther. The King was not to be moved.
He had been too great to sink into littleness without a struggle.
He had been the soul of two great coalitions, the dread of
France, the hope of all oppressed nations. And was he to be
degraded into a mere puppet of the Harleys and the Hooves, a
petty prince who could neither help nor hurt, a less formidable
enemy and less valuable ally than the Elector of Brandenburg or
the Duke of Savoy? His spirit, quite as arbitrary and as
impatient of control as that of any of his predecessors, Stuart,
Tudor or Plantagenet, swelled high against this ignominious
bondage. It was well known at Versailles that he was cruelly
mortified and incensed; and, during a short time, a strange hope
was cherished there that, in the heat of his resentment, he might
be induced to imitate his uncles, Charles and James, to conclude
another treaty of Dover, and to sell himself into vassalage for a
subsidy which might make him independent of his niggardly and
mutinous Parliament. Such a subsidy, it was thought, might be
disguised under the name of a compensation for the little
principality of Orange, which Lewis had long been desirous to
purchase even at a fancy price. A despatch was drawn up
containing a paragraph by which Tallard was to be apprised of his
master's views, and instructed not to hazard any distinct
proposition, but to try the effect of cautious and delicate
insinuations, and, if possible, to draw William on to speak
first. This paragraph was, on second thoughts, cancelled; but
that it should ever have been written must be considered a most
significant circumstance.

It may with confidence be affirmed that William would never have
stooped to be the pensioner of France; but it was with difficulty
that he was, at this conjuncture, dissuaded from throwing up the
government of England. When first he threw out hints about
retiring to the Continent, his ministers imagined that he was
only trying to frighten them into making a desperate effort to
obtain for him an efficient army. But they soon saw reason to
believe that he was in earnest. That he was in earnest, indeed,
can hardly be doubted. For, in a confidential letter to Heinsius,
whom he could have no motive for deceiving, he intimated his
intention very clearly. "I foresee," he writes, "that I shall be
driven to take an extreme course, and that I shall see you again
in Holland sooner than I had imagined."16 In fact he had resolved
to go down to the Lords, to send for the Commons, and to make his
last speech from the throne. That speech he actually prepared and
had it translated. He meant to tell his hearers that he had come
to England to rescue their religion and their liberties; that,
for that end, he had been under the necessity of waging a long
and cruel war; that the war had, by the blessing of God, ended in
an honourable and advantageous peace; and that the nation might
now be tranquil and happy, if only those precautions were adopted
which he had on the first day of the session recommended as
essential to the public security. Since, however, the Estates of
the Realm thought fit to slight his advice, and to expose
themselves to the imminent risk of ruin, he would not be the
witness of calamities which he had not caused and which he could
not avert. He must therefore request the Houses to present to him
a bill providing for the government of the realm; he would pass
that bill, and withdraw from a post in which he could no longer
be useful, but he should always take a deep interest in the
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 life should be hazarded as freely as ever in her
defence.

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

The alarm of the ministers seems to have been increased by
finding that the King's intention had been confided to
Marlborough, the very last man to whom such a secret would have
been imparted unless William had really made up his mind to
abdicate in favour of the Princess of Denmark. Somers had another
audience, and again began to expostulate. But William cut 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 from
assisting 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 will take it from me while he is still my King."

In these circumstances the ministers, though with scarcely the
faintest hope of success, determined to try what they could do to
meet the King's wishes. A select Committee had been appointed by
the House of Commons to frame 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 should be instructed to
reconsider the number of men. Vernon acquitted himself well in
the debate. Montague spoke with even more than his wonted ability
and energy, but in vain. So far was he from being able to rally
round him such a majority as that which had supported him in the
preceding Parliament, that he could not count on the support even
of the placemen 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 a large land force necessary; this year
I think such a force unnecessary; but I deny that I have been
guilty of any inconsistency. Last year the great question of the
Spanish succession was unsettled, and there was serious danger of
a general war. That question has now been settled in the 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 was irresistible. At last the voices of those who
tried to speak for the Instruction were drowned by clamour. When
the question was put, there was a great shout of No, and the
minority submitted. To divide would have been merely to have
exposed their weakness.

By this time it became clear that the relations between the
executive government and the Parliament were again what they had
been before the year 1695. The history of our polity at this time
is closely connected with the history of one man. Hitherto
Montague's career had been more splendidly and uninterruptedly
successful than that of any member of the House of Commons, since
the House of Commons had begun to exist. And now fortune had
turned. By the Tories he had long been hated as a Whig; and the
rapidity of his rise, the brilliancy of his fame, and the
unvarying good luck which seemed to attend him, had made many
Whigs his enemies. He was absurdly compared to the upstart
favourites of a former age, Carr and Villiers, men whom he
resembled in nothing but in the speed with which he had mounted
from a humble to a lofty position. They had, without rendering
any service to the State, without showing any capacity for the
conduct of great affairs, been elevated to the highest dignities,
in spite of the murmurs of the whole nation, by the mere
partiality of the Sovereign. Montague owed every thing to his own
merit and to the public opinion of his merit. With his master he
appears to have had very little intercourse, and none that was
not official. He was in truth a living monument of what the
Revolution had done for the Country. The Revolution had found him
a young student in a cell by the Cam, poring on the diagrams
which illustrated the newly discovered laws of centripetal and
centrifugal force, writing little copies of verses, and indulging
visions of parsonages with rich glebes, and of closes in old
cathedral towns had developed in him new talents; had held out
to him the hope of prizes of a very different sort from a rectory
or a prebend. His eloquence had gained for him the ear of the
legislature. His skill in fiscal and commercial affairs had won
for him the confidence of the City. During four years he had been
the undisputed leader of the majority of the House of Commons;
and every one of those years he had made memorable by great
parliamentary victories, and by great public services. It should
seem that his success ought to have been gratifying to the
nation, and especially to that assembly of which he was the chief
ornament, of which indeed he might be called the creature. The
representatives of the people ought to have been well pleased to
find that their approbation could, in the new order of things, do
for the man whom they delighted to honour all that the mightiest
of the Tudors could do for Leicester, or the most arbitrary of
the Stuarts for Strafford. But, strange to say, the Commons soon
began to regard with an evil eve that greatness which was their
own work. The fault indeed was partly Montague's. With all his
ability, he had not the wisdom to avert, by suavity and
moderation, that curse, the inseparable concomitant of prosperity
and glory, which the ancients personified under the name of
Nemesis. His head, strong for all the purposes of debate and
arithmetical calculation, was weak against the intoxicating
influence of success and fame. He became proud even to insolence.
Old companions, who, a very few years before, had punned and
rhymed with him in garrets, had dined with him at cheap
ordinaries, had sate with him in 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 forget for one moment that
he was First Lord of the Treasury, that he was Chancellor 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 Exchequer
Bills, that he had planned the General Mortgage, and that he had
been pronounced, by a solemn vote of the Commons, to have
deserved all the favours which he had received from the Crown. It
was said that admiration of himself and contempt of others were
indicated by all his gestures and written in all the lines of his
face. The very way in which the little jackanapes, as the hostile
pamphleteers loved to call him, strutted through the lobby,
making the most of his small figure, rising on his toe, and
perking up his chin, made him enemies. Rash and arrogant sayings
were imputed to him, and perhaps invented for him. He was accused
of boasting that there was nothing that he could not carry
through the House of Commons, that he could turn the majority
round his finger. A crowd of libellers assailed him with much
more than political hatred. Boundless rapacity and corruption
were laid to his charge. He was represented as selling all the
places in the revenue department for three years' purchase. The
opprobrious nickname of Filcher was fastened on him. His luxury,
it was said, was not less inordinate than his avarice. There was
indeed an attempt made at this time to raise against the leading
Whig politicians and their allies, the great moneyed men of the
City, a cry much resembling the cry which, seventy or eighty
years later, was raised against the English Nabobs. Great wealth,
suddenly acquired, is not often enjoyed with moderation, dignity
and good taste. It is therefore not impossible that there may
have been some small foundation for the extravagant stories with
which malecontent pamphleteers amused the leisure of malecontent
squires. In such stories Montague played a conspicuous part. He
contrived, it was said, to be at once as rich as Croesus and as
riotous as Mark Antony. His stud and his cellar were beyond all
price. His very lacqueys turned up their noses at claret. He and
his confederates were described as spending the immense sums 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
for twelve Whigs, enriched by jobs, grants, bribes, lucky
purchases and lucky sales of stock, was cheap at eighty pounds.
At the end of every course all the fine linen on the table was
changed. Those who saw the pyramids of choice wild fowl imagined
that the entertainment had been prepared for fifty epicures at
the least. Only six birds' nests from the Nicobar islands were to
be had in London; and all the six, bought at an enormous price,
were smoking in soup on the board. These fables were destitute
alike of probability and of evidence. But Grub Street could
devise no fable injurious to Montague which was not certain to
find credence in more than half the manor houses and vicarages of
England.

It may seem strange that a man who loved literature passionately,
and rewarded literary merit munificently, should have been more
savagely reviled both in prose and verse than almost any other
politician in our history. But there is really no cause for
wonder. A powerful, liberal and discerning protector of genius
is very likely to be mentioned with honour long after his death,
but is very likely also to be most brutally libelled during his
life. In every age there will be twenty bad writers for one good
one; and every bad writer will think himself a good one. A ruler
who neglects all men of letters alike does not wound the self
love of any man of letters. But a ruler who shows favour to the
few men of letters who deserve it inflicts on the many the
miseries of disappointed hope, of affronted pride, of jealousy
cruel as the grave. All the rage of a multitude of authors,
irritated at once by the sting of want and by the sting of
vanity, is directed against the unfortunate patron. It is true
that the thanks and eulogies of those whom he has befriended will
be remembered when the invectives of those whom he has neglected
are forgotten. But in his own time the obloquy will probably make
as much noise and find as much credit as the panegyric. The name
of Maecenas has been made immortal by Horace and Virgil, and is
popularly used to designate an accomplished statesman, who lives
in close intimacy with the greatest poets and wits of his time,
and heaps benefits on them with the most delicate generosity. But
it may well be suspected that, if the verses of Alpinus and
Fannius, of Bavius and Maevius, had come down to us, we might see
Maecenas represented as the most niggardly and tasteless of human
beings, nay as a man who, on system, neglected and persecuted all
intellectual superiority. It is certain that Montague was thus
represented by contemporary scribblers. They told the world in
essays, in letters, in dialogues, in ballads, that he would do
nothing for 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 and virtue, but wretches
distinguished only by their sycophancy and their low
debaucheries. And this was said of the man who made the fortune
of Joseph Addison, and of Isaac Newton.

Nothing had done more to diminish the influence of Montague in
the House of Commons than a step which he had taken a few weeks
before the meeting of the Parliament. It would seem that the
result of the general election had made him uneasy, and that he
had looked anxiously round him for some harbour in which he might
take refuge from the storms which seemed to be gathering. While
his thoughts were thus employed, he learned that the Auditorship
of the Exchequer had suddenly become vacant. The Auditorship was
held for life. The duties were formal and easy. The gains were
uncertain; for they rose and fell with the public expenditure;
but they could hardly, in time of peace, and under the most
economical administration, be less than four thousand pounds a
year, and were likely, in time of war, to be more than double of
that sum. Montague marked this great office for his own. He could
not indeed take it, while he continued to be in charge of the
public purse. For it would have been indecent, and perhaps
illegal, that he should audit his own accounts. He therefore
selected his brother Christopher, whom he had lately made a
Commissioner of the Excise, to keep the place for him. There was,
as may easily be supposed, no want of powerful and noble
competitors for such a prize. Leeds had, more than twenty years
before, obtained from Charles the 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 Charles and
the promise of William had been given under a mistake, and that
the right of appointing the Auditor belonged, not to the Crown,
but to the Board of Treasury. He carried his point with
characteristic audacity and celerity. The news of the vacancy
reached London on a Sunday. On the Tuesday the new Auditor was
sworn in. The ministers were amazed. Even the Chancellor, with
whom Montague was on terms of intimate friendship, had not been
consulted. Godolphin devoured his ill temper. Caermarthen ordered
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
the word, out of hazard, but increased the animosity of his
enemies and cooled the zeal of his adherents. In a letter written
by one of his colleagues, Secretary Vernon, on the day after the
appointment, the Auditorship is described as at once a safe and
lucrative place. "But I thought," Vernon proceeds, "Mr. Montague
was too aspiring to stoop to any thing below the height he was
in, and that he least considered profit." This feeling was no
doubt shared by many of the friends of the ministry. It was plain
that Montague was preparing a retreat for himself. This flinching
of the captain, just on the eve of a perilous campaign, naturally
disheartened the whole army. It deserves to be remarked that,
more than eighty years later, another great parliamentary leader
was placed in a very similar situation. The younger William Pitt
held in 1784 the same offices which Montague had held in 1698.
Pitt was pressed in 1784 by political difficulties not less than
those with which Montague had contended in 1698. Pitt was also in
1784 a much poorer man than Montague in 1698. Pitt, in 1784, like
Montage in 1698, had at his own absolute disposal a lucrative
sinecure place in the Exchequer. Pitt gave away the office which
would have made him an opulent man, and gave it away in such a
manner as at once to reward unfortunate merit, and to relieve the
country from a burden. For this disinterestedness he was repaid
by the enthusiastic applause of his followers, by the enforced
respect of his opponents, and by the confidence which, through
all the vicissitudes of a chequered and at length disastrous
career, the great body of Englishmen reposed in his public spirit
and in his personal integrity. In the intellectual qualities of a
statesman Montague was probably not inferior to Pitt. But the
magnanimity, the dauntless courage, the contempt for riches and
for baubles, to which, more than to any intellectual quality,
Pitt owed his long ascendency, were wanting to Montague.

The faults of Montague were great; but his punishment was cruel.
It was indeed a punishment which must have been more bitter than
the bitterness of death to a man whose vanity was exquisitely
sensitive, and who had been spoiled by early and rapid success
and by constant prosperity. Before the new Parliament had been a
month sitting it was plain that his empire was at an end. He
spoke with the old eloquence; but his speeches no longer called
forth the old response. Whatever he proposed was maliciously
scrutinised. The success of his budget of the preceding year had
surpassed all expectation. The two millions which he had
undertaken to find had been raised with a rapidity which seemed
magical. Yet for bringing the riches of the City, in an
unprecedented flood, to overflow the Exchequer he was reviled as
if his scheme had failed more ludicrously than the Tory Land
Bank. Emboldened by his unpopularity, the Old East India Company
presented a petition praying that the General Society Act, which
his influence and eloquence had induced the late Parliament to
pass, might be extensively modified. Howe took the matter up. It
was moved that leave should be given to bring in a bill according
to the prayer of the petition; the motion was carried by a
hundred and seventy-five votes to a hundred and forty-eight; and
the whole question of the trade with the Eastern seas was
reopened. The bill was brought in, but was, with great difficulty
and by a very small majority, thrown out on the second reading.17
On other financial questions Montague, so lately the oracle of
the Committee of Supply, was now heard with malevolent distrust.
If his enemies were unable to detect any flaw in his reasonings
and calculations, they could at least whisper that Mr. Montague
was very cunning, that it was not easy to track him, but that it
might be taken for granted that for whatever he did he had some
sinister motive, and that the safest course was to negative
whatever he proposed. 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 been framed by him. In a despatch from the Dutch
embassy the States General were informed that many of the votes
of that session which had caused astonishment out of doors were
to be ascribed to nothing but to the bitter envy which the
ability and fame of Montague had excited. It was not without a
hard struggle and a sharp pang that the first Englishman who has
held that high position which has now been long called the
Leadership of the House of Commons submitted to be deposed. But
he was set upon with cowardly malignity by whole rows of small
men none of whom singly would have dared to look him in the face.
A contemporary pamphleteer compared him to an owl in the sunshine
pursued and pecked to death by flights of tiny birds. On one
occasion he was irritated into uttering an oath. Then there was
a cry of Order; and he was threatened with the Serjeant and the
Tower. On another occasion he was moved even to shedding tears of
rage and vexation, tears which only moved the mockery of his low
minded and bad hearted foes.

If a minister were now to find himself thus situated in a House
of Commons which had just been elected, and from which it would
therefore be idle to appeal to the electors, he would instantly
resign his office, and his adversaries would take his place. The
change would be most advantageous to the public, even if we
suppose his successor to be both less virtuous and less able than
himself. For it is much better for the country to have a bad
ministry than to have no ministry at all, and there would be no
ministry at all if the executive departments were filled by men
whom the representatives of the people took every opportunity of
thwarting and insulting. That an unprincipled man should be
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 the head of affairs. As he already possesses the power to
do boundless mischief, it is desirable to give him a strong
motive to abstain from doing mischief; and such a motive he has
from the moment that he is entrusted with the administration.
Office of itself does much to equalise politicians. It by no
means brings all characters to a level; but it does bring high
characters down and low characters up towards a common standard.
In power the most patriotic and most enlightened statesman finds
that he must disappoint the expectations of his admirers; that,
if he effects any good, he must effect it by compromise; that he
must relinquish many favourite schemes; that he must bear with
many abuses. On the other hand, power turns the very vices of the
most worthless adventurer, his selfish ambition, his sordid
cupidity, his vanity, his cowardice, into a sort of public
spirit. The most greedy and cruel wrecker that ever put up false
lights to lure mariners to their destruction will do his best to
preserve a ship from going to pieces on the rocks, if he is taken
on board of her and made pilot; and so the most profligate
Chancellor of the Exchequer most wish that trade may flourish,
that the revenue may come in well, and that he may be able to
take taxes off instead of putting them on. The most profligate
First Lord of the Admiralty must wish to receive news of a
victory like that of 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 worst ministry that is likely ever to
exist in England. But to the evil of having no ministry, to the
evil of having a House of Commons permanently at war with the
executive government, there is absolutely no limit. This was
signally proved in 1699 and 1700. Had the statesmen of the junto,
as soon as they had ascertained the temper of the new Parliament,
acted as statesmen similarly situated would now act, great
calamities would have been averted. The chiefs of the opposition
must then have been called upon to form a government. With the
power of the late ministry the responsibility of the late
ministry would have been transferred to them; and that
responsibility would at once have sobered them. The orator whose
eloquence had been the delight of the Country party would have
had to exert his ingenuity on a new set of topics. There would
have been an end of his invectives against courtiers and
placemen, of piteous meanings about the intolerable weight of the
land tax, of his boasts that the militia of Kent and Sussex,
without the help of a single regular soldier, would turn the
conquerors of Landen to the right about. He would himself have
been a courtier; he would himself have been a placeman; he would
have known that he should be held accountable for all the misery
which a national bankruptcy or a French invasion might produce;
and, instead of labouring to get up a clamour for the reduction
of imposts, and the disbanding of regiments, he would have
employed all his talents and influence for the purpose of
obtaining from Parliament the means of supporting public credit,
and of putting the country in a good posture of defence.
Meanwhile the statesmen who were out might have watched the new
men, might have checked them when they were wrong, might have
come to their help when, by doing right, they had raised a mutiny
in their own absurd and perverse faction. In this way Montague
and Somers might, in opposition, have been really far more
powerful than they could be while they filled the highest posts
in the executive government and were outvoted every day in the
House of Commons. Their retirement would have mitigated envy;
their abilities would have been missed and regretted; their
unpopularity would have passed to their successors, who would
have grievously disappointed vulgar expectation, and would have
been under the necessity of eating their own words in every
debate. The league between the Tories and the discontented Whigs
would have been dissolved; and it is probable that, in a session
or two, the public voice would have loudly demanded the recall of
the best Keeper 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, had never been taught to the politicians of the
seventeenth century. Notions imbibed before the Revolution still
kept possession of the public mind. Not even Somers, the foremost
man of his age in civil wisdom, thought it strange that one party
should be in possession of the executive administration while the
other predominated in the legislature. Thus, at the beginning of
1699, there ceased to be a ministry; and years elapsed before the
servants of the Crown and the representatives of the people were
again joined in an union as harmonious as that which had existed
from the general election of 1695 to the general election of
1698. The anarchy lasted, with some short intervals of
composedness, till the general election of 1765. No portion of
our parliamentary history is less pleasing or more instructive.
It will be seen that the House of Commons became altogether
ungovernable, abused its gigantic power with unjust and insolent
caprice, browbeat King and Lords, the Courts of Common Law and
the Constituent bodies, violated rights guaranteed by the Great
Charter, and at length made itself so odious that the people were
glad to take shelter, under the protection of the throne and of
the hereditary aristocracy, from the tyranny of the assembly
which had been chosen by themselves.

The evil which had brought on so much discredit on representative
institutions was of gradual though of rapid growth, and did not,
in the first session of the Parliament of 1698, take the most
alarming form. The lead of the House of Commons had, however,
entirely passed away from Montague, who was still the first
minister of finance, to the chiefs of the turbulent and
discordant opposition. Among those chiefs the most powerful was
Harley, who, while almost constantly acting with the Tories and
High Churchmen, continued to use, on occasions cunningly
selected, the political and religious phraseology which he had
learned in his youth among the Roundheads. He thus, while high in
the esteem of the country gentlemen and even of his hereditary
enemies, the country parsons, retained a portion of the favour
with which he and his ancestors had long been regarded by Whigs
and Nonconformists. He was therefore peculiarly well qualified to
act as mediator between the two sections of the majority.

The bill for the disbanding of the army passed with little
opposition through the House till it reached the last stage.
Then, at length, a stand was made, but in vain. Vernon wrote the
next day to Shrewsbury that 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 hundred and twenty-one. Such a
division would not be considered as matter of boast by a
Secretary of State in our time.

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

By this time the King's strong understanding had mastered, as it
seldom failed, after a struggle, to master, his rebellious
temper. He had made up his mind to fulfil his great mission to
the end. It was with no common pain that he admitted it to be
necessary for him to give his assent to the disbanding bill. But
in this case it would have been worse than 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 without even the
seven thousand men whom the Commons were willing to allow him. He
determined, therefore, to comply with the wish of his people, and
at the same time to give them a weighty and serious but friendly
admonition. Never had he succeeded better in suppressing the
outward signs of his emotions than on the day on which he carried
this determination into effect. The public mind was much excited.
The crowds in the parks and streets were immense. The Jacobites
came in troops, hoping to enjoy the pleasure of reading shame and
rage on the face of him whom they most hated and dreaded. The
hope was disappointed. The Prussian Minister, a discerning
observer, free from the passions which distracted English
society, accompanied the royal procession from St. James's Palace
to Westminster Hall. He well knew how bitterly William had been
mortified, and was astonished to see him present himself to the
public gaze with a serene and cheerful aspect.

The speech delivered from the throne was much admired; and the
correspondent of the States General acknowledged that he
despaired of exhibiting in a French translation the graces of
style which distinguished the original. Indeed that weighty,
simple and dignified eloquence which becomes the lips of a
sovereign was seldom wanting in any composition of which the plan
was furnished by William and the language by Somers. The King
informed the Lords and Commons that he had come down to pass
their bill as soon as it was ready for him. He could not indeed
but think that they had carried the reduction of the army to a
dangerous extent. He could not but feel that they had treated him
unkindly in requiring him to part with those guards who had come
over with him to deliver England, and who had since been near him
on every field of battle. But it was his fixed opinion that
nothing could be so pernicious to the State as that he should be
regarded by his people with distrust, distrust of which he had
not expected to be the object after what he had endeavoured,
ventured, and acted, to restore and to secure their liberties. He
had now, he said, told the Houses plainly the reason, the only
reason, which had induced him to pass their bill; and it 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 he
had vainly endeavoured to avert, that, in his judgment, the
nation was left too much exposed.

When the Commons had returned to their chamber, and the King's
speech had been read from the chair, Howe attempted to raise a
storm. A gross insult had been offered to the House. The King
ought to be asked who had put such words into his mouth. But the
spiteful agitator found no support. The majority were so much
pleased with the King for promptly passing the bill that they
were not disposed to quarrel with him for frankly declaring that
he disliked it. It was resolved without a division that an
address should be presented, thanking him for his gracious speech
and for his ready compliance with the wishes of his people, and
assuring him that his grateful Commons would never forget the
great things which he had done for the country, would never give
him cause 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
misgivings in the minds of those who had voted for reducing the
national means of defence. The Electoral Prince of Bavaria was no
more. The Gazette which announced that the Disbanding Bill had
received the royal assent informed the public that he was
dangerously ill at Brussels. The next Gazette contained the news
of his death. Only a few weeks had elapsed since all who were
anxious for the peace of the world had learned with joy that he
had been named heir to the Spanish throne. That the boy just
entering upon life with such hopes should die, while the wretched
Charles, long ago half dead, continued to creep about between his
bedroom and his chapel, was an event for which, notwithstanding
the proverbial uncertainty of life, the minds of men were
altogether unprepared. A peaceful solution of the great question
now seemed impossible. France and Austria were left confronting
each other. Within a month the whole Continent might be in arms.
Pious men saw in this stroke, so sudden and so terrible, the
plain signs of the divine displeasure. God had a controversy with
the nations. Nine years of fire, of slaughter and of famine had
not been sufficient to reclaim a guilty world; and a second and
more severe chastisement was at hand. Others muttered that the
event which all good men lamented was to be ascribed to
unprincipled ambition. It would indeed have been strange if, in
that age, so important a death, happening at so critical a
moment, had not been imputed to poison. The father of the
deceased Prince loudly accused the Court of Vienna; and the
imputation, though not supported by the slightest evidence, was,
during some time, believed by the vulgar.

The politicians at the Dutch embassy imagined that now at length
the parliament would listen to reason. It seemed that even the
country gentlemen must begin to contemplate the probability of an
alarming crisis. The merchants of the Royal Exchange, much better
acquainted than the country gentlemen with foreign lands, and
much more accustomed than the country gentlemen to take large
views, were in great agitation. Nobody could mistake the beat of
that wonderful pulse which had recently begun, and has during
five generations continued, to indicate the variations of the
body politic. When Littleton was chosen speaker, the stocks rose.
When it was resolved that the army should be reduced to seven
thousand men, the stocks fell. When the death of the Electoral
Prince was known, they fell still lower. The subscriptions to a
new loan, which the Commons had, from mere spite to Montague,
determined to raise on conditions of which he disapproved, came
in very slowly. The signs of a reaction of feeling were
discernible both in and out of Parliament. Many men are alarmists
by constitution. Trenchard and Howe had frightened most men by
writing and talking about the danger to which liberty and
property would be exposed if the government were allowed to keep
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 could no longer be afraid of a standing army, began to be
afraid of the French King. There was a turn in the tide of public
opinion; and no part of statesmanship is more important than the
art of taking the tide of public opinion at the turn. On more
than one occasion William showed himself a master of that art.
But, on the present occasion, a sentiment, in itself amiable and
respectable, led him to commit the greatest mistake of his whole
life. Had he at this conjuncture again earnestly pressed on the
Houses the importance of providing for the defence of the
kingdom, and asked of them an additional number of English
troops, it is not improbable that he might have carried his
point; it is certain that, if he had failed, there would have
been nothing ignominious in his failure. Unhappily, instead of
raising a great public question, on which he was in the right, on
which he had a good chance of succeeding, and on which he might
have been defeated without any loss of dignity, he chose to 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
not be beaten without being degraded. Instead of pressing for
more English regiments, he exerted all his influence to obtain
for the Dutch guards permission to remain in the island.

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

This vote of the Lords caused much murmuring among the Commons.
It was said to be most unparliamentary to pass a bill one week,
and the next week to pass a resolution condemning that bill. It
was true that the bill had been passed before the death of the
Electoral Prince was known in London. But that unhappy event,
though it might be a good reason for increasing the English army,
could be no reason for departing from the principle that the
English army should consist of Englishmen. A gentleman who
despised the vulgar clamour against professional soldiers, who
held the doctrine of Somers's Balancing Letter, and who was
prepared to vote for twenty or even thirty thousand men, might
yet well ask why any of those men should be foreigners. Were our
countrymen naturally inferior to men of other races in any of the
qualities which, under proper training, make excellent soldiers?
That assuredly was not the opinion of the Prince who had, at the
head of Ormond's Life Guards, driven the French household troops,
till, then invincible, back over the ruins of Neerwinden, and
whose eagle eye and applauding voice had followed Cutts's
grenadiers up the glacis of Namur. Bitter spirited malecontents
muttered that, since there was no honourable service which could
not be as well performed by the natives of the realm as by alien
mercenaries, it might well be suspected that the King wanted his
alien mercenaries for some service not honourable. If it were
necessary to repel a French invasion or to put down an Irish
insurrection, the Blues and the Buffs would stand by him to the
death. But, if his object were to govern in defiance of the votes
of his Parliament and of the cry of his people, he might well
apprehend that English swords and muskets would, 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 our blood, who
had no reverence for our laws, and no sympathy with our feelings.
Such imputations could find credit with no body superior in
intelligence to those clownish squires who with difficulty
managed to spell out Dyer's Letter over their ale. Men of sense
and temper admitted that William had never shown any disposition
to violate the solemn compact which he had made with the nation,
and that, even if he were depraved enough to think of destroying
the constitution by military violence, 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 by factious malignity, could
not acquit him of a partiality which it was natural that he
should feel, but which it would have been wise in him to hide,
and with which it was impossible that his subjects should
sympathise. He ought to have known that nothing is more offensive
to free and proud nations than the sight of foreign uniforms and
standards. Though not much conversant with books, he must have
been acquainted with the chief events in the history of his own
illustrious House; and he could hardly have been ignorant that
his great grandfather had commenced a long and glorious struggle
against despotism by exciting the States General of Ghent to
demand that all Spanish troops should be withdrawn from the
Netherlands. The final parting between the tyrant and the future
deliverer was not an event to be forgotten by any of the race of
Nassau. "It was the States, Sir," said the Prince of Orange.
Philip seized his wrist with a convulsive grasp, and exclaimed,
"Not the States, but you, you, you."

William, however, determined to try whether a request made by
himself in earnest and almost supplicating terms
would induce his subjects to indulge his national partiality at
the expense of their own. None of his ministers could flatter him
with any hope of success. But on this subject he was too much
excited to hear reason. He sent down to the Commons a message,
not merely signed by himself according to the usual form, but
written throughout with his own hand. He informed them that the
necessary preparations had been made for sending away the guards
who came with him to England, and that they would immediately
embark, unless the House should, out of consideration for him, be
disposed to retain them, 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 the subject. But the chiefs of the
majority would not consent to any thing which might seem to
indicate hesitation, and moved the previous question. The
ministers were in a false position. It was out of their power to
answer Harley when he sarcastically declared that he did not
suspect them of having advised His Majesty on this occasion. If,
he said, those gentlemen had thought it desirable that the Dutch
brigade should remain in the kingdom, they would have done so
before. There had been many opportunities of raising the question
in a perfectly regular manner during the progress of the
Disbanding Bill. Of those opportunities nobody had thought fit to
avail himself; and it was now too late to reopen the question.
Most of the other members who spoke against taking the message
into consideration took the same line, declined discussing points
which might have been discussed when the Disbanding Bill was
before the House, and declared merely that they could not consent
to any thing so unparliamentary as the repealing of an Act which
had just been passed. But this way of dealing with the message
was 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 the Dutch for the purpose of quelling the insubordination of
the English regiments. "None but the Dutch troops," he said, "are
to be trusted." He was now not ashamed to draw a parallel between
those very Dutch troops and the Popish Kernes whom James had
brought over from Munster and Connaught to enslave our island.
The general feeling was such that the previous question was
carried without a division. A Committee was immediately appointed
to draw up an address explaining the reasons which made it
impossible for the House to comply with His Majesty's wish. At
the next sitting the Committee reported; and on the report there
was an animated debate. The friends of the government thought the
proposed address offensive. The most respectable members of the
majority felt that it would be ungraceful to aggravate by harsh
language the pain which must be caused by their conscientious
opposition to the King's wishes. Some strong expressions were
therefore softened down; some courtly phrases were inserted; but
the House refused to omit one sentence which almost reproachfully
reminded the King that in his memorable Declaration of 1688 he
had promised to send back all the foreign forces as soon as he
had effected the deliverance of this country. The division was,
however, very close. There were one hundred and fifty-seven votes
for omitting this passage, and one hundred and sixty-three for
retaining it.18

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

The Dutch Guards immediately began to march to the coast. After
all the clamour which had been raised against them, the populace
witnessed their departure rather with sorrow than with triumph.
They had been long domiciled here; they had been honest and
inoffensive; and many of them were accompanied by English wives
and by young children who talked no language but English. As they
traversed the capital, not a single shout of exultation was
raised; and they were almost everywhere greeted with kindness.
One rude spectator, indeed, was heard to remark that Hans made a
much better figure, now that he had been living ten years on the
fat of the land, than when he first came. "A pretty figure you
would have made," said a Dutch soldier, "if we had not come." And
the retort was generally applauded. It would not, however, be
reasonable to infer from the signs of public sympathy and good
will with which the foreigners were dismissed that the nation
wished them to remain. It was probably because they were going
that they were regarded with favour by many who would never have
seen them relieve guard at St. James's without black looks and
muttered curses.

Side by side with the discussion about the land force had been
proceeding a discussion, scarcely less animated, about the naval
administration. The chief minister of marine was a man whom it
had once been useless and even perilous to attack in the Commons.
It was to no purpose that, in 1693, grave charges, resting on
grave evidence, had been brought against the Russell who had
conquered at La Hogue. The name of Russell acted as a spell on
all who loved English freedom. The name of La Hogue acted as a
spell on all who were proud of the glory of the English arms. The
accusations, unexamined and unrefuted, were contemptuously flung
aside; and the thanks of the House were voted to the accused
commander without one dissentient voice. But times had changed.
The Admiral still had zealous partisans; but the fame of his
exploits had lost their gloss; people in general were quick to
discern his faults; and his faults were but too discernible. That
he had carried on a traitorous correspondence with Saint Germains
had not been proved, and had been pronounced by the
representatives of the people to be a foul calumny. Yet the
imputation had left a stain on his name. His arrogant, insolent
and quarrelsome temper made him an object of hatred. His vast and
growing wealth made him an object of envy. What his official
merits and demerits really were it is not easy to discover through
the mist made up of factious abuse and factious panegyric. One
set of writers described him as the most ravenous of all the
plunderers of the poor overtaxed nation. Another set asserted
that under him the ships were better built and rigged, the crews
were better disciplined and better tempered, the biscuit was
better, the beer was better, the slops were better, than under
any of his predecessors; and yet that the charge to the public
was less than it had been when the vessels were unseaworthy, when
the sailors were riotous, when the food was alive with vermin,
when the drink tasted like tanpickle, and when the clothes and
hammocks were rotten. It may, however, be observed that these two
representations are not inconsistent with each other; and there
is strong reason to believe that both are, to a great extent,
true. Orford was covetous and unprincipled; but he had great
professional skill and knowledge, great industry, and a strong
will. He was therefore an useful servant of the state when the
interests of the state were not opposed to his own; and this was
more than could be said of some who had preceded him. He was, for
example, an incomparably better administrator than Torrington.
For Torrington's weakness and negligence caused ten times as much
mischief as his rapacity. But, when Orford had nothing to gain by
doing what was wrong, he did what was right, and did it ably and
diligently. Whatever Torrington did not embezzle he wasted.
Orford may have embezzled as much as Torrington; but he wasted
nothing.

Early in the session, the House of Commons resolved itself into a
Committee on the state of the Navy. This Committee sate at
intervals during more than three months. Orford's administration
underwent a close scrutiny, and very narrowly escaped a severe
censure. A resolution condemning the manner in which his accounts
had been kept was lost by only one vote. There were a hundred and
forty against him, and a hundred and 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 the King should be
requested to place the direction of maritime affairs in other
hands. There were a hundred and sixty Ayes to a hundred and
sixty-four Noes. With this victory, a victory hardly to be
distinguished from a defeat, his friends were forced to be
content. An address setting forth some of the abuses in the naval
department, and beseeching King William to correct them, was
voted without a division. In one of those abuses Orford was
deeply interested. He was First Lord of the Admiralty; and he had
held, ever since the Revolution, the lucrative place of Treasurer
of the Navy. It was evidently improper that two offices, one of
which was meant to be a check on the other, should be united in
the same person; and this the Commons represented to the King.

Questions relating to the military and naval Establishments
occupied the attention of the Commons so much during the session
that, until the prorogation was at hand, little was said about
the resumption of the Crown grants. But, just before the Land Tax
Bill was sent up to the Lords, a clause was added to it by which
seven Commissioners were empowered to take account of the
property forfeited in Ireland during the late troubles. The
selection of those Commissioners the House reserved to itself.
Every member was directed to bring a list containing the names of
seven persons who were not members; and the seven names which
appeared in the greatest number of lists were inserted in the
bill. The result of the ballot was unfavourable to the
government. Four of the seven on whom the choice fell were
connected with the opposition; and one of them, Trenchard, was
the most conspicuous of the pamphleteers who had been during many
months employed in raising a cry against the army.

The Land Tax Bill, with this clause tacked to it, was carried to
the Upper House. The Peers complained, and not without reason, of
this mode of proceeding. It may, they said, be very proper that
Commissioners should be appointed by Act of Parliament to take
account of the forfeited property in Ireland. But they should be
appointed by a separate Act. Then we should be able to make
amendments, to ask for conferences, to give and receive
explanations. The Land Tax Bill we cannot amend. We may indeed
reject it; but we cannot reject it without shaking public credit,
without leaving the kingdom defenceless, without raising a mutiny
in the navy. The Lords yielded, but not without a protest which
was signed by some strong Whigs and some strong Tories. The King
was even more displeased than the Peers. "This Commission," he
said, in one of his private letters, "will give plenty of trouble
next winter." It did indeed give more trouble than he at all
anticipated, and brought the nation nearer than it has ever since
been to the verge of another revolution.

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

The Houses had broken up; but there was still much to be done
before the King could set out for Loo. He did not yet perceive
that the true way to escape from his difficulties was to form an
entirely new ministry possessing the confidence of the majority
which had, in the late session, been found so unmanageable. But
some partial changes he could not help making. The recent votes
of the Commons forced him seriously to consider the state of the
Board of Admiralty. It was impossible that Orford could continue
to preside at that Board and be at the same time Treasurer of the
Navy. He was offered his option. His own wish was to keep the
Treasurership, which was both the more lucrative and the more
secure of his two places. But it was so strongly represented to
him that he would disgrace himself by giving up great power for
the sake of gains which, rich and childless as he was, ought to
have been beneath his consideration, that he determined to remain
at the Admiralty. He seems to have thought that the sacrifice
which he had made entitled him to govern despotically the
department at which he had been persuaded to remain. But be soon
found that the King was determined to keep in his own hands the
power of appointing and removing the junior Lords. One of these
Lords, especially, the First Commissioner hated, and was bent on
ejecting, Sir George Rooke, who was Member of Parliament for
Portsmouth. Rooke was a brave and skilful officer, and had,
therefore, though a Tory in politics, been suffered to keep his
place during the ascendency of the Whig junto. Orford now
complained to the King that Rooke had been in correspondence with
the factious opposition which had given so much trouble, and had
lent the weight of his professional and official authority to the
accusations which had been brought against the naval
administration. The King spoke to Rooke, who declared that Orford
had been misinformed. "I have a great respect for my Lord; and on
proper occasions I have not failed to express it in public. There
have certainly been abuses at the Admiralty which I am unable to
defend. When those abuses have been the subject of debate in the
House of Commons, I have sate silent. But, whenever any personal
attack has been made on my Lord, I have done him the best service
that I could." William was satisfied, and thought that Orford
should have been satisfied too. But that haughty and perverse
nature could be content with nothing but absolute dominion. He
tendered his resignation, and could not be induced to retract it.
He said that he could be of no use. It would be easy to supply
his place; and his successors should have his best wishes. He
then retired to the country, where, as was reported and may
easily be believed, he vented his ill humour in furious
invectives against the King. The Treasurership of the Navy was
given to the Speaker Littleton. The Earl of Bridgewater, a
nobleman of very fair character and of some experience in
business, became First Lord of the Admiralty.

Other changes were made at the same time. There had during some
time been really no Lord President of the Council. Leeds, indeed,
was still called Lord President, and, as such, took precedence of
dukes of older creation; but he had not performed any of the
duties of his office since the prosecution instituted against him
by the Commons in 1695 had been suddenly stopped by an event
which made the evidence of his guilt at once legally defective
and morally complete. It seems strange that a statesman of
eminent ability, who had been twice Prime Minister, should have
wished to hold, by so ignominious a tenure, a place which can
have had no attraction for him but the salary. To that salary,
however, Leeds had clung, year after year; and he now
relinquished it with a very bad grace. He was succeeded by
Pembroke; and the Privy Seal which Pembroke laid down was put
into the hands of a peer of recent creation, Viscount Lonsdale.
Lonsdale had been distinguished in the House of Commons as Sir
John Lowther, and had held high office, but had quitted public
life in weariness and disgust, and had passed several years in
retirement at his hereditary seat in Cumberland. He had planted
forests round his house, and had employed Verrio to decorate the
interior with gorgeous frescoes which represented the gods at
their banquet of ambrosia. Very reluctantly, and only in
compliance with the earnest and almost angry importunity of the
King, Lonsdale consented to leave his magnificent retreat, and
again to encounter the vexations of public life.

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

It is to be remarked that the new Privy Seal and the new
Secretary of State were moderate Tories. The King had probably
hoped that, by calling them to his councils, he should conciliate
the opposition. But the device proved unsuccessful; and soon it
appeared that the old practice of filling the chief offices of
state with men taken from various parties, and hostile to one
another, or, at least, unconnected with one another, was
altogether unsuited to the new state of affairs; and that, since
the Commons had become possessed of supreme power, the only way
to prevent them from abusing that power with boundless folly and
violence was to intrust the government to a ministry which
enjoyed their confidence.

While William was making these changes in the great offices of
state, a change in which he took a still deeper interest was
taking place in his own household. He had laboured in vain during
many months to keep the peace between Portland and Albemarle.
Albemarle, indeed, was all courtesy, good humour, and submission;
but Portland would not be conciliated. Even to foreign ministers
he railed at his rival and complained of his master. The whole
Court was divided between the competitors, but divided very
unequally. The majority took the side of Albemarle, whose manners
were popular and whose power was evidently growing. Portland's
few adherents were persons who, like him, had already made their
fortunes, and who did not therefore think it worth their while to
transfer their homage to a new patron. One of these persons tried
to enlist Prior in Portland's faction, but with very little
success. "Excuse me," said the poet, "if I follow your example
and my Lord's. My Lord is a model to us all; and you have
imitated him to good purpose. He retires with half a million. You
have large grants, a lucrative employment in Holland, a fine
house. I have nothing of the kind. A court is like those
fashionable churches into which we have looked at Paris. Those
who have received the benediction are instantly away to the Opera
House or the wood of Boulogne. Those who have not received the
benediction are pressing and elbowing each other to get near the
altar. You and my Lord have got your blessing, and are quite
right to take yourselves off with it. I have not been blest, and
must fight my way up as well as I can." Prior's wit was his own.
But his worldly wisdom was common to him with multitudes; and the
crowd of those who wanted to be lords of the bedchamber, rangers
of parks, and lieutenants of counties, neglected Portland and
tried to ingratiate themselves with Albemarle.

By one person, however, Portland was still assiduously courted;
and that person was the King. Nothing was omitted which could
soothe an irritated mind. Sometimes William argued, expostulated
and implored during two hours 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 that his hair had
more than once stood on end to see the rude discourtesy with
which the servant repelled the gracious advances of the master.
Over and over William invited his old friend to take the long
accustomed seat in his royal coach, that seat which Prince George
himself had never been permitted to invade; and the invitation
was over and over declined in a way which would have been thought
uncivil even between equals. A sovereign could not, without a
culpable sacrifice of his personal dignity, persist longer in
such a contest. Portland was permitted to withdraw from the
palace. To Heinsius, as to a common friend, William announced
this separation in a letter which shows how deeply his feelings
had been wounded. "I cannot tell you what I have suffered. I have
done on my side every thing that I could do to satisfy him; but
it was decreed that a blind jealousy should make him regardless
of every thing that ought to have been dear to him." To Portland
himself the King wrote in language still more touching. "I hope
that you will oblige me in one thing. Keep your key of office. I
shall not consider you as bound to 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 caused me. For, after
all that has passed, I cannot help loving you tenderly."

Thus Portland retired to enjoy at his ease immense estates
scattered over half the shires of England, and a hoard of ready
money, such, it was said, as no other private man in Europe
possessed. His fortune still continued to grow. For, though,
after the fashion of his countrymen, he laid out large sums on
the interior decoration of his houses, on his gardens, and on his
aviaries, his other expenses were regulated with strict
frugality. His repose was, however, during some years not
uninterrupted. He had been trusted with such grave secrets, and
employed in such high missions, that his assistance was still
frequently necessary to the government; and that assistance was
given, not, as formerly, with the ardour of a devoted friend, but
with the exactness of a conscientious servant. He still continued
to receive letters from William; letters no longer indeed
overflowing with kindness, but always indicative of perfect
confidence and esteem.

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

As soon as that event was known at Paris, Lewis directed Tallard
to sound William as to a new treaty. The first thought which
occurred to William was that it might be possible to put the
Elector of Bavaria in his son's place. But this suggestion was
coldly received at Versailles, and not without reason. If,
indeed, the young Francis Joseph had lived to succeed Charles,
and had then died a minor without issue, the case would have been
very different. Then the Elector would have been actually
administering the government of the Spanish monarchy, and,
supported by France, England and the United Provinces, might
without much difficulty have continued to rule as King the empire
which he had begun to rule as Regent. He would have had also, not
indeed a right, but something which to the vulgar would have
looked like a right, to be his son's heir. Now he was altogether
unconnected with Spain. No more reason could be given for
selecting him to be the Catholic King than for selecting the
Margrave of Baden or the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Something was
said about Victor Amadeus of Savoy, and something about the King
of Portugal; but to both there were insurmountable objections. It
seemed, therefore, that the only choice was between a French
Prince and an Austrian Prince; and William learned, with
agreeable surprise, that Lewis might possibly be induced to
suffer the younger Archduke to be King of Spain and the Indies.
It was intimated at the same time that the House of Bourbon would
expect, in return for so great a concession to the rival House of
Habsburg, greater advantages than had been thought sufficient
when the Dauphin consented to waive his claims in favour of a
candidate whose elevation could cause no jealousies. What Lewis
demanded, in addition to the portion formerly assigned to France,
was the Milanese. With the Milanese he proposed to buy Lorraine
from its Duke. To the Duke of Lorraine this arrangement would
have been beneficial, and to the people of Lorraine more
beneficial still. They were, and had long been, in a singularly
unhappy situation. Lewis domineered over them as if they had been
his subjects, and troubled himself 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 and Burgundians,
it was desirable that he should have as great an interest in
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, the terms of the treaty known as the Second Treaty of
Partition were very nearly adjusted. The great object now was to
obtain the consent of the Emperor. That consent, it should seem,
ought to have been readily and even eagerly given. Had it been
given, it might perhaps have saved Christendom from a war of
eleven years. But the policy of Austria was, at that time,
strangely dilatory and irresolute. It was in vain that William
and Heinsius represented the importance of every hour. "The
Emperor's ministers go on dawdling," so the King wrote to
Heinsius, "not because there is any difficulty about the matter,
not because they mean to reject the terms, but solely because
they are people who can make up their minds to nothing." While
the negotiation at Vienna was thus drawn out into endless length,
evil tidings came from Madrid.

Spain and her King had long been sunk so low that it seemed
impossible for him to sink lower. Yet the political maladies of
the monarchy and the physical maladies of the monarch went on
growing, and exhibited every day some new and frightful symptom.
Since the death of the Bavarian Prince, the Court had been
divided between the Austrian faction, of which the Queen and the
leading ministers Oropesa and Melgar were the chiefs, and the
French faction, of which the most important member was Cardinal
Portocarrero, Archbishop of Toledo. At length an event which, as
far as can now be judged, was not the effect of a deeply
meditated plan, and was altogether unconnected with the disputes
about the succession, gave the advantage to the adherents of
France. The government, having committed the great error of
undertaking to supply Madrid with food, committed the still
greater error of neglecting to perform what it had undertaken.
The price of bread doubled. Complaints were made to the
magistrates, and were heard with the indolent apathy
characteristic of the Spanish administration from the highest to
the lowest grade. Then the populace rose, attacked the house of
Oropesa, poured by thousands into the great court of the palace,
and insisted on seeing the King. The Queen appeared in a balcony,
and told the rioters that 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 too long," said one
threatening voice; "and it is high time that he should wake." The
Queen retired weeping; and the wretched being on whose dominions
the sun never set tottered to the window, bowed as he had never
bowed before, muttered some gracious promises, waved a
handkerchief in the air, bowed again, and withdrew. Oropesa,
afraid of being torn to pieces, retired to his country seat.
Melgar made some show of resistance, garrisoned his house, and
menaced the rabble with a shower of grenades, but was soon forced
to go after Oropesa; and the supreme 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
Roman Catholic countries. He was, like Sixtus the Fourth and
Alexander the Sixth, a politician made out of an impious priest.
Such politicians are generally worse than the worst of the laity,
more merciless than any ruffian that can be found in camps, more
dishonest than any pettifogger who haunts the tribunals. The
sanctity of their profession has an unsanctifying influence on
them. The lessons of the nursery, the habits of boyhood and of
early youth, leave in the minds of the great majority of avowed
infidels some traces of religion, which, in seasons of mourning
and of sickness, become plainly discernible. But it is scarcely
possible that any such trace should remain in the mind of the
hypocrite who, during many years, is constantly going through
what he considers as the mummery of preaching, saying mass,
baptizing, shriving. When an ecclesiastic of this sort mixes in
the contests of men of the world, he is indeed much to be dreaded
as an enemy, but still more to be dreaded as an ally. From the
pulpit where he daily employs his eloquence to embellish what he
regards as fables, from the altar whence he daily looks down with
secret scorn on the prostrate dupes who believe that he can turn
a drop of wine into blood, from the confessional where he daily
studies with cold and scientific attention the morbid anatomy of
guilty consciences, he brings to courts some talents which may
move the envy of the more cunning and unscrupulous of lay
courtiers; a rare skill in reading characters and in managing
tempers, a rare art of dissimulation, a rare dexterity in
insinuating what it is not safe to affirm or to propose in
explicit terms. There are two feelings which often prevent an
unprincipled layman from becoming utterly depraved and
despicable, domestic feeling, and chivalrous feeling. His heart
may be softened by the endearments of a family. His pride may
revolt from the thought of doing what does not become a
gentleman. But neither with the domestic feeling nor with the
chivalrous feeling has the wicked priest any sympathy. His gown
excludes him from the closest and most tender of human relations,
and at the same time dispenses him from the observation of the
fashionable code of honour.

Such a priest was Portocarrero; and he seems to have been a
consummate master of his craft. To the name of statesman he had
no pretensions. The lofty part of his predecessor Ximenes was out
of the range, not more of his intellectual, than his moral
capacity. To reanimate a paralysed and torpid monarchy, to
introduce order and economy into a bankrupt treasury, to restore
the discipline of an army which had become a mob, to refit a navy
which was perishing from mere rottenness, these were achievements
beyond the power, beyond even the ambition, of that ignoble
nature. But there was one task for which the new minister was
admirably qualified, that of establishing, by means of
superstitious terror, an absolute dominion over a feeble mind;
and the feeblest of all minds was that of his unhappy sovereign.
Even before the riot which had made the cardinal supreme in the
state, he had succeeded in introducing into the palace a new
confessor selected by himself. In a very short time the King's
malady took a new form. That he was too weak to lift his food to
his misshapen mouth, that, at thirty-seven, he had the bald head
and wrinkled face of a man of seventy, that his complexion was
turning from yellow to green, that he frequently fell down in
fits and remained long insensible, these were no longer the worst
symptoms of his malady. He had always been afraid of ghosts and
demons; and it had long been necessary that three friars should
watch every night by his restless bed as a guard against
hobgoblins. But now he was firmly convinced that he was
bewitched, that he was possessed, that there was a devil within
him, that there were devils all around him. He was exorcised
according to the forms of his Church; but this ceremony, instead
of quieting him, scared him out of almost all the little reason
that nature had given him. In his misery and despair he was
induced to resort to irregular modes of relief. His confessor
brought to court impostors who pretended that they could
interrogate the powers of darkness. The Devil was called up,
sworn and examined. This strange deponent made oath, as in the
presence of God, that His Catholic Majesty was under a spell,
which had been laid on him many years before, for the purpose of
preventing the continuation of the royal line. A drug had been
compounded out of the brains and kidneys of 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 remedy to which
the patient could now resort would be to swallow a bowl of
consecrated oil every morning before breakfast. Unhappily, the
authors of this story fell into contradictions which they could
excuse only by throwing the blame on Satan, who, they said, was
an unwilling witness, and a liar from the beginning. In the midst
of their conjuring, the Inquisition came down upon them. It must
be admitted that, if the Holy Office had reserved all its terrors
for such cases, it would not now have been remembered as the most
hateful judicature that was ever known among civilised men. The
subaltern impostors were thrown into dungeons. But the chief
criminal continued to be master of the King and of the kingdom.
Meanwhile, in the distempered mind of Charles one mania succeeded
another. A longing to pry into those mysteries of the grave from
which human beings avert their thoughts had long been hereditary
in his house. Juana, from whom the mental constitution of her
posterity seems to have derived a morbid taint, had sate, year
after year, by the bed on which lay the ghastly remains of her
husband, apparelled in the rich embroidery and jewels which he
had been wont to wear while living. Her son Charles found an
eccentric pleasure in celebrating his own obsequies, in putting
on his shroud, placing himself in the coffin, covering himself
with the pall; and lying as one dead till the requiem had been
sung, and the mourners had departed leaving him alone in the
tomb. Philip the Second found a similar pleasure in gazing on the
huge chest of bronze in which his remains were to be laid, and
especially on the skull which, encircled with the crown of Spain,
grinned at him from the cover. Philip the Fourth, too, hankered
after burials and burial places, gratified his curiosity by
gazing on the remains of his great grandfather, the Emperor, and
sometimes stretched himself out at full length like a corpse in
the niche which he had selected for himself in the royal
cemetery. To that cemetery his son was now attracted by a strange
fascination. Europe could show no more magnificent place of
sepulture. A staircase encrusted with jasper led down from the
stately church of the Escurial into an octagon situated just
beneath the high altar. The vault, impervious to the sun, was
rich with gold and precious marbles, 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 King descended with a
long train of courtiers, and ordered the coffins to be unclosed.
His mother had been embalmed with such consummate skill that she
appeared as she had appeared on her death bed. The body of his
grandfather too seemed entire, but crumbled into dust at the
first touch. From Charles neither the remains of his mother nor
those of his grandfather could draw any sign of sensibility. But,
when the gentle and graceful Louisa of Orleans, the miserable
man's first wife, she who had lighted up his dark existence with
one short and pale gleam of happiness, presented herself, after
the lapse of ten years, to his eyes, his sullen apathy gave way.
"She is in heaven," he cried; "and I shall soon be there with
her;" and, with all the speed of which his limbs were capable, he
tottered back to the upper air.

Such was the state of the Court of Spain when, in the autumn of
1699, it became known that, since the death of the Electoral
Prince of Bavaria, the governments of France, of England and of
the United Provinces, were busily engaged in framing a second
Treaty of Partition. That Castilians would be indignant at
learning that any foreign potentate meditated the dismemberment
of that empire of which Castile was the head might have been
foreseen. But it was less easy to foresee that William would be
the chief and indeed almost the only object of their indignation.
If the meditated partition really was unjustifiable, there could
be no doubt that Lewis was far more to blame than William. For it
was by Lewis, and not by William, that the partition had been
originally suggested; and it was Lewis, and not William, who was
to gain an accession of territory by the partition. Nobody could
doubt that William would most gladly have acceded to any
arrangement by which the Spanish monarchy, could be preserved
entire without danger to the liberties of Europe, and that he had
agreed to the division of that monarchy solely for the purpose of
contenting Lewis. Nevertheless the Spanish ministers carefully
avoided whatever could give offence to Lewis, and indemnified
themselves by offering a gross indignity to William. The truth is
that their pride had, as extravagant pride often has, a close
affinity with meanness. They knew that it was unsafe to insult
Lewis; and they believed that they might with perfect safety
insult William. Lewis was absolute master of his large kingdom.
He had at no great distance armies and fleets which 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 of Barcelona.
His immense power was contemplated by the Castilians with hope as
well as with fear. He and he alone, they imagined, could avert
that dismemberment of which they could not bear to think. Perhaps
he might yet be induced to violate the engagements into which he
had entered with England and Holland, if one of his grandsons
were named successor to the Spanish throne. He, therefore, must
be respected and courted. 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 which would require an outlay of
money without the sanction of the House of Commons; and it seemed
to be the chief study of the House of Commons to cross him and to
humble him. The history of the late session was known to the
Spaniards principally by inaccurate reports brought by Irish
friars. And, had those reports been accurate, the real nature of
a Parliamentary struggle between the Court party and the Country
party could have been but very imperfectly understood by the
magnates of a realm in which there had not, during several
generations, been any constitutional opposition to the royal
pleasure. At one time it was generally believed at Madrid, not by
the mere rabble, but by Grandees who had the envied privilege of
going in coaches and four through the  streets of the capital,
that William had been deposed, that he had retired to Holland,
that the Parliament had resolved that there should be no more
kings, that a commonwealth had been proclaimed, and that a Doge
was about to be appointed and, though this rumour turned out to
be false, it was but too true that the English government was,
just at that conjuncture, in no condition to resent slights.
Accordingly, the Marquess of Canales, who represented the
Catholic King at Westminster, received instructions to
remonstrate in strong language, and was not afraid to go beyond
those instructions. He delivered to the Secretary of State a note
abusive and impertinent beyond all example and all endurance. His
master, he wrote, had learnt with amazement that King William,
Holland and other powers,--for the ambassador, prudent even in
his blustering, did not choose to name the King of France,--were
engaged in framing a treaty, not only for settling the succession
to the Spanish crown, but for the detestable purpose of dividing
the Spanish monarchy. The whole scheme was vehemently condemned
as contrary to the law of nature and to the law of God. The
ambassador appealed from the King of England to the Parliament,
to the nobility, and to the whole nation, and concluded by giving
notice that he should lay the whole case before the two Houses
when next they met.

The style of this paper shows how strong an impression had been
made on foreign nations by the unfortunate events of the late
session. The King, it was plain, was no longer considered as the
head of the government. He was charged with having committed a
wrong; but he was not asked to make reparation. He was treated as
a subordinate officer who had been guilty of an offence against
public law, and was threatened with the displeasure of the
Commons, who, as the real rulers of the state, were bound to keep
their servants in order. The Lords justices read this outrageous
note with indignation, and sent it with all speed to Loo. Thence
they received, with equal speed, directions to send Canales out
of the country. Our ambassador was at the same time recalled from
Madrid; and all diplomatic intercourse between England and Spain
was suspended.

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

It is necessary to go back some years for the purpose of tracing
the origin and progress of this quarrel. Few portions of our
history are more interesting or instructive; but few have been
more obscured and distorted by passion and prejudice. The story
is an exciting one; and it has generally been told by writers
whose judgment had been perverted by strong national partiality.
Their invectives and lamentations have still to be temperately
examined; and it may well be doubted whether, even now, after the
lapse of more than a century and a half, feelings hardly
compatible with temperate examination will not be stirred up in
many minds by the name of Darien. In truth that name is
associated with calamities so cruel that the recollection of them
may not unnaturally disturb the equipoise even of a fair and
sedate mind.

The man who brought these calamities on his country was not a
mere visionary or a mere swindler. He was that William Paterson
whose name is honourably associated with the auspicious
commencement of a new era in English commerce and in English
finance. His plan of a national bank, having been examined and
approved by the most eminent statesmen who sate in the Parliament
house at Westminster and by the most eminent merchants who walked
the Exchange of London, had been carried into execution with
signal success. He thought, and perhaps thought with reason, that
his services had been ill requited. He was, indeed, one of the
original Directors of the great corporation which owed its
existence to him; but he was not reelected. It may easily be
believed that his colleagues, citizens of ample fortune and of
long experience in the practical part of trade, aldermen, wardens
of companies, heads of firms well known in every Burse
throughout the civilised world, were not well pleased to see
among them in Grocers' Hall a foreign adventurer whose whole
capital consisted in an inventive brain and a persuasive tongue.
Some of them were probably weak enough to dislike him for being a
Scot; some were probably mean enough to be jealous of his parts
and knowledge; and even persons who were not unfavourably
disposed to him might have discovered, before they had known him
long, that, with all his cleverness, he was deficient in common
sense; that his mind was full of schemes which, at the first
glance, had a specious aspect, but which, on closer examination,
appeared to be impracticable or pernicious; and that the benefit
which the public had derived from one happy project formed by him
would be very dearly purchased if it were taken for granted that
all his other projects must be equally happy. Disgusted by what
he considered as the ingratitude of the English, he repaired to
the Continent, in the hope that he might be able to interest the
traders of the Hanse Towns and the princes of the German Empire
in his plans. From the Continent he returned unsuccessful to
London; and then at length the thought that he might be more
justly appreciated by his countrymen than by strangers seems to
have risen in his mind. Just at this time he fell in with
Fletcher of Saltoun, who happened to be in England. These
eccentric men soon became intimate. Each of them had his
monomania; and the two monomaniac suited each other perfectly.
Fletcher's whole soul was possessed by a sore, jealous,
punctilious patriotism. His heart was ulcerated by the thought of
the poverty, the feebleness, the political insignificance of
Scotland, and of the indignities which she had suffered at the
hand of her powerful and opulent neighbour. When he talked of her
wrongs his dark meagre face took its sternest expression; his
habitual frown grew blacker, and his eyes flashed more than their
wonted fire. Paterson, on the other hand, firmly believed himself
to have discovered the means of making any state which would
follow his counsel great and prosperous in a time which, when
compared with the life of an individual, could hardly be called
long, and which, in the life of a nation, was but as a moment.
There is not the least reason to believe that he was dishonest.
Indeed he would have found more difficulty in deceiving others
had he not begun by deceiving himself. His faith to his own
schemes was strong even to martyrdom; and the eloquence with
which he illustrated and defended them had all the charm of
sincerity and of enthusiasm. Very seldom has any blunder
committed by fools, or any villany devised by impostors, brought
on any society miseries so great as the dreams of these two
friends, both of them men of integrity and both of them men of
parts, were destined to bring on Scotland.

In 1695 the pair went down together to their native country. The
Parliament of that country was then about to meet under the
presidency of Tweeddale, an old acquaintance and country
neighbour of Fletcher. On Tweeddale the first attack was made. He
was a shrewd, cautious, old politician. Yet it should seem that
he was not able to hold out against the skill and energy of the
assailants. Perhaps, however, he was not altogether a dupe. The
public mind was at that moment violently agitated. Men of all
parties were clamouring for an inquiry into the slaughter of
Glencoe. There was reason to fear that the session which was
about to commence would be stormy. In such circumstances the Lord
High Commissioner might think that it would be prudent to appease
the anger of the Estates by offering an almost irresistible bait
to their cupidity. If such was the policy of Tweeddale, it was,
for the moment, eminently successful. The Parliament, which met
burning with indignation, was soothed into good humour. The blood
of the murdered Macdonalds continued to cry for vengeance in
vain. The schemes of Paterson, brought forward under the
patronage of the ministers of the Crown, were sanctioned by the
unanimous voice of the Legislature.

The great projector was the idol of the whole nation. Men spoke
to him with more profound respect than to the Lord High
Commissioner. His antechamber was crowded with solicitors
desirous to catch some drops of that golden shower of which he
was supposed to be the dispenser. To be seen walking with him in
the High Street, to be honoured by him with a private interview
of a quarter of an hour, were enviable distinctions. He, after
the fashion of all the false prophets who have deluded themselves
and others, drew new faith in his own lie from the credulity of
his disciples. His countenance, his voice, his gestures,
indicated boundless self-importance. When he appeared in public
he looked,--such is the language of one who probably had often
seen him,--like Atlas conscious that a world was on his
shoulders. But the airs which he gave himself only heightened the
respect and admiration which he inspired. His demeanour was
regarded as a model. Scotch men who wished to be thought 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 preserved the memory, none was ever more
skilfully puffed into existence; none ever soared higher, or
glittered more brilliantly; and none ever burst with a more
lamentable explosion. There was, however, a certain mixture of
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 had been 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 a dizzy height. On that sterile
crag were woven the robes of Persian satraps and Sicilian
tyrants; there were fashioned silver bowls and chargers for the
banquets of kings; and there Pomeranian amber was set in Lydian
gold to adorn the necks of queens. In the warehouses were
collected the fine linen of Egypt and the odorous gums of Arabia;
the ivory of India, and the tin of Britain. In the port lay
fleets of great ships which had weathered the storms of the
Euxine and the Atlantic. Powerful and wealthy colonies in distant
parts of the world looked up with filial reverence to the little
island; and despots, who trampled on the laws and outraged the
feelings of all the nations between the Hydaspes and the Aegean,
condescended to court the population of that busy hive. At a
later period, on a dreary bank formed by the soil which the
Alpine streams swept down to the Adriatic, rose the palaces of
Venice. Within a space which would not have been thought large
enough for one of the parks of a rude northern baron were
collected riches far exceeding those of a northern kingdom. In
almost every one of the prorate dwellings which fringed the Great
Canal were to be seen plate, mirrors, jewellery, tapestry,
paintings, carving, such as might move the envy of the master of
Holyrood. In the arsenal were munitions of war sufficient to
maintain a contest against the whole power of the Ottoman Empire.
And, before the grandeur of Venice had declined, another
commonwealth, still less favoured, if possible, by nature, had
rapidly risen to a power and opulence which the whole civilised
world contemplated with envy and admiration. On a desolate marsh
overhung by fogs and exhaling diseases, a marsh where there was
neither wood nor stone, neither firm earth nor drinkable water, a
marsh from which the ocean on one side and  the Rhine on the
other were with difficulty kept out by art, was to be found the
most prosperous community in Europe. The wealth which was
collected within five miles of the Stadthouse of Amsterdam would
purchase the fee simple of Scotland. And why should this be? Was
there any reason to believe that nature had bestowed on the
Phoenician, on the Venetian, or on the Hollander, a larger
measure of activity, of ingenuity, of forethought, of self
command, than on the citizen of Edinburgh or Glasgow? The truth
was that, in all those qualities which conduce to success in
life, and especially in commercial life, the Scot had never been
surpassed; perhaps he had never been equalled. All that was
necessary was that his energy should take a proper 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 communication between our quarter of the world and India across
the great western ocean. But he was stopped by an unexpected
obstacle. The American continent, stretching far north and far
south into cold and inhospitable regions, presented what seemed
an insurmountable barrier to his progress; and, in the same year
in which he first set foot on that continent, Gama reached
Malabar by doubling the Cape of Good Hope. The consequence was
that during two hundred years the trade of Europe with the
remoter parts of Asia had been carried on by rounding the immense
peninsula of Africa. Paterson now revived the project of
Columbus, and persuaded himself and others that it was possible
to carry that project into effect in such a manner as to make his
country the greatest emporium that had ever existed on our globe.

For this purpose it was necessary to occupy in America some spot
which might be a resting place between Scotland and India. It was
true that almost every habitable part of America had already been
seized by some European power. Paterson, however, imagined that
one province, the most important of all, had been overlooked by
the short-sighted cupidity of vulgar politicians and vulgar
traders. The isthmus which joined the two great continents of the
New World remained, according to him, unappropriated. Great
Spanish viceroyalties, he said, lay on the east and on the west;
but the mountains and forests of Darien were abandoned to rude
tribes which followed their own usages and obeyed their own
princes. He had been in that part of the world, in what character
was not quite clear. Some said that he had gone thither to
convert the Indians, and some that he had gone thither to rob the
Spaniards. But, missionary or pirate, he had visited Darien, and
had brought away none but delightful recollections. The havens,
he averred, were capacious and secure; the sea swarmed with
turtle; the country was so mountainous that, within nine degrees
of the equator, the climate was temperate; and yet the
inequalities of the ground offered no impediment to the
conveyance of goods. Nothing would be easier than to construct
roads along which a string of mules or a wheeled carriage might
in the course of a single day pass from sea to sea. The soil was,
to the depth of several feet, a rich black mould, on which a
profusion of valuable herbs and fruits grew spontaneously, and on
which all the choicest productions of tropical regions might
easily be raised by human industry and art; and yet the exuberant
fertility of the earth had not tainted the purity of the air.
Considered merely as a place of residence, the isthmus was a
paradise. A colony placed there could not fail to prosper, even
if it had no wealth except what was derived from agriculture. But
agriculture was a secondary object in the colonization of Darien.
Let but that precious neck of land be occupied by an intelligent,
an enterprising, a thrifty race; and, in a few years, the whole
trade between India and Europe must be drawn to that point. The
tedious and perilous passage round Africa would soon be
abandoned. The merchant would no longer expose his cargoes to the
mountainous billows and capricious gales of the Antarctic seas.
The greater part of the voyage from Europe to Darien, and the
whole voyage from Darien to the richest kingdoms of Asia, would
be a rapid yet easy gliding before the trade winds over blue and
sparkling waters. The voyage back across the Pacific would, in
the latitude of Japan, be almost equally speedy and pleasant.
Time, labour, money, would be saved. The returns would come in
more quickly. Fewer hands would be required to navigate the
ships. The loss of a vessel would be a rare event. The trade
would increase fast. In a short time it would double; and it
would all pass through Darien. Whoever possessed that door of the
sea, that key of the universe,--such were the bold figures which
Paterson loved to employ,--would give law to both hemispheres;
and would, by peaceful arts, without shedding one drop of blood,
establish an empire as splendid as that of Cyrus or Alexander. Of
the kingdoms of Europe, Scotland was, as yet, the poorest and the
least considered. If she would but occupy Darien, if she would
but become one great free port, one great warehouse for the
wealth which the soil of Darien might produce, and for the still
greater wealth which would be poured 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 once take her place in the
first rank among nations. No rival would be able to contend with
her either in the West Indian or in the East Indian trade. The
beggarly country, as it had been insolently called by the
inhabitants of warmer and more fruitful regions, would be the
great mart for the choicest luxuries, sugar, rum, coffee,
chocolate, tobacco, the tea 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. From Scotland would
come all the finest jewels and brocade worn by duchesses at the
balls of St. James's and Versailles. From Scotland would come all
the saltpetre which would furnish the means of war to the fleets
and armies of contending potentates. And on all the vast riches
which would be constantly passing through the little kingdom a
toll would be paid which would remain behind. There would be a
prosperity such as might seem fabulous, a prosperity of which
every Scotchman, from the peer to the cadie, would partake. Soon,
all along the now desolate shores of the Forth and Clyde, villas
and pleasure grounds would be as thick as along the edges of the
Dutch canals. Edinburgh would vie with London and Paris; and the
baillie of Glasgow or Dundee would have as stately and well
furnished a mansion, and as fine a gallery of pictures, as any
burgomaster of Amsterdam.

This magnificent plan was at first but partially disclosed to the
public. A colony was to be planted; a vast trade was to be opened
between both the Indies and Scotland; but the name of Darien was
as yet pronounced only in whispers by Paterson and by his most
confidential friends. He had however shown enough to excite
boundless hopes and desires. How well he succeeded in inspiring
others with his own feelings is sufficiently proved by the
memorable Act to which the Lord High Commissioner gave the Royal
sanction on the 26th of June 1695. By this Act some persons who
were named, and such other persons as should join with them, were
formed into a corporation, which was to be named the Company of
Scotland trading to Africa and the Indies. The amount of the
capital to be employed was not fixed by law; but it was provided
that one half of the stock at least must be held by Scotchmen
resident in Scotland, and that no stock which had been originally
held by a Scotchman resident in Scotland should ever be
transferred to any but a Scotchman resident in Scotland. An
entire monopoly of the trade with Asia, Africa and America, for a
term of thirty-one years, was granted to the Company. All goods
imported by the Company were during twenty-one years to be duty
free, with the exception of foreign sugar and tobacco. Sugar and
tobacco grown on the Company's own plantations were exempted from
all taxation. Every member and every servant of the Company was
to be privileged against impressment and arrest. If any of these
privileged persons was impressed or arrested, the Company was
authorised to release him, and to demand the assistance both of
the civil and of the military power. The Company was authorised
to take possession of unoccupied territories in any part of Asia,
Africa or America, and there to plant colonies, to build towns
and forts, to impose taxes, and to provide magazines, arms and
ammunition, to raise troops, to wage war, to conclude treaties;
and the King was made to promise that, if any foreign state
should injure the Company, he would interpose, and would, at the
public charge, obtain reparation. Lastly it was provided that, in
order to give greater security and solemnity to this most
exorbitant grant, the whole substance of the Act should be set
forth in Letters Patent to which the Chancellor was directed to
put the Great Seal without delay.

The letters were drawn; the Great Seal was affixed; the
subscription books were opened; the shares were fixed at a
hundred pounds sterling each; and from the Pentland Firth to the
Solway Firth every man who had a hundred pounds was impatient to
put down his name. About two hundred and twenty thousand pounds
were actually paid up. This may not, at first sight, appear a
large sum to those who remember the bubbles of 1825 and of 1845,
and would assuredly not have sufficed to defray the charge of
three months of war with Spain. Yet the effort was marvellous
when it may be affirmed with confidence that the Scotch people
voluntarily contributed for the colonisation of Darien a larger
proportion of their substance than any other people ever, in the
same space of time, voluntarily contributed to any commercial
undertaking. A great part of Scotland was then as poor and rude
as Iceland now is. There were five or six shires which did not
altogether contain so many guineas and crowns as were tossed
about every day by the shovels of a single goldsmith in Lombard
Street. Even the nobles had very little ready money. They
generally took a large part of their rents in kind, and were thus
able, on their own domains, to live plentifully and hospitably.
But there were many esquires in Kent and Somersetshire who
received from their tenants a greater quantity of gold and silver
than a Duke of Cordon or a Marquess of Atholl drew from extensive
provinces. The pecuniary remuneration of the clergy was such as
would have moved the pity of the most needy curate who thought it
a privilege to drink his ale and smoke his pipe in the kitchen of
an English manor house. Even in the fertile Merse there were
parishes of which the minister received only from four to eight
pounds sterling in cash. The official income of the Lord
President of the Court of Session was only five hundred a year;
that of the Lord Justice Clerk only four hundred a year. The land
tax of the whole kingdom was fixed some years later by the Treaty
of Union at little more than half the land tax of the single
county of Norfolk. Four hundred thousand pounds probably bore as
great a ratio to the wealth of Scotland 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 largest quantity of stock registered in one name was three
thousand pounds. The heads of three noble houses took three
thousand pounds each, the Duke of Hamilton, the Duke of
Queensbury and Lord Belhaven, a man of ability, spirit and
patriotism, who had entered into the design with enthusiasm not
inferior to that of Fletcher. Argyle held fifteen hundred pounds.
John Dalrymple, but too well known as the Master of Stair, had
just succeeded 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 peers who subscribed was between thirty and
forty. The City of Edinburgh, in its corporate capacity, took
three thousand pounds, the City of Glasgow three thousand, the
City of Perth two thousand. But the great majority of the
subscribers contributed only one hundred or two hundred pounds
each. A very few divines who were settled in the capital or in
other large towns were able to purchase shares. It is melancholy
to see in the roll the name of more than one professional man
whose paternal anxiety led him to lay out probably all his hardly
earned savings in purchasing a hundred pound share for each of
his children. If, indeed, Paterson's predictions had been
verified, such a share would, according to the notions of that
age and country, have been a handsome portion for the daughter of
a writer or a surgeon.

That the Scotch are a people eminently intelligent, wary,
resolute and self possessed, is obvious to the most superficial
observation. That they are a people peculiarly liable to
dangerous fits of passion and delusions of the imagination is
less generally acknowledged, but is not less true. The whole
kingdom seemed to have gone mad. Paterson had acquired an
influence resembling rather that of the founder of a new
religion, that of a Mahomet, that of a Joseph Smith, than that of
a commercial projector. Blind faith in a religion, fanatical zeal
for a religion, are too common to astonish us. But such faith and
zeal seem strangely out of place in the transactions of the money
market. It is true that we are judging after the event. But
before the event materials sufficient for the forming of a sound
judgment were within the reach of all who cared to use them. It
seems incredible that men of sense, who had only a vague and
general notion of Paterson's scheme, should have staked every
thing on the success of that scheme. It seems more incredible
still that men to whom the details of that scheme had been
confided should not have looked into any of the common books of
history or geography in which an account of Darien might have
been found, and should not have asked themselves the simple
question, whether Spain was likely to endure a Scotch colony in
the midst of her Transatlantic dominions. It was notorious that
she claimed the sovereignty of the isthmus on specious, nay, on
solid, grounds. A Spaniard had been the first discoverer of the
coast of Darien. A Spaniard had built a town and established a
government on that coast. A Spaniard had, with great labour and
peril, crossed the mountainous neck of land, had seen rolling
beneath him the vast Pacific, never before revealed to European
eyes, had descended, sword in hand, into the waves up to his
girdle, and had there solemnly taken possession of sea and shore
in the name of the Crown of Castile. It was true that the region
which Paterson described as a paradise had been found by the
first Castilian settlers to be a land of misery and death. The
poisonous air, exhaled from rank jungle and stagnant water, had
compelled them to remove to the neighbouring haven of Panama; and
the Red Indians had been contemptuously permitted to live after
their own fashion on the pestilential soil. But that soil was
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 expense of maintaining order, and in which rude tribes
enjoyed by connivance a kind of independence. It was not
necessary for the members of the Company of Scotland trading to
Africa and the Indies to look very far for an example. In some
highland districts, not more than a hundred miles from Edinburgh,
dwelt clans which had always regarded the authority of King,
Parliament, Privy Council and Court of Session, quite as little
as the aboriginal population of Darien regarded the authority of
the Spanish Viceroys and Audiences. Yet it would surely have been
thought an outrageous violation of public law in the King of
Spain to take possession of Appin and Lochaber. And would it be a
less outrageous violation of public law in the Scots to seize on
a province in the very centre of his possessions, on the plea
that this province was in the same state in which Appin and
Lochaber had been during centuries?

So grossly unjust was Paterson's scheme; and yet it was less
unjust than impolitic. Torpid as Spain had become, there was
still one point on which she was exquisitely sensitive. The
slightest encroachment of any other European power even on the
outskirts of her American dominions sufficed to disturb her
repose and to brace her paralysed nerves. To imagine that she
would tamely suffer adventurers from one of the most
insignificant kingdoms of the Old World to form a settlement in
the midst of her empire, within a day's sail of Portobello on one
side and of Carthagena on the other, was ludicrously absurd. She
would have been just as likely to let them take possession of the
Escurial. It was, therefore, evident that, before the new Company
could even begin its commercial operations, there must be a war
with Spain and a complete triumph over Spain. What means had the
Company of waging such a war, and what chance of achieving such a
triumph? The ordinary revenue of Scotland in time of peace was
between sixty and seventy thousand a year. The extraordinary
supplies granted to the Crown during the war with France had
amounted perhaps to as much more. Spain, it is true, was no
longer the Spain of Pavia and Lepanto. But, even in her decay,
she possessed in Europe resources which exceeded thirty fold
those of Scotland; and in America, where the struggle must take
place, the disproportion was still greater. The Spanish fleets
and arsenals were doubtless in wretched condition. But there were
Spanish fleets; there were Spanish arsenals. The galleons, which
sailed every year from Seville to the neighbourhood of Darien and
from the neighbourhood of Darien back to Seville, were in
tolerable condition, and formed, by themselves, a considerable
armament. Scotland had not a single ship of the line, nor a
single dockyard where such a ship could be built. A marine
sufficient to overpower that of Spain must be, not merely
equipped and manned, but created. An armed force sufficient to
defend the isthmus against the whole power of the viceroyalties
of Mexico and Peru must be sent over five thousand miles of
ocean. What was the charge of such an expedition likely to be?
Oliver had, in the preceding generation, wrested a West Indian
island from Spain; but, in order to do this, Oliver, a man who
thoroughly understood the administration of war, who wasted
nothing, and who was excellently served, had been forced to
spend, in a single year, on his navy alone, twenty times the
ordinary revenue of Scotland; and, since his days, war had been
constantly becoming more and more costly.

It was plain that Scotland could not alone support the charge of
a contest with the enemy whom Paterson was bent on provoking. And
what assistance was she likely to have from abroad? Undoubtedly
the vast colonial empire and the narrow colonial policy of Spain
were regarded with an evil eye by more than one great maritime
power. But there was no great maritime power which would not far
rather have seen the isthmus between the Atlantic and the Pacific
in the hands of Spain than in the hands of the Darien Company.
Lewis could not but dread whatever tended to aggrandise a state
governed by William. To Holland the East India trade was as the
apple of her eye. She had been the chief gainer by the
discoveries of Gama; and it might be expected that she would do
all that could be done by craft, and, if need were, by violence,
rather than suffer any rival to be to her what she had been to
Venice. England remained; and Paterson was sanguine enough to
flatter himself that England might be induced to lend her
powerful aid to the Company. He and Lord 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
the stock which had not been reserved for Scotchmen resident in
Scotland. A few moneyed men were allured by the bait; but the
clamour of the City was loud and menacing; and from the City a
feeling of indignation spread fast through the country. In this
feeling there was undoubtedly a large mixture of evil. National
antipathy operated on some minds, religious antipathy on others.
But it is impossible to deny that the anger which Paterson's
schemes excited throughout the south of the island was, in the
main, just and reasonable. Though it was not yet generally known
in what precise spot his colony was to be planted, there could be
little doubt that he intended to occupy some part of America; and
there could be as little doubt that such occupation would be
resisted. There would be 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 fit out even a single squadron
of moderate size. Before the conflict had lasted three months,
she would have neither money nor credit left. These things were
obvious to every coffeehouse politician; and it was impossible to
believe that they had escaped the notice of men so able and well
informed as some who sate in the Privy Council and Parliament at
Edinburgh. In one way only could the conduct of these schemers be
explained. They meant to make a dupe and a tool of the Southron.
The two British kingdoms were so closely connected, physically
and politically, that it was scarcely possible for one of them to
be at peace with a power with which the other was at war. If the
Scotch drew King William into a quarrel, England must, from
regard to her own dignity which was bound up with his, support
him in it. She was to be tricked into a bloody 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 her than
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
by which she would be the chief sufferer. She was to conquer and
defend provinces for this Scotch Corporation; and her reward was
to be that her merchants were to be undersold, her customers
decoyed away, her exchequer beggared. There would be an end to
the disputes between the old East India Company and the new East
India Company; for both Companies would be ruined alike. The two
great springs of revenue would be dried up together. What would
be the receipt of the Customs, what of the Excise, when vast
magazines of sugar, rum, tobacco, coffee, chocolate, tea, spices,
silks, muslins, all duty free, should be formed along the
estuaries of the Forth and of the Clyde, and along the border
from the mouth of the Esk to the mouth of the Tweed? What army,
what fleet, would be sufficient to protect the interests of the
government and of the fair trader when the whole kingdom of
Scotland should be turned into one great smuggling establishment?
Paterson's plan was simply this, that England should first spend
millions in defence of the trade of his Company, and should then
be plundered of twice as many millions by means of that very
trade.

The cry of the city and of the nation was soon echoed by the
legislature. When the Parliament met for the first time after the
general election of 1695, Rochester called the attention of the
Lords to the constitution and designs of the Company. Several
witnesses were summoned to the bar, and gave evidence which
produced a powerful effect on the House. "If these Scots are to
have their way," said one peer, "I shall 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 of
requiring England to exert her power in support of an enterprise
which, if successful, must be fatal to her commerce and to her
finances. A representation was drawn up and communicated to the
Commons. The Commons eagerly concurred, and complimented the
Peers on the promptitude with which their Lordships had, on this
occasion, stood forth to protect the public interests. The two
Houses went up together to Kensington with the address. William
had been under the walls of Namur when the Act for incorporating
the Company had been touched with his sceptre at Edinburgh, and
had known nothing about that Act till his attention had been
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
he would try to find a remedy for the evil which bad been brought
to his notice. The Lord High Commissioner Tweeddale and Secretary
Johnstone were immediately dismissed. But the Act which had been
passed by their management still continued to be law in Scotland,
nor was it in their master's power to undo what they had done.

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

Now, surely, if not before, Paterson ought to have seen that his
project could end in nothing but shame to himself and ruin to his
worshippers. From the first it had been clear that England alone
could protect his Company against the enmity of Spain; and it was
now clear that Spain would be a less formidable enemy than
England. It was impossible that his plan could excite greater
indignation in the Council of the Indies at Madrid, or in the
House of Trade at Seville, than it had excited in London.
Unhappily he was given over to a strong delusion, and the blind
multitude eagerly followed their blind leader. Indeed his dupes
were maddened by that which should have sobered them. The
proceedings of the Parliament which sate at Westminster,
proceedings just and reasonable in substance, but in manner
doubtless harsh and insolent, had roused the angry passions of a
nation, feeble indeed in numbers and in material resources, but
eminently high spirited. The proverbial pride of the Scotch was
too much for their proverbial shrewdness. The votes of the
English Lords and Commons were treated with marked contempt. The
populace of Edinburgh burned Rochester in effigy. Money was
poured faster than ever into the treasury of the Company. A
stately house, in Milne Square, then the most modern and
fashionable part of Edinburgh, was purchased and fitted up at
once as an office and a warehouse. Ships adapted both for war and
for trade were required; but the means of building such ships did
not exist in Scotland; and no firm in the south of the island was
disposed to enter into a contract which might not improbably be
considered by the House of Commons as an impeachable offence. It
was necessary to have recourse to the dockyards of Amsterdam and
Hamburg. At an expense of fifty thousand pounds a few vessels
were procured, the largest of which would hardly have ranked as
sixtieth in the English navy; and with this force, a force not
sufficient to keep the pirates of Sallee in check, the Company
threw down the gauntlet to all the maritime powers in the world.

It was not till the summer of 1698 that all was ready for the
expedition which was to change the face of the globe. The number
of seamen and colonists who embarked at Leith was twelve hundred.
Of the colonists many were younger sons of honourable families,
or officers who had been disbanded since the peace. It was
impossible to find room for all who were desirous of emigrating.
It is said that some persons who had vainly applied for a passage
hid themselves in dark corners about the ships, and, when
discovered, refused to depart, clung to the rigging, and were at
last taken on shore by main force. This infatuation is the more
extraordinary because few of the adventurers knew to what place
they were going. All that was quite certain was that a colony was
to be planted somewhere, and to be named Caledonia. The general
opinion was that the fleet would steer for some part of the coast
of America. But this opinion was not universal. At the Dutch
Embassy in Saint James's Square there was an uneasy suspicion
that the new Caledonia would be founded among those Eastern spice
islands with which Amsterdam had long carried on a lucrative
commerce.

The supreme direction of the expedition was entrusted to a
Council of Seven. Two Presbyterian chaplains and a preceptor were
on board. A cargo had been laid in which was afterwards the
subject of much mirth to the enemies of the Company, slippers
innumerable, four thousand periwigs of all kinds from plain bobs
to those magnificent structures which, in that age, towered high
above the foreheads and descended to the elbows of men of
fashion, bales of Scotch woollen stuffs which nobody within the
tropics could wear, and many hundreds of English bibles which
neither Spaniard nor Indian could read. Paterson, flushed with
pride and hope, not only accompanied the expedition, but took
with him his wife, a comely dame, whose heart he had won in
London, where she had presided over one of the great coffeehouses
in the neighbourhood of the Royal Exchange. At length on the
twenty-fifth of July the ships, followed by many tearful eyes,
and commended to heaven in many vain prayers, sailed out of the
estuary of the Forth.

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

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

Negotiations were opened with the chieftains, as they were
called, who governed the neighbouring tribes. Among these savage
rulers were found as insatiable a cupidity, as watchful a
jealousy, and as punctilious a pride, as among the potentates
whose disputes had seemed likely to make the Congress of Ryswick
eternal. One prince hated the Spaniards because a fine rifle had
been taken away from him by the Governor of Portobello on the
plea that such a weapon was too good for a red man. Another loved
the Spaniards because they had given him a stick tipped with
silver. On the whole, the new comers succeeded in making friends
of the aboriginal race. One mighty monarch, the Lewis the Great
of the isthmus, who wore with pride a cap of white reeds lined
with red silk and adorned with an ostrich feather, seemed well
inclined to the strangers, received them hospitably in a palace
built of canes and covered with palmetto royal, and regaled them
with calabashes of a sort of ale brewed from Indian corn and
potatoes. Another chief set his mark to a treaty of peace and
alliance with the colony. A third consented to become a vassal of
the Company, received with great delight a commission embellished
with gold thread and flowered riband, and swallowed to the health
of his new masters not a few bumpers of their own brandy.

Meanwhile the internal government of the colony was organised
according to a plan devised by the directors at Edinburgh. The
settlers were divided into bands of fifty or sixty; each band
chose a representative; and thus was formed an assembly which
took the magnificent name of Parliament. This Parliament speedily
framed a curious code. The first article provided that the
precepts, instructions, examples, commands and prohibitions
expressed and contained in the Holy Scriptures should have the
full force and effect of laws in New Caledonia, an enactment
which proves that those who drew it up either did not know what
the Holy Scriptures contained or did not know what a law meant.
There is another provision which shows not less clearly how far
these legislators were from understanding the first principles of
legislation. "Benefits received and good services done shall
always be generously and thankfully compensated, whether a prior
bargain hath been made or not; and, if it shall happen to be
otherwise, and the Benefactor obliged justly to complain of the
ingratitude, the Ungrateful shall in such case be obliged to give
threefold satisfaction at the least." An article much more
creditable to the little Parliament, and much needed in a
community which 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
Mexico were in a ferment. The new colony was the object of
universal hatred. The Spaniards began to fit out armaments. The
chiefs of the French dependencies in the West Indies eagerly
offered assistance to the Spaniards. The governors of the English
settlements put forth proclamations interdicting all
communication with this nest of buccaneers. Just at this time,
the Dolphin, a vessel of fourteen guns, which was the property of
the Scotch Company, was driven on shore by stress of weather
under the walls of Carthagena. The ship and cargo were
confiscated, the crew imprisoned and put in irons. Some of the
sailors were treated as slaves, and compelled to sweep the
streets and to work on the fortifications. Others, and among them
the captain, were sent to Seville to be tried for piracy. Soon an
envoy with a flag of truce arrived at Carthagena, and, in the
name of the Council of Caledonia, demanded the release of the
prisoners. He delivered to the authorities a letter threatening
them with the vengeance of the King of Great Britain, and a copy
of the Act of Parliament by which the Company had been created.
The Castilian governor, who probably knew that William, as
Sovereign of England, would not, and, as Sovereign of Scotland,
could not, protect the squatters who had occupied Darien, flung
away both letter and Act of Parliament with a gesture of
contempt, called for a guard, and was with difficulty dissuaded
from throwing the messenger into a dungeon. The Council of
Caledonia, in great indignation, issued letters of mark and
reprisal against Spanish vessels. What every man of common sense
must have foreseen had taken place. The Scottish flag had been
but a few months planted on the walls of New Edinburgh; and
already a war, which Scotland, without the help of England, was
utterly unable to sustain, had begun.

By this time it was known in Europe that the mysterious voyage of
the adventurers from the Forth had ended at Darien. The
ambassador of the Catholic King repaired to Kensington, and
complained bitterly to William of this outrageous violation of
the law of nations. Preparations were made in the Spanish ports
for an expedition against the intruders; and in no Spanish port
were there more fervent wishes for the success of that expedition
than in the cities of London and Bristol. In Scotland, on the
other hand, the exultation was boundless. In the parish churches
all over the kingdom the ministers gave public thanks to God for
having vouchsafed thus far to protect and bless the infant
colony. At some places a day was set apart for religious
exercises on this account. In every borough bells were rung;
bonfires were lighted; and candles were placed in the windows at
night. During some months all the reports which arrived from the
other side of the Atlantic were such as to excite hope and joy in
the north of the island, and alarm and envy in the south. The
colonists, it was asserted, had found rich gold mines, mines in
which the precious metal was far more abundant and in a far purer
state than on the coast of Guinea. Provisions were plentiful. The
rainy season had not proved unhealthy. The settlement was well
fortified. Sixty guns were mounted on the ramparts. An immense
crop of Indian corn was expected. The aboriginal tribes were
friendly. Emigrants from various quarters were coming in. The
population of Caledonia had already increased from twelve hundred
to ten thousand. The riches of the country,--these are the words
of a newspaper of that time,--were great beyond imagination. The
mania in Scotland rose to the highest point. Munitions of war and
implements of agriculture were provided in large quantities.
Multitudes were impatient to emigrate to the land of promise.

In August 1699 four ships, with thirteen hundred men on board,
were despatched by the Company to Caledonia. The spiritual care
of these emigrants was entrusted to divines of the Church of
Scotland. One of these was that Alexander Shields whose Hind Let
Loose proves that in his zeal for the Covenant he had forgotten
the Gospel. To another, John Borland, we owe the best account of
the voyage which is now extant. The General Assembly had charged
the chaplains to divide the colonists into congregations, to
appoint ruling elders, to constitute a presbytery, and to labour
for the propagation of divine truth among the Pagan inhabitants
of Darien. The second expedition sailed as the first had sailed,
amidst the acclamations and blessings of all Scotland. During the
earlier part of September the whole nation was dreaming a
delightful dream of prosperity and glory; and triumphing,
somewhat maliciously, in the vexation of the English. But, before
the close of that month, it began to be rumoured about Lombard
Street and Cheapside that letters had arrived from Jamaica with
strange news. The colony from which so much had been hoped and
dreaded was no more. It had disappeared from the face of the
earth. The report spread to Edinburgh, but was received there
with scornful incredulity. It was an impudent lie devised by some
Englishmen who could not bear to see that, in spite of the votes
of the English Parliament, in spite of the proclamations of the
governors of the English colonies, Caledonia was waxing great and
opulent. Nay, the inventor of the fable was named. It was
declared to be quite certain that Secretary Vernon was the man.
On the fourth of October was put forth a vehement contradiction
of the story.

On the fifth the whole truth was known. Letters were received
from New York announcing that a few miserable men, the remains of
the colony which was to have been the garden, the warehouse, the
mart, of the whole world, their bones peeping through their skin,
and hunger and fever written in their faces, had arrived in the
Hudson.

The grief, the dismay and the rage of those who had a few hours
before fancied themselves masters of all the wealth of both
Indies may easily be imagined. The Directors, in their fury, lost
all self command, and, in their official letters, railed at the
betrayers of Scotland, the white-livered deserters. The truth is
that those who used these hard words were far more deserving of
blame than the wretches whom they had sent to destruction, and
whom they now reviled for not staying to be utterly destroyed.
Nothing had happened but what might easily have been foreseen.
The Company had, in childish reliance on the word of an
enthusiastic projector, and in defiance of facts known to every
educated man in Europe, taken it for granted that emigrants born
and bred within ten degrees of the Arctic Circle would enjoy
excellent health within ten degrees of the Equator. Nay,
statesmen and scholars had been deluded into the belief that a
country which, as they might have read in books so common as
those of Hakluyt and Purchas, was noted even among tropical
countries for its insalubrity, and had been abandoned by the
Spaniards solely on account of its insalubrity, was a Montpelier.
Nor had any of Paterson's dupes considered how colonists from
Fife or Lothian, who had never in their lives known what it was
to feel the heat of a distressing midsummer day, could endure the
labour of breaking clods and carrying burdens under the fierce
blaze of a vertical sun. It ought to have been remembered that
such colonists would have to do for themselves what English,
French, Dutch, and Spanish colonists employed Negroes or Indians
to do for them. It was seldom indeed that a white freeman in
Barbadoes or Martinique, in Guiana or at Panama, was employed in
severe bodily labour. But the Scotch who settled at Darien must
at first be without 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 for them. The provisions which they had
brought out had been of no good quality, and had not been
improved by lapse of time or by change of climate. The yams and
plantains did not suit stomachs accustomed to good oatmeal. The
flesh of wild animals and the green fat of the turtle, a luxury
then unknown in Europe, went but a small way; and supplies were
not to be expected from any foreign settlement. During the cool
months, however, which immediately followed the occupation of the
isthmus there were few deaths. But, before the equinox, disease
began to make fearful havoc in the little community. The
mortality gradually rose to ten or twelve a day. Both the
clergymen who had accompanied the expedition died. Paterson
buried his wife in that soil which, as he had assured his too
credulous countrymen, exhaled health and vigour. He was himself
stretched on his pallet by an intermittent fever. Still he would
not admit that the climate of his promised land was bad. There
could not be a purer air. This was merely the seasoning which
people who passed from one 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 them seemed likely to live
till November. Those who were not laid on their beds were yellow,
lean, feeble, hardly able to move the sick and to bury the dead,
and quite unable to repel the expected attack of the Spaniards.
The cry of the whole community was that death was all around
them, and that they must, while they still had strength to weigh
an anchor or spread a sail, fly to some less fatal region. The
men and provisions were equally distributed among three ships,
the Caledonia, the Unicorn, and the Saint Andrew. Paterson,
though still too ill to sit in the Council, begged hard that he
might be left behind with twenty or thirty companions to keep up
a show of possession, and to await the next arrivals from
Scotland. So small a number of people, he said, might easily
subsist by catching fish and turtles. But his offer was
disregarded; he was carried, utterly helpless, on board of the
Saint Andrew; and the vessel stood out to sea.

The voyage was horrible. Scarcely any Guinea slave ship has ever
had such a middle passage. Of two hundred and fifty persons who
were on board of the Saint Andrew, one hundred and fifty fed the
sharks of the Atlantic before Sandy Hook was in sight. The
Unicorn lost almost all its officers, and about a hundred and
forty men. The Caledonia, the healthiest ship of the three, threw
overboard a hundred corpses. The squalid survivors, as if they
were not sufficiently miserable, raged fiercely against one
another. Charges of incapacity, cruelty, brutal insolence, were
hurled backward and forward. The rigid Presbyterians attributed
the calamities of the colony to the wickedness of Jacobites,
Prelatists, Sabbath-breakers, Atheists, who hated in others that
image of God which was wanting in themselves. The accused
malignants, on the other hand, complained bitterly of the
impertinence of meddling fanatics and hypocrites. Paterson was
cruelly reviled, and was unable to defend himself. He had been
completely prostrated by bodily and mental suffering. He looked
like a skeleton. His heart was broken. His inventive faculties
and his plausible eloquence were no more; and he seemed to have
sunk into second childhood.

Meanwhile the second expedition had been on the seas. It reached
Darien about four months after the first settlers had fled. The
new comers had fully expected to find a flourishing young town,
secure fortifications, cultivated fields, and a cordial welcome.
They found a wilderness. The castle of New Edinburgh was in
ruins. The huts had been burned. The site marked out for the
proud capital which was to have been the Tyre, the Venice, the
Amsterdam of the eighteenth century was overgrown with jungle,
and inhabited only by the sloth and the baboon. The hearts of the
adventurers sank within them. For their fleet had been fitted
out, not to plant a colony, but to recruit a colony already
planted and supposed to be prospering. They were therefore worse
provided with every necessary of life than their predecessors had
been. Some feeble attempts, however, were made to restore what
had perished. A new fort was constructed on the old ground; and
within the ramparts was built a hamlet, consisting of eighty or
ninety cabins, generally of twelve feet by ten. But the work went
on languidly. The alacrity which is the effect of hope, the
strength which is the effect of union, were alike wanting to the
little community. From the councillors down to the humblest
settlers all was despondency and discontent. The stock of
provisions was scanty. The stewards embezzled great part of it.
The rations were small; and soon there was a cry that they were
unfairly distributed. Factions were formed. Plots were laid. One
ringleader of the malecontents was hanged. The Scotch were
generally, as they still are, a religious people; and it might
therefore have been expected that the influence of the divines to
whom the spiritual charge of the colony had been confided would
have been employed with advantage for the preserving of order and
the calming of evil passions. Unfortunately those divines seem to
have been at war with almost all the rest of the society. They
described their companions as the most profligate of mankind, and
declared that it was impossible to constitute a presbytery
according to the directions of the General Assembly; for that
persons fit to be ruling elders of a Christian Church were not to
be found among the twelve or thirteen hundred emigrants. Where
the blame lay it is now impossible to decide. All that can with
confidence be said is that either the clergymen must have been
most unreasonably and most uncharitably austere, or the laymen
must have been most unfavourable specimens of the nation and
class to which they belonged.

It may be added that the provision by the General Assembly for
the spiritual wants of the colony was as defective as the
provision made for temporal wants by the directors of the
Company. Nearly one third of the emigrants who sailed with the
second expedition were Highlanders, who did not understand a word
of English; and not one of the four chaplains could speak a word
of Gaelic. It was only through interpreters that a pastor could
communicate with a large portion of the Christian flock of which
he had charge. Even by the help of interpreters he could not
impart religious instruction to those heathen tribes which the
Church of Scotland had solemnly recommended to his care. In fact,
the colonists left behind them no mark that baptized men had set
foot on Darien, except a few Anglo-Saxon curses, which, having
been uttered more frequently and with greater energy than any
other words in our language, had caught the ear and been retained
in the memory of the native population of the isthmus.

The months which immediately followed the arrival of the new
comers were the coolest and most salubrious of the year. But,
even in those months, the pestilential influence of a tropical
sun, shining on swamps rank with impenetrable thickets of black
mangroves, began to be felt. The mortality was great; and it was
but too clear that, before the summer was far advanced, the
second colony would, like the first, have to choose between death
and flight. But the agony of the inevitable dissolution was
shortened by violence. A fleet of eleven vessels under the flag
of Castile anchored off New Edinburgh. At the same time an
irregular army of Spaniards, Creoles, negroes, mulattoes and
Indians marched across the isthmus from Panama; and the fort was
blockaded at once by sea and land.

A drummer soon came with a message from the besiegers, but a
message which was utterly unintelligible to the besieged. Even
after all that we have seen of the perverse imbecility of the
directors of the Company, it must be thought strange that they
should have sent a colony to a remote part of the world, where it
was certain that there must be constant intercourse, peaceable or
hostile, with Spaniards, and yet should not have taken care that
there should be in the whole colony a single person who knew a
little Spanish.

With some difficulty a negotiation was carried on in such French
and such Latin as the two parties could furnish. Before the end
of March a treaty was signed by which the Scotch bound themselves
to evacuate Darien in fourteen days; and on the eleventh of April
they departed, a much less numerous body than when they arrived.
In little more than four months, although the healthiest months
of the year, three hundred men out of thirteen hundred had been
swept away by disease. Of the survivors very few lived to see
their native country again. Two of the ships perished at sea.
Many of the adventurers, who had left their homes flushed with
hopes of speedy opulence, were glad to hire themselves out to the
planters of Jamaica, and laid their bones in that land of exile.
Shields died there, worn out and heart broken. Borland was the
only minister who came back. In his curious and interesting
narrative, he expresses his feelings, after the fashion of the
school in which he had been bred, by grotesque allusions to the
Old Testament, and by a profusion of Hebrew words. On his first
arrival, he tells us, he found New Edinburgh a Ziklag. He had
subsequently been compelled to dwell in the tents of Kedar. Once,
indeed, during his sojourn, he had fallen in with a Beer-lahai-
roi, and had set up his Ebenezer; but in general Darien was to
him a Magor Missabib, a Kibroth-hattaavah. The sad story is
introduced with the words in which a great man of old, delivered
over to the malice of the Evil Power, was informed of the death
of his children and of the ruin of his fortunes: "I alone am
escaped to tell thee."

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
session continued to ferment in the minds of men during the
recess, and, having no 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 the lives of innocent men, and
impelled magistrates to leave the bench of justice and attack one
another sword in hand. Private calamities, private brawls, which
had nothing to do with the disputes between court and country,
were turned by the political animosities of that unhappy summer
into grave political events.

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

At Hertford resided an opulent Quaker family named Stout. A
pretty young woman of this family had lately sunk into a
melancholy of a kind not very unusual in girls of strong
sensibility and lively imagination who are subject to the
restraints of austere religious societies. Her dress, her looks,
her gestures, indicated the disturbance of her mind. She
sometimes hinted her dislike of the sect to which she belonged.
She complained that a canting waterman who was one of the
brotherhood had held 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 of her associates she owned that
she was in love; and on one occasion she plainly said that the
man whom she loved was one whom she never could marry. In fact,
the object of her fondness was Spencer Cowper, who was already
married. She at length wrote to him in language which she never
would have used if her intellect had not been disordered. He,
like an honest man, took no advantage of her unhappy state of
mind, and did his best to avoid her. His prudence mortified her
to such a degree that on one occasion she went into fits. It was
necessary, however, that he should see her, when he came to
Hertford at the spring assizes of 1699. For he had been entrusted
with some money which was due to her on mortgage. He called on
her for this purpose late one evening, and delivered a bag of
gold to her. She pressed him to be the guest of her family; but
he excused himself and retired. The next morning she was found
dead among the stakes of a mill dam on the stream called the
Priory River. That she had destroyed herself there could be no
reasonable doubt. The coroner's inquest found that she had
drowned herself while in a state of mental derangement. But her
family was unwilling to admit that she had shortened her own
life, and looked about for somebody who might be accused of
murdering her. The last person who could be proved to have been
in her company was Spencer Cowper. It chanced that two attorneys
and a scrivener, who had come down from town to the Hertford
assizes, had been overheard, on that unhappy night, talking over
their wine about the charms and flirtations of the handsome
Quaker girl, in the light way in which such subjects are
sometimes discussed even at the circuit tables and mess tables of
our more refined generation. Some wild words, susceptible of a
double meaning, were used about the way in which she had jilted
one lover, and the way in which another lover would punish her
for her coquetry. On no better grounds than these her relations
imagined that Spencer Cowper had, with the assistance of these
three retainers of the law, strangled her, and thrown her corpse
into the water. There was absolutely no evidence of the crime.
There was no evidence that any one of the accused had any motive
to commit such a crime; there was no evidence that Spencer Cowper
had any connection with the persons who were said to be his
accomplices. One of those persons, indeed, he had never seen. But
no story is too absurd to be imposed on minds blinded by
religious and political fanaticism. The Quakers and the Tories
joined to raise a formidable clamour. The Quakers had, in those
days, no scruples about capital punishments. They would, indeed,
as Spencer Cowper said bitterly, but too truly, rather send four
innocent men to the gallows than let it be believed 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
summer assizes Hertford was crowded with anxious faces from
London and from parts of England more distant than London. The
prosecution was conducted with a malignity and unfairness which
to us seem almost incredible; and, unfortunately, the dullest and
most ignorant judge of the twelve was on the bench. Cowper
defended himself and those who were said to be his accomplices
with admirable ability and self possession. His brother, much
more distressed than himself, sate near him through the long
agony of that day. The case against the prisoners rested chiefly
on the vulgar error 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 still alive. To prove this doctrine the
counsel for the Crown called medical practitioners, of whom
nothing is now known except that some of them had been active
against the Whigs at Hertford elections. To confirm the evidence
of these gentlemen two or three sailors were put into the witness
box. On the other side appeared an array of men of science whose
names are still remembered. Among them was William Cowper, not a
kinsman of the defendant, but the most celebrated anatomist that
England had then produced. He was, indeed, the founder of a
dynasty illustrious in the history of science; for he was the
teacher of William Cheselden, and William Cheselden was the
teacher of John Hunter. On the same side appeared Samuel Garth,
who, among the physicians of the capital, had no rival except
Radcliffe, and Hans Sloane, the founder of the magnificent museum
which is one of the glories of our country. The attempt of the
prosecutors to make the superstitions of the forecastle evidence
for the purpose of taking away the lives of men was treated by
these philosophers with just disdain. The stupid judge asked
Garth what he could say in answer to the testimony of the seamen.
"My Lord," replied Garth, "I say that they are mistaken. I will
find seamen in abundance to swear that they have known whistling
raise the wind."

The jury found the prisoners Not guilty; and the report carried
back to London by persons who had been present at the trial was
that everybody applauded the verdict, and that even the Stouts
seemed to be convinced of their error. It is certain, however,
that the malevolence of the defeated party soon revived in all
its energy. The lives of the four men who had just been absolved
were again attacked by means of the most absurd and odious
proceeding known to our old law, the appeal of murder. This
attack too failed. Every artifice of chicane was at length
exhausted; and nothing was left to the disappointed sect and the
disappointed faction except to calumniate those whom it had been
found impossible to murder. In a succession of libels Spencer
Cowper was held up to the execration of the public. But the
public did him justice. He rose to high eminence in his
profession; he at length took his seat, with general applause, on
the judicial bench, and there distinguished himself by the
humanity which he never failed to show to unhappy men who stood,
as he had once stood, at the bar. Many who seldom trouble
themselves about pedigrees may be interested by learning that he
was the grandfather of that excellent man and excellent poet
William Cowper, whose writings have long been peculiarly loved
and prized by the members of the religious community which, under
a strong delusion, sought to slay his innocent progenitor.19

Though Spencer Cowper had escaped with life and honour, the
Tories had carried their point. They had secured against the next
election the support of the Quakers of Hertford; and the
consequence was that the borough was lost to the family and to
the party which had lately predominated there.

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

A more tragical duel had just taken place at Westminster. Conway
Seymour, the eldest son of Sir Edward Seymour, had lately come of
age. He was in possession of an independent fortune of seven
thousand pounds a year, which he lavished in costly fopperies.
The town had nicknamed him Beau Seymour. He was displaying his
curls and his embroidery in Saint James's Park on a midsummer
evening, after indulging too freely in wine, when a young officer
of the Blues named Kirke, who was as tipsy as himself, passed
near him. "There goes Beau Seymour," said Kirke. Seymour flew
into a rage. Angry words were exchanged between the foolish boys.
They immediately went beyond the precincts of the Court, drew,
and exchanged some pushes. Seymour was wounded in the neck. The
wound was not very serious; but, when his cure was only half
completed, he revelled in fruit, ice and Burgundy till he threw
himself into a violent fever. Though a coxcomb and a voluptuary,
he seems to have had some fine qualities. On the last day of his
life he saw Kirke. Kirke implored forgiveness; and the dying man
declared that he forgave as he hoped to be forgiven. There can be
no doubt that a person who kills another in a duel is, according
to law, guilty of murder. But the law had never been strictly
enforced against gentlemen in such cases; and in this case there
was no peculiar atrocity, no deep seated malice, no suspicion of
foul play. Sir Edward, however, vehemently declared that he would
have life for life. Much indulgence is due to the resentment of
an affectionate father maddened by the loss of a son. But there
is but too much reason to believe that the implacability of
Seymour was the implacability, not of an affectionate father, but
of a factious and malignant agitator. He tried to make what is,
in the jargon of our time, called political capital out of the
desolation of his house and the blood of his first born. A brawl
between two dissolute youths, a brawl distinguished by nothing
but its unhappy result from the hundred brawls which took place
every month in theatres and taverns, he magnified into an attack
on the liberties of the nation, an attempt to introduce a
military tyranny. The question was whether a soldier was to be
permitted to insult English gentlemen, and, if they murmured, to
cut their throats? It was moved in the Court of King's Bench that
Kirke should either be brought to immediate trial or admitted to
bail. Shower, as counsel for Seymour, opposed the motion. But
Seymour was not content to leave the case in Shower's hands. In
defiance of all decency, he went to Westminster Hall, demanded a
hearing, and pronounced a harangue against standing armies.
"Here," he said, "is a man who lives on money taken out of our
pockets. The plea set up for taxing us in order to support him is
that his sword protects us, and enables us to live in peace and
security. 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 the case of Spencer Cowper, an attempt was made to
obtain a writ of appeal. The attempt failed; and Seymour was
disappointed of his revenge; but he was 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 for invective.

The King, on his return from the Continent, found his subjects in
no bland humour. All Scotland, exasperated by the fate of the
first expedition to Darien, and anxiously waiting for news of the
second, called loudly for a Parliament. Several of the Scottish
peers carried to Kensington 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 New Caledonia. A petition to the
same effect was widely circulated among the commonalty of his
Northern kingdom, and received, if report could be trusted, not
less than thirty thousand signatures. Discontent was far from
being as violent in England as in Scotland. Yet in England there
was discontent enough to make even a resolute prince uneasy. The
time drew near at which the Houses must reassemble; and how were
the Commons to be managed? Montague, enraged, mortified, and
intimidated by the baiting of the last session, was fully
determined not again to appear in the character of chief minister
of finance. The secure and luxurious retreat which he had, some
months ago, prepared for himself was awaiting him. He took the
Auditorship, and resigned his other places. Smith became
Chancellor of the Exchequer. A new commission of Treasury issued;
and the first name was that of Tankerville. He had entered on his
career, 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 the ring. There was no more popular tribune in
Guildhall. Such was the commencement of a life so miserable that
all the indignation excited by great faults is overpowered by
pity. A guilty passion, amounting to a madness, left on the moral
character of the unhappy man a stain at which even libertines
looked grave. He tried to make the errors of his private life
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 so unfortunate as to be regarded by the party for
which he had sacrificed every thing as a coward, if not a
traitor. Yet, even against such accumulated disasters and
disgraces, his vigorous and aspiring mind bore up. His parts and
eloquence gained for him the ear of the House of Lords; and at
length, though not till his constitution was so broken that he
was fitter for flannel and cushions than for a laborious office
at Whitehall, he was put at the head of one of the most important
departments of the administration. It might have been expected
that this appointment would call forth clamours from widely
different quarters; that the Tories would be offended by the
elevation of a rebel; that the Whigs would set up a cry against
the captain to whose treachery or faintheartedness they had been
in the habit of imputing the rout of Sedgemoor; and that the
whole of that great body of Englishmen which cannot be said to be
steadily Whig or Tory, but which is zealous for decency and the
domestic virtues, would see with indignation a signal mark of
royal favour bestowed on one who had been convicted of debauching
a noble damsel, the sister of his own wife. But so capricious is
public feeling that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to
find, in any of the letters, essays, dialogues, and poems which
bear the date of 1699 or of 1700, a single allusion to the vices
or misfortunes of the new First Lord of the Treasury. It is
probable that his infirm health and his isolated position were
his protection. The chiefs of the opposition did not fear him
enough to hate him. The Whig junto was still their terror and
their abhorrence. They continued to assail Montague and Orford,
though with somewhat less ferocity than while Montague had the
direction of the finances, and Orford of the marine. But the
utmost spite 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 was not so easy to get rid of him as it had
been to drive his colleagues from office. His abilities the most
intolerant Tories were forced grudgingly to acknowledge. His
integrity might be questioned in nameless libels and in
coffeehouse tattle, but was certain to come forth bright and pure
from the most severe Parliamentary investigation. Nor was he
guilty of those faults of temper and of manner to which, more
than to any grave delinquency, the unpopularity of his associates
is to be ascribed. He had as little of the insolence and
perverseness of Orford as of the petulance and vaingloriousness
of Montague. One of the most severe trials to which the head and
heart of man can be put is great and rapid elevation. To that
trial both Montague and Somers were put. It was too much for
Montague. But Somers was found equal to it. He was the son of a
country attorney. At thirty-seven he had been sitting in a stuff
gown on a back bench in the Court of King's Bench. At forty-two
he was the first lay dignitary of the realm, and took precedence
of the Archbishop of York, and of the Duke of Norfolk. He had
risen from a lower point than Montague, had risen as fast as
Montague, had risen as high as Montague, and yet had not excited
envy such as dogged Montague through a long career. Garreteers,
who were never weary of calling the cousin 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
his place at the head of the patrician order with the quiet
dignity of a man ennobled by nature. His serenity, his modesty,
his selfcommand, proof even against the most sudden surprises of
passion, his selfrespect, which forced the proudest grandees of
the kingdom to respect him, his urbanity, which won the hearts of
the youngest lawyers of the Chancery Bar, gained for him many
private friends and admirers among the most respectable members
of the opposition. But such men as Howe and Seymour hated him
implacably; they hated his commanding genius much; they hated the
mild majesty of his virtue still more. They sought occasion
against him everywhere; and they at length flattered themselves
that they had found it.

Some years before, while the war was still raging, there had been
loud complaints in the city that even privateers of St. Malo's
and Dunkirk caused less molestation to trade than another class
of marauders. The English navy was fully employed in the Channel,
in the Atlantic, and in the Mediterranean. The Indian Ocean,
meanwhile, swarmed with pirates of whose rapacity and cruelty
frightful stories were told. Many of these men, it was said, came
from our North American colonies, and carried back to those
colonies the spoils gained by crime. Adventurers who durst not
show themselves in the Thames found a ready market for their
illgotten spices and stuffs at New York. Even the Puritans of New
England, who in sanctimonious austerity surpassed even their
brethren of Scotland, were accused of conniving at the wickedness
which enabled them to enjoy abundantly and cheaply the produce of
Indian looms and Chinese tea plantations.

In 1695 Richard Coote, Earl of Bellamont, an Irish peer who sate
in the English House of Commons, was appointed Governor of New
York and Massachusets. He was a man of eminently fair character,
upright, courageous and independent. Though a decided Whig, he
had distinguished himself by bringing before the Parliament at
Westminster some tyrannical acts done by Whigs at Dublin, and
particularly the execution, if it is not rather to be called the
murder, of Gafney. Before Bellamont sailed for America, William
spoke strongly to him about the freebooting which was the
disgrace of the colonies. "I send you, my Lord, to New York," he
said, "because an honest and intrepid man is wanted to put these
abuses down, and because I believe you to be such a man."
Bellamont exerted himself to justify the high opinion which the
King had formed of him. It was soon known at New York that the
Governor who had just arrived from England was bent on the
suppression of piracy; and some colonists in whom he placed great
confidence suggested to him what they may perhaps have thought
the best mode of attaining that object. There was then in the
settlement a veteran mariner named William Kidd. He had passed
most of 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. He was perfectly acquainted with all the
haunts of the pirates who prowled between the Cape of Good Hope
and the Straits of Malacca; and he would undertake, if he were
entrusted with a single ship of thirty or forty guns, to clear
the Indian Ocean of the whole race. The brigantines of the rovers
were numerous, no doubt; but none of them was large; one man 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 of the enemies of mankind would much more than defray the
charges of the expedition. Bellamont was charmed with this plan,
and recommended it to the King. The King referred it to the
Admiralty. The Admiralty raised difficulties, such as are
perpetually raised by public boards when any deviation, whether
for the better or for the worse, from the established course of
proceeding is proposed. It then occurred to Bellamont that his
favourite scheme might be carried into effect without any cost to
the state. A few public spirited men might easily fit out a
privateer which would soon make the Arabian Gulph and the Bay of
Bengal secure highways for trade. He wrote to his friends in
England imploring, remonstrating, complaining of their lamentable
want of public spirit. Six thousand pounds would be enough. That
sum would be repaid, and repaid with large interest, from the
sale of prizes; and an inestimable benefit would be conferred on
the kingdom and on the world. His urgency succeeded. Shrewsbury
and Romney contributed. Orford, though, as first Lord of the
Admiralty, he had been unwilling to send Kidd to the Indian ocean
with a king's ship, consented to subscribe a thousand pounds.
Somers subscribed another thousand. A ship called the Adventure
Galley was equipped in the port of London; and Kidd took the
command. He carried with him, besides the ordinary letters of
marque, a commission under the Great Seal empowering him to seize
pirates, and to take them to some place where they might be dealt
with according to law. Whatever right the King might have to the
goods found in the possession of these malefactors he granted, by
letters patent, to the persons who had been at the expense of
fitting out the expedition, reserving to himself only one tenth
part of 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 had been 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 that Kidd could not obtain his full complement of hands in
the Thames. He crossed the Atlantic, visited New York, and there
found volunteers in abundance. At length, in February 1697, he
sailed from the Hudson with a crew of more than a hundred and
fifty men, and in July reached the coast of Madagascar.

It is possible that Kidd may at first have meant to act in
accordance with his instructions. But, on the subject of piracy,
he held the notions which were then common in the North American
colonies; and most of his crew were of the same mind. He found
himself in a sea which was constantly traversed by rich and
defenceless merchant ships; and he had to determine whether he
would plunder those ships or protect them. The gain which might
be made by plundering them was immense, and might be snatched
without the dangers of a battle or the delays of a trial. The
rewards of protecting the lawful trade were likely to be
comparatively small. Such as they were, they would be got only by
first fighting with desperate ruffians who would rather be killed
than taken, and by then instituting a proceeding and obtaining a
judgment in a Court of Admiralty. The risk of being called to a
severe reckoning might not unnaturally seem small to one who had
seen many old buccaneers living in comfort and credit at New York
and Boston. Kidd soon threw off the character of a privateer, and
became a pirate. He established friendly communications, and
exchanged arms and ammunition, with the most notorious of those
rovers whom his commission authorised him to destroy, and made
war on those peaceful traders whom he was sent to defend. He
began by robbing Mussulmans, and speedily proceeded from
Mussulmans to Armenians, and from Armenians to Portuguese. The
Adventure Galley took such quantities of cotton and silk, sugar
and coffee, cinnamon and pepper, that the very foremast men
received from a hundred to two hundred pounds each, and that the
captain's share of the spoil would have enabled him to live at
home as an opulent gentleman. With the rapacity Kidd had the
cruelty of his odious calling. He burned houses; he massacred
peasantry. His prisoners were tied up and beaten with naked
cutlasses 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 made me 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 from which 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 probable that Kidd would carry his booty to some
colony. Orders were therefore sent from Whitehall to the
governors of the transmarine possessions of 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 found berths in
the sloops of other pirates, returned to New York with the means,
as he flattered himself, of making his peace and of living in
splendour. He had fabricated a long romance to which Bellamont,
naturally unwilling to believe that he had been duped and had
been the means of duping others, was at first disposed to listen
with favour. But the truth soon came out. The governor did his
duty firmly; and Kidd was placed in close confinement till orders
arrived from the Admiralty that he should be sent to England.

To an intelligent and candid judge of human actions it will not
appear that any of the persons at whose expense the Adventure
Galley was fitted out deserved serious blame. The worst that
could be imputed even to Bellamont, who had drawn in all the
rest, was that he had been led into a fault by his ardent zeal
for the public service, and by the generosity of a nature as
little prone to suspect as to devise villanies. His friends in
England might surely be pardoned for giving credit to his
recommendation. It is highly probable that the motive which
induced some of them to aid his design was genuine public spirit.
But, if we suppose them to have had a view to gain, it was to
legitimate gain. Their conduct was the very opposite of corrupt.
Not only had they taken no money. They had disbursed money
largely, and had disbursed it with the certainty that they should
never be reimbursed unless the outlay proved beneficial to the
public. That they meant well they proved by staking thousands on
the success of their plan; and, if they erred in judgment, the
loss of those thousands was surely a sufficient punishment for
such an error. On this subject there would probably have been no
difference of opinion had not Somers been one of the
contributors. About the other patrons of Kidd the chiefs of the
opposition cared little. Bellamont was far removed from the
political scene. Romney could not, and Shrewsbury would not,
play a first part. Orford had resigned his employments. But
Somers still held the Great Seal, still presided in the House of
Lords, still had constant access to the closet. The retreat of
his friends had left him the sole and undisputed head of that
party which had, in the late Parliament, been a majority, and
which was, in the present Parliament, outnumbered indeed,
disorganised and disheartened, but still numerous and
respectable. His placid courage rose higher and higher to meet
the dangers which threatened him. He provided for himself no
refuge. He made no move towards flight; and, without uttering one
boastful word, gave his enemies to understand, by the mild
firmness of his demeanour, that he dared them to do their worst.

In their eagerness to displace and destroy him they overreached
themselves. Had they been content to accuse him of lending his
countenance, with a rashness unbecoming his high place, to an
illconcerted scheme, that large part of mankind which judges of a
plan simply by the event would probably have thought the
accusation well founded. But the malice which they bore to him
was not to be so satisfied. They affected to believe that he had
from the first been aware of Kidd's character and designs. The
Great Seal had been employed to sanction a piratical expedition.
The head of the law had laid down a thousand pounds in the hope
of receiving tens of thousands when his accomplices should
return, laden with the spoils of ruined merchants. It was
fortunate for the Chancellor that the calumnies of which he was
the object were too atrocious to be mischievous.

And now the time had come at which the hoarded illhumour of six
months was at liberty to explode. On the sixteenth of November
the Houses met. The King, in his speech, assured them in gracious
and affectionate language that he was determined to do his best
to merit their love by constant care to preserve their liberty
and their religion, by a pure administration of justice, by
countenancing virtue, by discouraging vice, by shrinking from no
difficulty or danger when the welfare of the nation was at stake.
"These," he said, "are my resolutions; and I am persuaded that
you are come together with purposes on your part suitable to
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,
by God's blessing, to make me a happy king, and you a great and
flourishing people."

It might have been thought that no words less likely to give
offence had ever been uttered from the English throne. But even
in those words the malevolence of faction sought and found matter
for a quarrel. The gentle exhortation, "Let us act with
confidence in one another," must mean that such confidence did
not now exist, that the King distrusted the Parliament, or that
the Parliament had shown an unwarrantable distrust of 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 which
England had lavished in order to make and to keep him a great
sovereign. There was a sharp debate, in which Seymour took part.
With characteristic indelicacy and want of feeling he harangued
the Commons as 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. There were loud complaints that the events of
the preceding session had been misrepresented to the public, that
emissaries of the Court, in every part of the kingdom, declaimed
against the absurd jealousies or still more absurd parsimony
which had refused to His Majesty the means of keeping up such an
army as might secure the country against invasion. Even justices
of the peace, it was said, even deputy-lieutenants, had used King
James and King Lewis as bugbears, for the purpose of stirring up
the people against honest and thrifty representatives. Angry
resolutions were passed, declaring it to be the opinion of the
House that the best way to establish entire confidence between
the King and the Estates of the Realm would be to put a brand on
those evil advisers who had dared to breathe in the royal ear
calumnies against a faithful Parliament. An address founded on
these resolutions was voted; many thought that a violent rupture
was inevitable. But William returned an answer so prudent and
gentle that malice itself could not prolong the dispute. By this
time, indeed, a new dispute had begun. The address had scarcely
been moved when the House called for copies of the papers
relating to Kidd's expedition. Somers, conscious of innocence,
knew that it was wise as well as right to be perfectly ingenuous,
and resolved that there should be no concealment. His friends
stood manfully by him, and his enemies struck at him with such
blind fury that their blows injured only themselves. Howe raved
like a maniac. "What is to become of the country, plundered by
land, plundered by sea? Our rulers have laid hold on our lands,
our woods, our mines, our money. And all this is not enough. We
cannot send a cargo to the farthest ends of the earth, but they
must send a gang of thieves after it." Harley and Seymour tried
to carry a vote of censure without giving the House time to read
the papers. But the general feeling was strongly for a short
delay. At length, on the sixth of December, the subject was
considered in a committee of the whole House. Shower undertook to
prove that the letters patent to which Somers had put the Great
Seal were illegal. Cowper replied to him with immense applause,
and seems to have completely refuted him. Some of the Tory
orators had employed what was then a favourite claptrap. Very
great men, no doubt, were concerned in this business. But were
the Commons of England to stand in awe of great men? Would not
they have the spirit to censure corruption and oppression in the
highest places? Cowper answered finely that assuredly the House
ought not to be deterred from the discharge of any duty by the
fear of great men, but that fear was not the only base and evil
passion of which great men were the objects, and that the
flatterer who courted their favour was not a worse citizen than
the envious calumniator who took pleasure in bringing whatever
was eminent down to his own level. At length, after a debate
which lasted from midday till nine at night, and in which all the
leading members took part, the committee divided on the question
that the letters patent were dishonourable to the King,
inconsistent with the law of nations, contrary to the statutes of
the realm, and destructive of property and trade. The
Chancellor's enemies had felt confident of victory, and had made
the resolution so strong in order that it might be impossible for
him to retain the Great Seal. They soon 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 and accomplishments the
nation was proud, stole away before the door was closed. To the
general astonishment there were only one hundred and thirty-three
Ayes to one hundred and eighty-nine Noes. That the City of London
did not consider Somers as the destroyer, and his enemies as the
protectors, of trade, was proved on the following morning by the
most unequivocal of signs. As soon as the news of his triumph
reached the Royal Exchange, the price of stocks went up.

Some weeks elapsed before the Tories ventured again to attack
him. In the meantime they amused themselves by trying to worry
another person whom they hated even more bitterly. When, in a
financial debate, the arrangements of the household of the Duke
of Gloucester were incidentally mentioned, one or two members
took the opportunity of throwing reflections on Burnet. Burnet's
very name sufficed to raise among the High Churchmen a storm of
mingled merriment and anger. The Speaker in vain reminded the
orators that they were wandering from the question. The majority
was determined to have some fun with the Right Reverend Whig, and
encouraged them to proceed. Nothing appears to have been said on
the other side. The chiefs of the opposition inferred from the
laughing and cheering of the Bishop's enemies, and from the
silence of his friends, that there would be no difficulty in
driving from Court, with contumely, the prelate whom of all
prelates they most detested, as the personification of the
latitudinarian spirit, a Jack Presbyter in lawn sleeves. They,
therefore, after the lapse of a few hours, moved quite
unexpectedly an address requesting the King to remove the Bishop
of Salisbury from the place of preceptor to the young heir
apparent. But it soon appeared that many who could not help
smiling at Burnet's weaknesses did justice to his abilities and
virtues. The debate was hot. The unlucky Pastoral Letter was of
course not forgotten. It was asked whether a man who had
proclaimed that England was a conquered country, a man whose
servile pages the English Commons had ordered to be burned by the
hangman, could be a fit instructor for an English Prince. Some
reviled the Bishop for being a Socinian, which he was not, and
some for being a Scotchman, which he was. His defenders fought
his battle gallantly. "Grant," they said, "that it is possible to
find, amidst an immense mass of eloquent and learned matter
published in defence of the Protestant religion and of the
English Constitution, a paragraph which, though well intended,
was not well considered, is that error of an unguarded minute to
outweigh the services of more than twenty years? If one House of
Commons, by a very small majority, censured a little tract of
which his Lordship was the author, let it be remembered that
another House of Commons unanimously voted thanks to him for a
work of very different magnitude and importance, the History of
the Reformation. And, as to what is said about his birthplace, is
there not already ill humour enough in Scotland? Has not the
failure of that unhappy expedition to Darien raised a
sufficiently bitter feeling against us throughout that kingdom?
Every wise and honest man is desirous to soothe the angry
passions of our neighbours. And shall we, just at this moment,
exasperate those passions by proclaiming that to be born on the
north of the Tweed is a disqualification for all honourable
trust?" The ministerial members would gladly have permitted the
motion to be withdrawn. But the opposition, elated with hope,
insisted on dividing, and were confounded by finding that, with
all the advantage of a surprise, they were only one hundred and
thirty-three to one hundred and seventy-three. Their defeat would
probably have been less complete, had not all those members who
were especially attached to the Princess of Denmark voted in the
majority or absented themselves. Marlborough used all his
influence against the motion; and he had strong reasons for doing
so. He was by no means well pleased to see the Commons engaged in
discussing the characters and past lives of the persons who were
placed about the Duke of Gloucester. If the High Churchmen, by
reviving old stories, succeeded in carrying a vote against the
Preceptor, it was by no means unlikely that some malicious Whig
might retaliate on the Governor. The Governor must have been
conscious that he was not invulnerable; nor could he absolutely
rely on the support of the whole body of Tories; for it was
believed that their favourite leader, Rochester, thought himself
the fittest person to superintend the education of his grand
nephew.

From Burnet the opposition went back to Somers. Some Crown
property near Reigate had been granted to Somers by the King. In
this transaction there was nothing that deserved blame. The Great
Seal ought always to be held by a lawyer of the highest
distinction; nor can such a lawyer discharge his duties in a
perfectly efficient manner unless, with the Great Seal, he
accepts a peerage. But he may not have accumulated a fortune such
as will alone suffice to support a peerage; his peerage is
permanent; and his tenure of the Great Seal is precarious. In a
few weeks he may be dismissed from office, and may find that he
has lost a lucrative profession, that he has got nothing but a
costly dignity, that he has been transformed from a prosperous
barrister into a mendicant lord. Such a risk no wise man will
run. If, therefore, the state is to be well served in the highest
civil post, it is absolutely necessary that a provision should be
made for retired Chancellors. The Sovereign is now empowered by
Act of Parliament to make such a provision out of the public
revenue. In old times such a provision was ordinarily made out of
the hereditary domain of the Crown. What had been bestowed on
Somers appears to have amounted, after all deductions, to a net
income of about sixteen hundred a year, a sum which will hardly
shock us who have seen at one time five retired Chancellors
enjoying pensions of five thousand a year each. For the crime,
however, of accepting this grant the leaders of the opposition
hoped that they should be able to punish Somers with disgrace and
ruin. One difficulty stood in the way. All that he had received
was but a pittance when compared with the wealth with which some
of his persecutors had been loaded by the last two kings of the
House of Stuart. It was not easy to pass any censure on him which
should not imply a still more severe censure on two generations
of Granvilles, on two generations of Hydes, and on two
generations of Finches. At last some ingenious Tory thought of a
device by which it might be possible to strike the enemy without
wounding friends. The grants of Charles and James had been made in
time of peace; and William's grant to Somers had been made in
time of war. Malice eagerly caught at this childish distinction.
It was moved that any minister who had been concerned in passing
a grant for his own benefit while the nation 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 good
administration of justice ought to be suspended by war; or as if
it were not criminal in a government to squander the resources of
the state in time of peace. The motion was made by James Brydges,
eldest son of the Lord Chandos, the James Brydges who afterwards
became Duke of Chandos, who raised a gigantic fortune out of war
taxes, to squander it in comfortless and tasteless ostentation,
and who is still remembered as the Timon of Pope's keen and
brilliant satire. It was remarked as extraordinary that Brydges
brought forward and defended his motion merely as the assertion
of an abstract truth, and avoided all mention of the Chancellor.
It seemed still more extraordinary that Howe, whose whole
eloquence consisted in cutting personalities, named nobody on
this occasion, and contented himself with declaiming in general
terms against corruption and profusion. It was plain that the
enemies of Somers were at once urged forward by hatred and kept
back by fear. They knew that they could not carry a resolution
directly condemning him. They, therefore, cunningly brought
forward a mere speculative proposition which many members might
be willing to affirm without scrutinising it severely. But, as
soon as the major premise had been admitted, the minor would be
without difficulty established; and it would be impossible to
avoid coming to the conclusion that Somers had violated his
trust. Such tactics, however, have very seldom succeeded in
English parliaments; for a little good sense and a little
straightforwardness are quite sufficient to confound them. A
sturdy Whig member, Sir Rowland Gwyn, disconcerted the whole
scheme of operations. "Why this reserve?" he said, "Everybody
knows your meaning. Everybody sees that you have not the courage
to name the great man whom you are trying to destroy." "That is
false," cried Brydges; and a stormy altercation followed. It soon
appeared that innocence would again triumph. The two parties
seemed to have exchanged characters for one day. The friends of
the government, who in the Parliament were generally humble and
timorous, took a high tone, and spoke as it becomes men to speak
who are defending persecuted genius and virtue. The malecontents,
generally so insolent and turbulent, seemed to be completely
cowed. They abased themselves so low as to protest, what no human
being could believe, that they had no intention of attacking the
Chancellor, and had framed their resolution without any view to
him. Howe, from whose lips scarcely any thing ever dropped but
gall and poison, went so far as to say: "My Lord Somers is a 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 the motion was rejected by a majority of fifty in a
house of four hundred and nineteen members. It was long since
there had been so large an attendance at a division.

The ignominious failure of the attacks on Somers and Burnet
seemed to prove that the assembly was coming round to a better
temper. But the temper of a House of Commons left without the
guidance of a ministry is never to be trusted. "Nobody can tell
today," said an experienced politician of that time, "what the
majority may take it into their heads to do tomorrow." Already a
storm was gathering in which the Constitution itself was in
danger of perishing, and from which none of the three branches of
the legislature escaped without serious damage.

The question of the Irish forfeitures had been raised; and about
that question the minds of men, both within and without the walls
of Parliament, were in a strangely excitable state. Candid and
intelligent men, whatever veneration they may feel for the memory
of William, must find it impossible to deny that, in his
eagerness to enrich and aggrandise his personal friends, he too
often forgot what was due to his own reputation and to the public
interest. It is true that in giving away the old domains of the
Crown he did only what he had a right to do, and what all his
predecessors had done; nor could the most factious opposition
insist on resuming his grants of those domains without resuming
at the same time the grants of his uncles. But between those
domains and the estates recently forfeited in Ireland there was a
distinction, which would not indeed have been recognised by the
judges, but which to a popular assembly might well seem to be of
grave importance. In the year 1690 a Bill had been brought in for
applying the Irish forfeitures to the public service. That Bill
passed the Commons, and would probably, with large amendments,
have passed the Lords, had not the King, who was under the
necessity of attending the Congress at the Hague, put an end to
the session. In bidding the Houses farewell on that occasion, he
assured them that he should not dispose of the property about
which they had been deliberating, till they should have had
another opportunity of settling that matter. He had, as he
thought, strictly kept his word; for he had not disposed of this
property till the Houses had repeatedly met and separated without
presenting to him any bill on the subject. They had had the
opportunity which he had assured them that they should have. They
had had more than one such opportunity. The pledge which he had
given had therefore been amply redeemed; and he did not conceive
that he was bound to abstain longer from exercising his undoubted
prerogative. But, though it could hardly be denied that he had
literally fulfilled his promise, the general opinion was that
such a promise ought to have been more than literally fulfilled.
If his Parliament, overwhelmed with business which could not be
postponed without danger to his throne and to his person, had
been forced to defer, year after year, the consideration of so
large and complex a question as that of the Irish forfeitures, it
ill became him to take advantage of such a laches with the
eagerness of a shrewd attorney. Many persons, therefore, who were
sincerely attached to his government, and who on principle
disapproved of resumptions, thought the case of these forfeitures
an exception to the general rule.

The Commons had at the close of the last session tacked to the
Land Tax Bill a clause impowering seven Commissioners, who were
designated by name, to take account of the Irish forfeitures; and
the Lords and the King, afraid of losing the Land Tax Bill, had
reluctantly consented to this clause. During the recess, the
commissioners had visited Ireland. They had since returned to
England. Their report was soon laid before both Houses. By the
Tories, and by their allies the republicans, it was eagerly
hailed. It had, indeed, been framed for the express purpose of
flattering and of inflaming them. Three of the commissioners had
strongly objected to some passages as indecorous, and even
calumnious; but the other four had overruled every objection. Of
the four the chief was Trenchard. He was by calling a
pamphleteer, and seems not to have been aware that the sharpness
of style and of temper which may be tolerated in a pamphlet is
inexcusable in a state paper. He was certain that he should be
protected and rewarded by the party to which he owed his
appointment, and was delighted to have it in his power to
publish, with perfect security and with a semblance of official
authority, bitter reflections on King and ministry, Dutch
favourites, French refugees, and Irish Papists. The consequence
was that only four names were subscribed to the report. The three
dissentients presented a separate memorial. As to the main facts,
however, there was little or no dispute. It appeared that more
than a million of Irish acres, or about seventeen hundred
thousand English acres, an area equal to that of Middlesex,
Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire
together, had been forfeited during the late troubles. But of the
value of this large territory very different estimates were
formed. The commissioners acknowledged that they could obtain no
certain information. In the absence of such information they
conjectured the annual rent to be about two hundred thousand
pounds, and the fee simple to be worth thirteen years' purchase,
that is to say, about two millions six hundred thousand pounds.
They seem not to have been aware that much of the land had been
let very low on perpetual leases, and that much was burdened with
mortgages. A contemporary writer, who was evidently well
acquainted with Ireland, asserted that the authors of the report
had valued the forfeited property in Carlow at six times the real
market price, and that the two million six hundred thousand
pounds, of which they talked, would be found to shrink to about
half a million, which, as the exchanges then stood between Dublin
and London, would have dwindled to four hundred thousand pounds
by the time that it reached the English Exchequer. It was
subsequently proved, beyond all dispute, that this estimate was
very much nearer the truth than that which had been formed by
Trenchard and Trenchard's colleagues.

Of the seventeen hundred thousand acres which had been forfeited,
above a fourth part had been restored to the ancient proprietors
in conformity with the civil articles of the treaty of Limerick.
About one seventh of the remaining three fourths had been given
back to unhappy families, which, though they could not plead the
letter of the treaty, had been thought fit objects of clemency.
The rest had been bestowed, partly on persons whose seances
merited all and more than all that they obtained, but chiefly on
the King's personal friends. Romney had obtained a considerable
share of the royal bounty. But of all the grants the largest was
to Woodstock, the eldest son of Portland; the next was to
Albemarle. An admirer of William cannot relate without pain that
he divided between these two foreigners an extent of country
larger than Hertfordshire.

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

They censured that part of William's conduct which deserved high
praise even more severely than that part of his conduct for which
it is impossible to set up any defence. They told the Parliament
that the old proprietors of the soil had been treated with
pernicious indulgence; that the capitulation of Limerick had been
construed in a manner far too favourable to the conquered race;
and that the King had suffered his compassion to lead him into
the error of showing indulgence to many who could not pretend
that they were within the terms of the capitulation. Even now,
after the lapse of eight years, it might be possible, by
instituting a severe inquisition, and by giving proper
encouragement to informers, to prove that many Papists, who were
still permitted to enjoy their estates, had taken the side of
James during the civil war. There would thus be a new and
plentiful harvest of confiscations. The four bitterly complained
that their task had been made more difficult by the hostility of
persons who held office in Ireland, and by the secret influence
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
have been blamed for the unfair and ill natured manner in which
they had discharged their functions; but they could not have been
accused of usurping functions which did not belong to them for
the purpose of insulting the Sovereign and exasperating the
nation. But these men well knew in what way and for what purpose
they might safely venture to exceed their commission. The Act of
Parliament from which they derived their powers authorised them
to report on estates forfeited during the late troubles. It
contained not a word which could be construed into an authority
to report on the old hereditary domain of the Crown. With that
domain they had as little to do as with the seignorage levied on
tin in the Duchy of Cornwall, or with the church patronage of the
Duchy of Lancaster. But they had discovered that a part of that
domain had been alienated by a grant which they could not deny
themselves the pleasure of publishing to the world. It was indeed
an unfortunate grant, a grant which could not be brought to light
without much mischief and much scandal. It was long since William
had ceased to be the lover of Elisabeth Villiers, long since he
had asked her counsel or listened to her fascinating conversation
except in the presence of other persons. She had been some years
married to George Hamilton, a soldier who had distinguished
himself by his courage in Ireland and Flanders, and who probably
held the courtier like doctrine that a lady is not dishonoured by
having been the paramour of a king. William was well pleased with
the marriage, bestowed on the wife a portion of the old Crown
property in Ireland, and created the husband a peer of Scotland
by the title of Earl of Orkney. Assuredly William would not have
raised his character by abandoning to poverty a woman whom he had
loved, though with a criminal love. He was undoubtedly bound, as
a man of humanity and honour, to provide liberally for her; but
he should have provided for her rather by saving from his civil
list than by alienating his hereditary revenue. The four
malecontent commissioners rejoiced with spiteful joy over this
discovery. It was in vain that the other three represented that
the grant to Lady Orkney was one with which they had nothing to
do, and that, if they went out of their way to hold it up to
obloquy, they might be 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. We were sent here to fly in the
King's face." With this patriotic object a paragraph about Lady
Orkney's grant was added to the report, a paragraph too in which
the value of that grant was so monstrously exaggerated that
William appeared to have surpassed the profligate extravagance of
his uncle Charles. The estate bestowed on the countess was valued
at twenty-four thousand pounds a year. The truth seems to be that
the income which she derived from the royal bounty, after making
allowance for incumbrances and for the rate of exchange, was
about four thousand pounds.

The success of the report was complete. The nation and its
representatives hated taxes, hated foreign favourites, and hated
Irish Papists; and here was a document which held out the hope
that England might, at the expense of foreign courtiers and of
popish Celts, be relieved from a great load of taxes. Many, both
within and without the walls of Parliament, gave entire faith to
the estimate which the commissioners had formed by a wild guess,
in the absence of trustworthy information. They gave entire faith
also to the prediction that a strict inquiry would detect many
traitors who had hitherto been permitted to escape with impunity,
and that a large addition would thus be made to the extensive
territory which had already been confiscated. It was popularly
said that, if vigorous measures were taken, the gain to the
kingdom would be not less than three hundred thousand pounds a
year; and almost the whole of this sum, a sum more than
sufficient to defray the whole charge of such an army as the
Commons were disposed to keep up in time of peace, would be
raised by simply taking away what had been unjustifiably given to
Dutchmen, who would still retain immense wealth taken out of
English pockets, or unjustifiably left to Irishmen, who thought
it at once the most pleasant and the most pious of all
employments to cut English throats. The Lower House went to work
with the double eagerness of rapacity and of animosity. As soon
as the report of the four and the protest of the three had been
laid on the table and read by the clerk, it was resolved that a
Resumption Bill should be brought in. It was then resolved, in
opposition to the plainest principles of justice, that no
petition from any person who might think himself aggrieved by
this bill should ever be received. It was necessary to consider
how the commissioners should be remunerated for their services;
and this question was decided with impudent injustice. It was
determined that the commissioners who had signed the report
should receive a thousand pounds each. But a large party thought
that the dissentient three deserved no recompense; and two of
them were merely allowed what was thought sufficient to cover the
expense of their journey to Ireland. This was nothing less than
to give notice to every man who should ever be employed in any
similar inquiry that, if he wished to be paid, he must report
what would please the assembly which held the purse of the state.
In truth the House was despotic, and was fast contracting the
vices of a despot. It was proud of its antipathy to courtiers;
and it was calling into existence a new set of courtiers who
would study all its humours, who would flatter all its
weaknesses, who would prophesy to it smooth things, and who would
assuredly be, in no respect, less greedy, less faithless, or less
abject than the sycophants who bow in the antechambers of kings.

Indeed the dissentient commissioners had worse evils to apprehend
than that of being left unremunerated. One of them, Sir Richard
Levinz, had mentioned in private to his friends some
disrespectful expressions which had been used by one of his
colleagues about the King. What he had mentioned in private was,
not perhaps very discreetly, repeated by Montague in the House.
The predominant party eagerly seized the opportunity of worrying
both Montague and Levinz. A resolution implying a severe censure
on Montague was carried. Levinz was brought to the bar and
examined. The four were also in attendance. They protested that
he had misrepresented them. Trenchard declared that he had always
spoken of His Majesty as a subject ought to speak of an excellent
sovereign, who had been deceived by evil counsellors, and who
would be grateful to those who should bring the truth to his
knowledge. He vehemently denied that he had called the grant to
Lady Orkney villainous. It was a word that he never used, a word
that never came out of the mouth of a gentleman. These assertions
will be estimated at the proper value by those who are acquainted
with Trenchard's pamphlets, pamphlets in which the shocking word
villainous will without difficulty be found, and which are full
of malignant reflections on William.20 But the House was
determined not to believe Levinz. He was voted a calumniator, and
sent to the Tower, as an example to all who should be tempted to
speak truth which the Commons might not like to hear.

Meanwhile the bill had been brought in, and was proceeding
easily. It provided that all the property which had belonged to
the Crown at the time of the accession of James the Second, or
which had been forfeited to the Crown since that time, should be
vested in trustees. These trustees were named in the bill; and
among them were the four commissioners who had signed the report.
All the Irish grants of William were annulled. The legal rights
of persons other than the grantees were saved. But of those
rights the trustees were to be judges, and judges without appeal.
A claimant who gave them the trouble of attending to him, and
could not make out his case, was to be heavily fined. Rewards
were offered to informers who should discover any property which
was liable to confiscation, and which had not yet been
confiscated. Though eight years had elapsed since an arm had been
lifted up in the conquered island against the domination of the
Englishry, the unhappy children of the soil, who had been
suffered to live, submissive and obscure, on their hereditary
fields, were threatened with a new and severe inquisition into
old offences.

Objectionable as many parts of the bill undoubtedly were, nobody
who knew the House of Commons believed it to be possible to carry
any amendment. The King flattered himself that a motion for
leaving at his disposal a third part of the forfeitures would be
favourably received. There can be little doubt that a compromise
would have been willingly accepted twelve months earlier. But the
report had made all compromise impossible. William, however, was
bent on trying the experiment; and Vernon consented to go on what
he considered as a forlorn hope. He made his speech and his
motion; but the reception which he met with was such that he did
not venture to demand a division. This feeble attempt at
obstruction only made the impetuous current chafe the more. Howe
immediately moved two resolutions; one attributing the load of
debts and taxes which lay on the nation to the Irish grants; the
other censuring all who had been concerned in advising or passing
those grants. Nobody was named; not because the majority was
inclined to show any tenderness to the Whig ministers, but
because some of the most objectionable grants had 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,
in whose train all the leaders of the opposition appeared at
Kensington. Even Seymour, with characteristic effrontery, showed
himself there as one of the chief authors of a vote which
pronounced him guilty of a breach of duty. William's answer was
that he had thought himself bound to reward out of the forfeited
property those who had served him well, and especially those who
had borne a principal part in the reduction of Ireland. 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 effectual
means. This answer was but a bad one; and, in truth, it was
hardly possible for him to return a good one. He had done what
was indefensible; and, by attempting to defend himself, he made
his case worse. It was not true that the Irish forfeitures, or
one fifth part of them, had been granted to men who had
distinguished themselves in the Irish war; and it was not
judicious to hint that those forfeitures could not justly be
applied to the discharge of the public debts. The Commons
murmured, and not altogether without reason. "His Majesty tells
us," they said, "that the debts fall to us and the forfeitures to
him. We are to make good out of the purses of Englishmen what was
spent upon the war; and he is to put into the purses of Dutchmen
what was got by the war." When the House met again, Howe moved
that whoever had advised the King to return such an answer was an
enemy to His Majesty and the kingdom; and this resolution was
carried with some slight modification.

To whatever criticism William's answer might be open, he had said
one thing which well deserved the attention of the House. A small
part of the forfeited property had been bestowed on men whose
services to the state well deserved a much larger recompense; and
that part could not be resumed without gross injustice and
ingratitude. An estate of very moderate value had been given,
with the title of Earl of Athlone, to Ginkell, whose skill and
valour had brought the war in Ireland to a triumphant close.
Another estate had been given, with the title of Earl of Galway,
to Rouvigny, who, in the crisis of the decisive battle, at the
very moment when Saint Ruth was waving his hat, and exclaiming
that the English should be beaten back to Dublin, had, at the
head of a gallant body of horse, struggled through the morass,
turned the left wing of the Celtic army, and retrieved the day.
But the predominant faction, drunk with insolence and animosity,
made no distinction between courtiers who had been enriched by
injudicious partiality and warriors who had been sparingly
rewarded for great exploits achieved in defence of the liberties
and the religion of our country. Athlone was a Dutchman; Galway
was a Frenchman; and it did not become a good Englishman to say a
word in favour of either.

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

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

The Lower House now, contemptuously disregarding both principles
and precedents, took on itself to carve estates out of the
forfeitures for persons whom it was inclined to favour. To the
Duke of Ormond especially, who ranked among the Tories and was
distinguished by his dislike of the foreigners, marked partiality
was shown. Some of his friends, indeed, hoped that they should be
able to insert in the bill a clause bestowing on him all the
confiscated estates in the county of Tipperary. But they found
that it would be prudent in them to content themselves with
conferring on him a boon smaller in amount, but equally
objectionable in principle. He had owed very large debts to
persons who had forfeited to the Crown all that belonged to them.
Those debts were therefore now due from him to the Crown. The
House determined to make him a present of the whole, that very
House which would not consent to leave a single acre to the
general who had stormed Athlone, who had gained the battle of
Aghrim, who had entered Galway in triumph, and who had received
the submission of Limerick.

That a bill so violent, so unjust, and so unconstitutional would
pass the Lords without considerable alteration was hardly to be
expected. The ruling demagogues, therefore, resolved to join it
with the bill which granted to the Crown a land tax of two
shillings in the pound for the service of the next year, and thus
to place the Upper House under the necessity of either passing
both bills together without the change of a word, or rejecting
both together, and leaving the public creditor unpaid and the
nation defenceless.

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

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

In the Committee and on the third reading several amendments were
proposed and carried. Wharton, the boldest and most active of the
Whig peers, and the Lord Privy Seal Lonsdale, one of the most
moderate and reasonable of the Tories, took the lead, and were
strenuously supported by the Lord President Pembroke, and by the
Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems on this occasion to have a
little forgotten his habitual sobriety and caution. Two natural
sons of Charles the Second, Richmond and Southampton, who had
strong personal reasons for disliking resumption bills, were
zealous on the same side. No peer, however, as far as can now be
discovered, ventured to defend the way in which William had
disposed of his Irish domains. The provisions which annulled the
grants of those domains were left untouched. But the words of
which the effect was to vest in the parliamentary trustees
property which had never been forfeited to the King, and had
never been given away by him, were altered; 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 far modified
as to be, in form, somewhat less exceptionable. The bill,
improved by these changes, was sent down by two judges to the
Lower House.

The Lower House was all in a flame. There was now no difference
of opinion there. Even those members who thought that the
Resumption Bill and the Land Tax Bill ought not to have been
tacked together, yet felt that, since those bills had been tacked
together, it was impossible to agree to the amendments made by
the Lords without surrendering one of the most precious
privileges of the Commons. The amendments were rejected without
one dissentient voice. It was resolved that a conference should
be demanded; and the gentlemen who were to manage the conference
were instructed to say merely that the Upper House had no right
to alter a money bill; that the point had long been settled and
was too clear for argument; that they should leave the bill with
the Lords, and that they should leave with the Lords also the
responsibility of stopping the supplies which were necessary for
the public service. Several votes of menacing sound were passed
at the same sitting. It was Monday the eighth of April. Tuesday
the ninth was allowed to the other House for reflection and
repentance. It was resolved that on the Wednesday morning the
question of the Irish forfeitures should again be taken into
consideration, and that every member who was in town should be
then in his place on peril of the highest displeasure of the
House. It was moved and carried that every Privy Councillor who
had been concerned in procuring or passing any exorbitant grant
for his own benefit had been guilty of a high crime and
misdemeanour. Lest the courtiers should flatter themselves that
this was meant to be a mere abstract proposition, it was ordered
that a list of the members of the Privy Council should be laid on
the table. As it was thought not improbable that the crisis might
end in an appeal to the constituent bodies, nothing was omitted
which could excite out of doors a feeling in favour of the bill.
The Speaker was directed to print and publish the report signed
by the four Commissioners, not accompanied, as in common justice
it ought to have been, by the protest of the three dissentients,
but accompanied by several extracts from the journals which were
thought likely to produce an impression favourable to the House
and unfavourable to the Court. All these resolutions passed
without any division, and without, as far as appears, any debate.
There was, indeed, much speaking, but all on one side. Seymour,
Harley, Howe, Harcourt, Shower, Musgrave, declaimed, one after
another, about the obstinacy of the other House, the alarming
state of the country, the dangers which threatened the public
peace and the public credit. If, it was said, none but Englishmen
sate in the Parliament and in the Council, we might hope that
they would relent at the thought of the calamities which impend
over England. But we have to deal with men who are not
Englishmen, with men who consider this country as their own only
for evil, as their property, not as their home; who, when they
have gorged themselves with our wealth, 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 as costly as
the last, would do less mischief than has been done by the
introduction of that batch of Dutchmen among the barons of the
realm." Another was so absurd as to call on the House to declare
that whoever should advise a dissolution would be guilty of high
treason. A third gave utterance to a sentiment which it is
difficult to understand how any assembly of civilised and
Christian men, even in a moment of strong excitement, should have
heard without horror. "They object to tacking; do they? Let them
take care that they do not provoke us to tack in earnest. How
would they like to have bills of supply with bills of attainder
tacked to them?" This atrocious threat, worthy of the tribune of
the French Convention in the worst days of the Jacobin tyranny,
seems to have passed unreprehended. It was meant--such at least
was the impression at the Dutch embassy--to intimidate Somers. He
was confined by illness. He had been unable to take any public
part in the proceedings of the Lords; and he had privately blamed
them for engaging in a conflict in which he justly thought that
they could not be victorious. Nevertheless, the Tory leaders
hoped that they might be able to direct against him the whole
force of the storm which they had raised. Seymour, in particular,
encouraged by the wild and almost savage temper of his hearers,
harangued with rancorous violence against the wisdom and the
virtue which presented the strongest contrast to his own
turbulence, insolence, faithlessness, and rapacity. No doubt, he
said, the Lord Chancellor was a man of parts. Anybody might be
glad to have for counsel so acute and eloquent an advocate. But
a very good advocate might be a very bad minister; and, of all
the ministers who had brought the kingdom into difficulties, this
plausible, fair-spoken person was the most dangerous. Nor was the
old reprobate ashamed to add that he was afraid that his Lordship
was no better than a Hobbist in religion.

After a long sitting the members separated; but they reassembled
early on the morning of the following day, Tuesday the ninth of
April. A conference was held; and Seymour, as chief manager for
the Commons, returned the bill and the amendments to the Peers in
the manner which had been prescribed to him. From the Painted
Chamber he went back to the Lower House, and reported what had
passed. "If," he said, "I may venture to 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 Requests and the
lobbies. The Lords had divided on the question whether they would
adhere to their amendments. Forty-seven had voted for adhering,
and thirty-four for giving way. The House of Commons broke up
with gloomy looks, and in great agitation. All London looked
forward to the next day with painful forebodings. The general
feeling was in favour of the bill. It was rumoured that the
majority which had determined to stand by the amendments had been
swollen by several prelates, by several of the illegitimate sons
of Charles the Second, and by several needy and greedy courtiers.
The cry in all the public places of resort was that the nation
would be ruined by the three B's, Bishops, Bastards, and Beggars.
On Wednesday the tenth, at length, the contest came to a decisive
issue. Both Houses were early crowded. The Lords demanded a
conference. It was held; and Pembroke delivered back to Seymour
the bill and the amendments, together with a paper containing a
concise, but luminous and forcible, exposition of the grounds on
which the Lords conceived themselves to be acting in a
constitutional and strictly defensive manner. This paper was read
at the bar; but, whatever effect it may now produce on a
dispassionate student of history, it produced none on the thick
ranks of country gentlemen. It was instantly resolved that the
bill should again be sent back to the Lords with a peremptory
announcement that the Commons' determination was unalterable.

The Lords again took the amendments into consideration. During
the last forty-eight hours, great exertions had been made in
various quarters to avert a complete rupture between the Houses.
The statesmen of the junto were far too wise not to see that it
would be madness to continue the struggle longer. It was indeed
necessary, unless the King and the Lords were to be of as little
weight in the State as in 1648, unless the House of Commons was
not merely to exercise a general control over the government, but
to be, as in the days of the Rump, itself the whole government,
the sole legislative chamber, the fountain from which were to
flow all those favours which had hitherto been in the gift of the
Crown, that a determined stand should be made. But, in order that
such a stand might be successful, the ground must be carefully
selected; for a defeat might be fatal. The Lords must wait for
some occasion on which their privileges would be bound up with
the privileges of all Englishmen, for some occasion on which the
constituent bodies would, if an appeal were made to them, disavow
the acts of the representative body; and this was not such an
occasion. The enlightened and large minded few considered tacking
as a practice so pernicious that it would be justified only by an
emergency which would justify a resort to physical force. But, in
the many, tacking, when employed for a popular end, excited
little or no disapprobation. The public, which seldom troubles
itself with nice distinctions, could not be made to understand
that the question at issue was any other than this, whether a sum
which was vulgarly estimated at millions, and which undoubtedly
amounted to some hundreds of thousands, should be employed in
paying the debts of the state and alleviating the load of
taxation, or in making Dutchmen, who were already too rich, still
richer. It was evident that on that question the Lords could not
hope to have the country with them, and that, if a general
election took place while that question was unsettled, the new
House of Commons would be even more mutinous and impracticable
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
the royal closet, and had strongly represented to the King the
dangers which threatened the state. The King had at length
consented to let it be understood that he considered the passing
of the bill as on the whole the less of two great evils. It was
soon clear that the temper of the Peers had undergone a
considerable alteration since the preceding day. Scarcely any,
indeed, changed sides. But not a few abstained from voting.
Wharton, who had at first spoken powerfully for the amendments,
left town for Newmarket. On the other hand, some Lords who had
not yet taken their part came down to give a healing vote. Among
them were the two persons to whom the education of the young heir
apparent had been entrusted, Marlborough and Burnet. Marlborough
showed his usual prudence. He had remained neutral while by
taking a part he must have offended either the House of Commons
or the King. He took a part as soon as he saw that it was
possible to please both. Burnet, alarmed for the public peace,
was in a state of great excitement, and, as was usual with him
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 of the amendments, and was in great danger of being
reprimanded at the bar or delivered over to Black Rod. The motion
on which the division took place was that the House do adhere to
the amendments. There were forty contents and thirty-seven not
contents. Proxies were called; and the numbers were found to be
exactly even. In the House of Lords there is no casting vote.
When the numbers are even, the non contents have it. The motion
to adhere had therefore been negatived. But this was not enough.
It was necessary that an affirmative resolution should be moved
to the effect that the House agreed to the bill without
amendments; and, if the numbers should again be equal, this
motion would also be lost. It was an anxious moment. Fortunately
the Primate's heart failed him. He had obstinately fought the
battle down to the last stage. But he probably felt that it was
no light thing to take on himself, and to bring on his order, the
responsibility of throwing the whole kingdom into confusion. He
started up and hurried out of the House, beckoning to some of his
brethren. His brethren followed him with a prompt obedience,
which, serious as the crisis was, caused no small merriment. In
consequence of this defection, the motion to agree was carried by
a majority of five. Meanwhile the members of the other House had
been impatiently waiting for news, and had been alternately
elated and depressed by the reports which followed one another in
rapid succession. At first it was confidently expected that the
Peers would yield; and there was general good humour. Then came
intelligence that the majority of the Lords present had voted for
adhering to the amendments. "I believe," so Vernon wrote the next
day, "I believe there was not one man in the House that did not
think the nation ruined." The lobbies were cleared; the back
doors were locked; the keys were laid on the table; the Serjeant
at Arms was directed to take his post at the front door, and to
suffer no member to withdraw. An awful interval followed, during
which the angry passions of the assembly seemed to be subdued by
terror. Some of the leaders of the opposition, men of grave
character and of large property, stood aghast at finding that
they were engaged,--they scarcely knew how,--in a conflict such as
they had not at all expected, in a conflict in which they could
be victorious only at the expense of the peace and order of
society. Even Seymour was sobered by the greatness and nearness
of the danger. Even Howe thought it advisable to hold
conciliatory language. It was no time, he said, for wrangling.
Court party and country party were Englishmen alike. Their duty
was to forget all past grievances, and to cooperate 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 been passed without amendments.

The leading malecontents, who, a few minutes before, scared by
finding that their violence had brought on a crisis for which
they were not prepared, had talked about the duty of mutual
forgiveness and close union, instantly became again as rancorous
as ever. One danger, they said, was over. So far well. But it was
the duty of the representatives of the people to take such steps
as might make it impossible that there should ever again be such
danger. Every adviser of the Crown, who had been concerned in the
procuring or passing of any exorbitant grant, ought to be
excluded from all access to the royal ear. A list of the privy
councillors, furnished in conformity with the order made two days
before, was on the table. That list the clerk was ordered to
read. Prince George of Denmark and the Archbishop of Canterbury
passed without remark. But, as soon as the Chancellor's name had
been pronounced, the rage of his enemies broke forth. Twice
already, in the course of that stormy session, they had attempted
to ruin his fame and his fortunes; and twice his innocence and
his calm fortitude had confounded all their politics. Perhaps, in
the state of excitement to which the House had been wrought up, a
third attack on him might be successful. Orator after orator
declaimed against him. He was the great offender. He was
responsible for all the grievances of which the nation
complained. He had obtained exorbitant grants for himself. He had
defended the exorbitant grants obtained by others. He had not,
indeed, been able, in the late debates, to raise his own voice
against the just demands of the nation. But it might well be
suspected that he had in secret prompted the ungracious answer of
the King and encouraged the pertinacious resistance of the Lords.
Sir John Levison Gower, a noisy and acrimonious Tory, called for
impeachment. But Musgrave, an abler and more experienced
politician, saw that, if the imputations which the opposition had
been in the habit of throwing on the Chancellor were exhibited
with the precision of a legal charge, their futility would excite
universal derision, and thought it more expedient to move that
the House should, without assigning any reason, request the King
to remove 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 the resumption of the Irish grants. Only
a hundred and six members went into the 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, is sufficient
evidence of the respect which the great qualities of Somers had
extorted even from his political enemies.

The clerk then went on with the list. The Lord President and the
Lord Privy Seal, who were well known to have stood up strongly
for the privileges of the Lords, were reviled by some angry
members; but no motion was made against either. And soon the
Tories became uneasy in their turn; for the name of the Duke of
Leeds was read. He was one of themselves. They were very
unwilling to put a stigma on him. Yet how could they, just after
declaiming against the Chancellor for accepting a very moderate
and well earned provision, undertake the defence of a statesman
who had, out of grants, pardons and bribes, accumulated a
princely fortune? There was actually on the table evidence that
His Grace was receiving from the bounty of the Crown more than
thrice as much as had been bestowed on Somers; and nobody could
doubt that His Grace's secret gains had very far exceeded those
of which there was evidence on the table. It was accordingly
moved that the House, which had indeed been sitting massy hours,
should adjourn. The motion was lost; but neither party was
disposed to move that the consideration of the list should be
resumed. It was however resolved, without a division, that an
address should be presented to the King, requesting that no
person not a native of his dominions, Prince George excepted,
might be admitted to the Privy Council either of England or of
Ireland. The evening was now far spent. The candles had been some
time lighted; and the House rose. So ended one of the most
anxious, turbulent, and variously eventful days in the long
Parliamentary History of England.

What the morrow would have produced if time had been allowed for
a renewal of hostilities can only be guessed. The supplies had
been voted. The King was determined not to receive the address
which requested him to disgrace his dearest and most trusty
friends. Indeed he would have prevented the passing of that
address by proroguing Parliament on the preceding day, had not
the Lords risen the moment after they had agreed to the
Resumption Bill. He had actually come from Kensington to the
Treasury for that purpose; and his robes and crown were in
readiness. He now took care to be at Westminster in good time.
The Commons had scarcely met when the knock of Black Rod was
heard. They repaired to the other House. The bills were passed;
and Bridgewater, by the royal command, prorogued the Parliament.
For the first time since the Revolution the session closed
without a speech from the throne. William was 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 at length, on Good Friday, 1701, suffered a shock from which
he had never recovered. While he was listening in his chapel to
the solemn service of the day, he fell down in a fit, and
remained long insensible. Some people imagined that the words of
the anthem which his choristers were chanting had produced in him
emotions too violent to be borne by an enfeebled body and mind.
For that anthem was taken from the plaintive elegy in which a
servant of the true God, chastened by many sorrows and
humiliations, 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. Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our
houses to aliens; the crown is fallen from our head. Wherefore
dose thou forget us for ever?"

The King's malady proved to be paralytic. Fagon, the first
physician of the 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 charges of the journey, and gave
orders that every town along the road should receive his good
brother with all the honours due to royalty.21

James, after passing some time at Bourbon, returned to the
neighbourhood of Paris with health so far reestablished that he
was able to take exercise on horseback, but with judgment and
memory evidently impaired. On the thirteenth of September, he had
a second fit in his chapel; and it soon became clear that this
was a final stroke. He rallied the last energies of his failing
body and mind to testify his firm belief in the religion for
which he had sacrificed so much. He received the last sacraments
with every mark of devotion, exhorted his son to hold fast to 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 in the bosom of the one infallible Church. After
the extreme unction had been administered, James declared that he
pardoned all his enemies, and named particularly the Prince of
Orange, the Princess of Denmark, and the Emperor. The Emperor's
name he repeated with peculiar emphasis: "Take notice, father,"
he said to the confessor, "that I forgive the Emperor with all my
heart." It may perhaps seem strange that he should have found
this the hardest of all exercises of Christian charity. But it
must be remembered that the Emperor was the only Roman Catholic
Prince still living who had been accessory to the Revolution, and
that James might not unnaturally consider Roman Catholics who had
been accessory to the Revolution as more inexcusably guilty than
heretics who might have deluded themselves into the belief that,
in violating their duty to him, they were discharging their duty
to God.

While James was still able to understand what was said to him,
and make intelligible answers, Lewis visited him twice. The
English exiles observed that the Most Christian King was to the
last considerate and kind in the very slightest matters which
concerned his unfortunate guest. He would not allow his coach to
enter the court of Saint Germains, lest the noise of the wheels
should be heard in the sick room. In both interviews he was
gracious, friendly, and even tender. But he carefully abstained
from saying anything about the future position of the family
which was about to lose its head. Indeed he could say nothing,
for he had not yet made up his own mind. Soon, however, it became
necessary for him to form some resolution. On the sixteenth
James sank into a stupor which indicated the near approach of
death. While he lay in this helpless state, Madame de Maintenon
visited his consort. To this visit many persons who were likely
to be well informed attributed a long series of great events. We
cannot wonder that a woman should have been moved to pity by the
misery of a woman; that a devout Roman Catholic should have taken
a deep interest in the fate of a family persecuted, as she
conceived, solely for being Roman Catholics; or that the pride of
the widow of Scarron should have been intensely gratified by the
supplications of a daughter of Este and a Queen of England. From
mixed motives, probably, the wife of Lewis promised her powerful
protection to the wife of James.

Madame de Maintenon was just leaving Saint Germains when, on the
brow of the 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 that he was persuaded to form a resolution, of
which neither he nor she by whom he was governed foresaw the
consequences. Before he announced that resolution, however, he
observed all the decent forms of deliberation. A council was held
that evening at Marli, and was attended by the princes of 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,
it seems difficult to understand how any person who had any
pretensions to the name of statesman should have been of a
different opinion. Torcy took his stand on the ground that to
recognise the Prince of Wales would be to violate the Treaty of
Ryswick. This was indeed an impregnable position. By that treaty
His Most Christian Majesty had bound himself to do nothing which
could, directly or indirectly, disturb the existing order of
things in England. And in what way, except by an actual invasion,
could he do more to disturb the existing order of things in
England than by solemnly declaring, in the face of the whole
world, that he did not consider that order of things as
legitimate, that he regarded the Bill of Rights and the Act of
Settlement as nullities, and the King in possession as an
usurper? The recognition would then be a breach of faith; and,
even if all considerations of morality were set aside, it was
plain that it would, at that moment, be wise in the French
government to avoid every thing which could with plausibility be
represented as a breach of faith. The crisis was a very peculiar
one. The great diplomatic victory won by France in the preceding
year had excited 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 of Bourbon could easily deal.
Other powers were still looking in doubt to England for the
signal; and England, though her aspect was sullen and menacing,
still preserved neutrality. That neutrality would not have lasted
so long, if William could have relied on the support of his
Parliament and of his people. In his Parliament there were agents
of France, who, though few, had obtained so much influence by
clamouring against standing armies, profuse grants, and Dutch
favourites, that they were often blindly followed by the
majority; and his people, distracted by domestic factions,
unaccustomed to busy themselves about continental politics, and
remembering with bitterness the disasters and burdens of the last
war, the carnage of Landen, the loss of the Smyrna fleet, the
land tax at four shillings in the pound, hesitated about engaging
in another contest, and would probably continue to hesitate while
he continued to live. He could not live long. It had, indeed,
often been prophesied that his death was at hand; and the
prophets had hitherto been mistaken. But there was now no
possibility of mistake. His cough was more violent than ever; his
legs were swollen; his eyes, once bright and clear as those of a
falcon, had grown dim; he who, on the day of the Boyne, had been
sixteen hours on the backs of different horses, could now with
great difficulty creep into his state coach.22 The vigorous
intellect, and the intrepid spirit, remained; but on the body
fifty years had done the work of ninety. In a few months the
vaults of Westminster would receive the emaciated and shattered
frame which was animated by the most far-sighted, the most
daring, the most commanding of souls. In a few months the British
throne would be filled by a woman whose understanding was well
known to be feeble, and who was believed to lean towards the
party which was averse from war. To get over those few months
without an open and violent rupture should have been the first
object of the French government. Every engagement should have
been punctually fulfilled; every occasion of quarrel should have
been studiously avoided. Nothing should have been spared which
could quiet the alarms and soothe the wounded pride of
neighbouring nations.

The House of Bourbon was so situated that one year of moderation
might not improbably be rewarded by thirty years of undisputed
ascendency. Was it possible the politic and experienced Lewis
would at such a conjuncture offer a new and most galling
provocation, not only to William, whose animosity was already as
great as it could be, but to the people whom William had hitherto
been vainly endeavouring to inspire with animosity resembling his
own? How often, since the Revolution of 1688, had it seemed that
the English were thoroughly weary of the new government. And how
often had the detection of a Jacobite plot, or the approach of a
French armament, changed the whole face of things. All at once
the grumbling had ceased, the grumblers had crowded to sign loyal
addresses to the usurper, had formed associations in support of
his authority, had appeared in arms at the head of the militia,
crying God save King William. So it would be now. Most of those
who had taken a pleasure in crossing him on the question of his
Dutch guards, on the question of his Irish grants, would be moved
to vehement resentment when they learned that Lewis had, in
direct violation of a treaty, determined to force on England a
king of his own religion, a king bred in his own dominions, 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
Torcy in a paper which is still extant, and which it is difficult
to believe that his master can have read without great
misgivings.23 On one side were 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 were the influence of an
artful woman, and the promptings of vanity which, we must in
candour acknowledge, was ennobled by a mixture of compassion and
chivalrous generosity. The King determined to act in direct
opposition to the advice of all his ablest servants; and the
princes of the blood applauded his decision, as they would have
applauded any decision which he had announced. Nowhere was he
regarded with a more timorous, a more slavish, respect than in
his own family.

On the following day he went again to Saint Germains, and,
attended by a splendid retinue, entered James's bedchamber. The
dying man scarcely opened his heavy eyes, and then closed them
again. "I have something," said Lewis, "of great moment to
communicate to Your Majesty." The courtiers who filled the room
took this as a signal to retire, and were crowding towards the
door, when they were stopped by that commanding voice: "Let
nobody withdraw. I come to tell Your Majesty that, whenever it
shall please God to take you from us, I will be to your son what
I have been to you, and will acknowledge him as King of England,
Scotland and Ireland." The English exiles who were standing round
the couch fell on their knees. Some burst into tears. Some poured
forth praises and blessings with clamour such as, was scarcely
becoming in such a place and at such a time. Some indistinct
murmurs which James uttered, and which were drowned by the noisy
gratitude of his attendants, were interpreted to mean thanks. But
from the most trustworthy accounts it appears 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
assembled there the announcement which he had made at Saint
Germains. The whole circle broke forth into exclamations of
delight and admiration. What piety! What humanity! What
magnanimity! Nor was this enthusiasm altogether feigned. For, in
the estimation of the greater part of that brilliant crowd,
nations were nothing and princes every thing. What could 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,
besides the innocent boy and that ambitious kinsman, five
millions and a half of Englishmen were concerned, who were little
disposed to consider themselves as the absolute property of any
master, and who were still less disposed to accept a master
chosen for them by the French King.

James lingered three days longer. He was occasionally sensible
during a few minutes, and, during one of these lucid intervals,
faintly expressed his gratitude to Lewis. On the sixteenth he
died. His Queen retired that evening to the nunnery of Chaillot,
where she could weep and pray undisturbed. She left Saint
Germains in joyous agitation. A herald made his appearance before
the palace gate, and, with sound of trumpet, proclaimed, in
Latin, French and English, King James the Third of England and
Eighth of Scotland. The streets, in consequence doubtless of
orders from the government, were illuminated; and the townsmen
with loud shouts wished a long reign to their illustrious
neighbour. The poor lad received from his ministers, and
delivered back to them, the seals of their offices, and held out
his hand to be kissed. One of the first acts of his mock reign
was to bestow some mock peerages in conformity with directions
which he found in his father's will. Middleton, who had as yet no
English title, was created Earl of Monmouth. Perth, who had stood
high in the favour of his late master, both as an apostate from
the Protestant religion, and as the author of the last
improvements on the thumb screw, took the title of Duke.

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

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

As soon as the fault into which Lewis had been hurried by pity,
by the desire of applause, and by female influence was complete
and irreparable, he began to feel serious uneasiness. His
ministers were directed to declare everywhere that their master
had no intention of affronting the English government, that he
had not violated the Treaty of Ryswick, that he had no intention
of violating it, that he had merely meant to gratify an
unfortunate family nearly related to himself by using names and
observing forms which really meant nothing, and that he was
resolved not to countenance any attempt to subvert the throne of
William. Torcy, who had, a few days before, proved by
irrefragable arguments that his master could not, without a gross
breach of contract, recognise the Pretender, imagined that
sophisms which had not imposed on himself might possibly impose
on others. He visited the English embassy, obtained admittance,
and, as was his duty, did his best to excuse the fatal act which
he had done his best to prevent. Manchester's answer to this
attempt at explanation was as strong and plain as it could be in
the absence of precise instructions. The instructions speedily
arrived. The courier who carried the news of the recognition to
Loo arrived there when William was at table with some of his
nobles and some princes of the German Empire who had visited him
in his retreat. The King said not a word; but his pale cheek
flushed; and he pulled his hat over his eyes to conceal the
changes of his countenance. He hastened to send off several
messengers. One carried a letter commanding Manchester to quit
France without taking leave. Another started for London with a
despatch which directed the Lords Justices to send Poussin
instantly out of England.

England was already in a flame when it was first known there that
James was dying. Some of his eager partisans formed plans and
made preparations for a great public manifestation of feeling in
different parts of the island. But the insolence of Lewis
produced a burst of public indignation which scarcely any
malecontent had the courage to face.

In the city of London, indeed, some zealots, who had probably
swallowed too many bumpers to their new Sovereign, played one of
those senseless pranks which were characteristic of their party.
They dressed themselves in coats bearing some resemblance to the
tabards of heralds, rode through the streets, halted at some
places, and muttered something which nobody could understand. It
was at first supposed that they were merely a company of prize
fighters from Hockley in the Hole who had taken this way of
advertising their performances with back sword, sword and
buckler, and single falchion. But it was soon discovered that
these gaudily dressed horsemen were proclaiming James the Third.
In an instant the pageant was at an end. The mock kings at arms
and pursuivants threw away their finery and fled for their lives
in all directions, followed by yells and showers of stones.25
Already the Common Council of London had met, and had voted,
without one dissentient voice, an address expressing the highest
resentment at the insult which France had offered to the King and
the kingdom. A few hours after this address had been presented to
the Regents, the Livery assembled to choose a Lord Mayor.
Duncombe, the Tory candidate, lately the popular favourite, was
rejected, and a Whig alderman placed in the chair. All over the
kingdom, corporations, grand juries, meetings of magistrates,
meetings of freeholders, 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 the multitude of loyal and
patriotic addresses. In some of those addresses severe
reflections were thrown on the House of Commons. Our deliverer
had been ungratefully requited, thwarted, mortified, denied the
means of making the country respected and feared by neighbouring
states. The factious wrangling, the penny wise economy, of three
disgraceful years had produced the effect which might have been
expected. His Majesty would never have been so grossly affronted
abroad, if he had not first been affronted at home. But the eyes
of his people were opened. He had only to appeal from the
representatives to the constituents; and he would find that the
nation was still sound at heart.

Poussin had been directed to offer to the Lords Justices
explanations similar to those with which Torcy had attempted to
appease Manchester. A memorial was accordingly drawn up and
presented to Vernon; but Vernon refused to look at it. Soon a
courier arrived from Loo with the letter in which William
directed his vicegerents to send the French agent out of the
kingdom. An officer of the royal household was charged with the
execution of the order. He repaired to Poussin's lodgings; but
Poussin was not at home; he was supping at the Blue Posts, a
tavern much frequented by Jacobites, the very tavern indeed at
which Charnock and his gang had breakfasted on the day fixed for
the murderous ambuscade of Turnham Green. To this house the
messenger went; and there he found Poussin at table with three of
the most virulent Tory members of the House of Commons,
Tredenham, who returned himself for Saint Mawes; Hammond, who had
been sent to Parliament by the high churchmen of the University
of Cambridge; and Davenant, who had recently, at Poussin's
suggestion, been rewarded by Lewis for some savage invectives
against the Whigs with a diamond ring worth three thousand
pistoles. This supper party was, during some weeks, the chief
topic of conversation. The exultation of the Whigs was boundless.
These then were the true English patriots, the men who could not
endure a foreigner, the men who would not suffer His Majesty to
bestow a moderate reward on the foreigners who had 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 the
liberty, the independence, and the religion of their country. The
Tories, vexed and abashed, heartily wished that, on that unlucky
day, their friends had been supping somewhere else. Even the
bronze of Davenant's forehead was not proof to the general
reproach. He defended himself by pretending that Poussin, with
whom he had passed whole days, who had corrected his scurrilous
pamphlets, and who had paid him his shameful wages, was a
stranger to him, and that the meeting at the Blue Posts was
purely accidental. If his word was doubted, he was willing to
repeat his assertion on oath. The public, however, which had
formed a very correct notion of his character, thought that his
word was worth as much as his oath, and that his oath was worth
nothing.

Meanwhile the arrival of William was impatiently expected. From
Loo he had gone to Breda, where he had passed some time in
reviewing his troops, and in conferring with Marlborough and
Heinsius. He had hoped to be in England early in October. But
adverse winds detained him three weeks at the Hague. At length,
in the afternoon of the fourth of November, it was known in
London that he had landed early that morning at Margate. Great
preparations were made for welcoming him to his capital on the
following day, the thirteenth anniversary of his landing in
Devonshire. But a journey across the bridge, and along Cornhill
and Cheapside, Fleet Street, and the Strand, would have been too
great an effort for his enfeebled frame. He accordingly slept at
Greenwich, and thence proceeded to Hampton Court without entering
London. His return was, however, celebrated by the populace with
every sign of joy and attachment. The bonfires blazed, and the
gunpowder roared, all night. In every parish from Mile End to
Saint James's was to be seen enthroned on the shoulders of stout
Protestant porters a pope, gorgeous in robes of tinsel and triple
crown of pasteboard; and close to the ear of His Holiness stood a
devil with horns, cloven hoof, and a snaky tail.

Even in his country house the king could find no refuge from the
importunate loyalty of his people. Reputations from cities,
counties, universities, besieged him all day. He was, he wrote to
Heinsius, quite exhausted by the labour of hearing harangues and
returning answers. The whole kingdom meanwhile was looking
anxiously towards Hampton Court. Most of the ministers were
assembled there. The most eminent men of the party which was out
of power had repaired thither, to pay their duty to their
sovereign, and to congratulate him on his safe return. It was
remarked that Somers and Halifax, so malignantly persecuted a few
months ago by the House of Commons, were received with such marks
of esteem and kindness as William was little in the habit of
vouchsafing to his English courtiers. The lower ranks of both the
great factions were violently agitated. The Whigs, lately
vanquished and dispirited, were full of hope and ardour. The
Tories, lately triumphant and secure, were exasperated and
alarmed. Both Whigs and Tories waited with intense anxiety for
the decision of one momentous and pressing question. Would there
be a dissolution? On the seventh of November the King propounded
that question to his Privy Council. It was rumoured, and is
highly probable, that Jersey, Wright and Hedges advised him to
keep the existing Parliament. But they were not men whose opinion
was likely to have much weight with him; and Rochester, whose
opinion might have had some weight, had set out to take
possession of his Viceroyalty just before the death of James,
and was still at Dublin. William, however, had, as he owned to
Heinsius, some difficulty in making up his mind. He had no doubt
that a general election would give him a better House of Commons;
but a general election would cause delay; and delay might cause
much 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 whole kingdom was up. Never--such was the intelligence sent
from the Dutch Embassy to the Hague--had there been more
intriguing, more canvassing, more virulence of party feeling. It
was in the capital that the first great contests took place. The
decisions of the Metropolitan constituent bodies were impatiently
expected as auguries of the general result. All the pens of Grub
Street, all the presses of Little Britain, were hard at work.
Handbills for and against every candidate were sent to every
voter. The popular slogans on both sides were indefatigably
repeated. Presbyterian, Papist, Tool of Holland, Pensioner of
France, were the appellations interchanged between the contending
factions. The Whig cry was that the Tory members of the last two
Parliaments had, from a malignant desire to mortify the King,
left the kingdom exposed to danger and insult, had
unconstitutionally encroached both on the legislature and on the
judicial functions of the House of Lords, had turned the House of
Commons into a new Star Chamber, had used as instruments of
capricious tyranny those privileges which ought never to be
employed but in defence of freedom, had persecuted, without
regard to law, to natural justice, or to decorum, the great
Commander who had saved the state at La Hogue, the great
Financier who had restored the currency and reestablished public
credit, the great judge whom all persons not blinded by prejudice
acknowledged to be, in virtue, in prudence, in learning and
eloquence, the first of living English jurists and statesmen. The
Tories answered that they had been only too moderate, only too
merciful; that they had used the Speaker's warrant and the power
of tacking only too sparingly; and that, if they ever again had a
majority, the three Whig leaders who now imagined themselves
secure should be impeached, not for high misdemeanours, but for
high treason. It soon appeared that these threats were not likely
to be very speedily executed. Four Whig and four Tory candidates
contested the City of London. The show of hands was for the
Whigs. A poll was demanded; and the Whigs polled nearly two votes
to one. Sir John Levison Gower, who was supposed to have
ingratiated himself with the whole body of shopkeepers by some
parts of his parliamentary conduct, was put up for Westminster on
the Tory interest; and the electors were reminded by puffs in the
newspapers of the services which he had rendered to trade. But
the dread of the French King, the Pope, and the Pretender,
prevailed; and Sir John was at the bottom of the poll. Southwark
not only returned Whigs, but gave them instructions of the most
Whiggish character.

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

There was one district to which the eyes of hundreds of thousands
were turned with anxious interest, Gloucestershire. Would the
patriotic and high spirited gentry and yeomanry of that great
county again confide their dearest interests to the Impudent
Scandal of parliaments, the renegade, the slanderer, the
mountebank, who had been, during thirteen years, railing at his
betters of every party with a spite restrained by nothing but the
craven fear of corporal chastisement, and who had in the last
Parliament made himself conspicuous by the abject court which he
had paid to Lewis and by the impertinence with which he had
spoken of William.

The Gloucestershire election became a national affair.
Portmanteaus full of pamphlets and broadsides were sent down from
London. Every freeholder in the county had several tracts left at
his door. In every market place, on the market day, papers about
the brazen forehead, the viperous tongue, and the white liver of
Jack Howe, the French King's buffoon, flew about like flakes in a
snow storm. Clowns from the Cotswold Hills and the forest of
Dean, who had votes, but who did not know their letters, were
invited to hear these satires read, and were asked whether they
were prepared to endure the two great evils which were then
considered by the common people of England as the inseparable
concomitants of despotism, to wear wooden shoes, and to live on
frogs. The dissenting preachers and the clothiers were peculiarly
zealous. For Howe was considered as the enemy both of
conventicles and of factories. Outvoters were brought up to
Gloucester in extraordinary numbers. In the city of London the
traders who frequented Blackwell Hall, then the great emporium
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
constantly becoming more and more alarming. His medical
advisers, both English and Dutch, were at the end of their
resources. He had consulted by letter all the most eminent
physicians of Europe; and, as he was apprehensive that they might
return flattering answers if they knew who he was, he had written
under feigned names. To Fagon he had described himself as a
parish priest. Fagon replied, somewhat bluntly, that such
symptoms could have only one meaning, and that the only advice
which he had to give to the sick man was to prepare himself for
death. Having obtained this plain answer, William consulted Fagon
again without disguise, and obtained some prescriptions which
were thought to have a little retarded the approach of the
inevitable hour. But the great King's days were numbered.
Headaches and shivering fits returned on him almost daily. He
still rode and even hunted;26 but he had no longer that firm seat
or that perfect command of the bridle for which he had once been
renowned. Still all his care was for the future. The filial
respect and tenderness of Albemarle had been almost a necessary
of life to him. But it was of importance that Heinsius should be
fully informed both as to the whole plan 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 suffering
from indisposition, which was indeed a trifle when compared with
the maladies under which William was sinking. But in the nature
of William there was none of that selfishness which is the too
common vice of invalids. On the twentieth of February he sent to
Heinsius a letter in which he did not even allude to his own
sufferings and infirmities. "I am," he said, "infinitely
concerned to learn that your health is not yet quite
reestablished. May God be pleased to grant you a speedy recovery.
I am unalterably your good friend, William." Those were the last
lines of 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 to strike 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 King fell off, and broke his collar bone. The
bone was set; and he returned to Kensington in his coach. The
jolting of the rough roads of that time made it necessary to
reduce the fracture again. To a young and vigorous man such an
accident would have been a trifle. But the frame of William was
not in a condition to bear even the slightest shock. He felt that
his time was short, and grieved, with a grief such as only noble
spirits feel, to think that he must leave his work but half
finished. It was possible that he might still live until one of
his plans should be carried into execution. He had long known
that the relation in which England and Scotland stood to each
other was at best precarious, and often unfriendly, and that it
might be doubted whether, in an estimate of the British power,
the resources of the smaller country ought not to be deducted
from those of the larger. Recent events had proved that, without
doubt, the two kingdoms could not possibly continue for another
year to be on the terms on which they had been during the
preceding century, and that there must be between them either
absolute union or deadly enmity. Their enmity would bring
frightful calamities, not on themselves alone, but on all the
civilised world. Their union would be the best security for the
prosperity of both, for the internal tranquillity of the island,
for the just balance of power among European states, and for the
immunities of all Protestant countries. On the twenty-eighth of
February the Commons listened with uncovered heads to the last
message that bore William's sign manual. An unhappy accident, he
told them, had forced him to make to them in writing a
communication which he would gladly have made from the throne. He
had, in the first year of his reign, expressed his desire to see
an union accomplished between England and Scotland. He was
convinced that nothing could more conduce to the safety and
happiness of both. He should think it his peculiar felicity if,
before the close of his reign, some happy expedient could be
devised for making the two kingdoms one; and he, in the most
earnest manner, recommended the question to the consideration of
the Houses. It was resolved that the message should betaken into
consideration on Saturday, the seventh of March.

But on the first of March humours of menacing appearance showed
themselves in the King's knee. On the fourth of March he was
attacked by fever; on the fifth his strength failed greatly; and
on the sixth he was scarcely kept alive by cordials. The
Abjuration Bill and a money bill were awaiting his assent. That
assent he felt that he should not be able to give in person. He
therefore ordered a commission to be prepared for his signature.
His hand was now too weak to form the letters of his name, and it
was suggested that a stamp should be prepared. On the seventh of
March the stamp was ready. The Lord Keeper and the clerks of the
parliament came, according to usage, to witness the signing of
the commission. But they were detained some hours in the
antechamber while he was in one of the paroxysms of his malady.
Meanwhile the Houses were sitting. It was Saturday, the seventh,
the day on which the Commons had resolved to take into
consideration the question of the union with Scotland. But that
subject was not mentioned. It was known that the King had but a
few hours to live; and the members asked each other anxiously
whether it was likely that the Abjuration and money bills would
be passed before he died. After sitting long in the expectation
of a message, the Commons adjourned till six in the afternoon. By
that time William had recovered himself sufficiently to put the
stamp on the parchment which authorised his commissioners to act
for him. In the evening, when the Houses had assembled, Black Rod
knocked. The Commons were summoned to the bar of the Lords; the
commission was read, the Abjuration Bill and the Malt Bill became
laws, and both Houses adjourned till nine o'clock in the morning
of the following day. The following day was Sunday. But there was
little chance that William would live through the night. It was
of the highest importance that, within the shortest possible time
after his decease, the successor designated by the Bill of Rights
and the Act of Succession should receive the homage of the
Estates of the Realm, and be publicly proclaimed in the Council:
and the most rigid Pharisee in the Society for the Reformation of
Manners could hardly deny that it was lawful to save the state,
even on the Sabbath.

The King meanwhile was sinking fast. Albemarle had arrived at
Kensington from the Hague, exhausted by rapid travelling. His
master kindly bade him go to rest for some hours, and then
summoned him to make his report. That report was in all respects
satisfactory. The States General were in the best temper; the
troops, the provisions and the magazines were in the best order.
Every thing was in readiness for an early campaign. William
received the intelligence with the calmness of a man whose work
was done. He was under no illusion as to his danger. "I am fast
drawing," he said, "to my end." His end was worthy of his life.
His intellect was not for a moment clouded. His fortitude was the
more admirable because he was not willing to die. He had very
lately said to one 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 this great new prospect is opening
before me, I do wish to stay here a little longer." Yet no
weakness, no querulousness, disgraced the noble close of that
noble career. To the physicians the King returned his thanks
graciously and gently. "I know that you have done all that skill
and learning could do for me; but the case is beyond your art;
and I submit." From the words which escaped him he seemed to be
frequently engaged in mental prayer. Burnet and Tenison remained
many hours in the sick room. He professed to them his firm belief
in the truth of the Christian religion, and received the
sacrament from their hands with great seriousness. The
antechambers were crowded all night with lords and privy
councillors. He ordered several of them to be called in, and
exerted himself to take leave of them with a few kind and
cheerful words. Among the English who were admitted to his
bedside were Devonshire and Ormond. But there were in the crowd
those who felt as no Englishman could feel, friends of his youth
who had been true to him, and to whom he had been true, through
all vicissitudes of fortune; who had served him with unalterable
fidelity when his Secretaries of State, his Treasury and his
Admiralty had betrayed him; who had never on any field of battle,
or in an atmosphere tainted with loathsome and deadly disease,
shrunk from placing their own lives in jeopardy to save his, and
whose truth he had at the cost of his own popularity rewarded
with bounteous munificence. He strained his feeble voice to thank
Auverquerque 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 tune he could scarcely respire. "Can this," he said to the
physicians, "last long?" He was told that the end was
approaching. He swallowed a cordial, and asked for Bentinck.
Those were his last articulate words. Bentinck instantly came to
the bedside, bent down, and placed his ear close to the King's
mouth. The lips of the dying man moved; but nothing could be
heard. The King took the hand of his earliest friend, and pressed
it tenderly to his heart. In that moment, no doubt, all that had
cast a slight passing cloud over their long and pure friendship
was forgotten. It was now between seven and eight in the morning.
He closed his eyes, and gasped for 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
his skin a small piece of black silk riband. The lords in waiting
ordered it to be taken off. It contained a gold ring and a lock
of the hair of Mary.

FN 1 Evelyn saw the Mentz edition of the Offices among Lord
Spencer's books in April 1699. Markland in his preface to the
Sylvae of Statius acknowledges his obligations to the very rare
Parmesan edition in Lord Spencer's collection. As to the Virgil
of Zarottus, which his Lordship bought for 46L, see the extracts
from Warley's Diary, in Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, i. 90.

FN 2 The more minutely we examine the history of the decline and
fall of Lacedaemon, the more reason we shall find to admire the
sagacity of Somers. The first great humiliation which befel the
Lacedaemonians was the affair of Sphacteria. It is remarkable
that on this occasion they were vanquished by men who made a
trade of war. The force which Cleon carried out with him from
Athens to the Bay of Pyles, and to which the event of the
conflict is to be chiefly ascribed, consisted entirely of
mercenaries, archers from Scythia and light infantry from Thrace.
The victory gained by the Lacedaemonians over a great confederate
army at Tegea retrieved that military reputation which the
disaster of Sphacteria had impaired. Yet even at Tegea it was
signally proved that the Lacedaemonians, though far superior to
occasional soldiers, were not equal to professional soldiers. On
every point but one the allies were put to rout; but on one point
the Lacedaemonians gave way; and that was the point where they
were opposed to a brigade of a thousand Argives, picked men, whom
the state to which they belonged had during many years trained to
war at the public charge, and who were, in fact a standing army.
After the battle of Tegea, many years elapsed before the
Lacedaemonians sustained a defeat. At length a calamity befel
them which astonished all their neighbours. A division of the
army of Agesilaus was cut off and destroyed almost to a man; and
this exploit, which seemed almost 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 the day of Leuctya that
the fall of Spate became rapid and violent. Some time before that
day the Thebans had resolved to follow the example set many years
before by the Argives. Some hundreds of athletic youths,
carefully selected, were set apart, under the names of the City
Band and the Sacred Band, to form a standing army. Their business
was war. They encamped in the citadel; they were supported at the
expense of the community; and they became, under assiduous
training, the first soldiers in Greece. They were constantly
victorious till they were opposed to Philip's admirably
disciplined phalanx at Charonea; and even at Chaeronea they were
not defeated but slain in their ranks, fighting to the last. It
was this band, directed by the skill of great captains, which
gave the decisive blow to the Lacedaemonian power. It is to be
observed that there was no degeneracy among the Lacedaemonians.
Even down to the time of Pyrrhus they seem to have been in all
military qualities equal to their ancestors who conquered at
Plataea. But their ancestors at Plataea had not such enemies to
encounter.

FN 3 L'Hermitage, Dec. 3/13 7/17, 1697.

FN 4 Commons' Journals, Dec. 3. 1697. L'Hermitage, Dec 7/17.

FN 5 L'Hermitage, Dec. 15/24., Dec. 14/24., Journals.

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

FN 7 L'Hermitage, January 11/21

FN 8 That a portion at least of the native population of Ireland
looked to the Parliament at Westminster for protection against
the tyranny of the Parliament at Dublin appears from a paper
entitled The Case of the Roman Catholic Nation of Ireland. This
paper, written in 1711 by one of the oppressed race and religion,
is in a MS. belonging to Lord Fingall. The Parliament of Ireland
is accused of treating the Irish worse than the Turks treat the
Christians, worse than the Egyptians treated the Israelites.
"Therefore," says the writer, "they (the Irish) apply themselves
to the present Parliament of Great Britain as a Parliament of
nice honour and stanch justice. . . Their request then is that
this great Parliament may make good the Treaty of Limerick in all
the Civil Articles." In order to propitiate those to whom he
makes this appeal, he accuses the Irish Parliament of encroaching
on the supreme authority of the English Parliament, and charges
the colonists generally with ingratitude to the mother country to
which they owe so much.

FN 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's
Diary; 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 Johnson described a furious Jacobite as firmly
convinced that William burned down Whitehall in order to steal
the furniture. Idler, No. 10. Pope, in Windsor Forest, a poem
which has a stronger tinge of Toryism than anything else that he
ever wrote, predicts the speedy restoration of the fallen 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.

FN 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,
Jan 25/Feb 4, Feb 1/11 8/18, 11/21 Feb 22/Mar 4; Feb 25/Mar 7,
Mar 1/4, Mar 29/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, see Hakluyt, Purchas, Voltaire, St. Simon. Estat de
Russie par Margeret, Paris, 1607. State of Russia, London, 1671.
La Relation des Trois Ambassades de M. Le Comte de Carlisle,
Amsterdam, 1672. (There is an English translation from this
French original.) North's Life of Dudley North. Seymour's History
of London, ii. 426. Pepys and Evelyn on the Russian Embassies;
Milton's account of Muscovy. On the personal habits of the Czar
see the Memoirs of the Margravine of Bayreuth.

FN 11 It is worth while to transcribe the words of the engagement
which Lewis, a chivalrous and a devout prince, violated without
the smallest scruple. "Nous, Louis, par la grace de Dieu, Roi
tres Chretien de France et de Navarre, promettons pour notre
honneur, en foi et parole de Roi, jurons sue la croix, les saints
Evangiles, et les canons de la Messe, que nous avons touches, que
nous observerons et accomplirons entierement de bonne foi tous et
chacun des points et articles contenus au traite de paix,
renonciation, et amitie."

FN 12 George Psalmanazar's account of the state of the south of
France at this tune is curious. On the high road near Lyons he
frequently passed corpses fastened to posts. "These," he says,
"were the bodies of highwaymen, or rather of soldiers, sailors,
mariners and even galley slaves, disbanded after the peace of
Reswick, who, having neither home nor occupation, used to infest
the roads in troops, plunder towns and villages, and, when taken,
were hanged at the county town by dozens, or even scores
sometimes, after which their bodies were thus exposed along the
highway in terrorem."

FN 13 "Il est de bonne foi dans tout ce qu'il fait. Son procede
est droit et sincere." Tallard to Lewis, July 3. 1698.

FN 14 "Le Roi d'Angleterre, Sire, va tres sincerement jusqu'a
present; et j'ose dire que s'il entre une fois en traite avec
Votre Majeste, il le tiendra de bonne foi."--"Si je l'ose dire a
V. M., il est tres penetrant, et a l'esprit juste. Il s'apercevra
bientôt qu'on barguigne si les choses trainent trop de long."
July 8.

FN 15 I will quote from the despatches of Lewis to Tallard three
or four passages which show that the value of the kingdom of the
Two Sicilies was quite justly appreciated at Versailles. "A
l'egard du royaume de Naples et de Sicile le roi d'Angleterre
objectera que les places de ces etats entre mes mains me rendront
maitre du commerce de la Mediteranee. Vous pourrez en ce cas
laissez entendre, comme de vous meme, qu'il serait si difficile
de conserver ces royaumes unis a ma couronne, que les depenses
necessaires pour y envoyer des secours seraient si grands, et
qu'autrefois il a tant coute a la France pour les maintenir dans
son obeissance, que vraisemblablement j'etablirois un roi pour
les gouverner, et que peut-etre ce serait le partage d'un de mes
petits-fils qui voudroit regner independamment." April 7/17 1698.
"Les royaumes de Naples et de Sicile ne peuvent se regarder comme
un partage dont mon fils puisse se contenter pour lui tenir lieu
de tous ses droits. Les exemples du passe n'ont que trop appris
combien ces etats content a la France le peu d'utilite dont ils
sont pour elle, et la difficulte de les conserver." May 16. 1698.
"Je considere la cession de ces royaumes comme une source
continuelle de depenses et d'embarras. Il n'en a que trop coute a
la France pour les conserver; et  l'experience a fait voir la
necessite indispensable d'y entretenir toujours des troupes, et
d'y envoyer incessamment des vaisseaux, et combien toutes ces
peines ont ete inutiles." May 29. 1698. It would be easy to cite
other passages of the same kind. But these are sufficient to
vindicate what I have said in the text.

FN 16 Dec. 20/30 1698.

FN 17 Commons' Journals, February 24. 27.; March 9. 1698/9 In the
Vernon Correspondence a letter about the East India question
which belongs to the year 1699/1700 is put under the date of Feb.
10 1698. The truth is that this most valuable correspondence
cannot be used to good purpose by any writer who does not do for
himself all that the editor ought to have done.

FN 18 I doubt whether there be extant a sentence of worse English
than that on which the House divided. It is not merely inelegant
and ungrammatical but is evidently the work of a man of puzzled
understanding, probably of Harley. "It is Sir, to your loyal
Commons an unspeakable grief, that any thing should be asked by
Your Majesty's message to which they cannot consent, without
doing violence to that constitution Your Majesty came over to
restore and preserve; and did, at that time, in your gracious
declaration promise, that all those foreign forces which came
over with you should be sent back."

FN 19 It is curious that all Cowper's biographers with whom I am
acquainted, Hayley, Southey, Grimshawe Chalmers, mention the
judge, the common ancestor of the poet, of his first love
Theodora Cowper, and of Lady Hesketh; but that none of those
biographers makes the faintest allusion to the Hertford trial,
the most remarkable event in the history of the family; nor do I
believe that any allusion to that trial can be found in any of
the poet's numerous letters.

FN 20 I give an example of Trenchard's mode of showing his
profound respect for an excellent Sovereign. He speaks thus of
the commencement of the reign of Henry the Third. "The kingdom
was recently delivered from a bitter tyrant, King John, and had
likewise got rid of their perfidious deliverer, the Dauphin of
France, who after the English had accepted him for their King,
had secretly vowed their extirpation."

FN 21 Life of James; St. Simon; Dangeau.

FN 22 Poussin to Torcy April 28/May 8 1701 "Le roi d'Angleterre
tousse plus qu'il n'a jamais fait, et ses jambes sont fort
enfles. Je le vis hier sortir du preche de Saint James. Je le
trouve fort casse, les yeux eteints, et il eut beaucoup de peine
a monter en carrosse."

FN 23 Memoire sur la proposition de reconnoitre au prince des
Galles le titre du Roi de la Grande Bretagne, Sept. 9/19, 1701.

FN 24 By the most trustworthy accounts I mean those of St. Simon
and Dangeau. The reader may compare their narratives with the
Life of James.

FN 25 Lettres Historiques Mois de Novembre 1701.

FN 26 Last letter to Heinsius.







End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The History of England from the
Accession of James II, Vol. 2, by Thomas Babington Macaulay

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND ***

This file should be named 5hoej11.txt or 5hoej11.zip
Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 5hoej11.txt
VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 5hoej10a.txt

E-Text created by Martin Adamson
martin@grassmarket.freeserve.co.uk

Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
even years after the official publication date.

Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
and editing by those who wish to do so.

Most people start at our Web sites at:
http://gutenberg.net or
http://promo.net/pg

These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).


Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is
also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.

http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03

Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90

Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
as it appears in our Newsletters.


Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)

We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.   Our
projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If the value
per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
files per month:  1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.

The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.

Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):

eBooks Year Month

    1  1971 July
   10  1991 January
  100  1994 January
 1000  1997 August
 1500  1998 October
 2000  1999 December
 2500  2000 December
 3000  2001 November
 4000  2001 October/November
 6000  2002 December*
 9000  2003 November*
10000  2004 January*


The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.

We need your donations more than ever!

As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
that have responded.

As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.

In answer to various questions we have received on this:

We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
request donations in all 50 states.  If your state is not listed and
you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
just ask.

While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
donate.

International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
ways.

Donations by check or money order may be sent to:

Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
PMB 113
1739 University Ave.
Oxford, MS 38655-4109

Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
method other than by check or money order.

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154.  Donations are
tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.  As fund-raising
requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.

We need your donations more than ever!

You can get up to date donation information online at:

http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html


***

If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
you can always email directly to:

Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>

Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.

We would prefer to send you information by email.


**The Legal Small Print**


(Three Pages)

***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.

*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.

ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
distribute it in the United States without permission and
without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.

Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
any commercial products without permission.

To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
time to the person you received it from. If you received it
on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
receive it electronically.

THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
may have other legal rights.

INDEMNITY
You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this eBook,
[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
or [3] any Defect.

DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
or:

[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
     eBook or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
     if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
     including any form resulting from conversion by word
     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
     *EITHER*:

     [*]  The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
          does *not* contain characters other than those
          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
          author, and additional characters may be used to
          indicate hypertext links; OR

     [*]  The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
          form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
          OR

     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
          eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
          or other equivalent proprietary form).

[2]  Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
     "Small Print!" statement.

[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
     let us know your plans and to work out the details.

WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
in machine readable form.

The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
Money should be paid to the:
"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."

If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
hart@pobox.com

[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
when distributed free of all fees.  Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
Michael S. Hart.  Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
they hardware or software or any other related product without
express permission.]

*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*