REIGN OF WILLIAM III. (continued).
The death of Queen Mary raised marvellously the hopes of the Jacobites and the Court of St. Germains. Though the Jacobites had charged Mary with ascending the throne contrary to the order of succession, they now asserted that William had no right thereto, and that Mary's claim, however weak, had been his only colourable plea for his usurpation. Mary it was whose amiability and courtesy had reconciled the public to the government of her husband. His gloomy and morose character and manners, and his attachment to nothing but Holland and Dutchmen, they said, had thoroughly disgusted the whole nation, and would now speedily bring his reign to an end. He spent a great part of the year on the Continent; Mary had managed affairs admirably in his absence, but who was to manage them now? They must soon go into confusion, and the people be glad to bring back their old monarch. And truly the wholesale corruption of his Parliament and ministers served to give some force to their anticipations. Hardly ever was there a time when dishonesty and peculation, hideous as they have been in some periods of our Government were more gross, general, and unblushing than amongst the boasted Whigs who had brought about the Revolution. From the highest to the lowest they were insatiably greedy, unprincipled, and unpatriotic—if want of patriotism is evidenced by abusing the institutions and betraying the honour of the nation. One of the best of them died in April, 1695—George Saville, Marquis of Halifax. He bore the name of "the Trimmer," but rather because parties had changed than that he himself had changed. He had discouraged extreme measures, especially such as were bloody and vindictive. He had endeavoured to save the heads of both Stafford and Russell; he had opposed the virulence of the Whigs in the days of the Popish plot, and of the Tories in that of the Rye House Plot. But even he had not kept himself free from intriguing with St. Germains. Compared, however, with the unclean beasts that he left behind, he was a saint. The tide of inquiry was now, however, flowing fast, and higher delinquents were reached by it every day. In 1695 there was a charge made against Sir John Trevor, Speaker of the House of Commons, for receiving a bribe of one thousand guineas to ensure the passing of the City Orphans Bill. This was a Bill to enable the Corporation of London to make a sort of funded debt of the money of the orphans of freemen which had been left in their charge, and which they had spent. To carry this Bill, and cover their criminality, bribes had been given, not only to Trevor, but to Hungerford, Chairman of the Grand Committee, and many others. Trevor—who had been one of Judge Jeffreys' creatures—was ejected from the Chair of the House, where he had long made a trade of selling his influence to the amount of at least six thousand pounds per annum, besides his salary of four thousand pounds. For his insolence and greed he had become universally hated, and there was great rejoicing over his exposure and expulsion from the House. Paul Foley, the Chairman of the Committee of Inquiry, was elected Speaker of the House in his stead; Hungerford was also expelled; Seymour came into question. His overbearing manners had created him plenty of enemies; and on his remarking on the irregular conduct of a member, the indignant individual replied that it WILLIAM PATERSON. (Facsimile of the only known Engraving.) But the examination of the books of the East India Company laid bare a series of bribes of Ministers and Parliament men, which made all the rest dwindle into insignificance. In previous years there were found items in the books of one thousand two hundred and eighty-four pounds and two thousand and ninety-six pounds; but in the past year, during the great contest with the new Company, Sir Thomas Cook, who had been empowered to bribe at his discretion, had expended on Ministers and Members no less a sum than one hundred and sixty-seven thousand pounds. Wharton, himself a most profligate man, pursued these inquiries on the part of the Commons with untiring avidity. In order to damp this inquiry, the guilty parties caused it to be whispered about that it was best not to press the matter too far, as a large part of the money might have been given to the King through Portland. But nothing could stop the inquest, and it turned out that large sums had been offered to the King but had been refused, and that fifty thousand pounds offered to Portland had also been refused. The duke did not deny that he had got all the money that he could through Bates from the Company for others; but this, according to the morals of that age, was considered quite pardonable. To take a bribe himself was criminal if found out, to assist others in selling their votes was venial. The Commons impeached the duke, but then his servant Robarts was missing, and as Leeds insisted on his presence as evidence for him, the impeachment remained uncarried out. In fact, William, who, though suffering perpetually from the gross corruption all around him, was always the first to screen great offenders, now hastened Parliament to a conclusion. In the following week the Scottish Parliament commenced its session after an interval of two years. The Duke of Hamilton was dead, and John Hay, Marquis of Tweeddale, was appointed Lord High Commissioner, a man in years, and of fair character. The question which immediately seized the attention of the Estates was the massacre of Glencoe. That sanguinary affair had now come to the public knowledge in all its perfidy and barbarity, and there was a vehement demand for inquiry and for justice on the perpetrators. The facts which had reached the queen long ago regarding this dark transaction had greatly shocked her, and she had been earnest for a searching investigation; but William, who must now have been aware that the matter would not bear the light very well, had not been too desirous to urge it on. The Jacobites, however, never ceased to declaim on the fearful theme; and the Presbyterians, who hated the Master of Stair, who under James had been one of their worst persecutors, and was a man without any real religion, were not the less importunate for its unveiling. Seeing that the Parliament would now have it dragged to the light, William made haste to make the movement his own. He signed a Commission appointing Tweeddale its head, and sent it down with all haste to Edinburgh. The Parliament expressed great thanks to the king for this act of justice, but it deceived nobody, for it was felt at once that no Commission would have issued but for the public outcry, and it was now meant to take it out of the earnest hands of the Estates, and defeat it as far as possible; and this turned out to be the case. The report of the Commission was long in appearing, and had not the Estates been very firm, it might have been longer, and have been effectually emasculated, for the Lord High Commissioner was on the point of sending it to William, who was now in the Netherlands, and deeply immersed in the affairs of the campaign. The Estates insisted on its immediate production, and Tweeddale was compelled to obey. It then appeared that several of the Macdonalds had been admitted to give their evidence on the atrocities committed in their glen: and the conclusion was come to that it was a barbarous murder. The king's warrant, however, was declared to have authorised no such butchery, and the main blame was thrown on the Master of Stair and the Earl of Breadalbane. Undoubtedly Sir John Dalrymple, the Master of Stair, had urged on by his letter the massacre of the clan with unflinching cruelty; but William contented himself with merely dismissing him from his office. To put the Scots Parliament into good humour, William promised them through the Marquis of Tweeddale, that if they would pass an Act establishing a colony in Africa, America, or any other part of the world where it was open to the English rightfully to plant a colony, he would grant them a charter with as full powers as he had done to the subjects of his other dominions. This was, no doubt, in consequence of a scheme agitated by Paterson, the originator of the Bank of England, for founding a colony on the Isthmus of Darien, for trading between the Atlantic and Pacific—forming, in fact, a link of commerce between China and India, as well as the Spanish States on the Pacific coasts and Europe. The Act, supposed to be drawn by Paterson himself, was passed, and At the moment that William was about to set out for the Continent, a plot for his assassination was discovered, but the conspirators were not brought to trial till the following year. William embarked on the 12th of May for Holland. Before going he had appointed as Lords Justices to carry on the government in his absence—Archbishop Tenison; Somers, Keeper of the Great Seal; Pembroke, Keeper of the Privy Seal; Devonshire, the Lord Steward; Dorset, the Lord Chamberlain; Shrewsbury, the Secretary of State; and Godolphin, First Lord of the Treasury. There had also been a formal reconciliation between him and the Princess Anne. Marlborough and his wife were now all anxiety for this reconciliation. The queen being gone, and William, from his infirmities, not being expected to reach a long life, Marlborough saw Anne at once brought many degrees nearer the throne. Instead of James ever returning, the crafty Marlborough felt sure that, even if William did not succeed in retaining his popularity, any change would seat, not James, but Anne on the throne. It was his interest, therefore, to promote by all means Anne's chance of succession, because, once on the throne, he felt that he should be the ruling power. Anne was, therefore, induced by him and his countess to write a conciliatory letter to William, proposing to wait on him and endeavour to console him in his distress. This had not been done without some difficulty and delay, but, when once effected, William received the princess very cordially; gave her the greater part of the late queen's jewels, restored all her honours, her name was once more united in the prayers for the royal family, and the foreign ambassadors presented themselves at her house. In one thing, however, Marlborough was disappointed. William did not appoint Anne regent during his absence, as he had hoped, because he knew that that would be simply making Marlborough viceroy. The King still retained his dislike to the Marlboroughs, and though he permitted them to reside again under the same roof with the princess, he refused for some time to admit Marlborough to kiss his hand in the circle at Kensington, and offered him no renewal of his offices and command. William entered on the campaign of 1695 under unusual advantages. Louis of France had reduced his country to such distress that he was now obliged to stand on the defensive. The people were loud in their complaints all over France of the merciless exactions for the continuance of the war. They were actually perishing of famine. Barbessieux, the minister, was not able to devise resources like the able Louvois, who was gone; and now Louis had lost by death the great Marshal Luxemburg, who had won for him almost all his martial renown. The forces in Flanders, deprived of their heroic and experienced head, were badly supplied with provisions, badly recruited, and to make all worse, Louis, as he had chosen his prime minister, now selected his general—not from the men of real military talent, but from a courtier and man of pleasure—Villeroi. He was a tall, handsome man, much admired by the ladies, and a reckless gambler, but totally unfit to cope with William in the field. Boufflers was still at the head of a division of the army, but under Villeroi. Louis was apprehensive that the Allies would make a push at Dunkirk. He therefore ordered a new line to be drawn between the Lys and the Scheldt, and every means to be taken to cover Dunkirk, Ypres, Tournai, and Namur. William arrived in the camp of the Allies on the 5th of July, and immediately marched against Villeroi, who retired behind his lines between Ypres and Menin. He, however, detached ten thousand men to support Boufflers, who had advanced as far as Pont d'EspiÈres. William then sent forward the Elector of Bavaria to confront Boufflers, who also retired behind his lines, and the Elector passed the Scheldt, and posted himself at Kirk. William, having thus driven the French to the frontiers of Flanders, then despatched the Baron von Heyden from the camp of the Elector of Bavaria, along with Ginkell, to invest Namur. At the same time, leaving Vaudemont to confront the army of Villeroi on the border of Flanders, William suddenly marched also for Namur, the Brandenburgers having orders to advance from another quarter. William's hope was, by this ably concerted plan, completely to invest Namur before any fresh troops could be poured into it; but Boufflers, perceiving his design, managed to throw himself into the city with seven regiments of dragoons, by which the garrison was raised to fifteen thousand men. Immediately on the heels of Boufflers arrived William and the Elector, and encamped on both sides of the Sambre and Meuse, thus investing the whole place. They began to throw up their entrenchments on the 6th of July, under the direction of the celebrated engineer, Cohorn. The city had always been strong; it had been of late years made much stronger by Cohorn, and since then the French had added to its defences. Its castle was deemed impregnable; the town was full of provisions and of brave soldiers, and it was regarded as a somewhat rash act in William to attempt so formidable a fortress, with the chance of being taken in the rear by Villeroi at the head of eighty thousand men. The moment that Villeroi saw the object of William he began to put himself in motion to attack Vaudemont, and, having beaten him, to, advance on Namur. Vaudemont, however, began to fortify his camp, and Villeroi's vanguard appearing at Dentreghem, he entrenched himself on both sides. Villeroi made sure, nevertheless, of a complete victory over him, having such a superiority of force, and he sent word to Louis that he would speedily hear of a victory. But Vaudemont, perceiving another body of French advancing from the Scheldt so as to enclose him, very adroitly drew back, and made a retreat, much admired by military judges, to Ghent. This he was able to effect through the cowardice of Louis's natural son, the Duke of Maine. Villeroi accordingly advanced unopposed and brutally bombarded Brussels. William was all this time—except for a few days when he was anxiously observing the French proceedings before Brussels—prosecuting the siege of Namur with a determined ardour which cost a terrible amount of human lives. The trenches had been first opened on the 11th of July, and the batteries on both sides commenced a furious fire. This continued for a week, and on the 18th a storming party, headed by Lord Cutts, consisting of five battalions of English, Scots, and Dutch, attacked the works on the right of the counterscarp, supported by six English battalions under General Fitzpatrick, whilst nine thousand pioneers advanced on the left under General Salisch. Twelve hundred of the Allies fell in this bloody action, whilst William, looking on in exultation, thought not of their destruction, but of the bulldog valour of the British soldiers, exclaiming to the Elector of Bavaria, "See my brave English! See my brave English!" They drove in the enemy, though at a terrible sacrifice. On the 30th of July the Elector of Bavaria attacked Vauban's line that surrounded the defences of the castle, and broke through it, and reached even Cohorn's celebrated fort, under the eyes of Cohorn himself, but could not effect a lodgment in it. On the 2nd of August another party of grenadiers, headed by the dare-devil Lord Cutts, attacked and lodged themselves on the second counterscarp. The governor, Count Guiscard, now engaged to give up the town, time being allowed for the garrison to retire into the citadel. This being done, and the Allies having engaged to give up the one thousand five hundred wounded men left below, on the 13th the bombardment of the fort commenced with renewed fury. Both sides fought with the fanaticism of courage, and committed great havoc on each other. Boufflers at length attempted to cut his way through the besiegers in a headlong sally, but was repulsed, and shut up again. At this crisis Villeroi's army had reached Fleurus, and fired ninety pieces of cannon to apprise the besieged of their vicinity. William immediately left the conduct of the siege to the Elector of Bavaria, and drew out a strong force to confront Villeroi, who was reinforced by a large body of troops from Germany. This was a most anxious moment to the people of both England and France. The armies of the two nations were drawn out against each other, and covered the plains of the Sambre and the Meuse. Boufflers was urging Villeroi to strike a decisive stroke for his deliverance and the rescue of Namur, and William had Boufflers in the rear if he was beaten by Villeroi. At Versailles Louis was imploring heaven for victory, with all his Court on their knees, confessing and receiving the Eucharist; and in London the Jacobites, frantic with confident expectation that now William would be annihilated, filled the town with all sorts of horrible rumours and alarms. But after having faced each other for three days, Villeroi saw that the position and numbers of the Allies were too formidable, and he quietly decamped along the river Mehaigne to Boneffe. As Boufflers was now left without hope of succour, the Allies informed him of the retreat of Villeroi and summoned him to surrender without occasioning more slaughter. But there was a tradition in the French army that no marshal of France had ever capitulated, and he stood out until the English, at the cost of two thousand men, had effected a lodgment in the place. Boufflers now demanded forty-eight hours to bury his dead, which was granted him; and, in truth, he had need of it, for his trenches were choked with the fallen, and his force was already reduced to about one-third its original strength. When he entered the town, the garrison mustered fifteen thousand men; now it was only about five thousand. When the dead were buried, Boufflers offered to surrender in ten days if he were not relieved before; but the Allies would not listen to anything but an immediate surrender, and he complied, on condition that the garrison should be allowed to march out with the honours of war, but leaving the artillery and stores to the conquerors. The Allies announced the surrender to Villeroi by the discharge of their artillery, and by a running fire of all their musketry three times repeated. He knew the meaning of it, and retreated towards Mons. Accordingly, on the 26th of August, Boufflers marched forth with drums beating and flags flying, William, the Elector of Bavaria, and all the officers being assembled to witness this gratifying spectacle. Boufflers lowered his sword in token of submission to the Elector of Bavaria, and the troops marched on. Before Boufflers, however, passed out of the trenches, Dykvelt informed him that he was the prisoner of the King of England. Boufflers was highly enraged at what he regarded as an act of gross perfidy; but he was informed William arrived in London from Holland on the 20th of October. He was received with acclamations, illuminations, and ringing of bells. His progress through London and to Kensington was like that of a conqueror. As if he were destined to take no rest, that very day the Council was assembled, and it was concluded to dissolve Parliament. William, however, had been enjoying relaxation at Loo, and no doubt this question of the dissolution of Parliament had been discussed and arranged prior to his arrival. It was deemed wiser to take the nation at this moment when it was in a good humour, than to defer the dissolution till the 25th of next March, when, by the Triennial Act, Parliament must expire, and the public mind might be different. Another motive was said to operate with William—the impeachment of Leeds. William was always very reluctant to bring great delinquents to justice; but in the case of Leeds there were causes for this reluctance which we must respect. It was to Leeds, when he was yet Lord Danby, that William owed his match with Mary, and Mary had ever had the greatest regard for Leeds, who, on his part, had served her assiduously during the king's absences. A new Parliament would not be likely to take up again his impeachment, and, accordingly, the old one was dissolved, and the new one called for the 22nd of November. This announcement threw into full activity the newly acquired liberty of the press. Since the Revolution, despite the restrictions of the censorship, the press had been extremely busy, and when it was obliged to work in secret, it had been all the more venomous. The Jacobites had employed it to spread sedition and lies, but it now came forward in favour of the king and the Constitution. There were tracts on the election, and besides the old news-letters, there were regular newspapers which advocated their own views, but with a decency and moderation which surprised all parties. Amongst the pamphlets was one—the last literary effort of Halifax—called, "Some Cautions Offered to those who are to Choose Members," which gave some good advice, especially not to choose lawyers, because they were in the habit of pleading on both sides, and were sure to look after their own advancement more than that of the country; nor officers in the army, who, the writer thought, were out of place in Parliament, attempting to do what no man ever can do—serve two masters. He also warned them against pensioners and dependents on the Crown, who do not make good representatives of the people; and against those who, for reasons best known to themselves, had opposed the Triennial Bill. Finally, he bade them seek honest Englishmen, but warned them that they were not very easy to find. The constituencies followed his advice, and the Whig party were victorious. Some of the members of the late Parliament most opposed to Government were not returned—as Sir John Knight, for Bristol, who had been so furious against William's favourite Dutchmen, and Seymour, for Exeter. Neither could John Hampden, who had saved his neck in the Rye House Plot by the loss of character, and had since shown as much insolence in Parliament as he did meanness then, get returned, and in his mortification he committed suicide—to such degeneracy had fallen the grandson of the illustrious patriot. When Parliament met on the 22nd, they chose Paul Foley as Speaker of the Commons. The king, in his speech, again demanded large supplies for the continuance of the war, and informed them that the funds granted last Session had fallen far short of the expenses. This was by no means agreeable news, and William well knew that there was a large party in the country which complained loudly of this system of foreign warfare, which, like a bottomless gulf, swallowed up all the resources of the country. But he took care to flatter the national vanity by praising the valour of the English soldiers, and by expressing his confidence that England would never consent to the French king making himself master of Europe, and that nothing but the power and bravery of When the address came to be considered, some strong speeches were delivered against the enormous demands made by the king for this continual war. Musgrave and Howe represented the nation as bleeding to death under this Dutch vampyrism; but William had touched the right chord in the national character, and an address of thanks and zealously promised support was carried. The Commons likewise voted again above five millions for the services of the year. The first business which occupied the attention of the Commons was the state of the currency. The old silver coin had become so clipped and sweated that, on an average, it now possessed little more than half its proper weight. The consequence was, all transactions in the country were in a state of confusion, and the most oppressive frauds were practised, especially on the poor. They were paid in this nominal coin, but, when they offered it for the purchase of the articles of life, the vendors refused to receive it at more than its intrinsic worth, by which means the price of everything was nearly doubled. The old hammered money was easily imitated, and whilst the clippers went on diminishing the weight of the coin, the forgers were as busy producing spurious imitations of it. The most terrible examples were made of such coiners, till juries refused to send such numbers of them to be hanged. All money-dealers received the coin only at its value by weight, but paid it out by tale, and thus made enormous fortunes. The house of Duncombe, Earls of Feversham, is said to have thus raised itself from insignificance to a coronet. The House of Lords, therefore, took up the subject of recoinage, and invited the Commons to unite with them in it; but the Commons, considering it a matter more properly belonging to them, went into a committee of the whole House on the subject. The debate continued for several days. There was a strong party opposed to recoinage, on the ground that, if the silver coin were called in, there would be no money to pay the soldiers abroad, nor for merchants to take up their bills of exchange with; that the consequence would be universal stagnation and misery. But at this rate the old coin must have stayed out so long that literally there would none of it be left. It was resolved to have a new coinage; but Lowndes, the Secretary of the Treasury, proposed that the standard should be lowered—in fact, that a nominal instead of a real value should be impressed upon it; that ninepence should be called a shilling—as if thereby any greater value could be given to it. This mode of raising the price of everything by lowering the value of the coinage, which would now be laughed at by the merest tyro in political economy, had then its partisans; but John Locke exploded the whole delusion in a little tract written at the desire of Somers, which showed all the inconveniences and injustice which would flow from a lowered standard. There were, however, other difficulties to be met, and these were, whether the Government or the public should bear the loss of the clipped coin, and by what means it could best be called in. If the Government bore the loss, and ordered all persons to bring in their clipped coin and receive full-weighted coin instead, that would be a direct premium on clipping, and all the coin would be clipped before it was paid in. Somers proposed as a remedy to proclaim that all the hammered coins should henceforth be taken by Government only by weight; but that, after having been weighed within three days, every one should take it back with a note authorising him to receive the difference between the deficiency of weight and the full weight at a future time. By this means Government would have suffered the loss. Locke, on the contrary, proposed that Government should receive all clipped coin up to a day to be announced, at full value; after that day only at its value by weight; and something of this kind was carried by Montague after a debate in the House. It was ordered that, after a certain day, no clipped money should pass except in payment of taxes, or as loans to Government. After another fixed day, no clipped money should pass in any payment whatsoever; and that, on a third day, all persons should bring in all their clipped money to be recoined, making just what it would, and after that time clipped money should not be a legal tender at any value, or be received at the Mint. By this plan the holders of clipped money suffered part of the loss where they could not be in time; but the public eventually bore the greatest part of it, for a Bill was brought in to indemnify Government for its share of the loss, by a duty on glass windows, which was calculated to raise twelve hundred thousand pounds. This was the origin of that window-tax which under William Pitt's Government grew to such a nuisance. In order to meet the demand for milled and unclipped coin to be given in exchange for the clipped The Bill for regulating the trials for high treason was again brought in, and, being still steadily refused by the Lords unless with their clause for granting them the privilege of trying any of their order by the whole House of Peers instead of by the Court of the Lord High Steward, the Commons now gave way, allowed the clause, and the Bill passed. It was ordered to come into force on the 25th of March next, 1696. The year 1696 opened with a great Jacobite plot. James had tried the effect of declarations proposing to protect the liberties of the subject and the rights of the Established Church, and nobody believed him, and with good reason. Seeing, therefore, that empty pretences availed nothing, he thought seriously of invasion, and of something worse—of preparing his way by the assassination of William. During the winter of 1695-6 Louis fell into his schemes. In 1694 two emissaries, Crosley and Parker, had been sent over from St. Germains to London to excite the Jacobites to insurrection; but they had been discovered and imprisoned. Parker contrived to escape out of the Tower, but Crosley was examined; but, nothing being positively proved against him, he was liberated on bail. It was now resolved to send over fresh and more important agents—one of these no less a person than the Duke of Berwick, James's son, and Sir George Barclay, a Scottish refugee. The fact was that there were two parts of the scheme. As in the conspiracy of Grey and Raleigh in the time of James I., there was "the main plot" and "the bye plot," so there was here a general scheme for an invasion, and a particular scheme for the assassination of the king. This assassination was to come off first, and an army and transports were to be ready on the French coast, to take advantage of the consternation occasioned by the murder. The management of the general plot was confided to Berwick, and of the murder plot to Barclay. Berwick must be supposed to have been well aware of the assassination scheme from the first, for both James and Louis were, and the whole movements of the army and navy were dependent on it. But if Berwick did not know of it at first, he was made acquainted with it in London, as we shall see; but it was the policy of both Louis, James, and Berwick, to avoid all appearance of a knowledge which would have covered them with infamy;—this was to fall on the lesser tools of their diabolical scheme, and they were to reap the benefit of it. A mode of communication between the Court of St. Germains and the Jacobites in England had long been established through a man named Hunt, who was a noted smuggler. This man had a house about half a mile from the Sussex coast, on Romney Marsh. The whole country round was a boggy and dreary waste, and therefore, having scarcely an inhabitant, was admirably adapted to the smuggling in of French goods and French plots. There Barclay landed in January and proceeded to London. He was followed in a few days by the Duke of Berwick, and very soon by about twenty coadjutors, some James saw and instructed many of these men himself before they left St. Germains, and furnished them with funds. He had given Barclay eight hundred pounds to pay expenses and engage assistants, which Barclay complained of as a miserable and insufficient sum. These men were now informed that they must put themselves under the orders of Barclay, and they would easily discover him at evening walking in the piazza of Covent Garden, and might recognise him by his white handkerchief hanging from his pocket. Meanwhile, Barclay had begun to open communication with the most determined Jacobites. The first of these were Charnock—who had originally been a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, but had apostatised, become a violent papistical agitator, and finally an officer in James's army—and Sir William Parkyns, a lawyer and officer of the Court of Chancery, for whilst plotting against the king, he had sworn fidelity to him, and was receiving his pay. These men most gladly united with Barclay, for they had been engaged in the very same design for some time. They assured him that there was no chance of effecting an invasion without preceding it by dispatching William. But to do this they wanted first an authority from James, and to be assured that it would be followed up. Hereupon Barclay showed them his commission from James. As Barclay's myrmidons arrived from France his hopes grew high; he called them his Janissaries, and said he trusted they would win a Star and Garter for him. He wanted forty for his purposes, and these men made up at once half the number. Fresh desperadoes rapidly joined the band, until it was evident that the number of conspirators was getting far too numerous, and far too indiscriminate in character for safety. It was necessary to use haste, and Barclay tells us he was constantly studying how and where best to accomplish their object. He set two of his gang to haunt the neighbourhood At last the conspirators fixed on Turnham Green as the best for their detestable purpose. They learned that when William returned from hunting he crossed the Thames there by the ferry-boat, not getting out of his carriage, and that he did not wait for his Guards, but drove on from the water side till they overtook him. It was a low, swampy place, hidden amongst bushes at the western end of the Green. The conspirators were now thirty-five, while the King had rarely more than twenty-five Guards with him. The day fixed was Saturday, the 15th of February, for it was on Saturdays that William made these hunting excursions. As soon as they knew that the king had started, the conspirators were to follow in different bodies, and from different directions, so as to avoid observation. They were to remain at small public-houses near the crossing-place, and as soon as their scouts gave them notice of the king's party approaching the Surrey side of the river, they were to put themselves in bylanes, to be ready to intercept him. They were to be divided into four sets, one headed by Porter, one by Charnock, a third by Rookwood, and the fourth by Barclay himself. Two parties were simultaneously to rush upon the coach as it passed a cross road, one from each side; Rookwood was to come from his hiding-place in the rear, and Barclay to appear in front, and to him the death of the King was assigned. Horses and arms were purchased by Barclay for the occasion, and the horses were kept in different stables, so as to excite no suspicion. All was now in readiness. The Duke of Berwick had remained in London till matters were in this position. He had been equally busy in endeavouring to induce the Jacobite leaders to rise in arms. He told them that his father, with ten thousand soldiers, was lying at Calais ready to cross when this movement was made, but that the King of France would not consent to the army crossing till the English had given proof of their being in earnest to receive King James in arms. Nor could they think this unreasonable; he had twice sent expeditions to co-operate with them, once in 1690, when De Tourville landed in Devonshire, and again in 1692, when his fleet had come up to the very shore in expectation of being joined by the English fleet, but, on the contrary, had been attacked by that fleet, and the losses at La Hogue suffered in consequence. They could not expect Louis to venture his ships and troops again till he saw a real demonstration for James in England; then his army would cross at once. But these representations were all lost on the Jacobites; they continued to say, "Only let James land with an army, and we shall be ready to join him." Berwick returned to France, and hastened to inform James, whom he met on the way to Calais to join the invading army, that there was no chance of a rising in England till a French army landed, but that he had a confident hope that the conspirators would succeed in dispatching William, and then would be the time to cross over. James went on to Calais to the army which Boufflers was called from Flanders to command, and Berwick went on to Versailles to communicate to Louis the state of affairs, and all parties waited for the falling of the blow in England. Such was now the position of these two monarchs and the Duke of Berwick, whom the Jacobite writers have so confidently endeavoured to clear of the crime of participating in this base scheme of assassination. True, Berwick, whilst in England, would have nothing to do with the conspiracy itself, because, he declared, it was—not criminal, no, that was not his objection—but it was too dangerous, and would probably cause all engaged in it to be hanged. On the safe side of the water, therefore, whilst the humbler ruffians were risking their necks for them, these three arch assassins waited for the signal that the deed was done—a fire which was to be lit on one of the Kentish hills. Meanwhile the conspiracy was suffering, as might have been expected, from the admission of too many colleagues. As the time approached, Fisher, who had boasted that he would himself kill one of the king's coach-horses, went and informed Portland that there was a design of taking the king's life. Portland at first paid little attention to this information, but it was soon confirmed in a manner which left him no alternative but to apprise the king of it. On the evening of the 14th a Mr. Pendergrass, a Catholic gentleman of Hampshire, waited on Portland, and assured him that if the king went on the morrow to hunt he was certain to be assassinated. Pendergrass said the king was the enemy of his religion, but that his religion would not permit him to see such a thing done without giving him a warning, and he The king was with difficulty prevented by Portland from going, but he did stay, and when it was announced to the conspirators that the king had given up hunting for that day, they were a good deal startled; but, as the weather was assigned as the cause, they imagined they were still unbetrayed, and waited for the next Saturday; one of them, Chambers, a great ruffian, who had been severely wounded at the battle of the Boyne, and had a savage malice against William, vowing to have his life yet or lose his own. Between this day and the next Saturday, however, De la Rue had grown afraid, and went and gave a warning similar to Pendergrass's. On the Friday Pendergrass was sent for to the king's closet, where William was alone with Portland and Lord Cutts, who had fought so bravely at Namur. William was very courteous to Pendergrass, and thanked him for his information, complimented him as a man of honour, but desired him to name the conspirators. Pendergrass persisted in his refusal, except he had the king's assurance that his information should not cause the destruction of these men, but only be used to prevent the commission of the crime. This assurance being solemnly given, he named them. It does not, however, appear that this solemn assurance was kept, for undoubtedly Pendergrass's information was used for the arrest of the conspirators, and though he himself was not brought openly forward in court against them, they were condemned and executed through that means, so that not using his evidence openly was a mere quibble; and even this was laid aside as soon as, at Pendergrass's demand, they had engaged to use Porter's evidence on condition of his safety. Ignorant of the mine ready charged under their feet, the conspirators anxiously awaited Saturday, the 22nd. This time all outwardly bade fair for success; the usual preparations were made at the palace for the hunting. There had been during the week no sign of any agitation or bustle, nor word dropped which could give the slightest suspicion that their design was known. The Guards were sent off to go round by Kingston Bridge to Richmond, as there was then no bridge nearer. The king's coach came out to take him away, and the conspirators were breakfasting at Porter's lodgings when word was hurriedly brought to them that the coach had been sent back to the stables, and the Guards had come galloping back, saying that a discovery of something terrible had been made. If the men had not been infatuated by their zeal for the assassination, as is very general in such cases, they would now have made the best of their way into some place of security. The return of the Guards in such hurry, and with such rash words, was not very skilful on the part of the Government if they meant to take the conspirators; and, as the arrests were delayed till night, there was ample time for them to have all got off. But they still flattered themselves that, though some whisper of the design had reached the Palace, the actual conspirators were unknown, and they were only the more bent on seizing some instant mode of accomplishing their object. That night the king's officers were upon them, and Charnock, Rookwood, and Bernardi were taken in their beds. The next day seventeen more were arrested, and three of the Blues also. Barclay had had more cunning than the rest; he had absconded and got safe to France. The Lord Mayor was sent for to Whitehall, and desired to put the City into a perfect state of readiness for action. A council was held; it was agreed to send for some regiments from Flanders in consequence of the preparations at Calais; the Earl of Dorset was sent down to his lieutenancy of Sussex; Sidney, Lord Romney, Warden of the Cinque Ports, was also despatched for the guard of the coast of Kent; and Russell hastened to assume the command of the fleet. On Monday, the 24th, the king went to the House of Lords, sent for the Commons, and announced to the assembled Parliament the discovery of the plot, and the arrest of a number of the traitors. The sensation was intense. The two Houses united in an address of congratulation for the king's safety, with which they went in a body to Kensington, and the same day the Commons passed two Bills, one suspending the Habeas Corpus, and the other declaring that Parliament should not be dissolved by the king's death in case any such conspiracy should succeed. Sir Rowland Gwyn moved that the House should enrol itself as an Association for the defence of the king and country. The idea was instantly seized by Montague, who saw how immensely it would The next morning the members hurried in to sign the form of Association; and, as some were not present, it was ordered that all who had not signed it within sixteen days should be called upon to do so or formally to refuse. They resolved that any one who declared the Association illegal should be held to be a promoter of the wicked designs of James, and an enemy to the laws and liberties of the country. They prayed the king to banish by proclamation all Papists to a distance of ten miles from the cities of London and Westminster, and to order the judges to put the laws in force throughout the country against Roman Catholics and non-jurors. The forms of the Association and the address of the two Houses were immediately printed and published, along with a proclamation offering one thousand pounds reward for the discovery and apprehension of each of the conspirators, and one thousand pounds, with a free pardon, to each of the accomplices who should deliver himself up and reveal what he knew. One after another the miscreants were dragged from their hiding-places, or gave themselves up as king's evidence for the thousand pounds and free pardon. On the 11th of March, Charnock and two others were placed at the bar of the Old Bailey before Lord Chief Justice Holt and other judges. The prisoners demanded that their trials should be postponed till after the 25th of the month, when the new Act for trials for treason came into force, and which allowed counsel to the accused; but the counsel for the Crown would not consent to it—a circumstance which does no honour to William and his ministers, for from them the order to proceed must now have been given. All the accused denied that James knew of or had done anything to sanction the attempt to assassinate the king; but this assertion neither agrees with the depositions made by the other conspirators admitted as evidence, nor with the facts of the case; and, indeed, Charnock left a paper, still in the Bodleian Library of Oxford, in which he declares that the attempt would not have been justifiable had it not been sanctioned by James; that his Majesty's commission did fully justify it, and that it was just as proper to attempt to kill the Prince of Orange at the head of his Guards, serving as they did the king whose throne he had usurped, and who was at war with him, as if he had been at the head of twenty thousand men. They had their king's commission for it, and their king being at declared war, it was quite legitimate to attack and kill William wherever they could meet with him. Despite this high assumption, Charnock, after conviction, offered, if they would pardon him, to reveal the whole particulars of the plot, and the names of every one concerned in it; but there was evidence enough; his offer was not accepted, and the three were executed at Tyburn on the 24th. The Association into which the Commons had entered for the defence of the king had not yet been made law, but a Bill was now brought in for that purpose. Out of the five hundred and thirteen members of the Commons, four hundred had signed it; but on its reaching the Lords exception was made by the Tories to the words "rightful and lawful sovereign" as applied to William. Even Nottingham, who had so long and faithfully served William, declared that he could not accept them; that William was king de facto he admitted, but not king by rightful succession. He was supported by Rochester, Normanby, and others; but on the Duke of Leeds proposing that the words "rightful and lawful" should be altered to "having right by law," and no other person having such right, singularly enough the Tories acquiesced in the change, though it would not be easy for minds in general to perceive a distinction between being a rightful and lawful sovereign and a sovereign who had a full and, indeed, exclusive right by law. The Commons retained their own form and the Lords theirs. The Bill of the Commons was passed on the 4th of April. It provided that all such persons as refused the oaths to his Majesty should be liable to the forfeitures and penalties of Papist recusants; that all who questioned William's being "a lawful and rightful sovereign" should be subject to heavy penalties; that no person refusing to sign this Association should be capable of holding any office, civil or military, of sitting in Parliament, or being admitted into the service of the Prince or Princess of Denmark. All magistrates, of course, were included in the requirements, and some who refused to sign were dismissed. The Lords were to use their own form, and with this understanding it passed their House without delay. The bishops drew up a form for BISHOP BURNET. Before this remarkable session closed, a Bill was brought in to check the corruption of elections. It had now become common for moneyed men to go down to country boroughs and buy their way into Parliament by liberal distribution of their gold. It was, therefore, proposed to introduce a property qualification for members of Parliament; that a member for a county should be required to possess five hundred pounds a year in land, and a member for a town three hundred pounds a year in land. It was even proposed to adopt the ballot, but that was rejected. The Bill itself was carried through both Houses, but William declined to ratify it. The towns abounded with Whigs, and had stood stoutly by him, and it appeared to be a sweeping infringement on their privileges to debar them from electing men in whom they had confidence because they were not landed proprietors, though they might otherwise be wealthy as well as duly qualified for such duties. He ratified, however, another Bill intended for the benefit of the landed gentry. This was for the establishment of Hugh Chamberlayne's Land Bank. Unsound and delusive as the principles of this scheme were, it had the great attraction to the landowners of offering them extensive accommodation and a fancied accession of wealth, and to William the further advance of a large sum for his wars. The Bank of England had only furnished him with one million at eight per cent.; At home the confusion and distress were indescribable, and lasted all the year. In the spring and till autumn it was a complete national agony. The last day for the payment of the clipped coin into the Treasury was the 4th of May. As that day approached there was a violent rush to the Exchequer to pay in the old coin and get new. But there was very little new ready, and all old coin that was not clipped was compelled to be allowed to remain out some time longer. Notwithstanding this, the deficiency of circulating medium was so great that even men of large estate had to give promissory notes for paying old debts, and take credit for procuring the necessaries of life. The notes of the new Bank of England and of the Lombard Street money-changers gave also considerable relief; but the whole amount of notes and coin did not suffice to carry on the business of the nation. Numbers of work-people of all kinds were turned off because their employers had not money to pay them with. The shopkeepers could not afford to give credit to every one, and, as their trade stagnated in consequence, they were compelled to sacrifice their commodities to raise the necessary sums to satisfy their own creditors. There was a heavy demand on the poor rates, and the magistrates had orders to have sufficient force in readiness to keep down rioting. This distress was aggravated by those who had new milled money, hoarding it up lest they should get no more of it, or in expectation that its scarcity would raise its value enormously, and that they could pay their debts to a great advantage, or purchase what they wanted at still greater advantage. The Jacobites were delighted with this state of things, and did all they could to inflame the people against the Government, which they said had thus needlessly plunged the nation in such extreme suffering. There were numbers of exciting tracts issued for this purpose, and especially by a depraved priest named Grascombe, who urged the people to kill the members of Parliament who had advocated the calling in of the silver coin. To make the calamity perfect, the Land Bank had proved as complete a bubble as Montague and other men of discernment had declared it would. The landed gentry wanted to borrow from it, not to invest in it; its shares remained untaken; and it found, when the Government demanded the two million six hundred thousand pounds which it had pledged itself to advance, that its coffers were empty; and it ceased to exist, or rather to pretend to have any life. The bursting of the Land Bank bubble was severely trying to the new Bank of England. The failure of the one alarmed the public as to the stability of the other, and the Jacobites and the Lombard Street rival money-lenders lent their cordial aid to increase the panic. The Lombard Street bankers made a vigorous run upon the bank. They collected all its paper that they could lay hands on, and demanded instant payment in hard cash. Immediately after the 4th of May, when the Government had taken in the bulk of the money, and had issued out very little, they made a dead set against the bank. One goldsmith alone presented thirty thousand pounds in notes. The bank resolved to refuse the payment of the notes thus obviously presented in order to ruin it, and then the Lombard Street bankers exultingly announced everywhere that the boasted new institution was insolvent. But the bank, leaving the Lombard Street goldsmiths to seek a remedy at law, continued to give cash for all notes presented by the fair creditors, and the public steadily supported them in this system, and condemned the selfish money-dealers. Montague also contrived to relieve the tightness to a considerable extent by availing himself of a clause in the Act of the Land Bank, empowering Government to issue a new species of promissory notes, bearing interest on security of the annual taxes. These bills, called now and henceforward Exchequer Bills, were issued from a hundred pounds to five pounds, and were everywhere received with avidity. They also urged on the mints in the production of the new coinage, and to facilitate this they made Sir Isaac Newton Master of the Mint, who exerted himself in his important office with extraordinary zeal and patriotism. In August, William sent Portland over from Flanders, where the campaign was almost wholly barren of events, to bring him money for the subsistence of his troops by some means. The failure of the Land Bank made his demand appear hopeless; but the Government applied to the Bank of England, and, notwithstanding it's own embarrassments, it advanced to the Government two hundred thousand pounds on the 15th of August, and that in hard cash, for it was plainly told that its paper was of no use in Flanders. Yet to such extremities was the bank reduced that at the same time it was obliged to pay its demands by But, except the trouble arising from the coinage, the great event during William's absence had been the capture of Sir John Fenwick, and his examination, with the view of tracing the further ramifications of the conspiracy in which he had been engaged. Fenwick, if not engaged in the assassination scheme, was charged by Porter and the other king's evidence with being fully privy to it, and deep in the plot for the invasion. He was a man of high birth, high connections, being married to a sister of the Earl of Carlisle, had held high office in the state, and was a most indefatigable and zealous traitor. During the king's absence, and when the Jacobites were in great spirits, hoping to drive out William, he had shown the most marked and unmanly disrespect to the queen. It was not, therefore, likely that he would escape the just punishment of his treason if he were caught. For a long time he managed to conceal himself, and during his concealment he and his friends were hard at work to remove the only witnesses that he dreaded. These were Porter and a person named Goodman. The Earl of Aylesbury, who was also in the Tower on a similar charge, was equally anxious to have these two men out of the way, and the friends of both plotters united to get rid of them by bribery. For this purpose, besides the active personal exertions of Lady Fenwick, they employed two Irishmen of their party—one Clancey, a barber, and Donelagh, a disbanded captain. Clancey met Porter at a tavern, and offered him three hundred guineas down, three hundred more as soon as he landed in France, and an annuity of one hundred pounds a year. Porter was greatly tempted by the offer, and at length consented to accept it. A day was fixed for the payment of the first three hundred guineas at the tavern, but, on reflection in the interval, he did not like the prospect of having to face at St. Germains the king whose agents he had betrayed to death, and the friends and associates of those agents. He saw that nothing could obtain their forgiveness, or prevent them from taking mortal revenge on him. He therefore posted to the Secretary of State, and revealed the whole affair. The necessary measures were taken, and Porter attended punctually at the meeting with Clancey. He received the three hundred guineas, and then, giving a concerted signal, the officers of Government rushed in and secured Clancey, who was tried for subornation, convicted, and set in the pillory. This discovery, through the double treachery of Porter, alarmed Fenwick for his personal safety. He no longer deemed himself secure in the kingdom, for he had taken such part in the attempt to win over Porter—writing a letter for him to take with him to St. Germains to secure his good reception there—that it was too obvious that he was not far off. Porter was indemnified for his loss of the promised annuity by a much better one from William's government—no less than two hundred and fifty pounds a year—and would undoubtedly, if possible, hunt out Fenwick. Sir John, therefore, made prompt arrangements for his own escape to France. There was no time to be lost; he was indicted at the next sessions in the City for treason. Porter and Goodman gave evidence before the grand jury, who returned a true bill. Sir John managed to escape to near Romney Marsh, where a vessel was to take him off, but, unfortunately, on the way he met an officer, who had been apprehending two smugglers. The man knew him, and offered the smugglers a pardon and reward to assist in seizing him. Sir John fled, and they pursued; and he is said to have been taken in the end near Slyfield Mill, between Stoke Dabernon and Bookham, in Surrey. Sir John had contrived, after being taken, to write a letter to his wife, by one Webber who was with him, in which he declared that all was now over unless she could get her relatives, the Howards, to intercede for him. They might promise for him that he would spend his life abroad, and would pledge himself never to draw a sword against the present government. If that could not be done, the only chance left was to bribe a juryman to starve out the jury. This letter was intercepted, and when Sir John This was in due time written down and delivered, and, had it been a real revelation of the plots and their agents, would have probably obtained considerable indulgence for him. But it disclosed nothing that was not already well known to William. Passing over all the other parties who were secretly engaged in labouring for the overthrow of William's government and the restoration of James—persons whose names and doings would have been of the utmost value to the Government—he merely accused Marlborough, Russell, Godolphin, and Shrewsbury. The intrigues of all these were far more familiar to William and his intimate friends than they were to Fenwick. William and Devonshire were disappointed. The whole thing had the air of a ruse to hide the still undiscovered delinquents, and make a merit of a stale and useless piece of information. Devonshire, on forwarding the list, observed that, whatever these noblemen had been, they were, to all appearance, very firm to the king now. William, on reading Fenwick's paper, was incensed. "I am astonished," he wrote to Shrewsbury, "at the fellow's effrontery. Observe this honest man's sincerity: he has nothing to say, except against my friends. Not a word about the plans of his brother Jacobites." He ordered the prisoner to be brought to trial without delay. Fenwick, in fact, had only insured his own Fenwick, perceiving the fatal blunder that he had made, sent in a second confession; but this appeared rather to absolve James and his adherents from any knowledge of the baser plan of assassination, and from having sanctioned the scheme of seizing William's person, than to throw But Shrewsbury, whose mind so readily preyed on itself, could not bring himself to face the king, and sent to request leave to resign the Seals. With a magnanimity wonderfully different to that of Henry VIII., who would have had all these nobles' heads off in a few days, William would not hear of his resignation, telling the duke that it would bring the worst suspicions on him; and, more on Shrewsbury's account than his own, he insisted on his keeping the Seals. At length he consented, but still dared not go to town, but remained in the seclusion of his home amongst the wilds of Gloucestershire. On the 20th of October William opened the session of Parliament with a speech in which he reviewed the troubles and difficulties of the past year. He admitted the distress which the endeavours to restore the coinage to a healthy state had occasioned; the pressure caused by the limited coinage being yet only partly relieved. He avowed that the liberal funds voted in the last session had fallen far short of the public needs, and that the Civil List could not be maintained without further aid; but, on the other hand, he contended that they had many causes of congratulation. Abroad the enemy had obtained no advantage, and at home the fortitude and temper with which the nation had struggled through the hardships attending the recoinage—increased as these had been by the fears or selfishness of those who had hoarded their money—were admirable. A little time must bear them through this, and he had to inform them that he had received overtures of peace from France. He should be prepared to accept proper terms, but the way to obtain them was to treat sword in hand. He therefore recommended them to be at once liberal and prompt in voting the supplies. He recommended to their sympathy the French Protestants, who were in a most miserable condition, and he trusted to their taking efficient measures for the maintenance of the public credit. The Commons, on retiring to their House, at the instance of Montague, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, passed three resolutions, which demonstrated the confidence of the country in the Government, and constituted in themselves the most absolute defeat of all the grumblers and malcontents possible. Montague had advocated the Bank of England; that had succeeded. He had denounced the scheme of the Land Bank; that had proved, as he declared it to be, a delusion, and had brought ruin on its projectors. He had carried the plans of Government for the restoration of the coinage stoutly through the most unexampled crises. When the paper of the Bank of England was fluctuating in value, the enemies of Government casting suspicion on it, so that it would occasionally sink one-fourth of its value in the course of a single day; when both the Allies and the enemies of England fancied that her credit was gone and her resources exhausted, Montague knew better, and by his spirit and eloquence kept the machine of Government going, and now he reached a point of unquestionable triumph. The credit of the country was no longer falling, but rising; the coinage was fast assuming a position which it had never enjoyed for ages, and the confidence of Parliament displayed itself in its votes. The resolutions which confounded the adversaries of William's Government, and which have often been referred to as motives for encouragement in periods of Governmental distress, were these:—First, that the Commons would support the king against all foreign and domestic enemies; secondly, that the standard of gold and silver should not be altered; thirdly, that they would make good all Parliamentary funds established since the king's succession. An address was passed on the basis of these resolutions, which was followed by another from the Lords, and the Commons proceeded in the same spirit to vote six millions for the current expenses of the year. The great topic of the remainder of the session was the inquiry into the guilt of Sir John Fenwick. In denouncing the noblemen named in his confession, he had made them and their adherents his mortal enemies. The Whigs were deeply incensed through the accusation of Russell and Shrewsbury, and the Whigs were now more influential than ever. Instead of damaging them and embarrassing William, Fenwick had fatally damaged himself. As for Godolphin, who was the only Tory in the Ministry, they contrived to get him to offer his resignation, which, unlike that of Shrewsbury, was accepted, so that the Whigs had now a ministry wholly of their party. Russell was loud in his demands of vengeance, and William, at the suggestion of the Whigs, sent for Fenwick, and insisted that he should supply further information as to the real conspirators, whom he had evidently purposely screened. Fenwick declined, and William gave him to understand that he had nothing more to expect from him. The stubbornness of Fenwick soon received an explanation. His wife had managed to corrupt Goodman, the second witness against him. An annuity of five hundred pounds had been offered him to abscond, accompanied by the menace of assassination if he refused. He consented to flee, and was accompanied by an agent, named O'Brien, to St. Germains. Fenwick now believed himself safe, as no man could be condemned on a charge of high treason upon the evidence of one witness. But the vengeance of his enemies was not thus to be defeated. Sir John might have recollected how often the end in such cases had been secured by a Bill of Attainder. Fenwick himself had been a zealous advocate for such a Bill against Monmouth. When it became known that Goodman was spirited away, the exasperation of the Commons was extreme. On the 6th of November Russell vehemently demanded of the House that it should examine and decide whether the accused parties were guilty or not. Before proceeding to extremities the Commons, however, called Sir John before them, and offered to intercede with the king on his behalf if he made a full and immediate confession. But he would not consent to become the informer against his own party, and was remanded. It was then resolved, by a hundred and seventy-nine votes to sixty-one that a Bill of Attainder should be brought in. The two parties put forth all their strength, and the Bill was not carried till the 26th. For twenty days the eloquence and influence of the House were in violent agitation. The Tories were seen contending for the liberty of the subject, which they had so often overridden by such bills, and the Whigs as vehemently pressed on the measure as they had formerly denounced similar ones when directed against those of their own party. During the debates the depositions of Goodman made before the Grand Jury, fully implicating Sir John in the conspiracy, were laid before the House in support of the evidence of Porter. Goodman's absence was proved, to the satisfaction of the House, to be owing to the inducements and exertions of Fenwick's friends; and two of the grand jurymen were examined, and detailed the evidence received by them from Goodman on his examination, fully agreeing with that sent in in writing. Some petty jurymen, also, who had decided the case of another conspirator, confirmed this evidence. The Commons had proof enough of his guilt, though it might want the legal formality of two direct witnesses. In the Lords the Earl of Monmouth made an adroit movement in favour of Sir John. He defended him warmly, at the same time that he sent to him in prison, through the Duchess of Norfolk, his cousin, a scheme for defeating his enemies. He advised him to maintain the truth of his confession, to declare that he derived his information from high quarters, and to beg the king to demand of the Earls of Portland and Romney whether the information in their possession against the noblemen implicated did not correspond with his own; the king, moreover, should be urged to lay before Parliament the evidence on which he had suddenly dismissed Marlborough, and any letters intercepted on their way from St. Germains to these parties. This would have been a thunderbolt to the Government, and Monmouth awaited in exultation its effect. But Sir John disappointed him. He feared to exasperate further the king and his judges the Lords, to whom the accused belonged, and did not take the hint. Monmouth, incensed, then turned against him himself. Marlborough exerted himself with all his power to condemn him, even getting the Prince of Denmark to go and vote against him. The bishops remained, and voted, eight of them, against the passing of the Bill. Burnet and Tenison, however, both spoke and voted for it, with little regard to the practice that the prelates should take no part in advocating measures of blood. The Lords Godolphin and Bath, though both amongst those accused by Fenwick, voted in his favour, and Shrewsbury absented himself from the debate. The Duke of Unfortunately for Monmouth, the friends of Sir John were so incensed at his turning round against him, that the Earl of Carlisle, Lady Fenwick's brother, produced to the House the papers which he had sent to Sir John in prison, and stated the censures on the king with which he had accompanied them. A tempest suddenly burst over his head, of indescribable fury. The Whigs were exasperated at his endeavouring to sacrifice Russell and Shrewsbury to save Fenwick, and the Tories at his endeavouring to sacrifice Marlborough and Godolphin, and at his treacherously deserting Sir John for not following his advice. He was committed to the Tower, deprived of all his places, and his name erased from the list of privy councillors. Parliament having passed this Act, adjourned for the Christmas holidays, and every exertion was made to obtain a pardon for Sir John. His wife threw herself at the feet of William, but he only replied that he must consult his ministers before he could give an answer. On the 11th of January, 1697, he put his signature to the Bill. When Parliament met again she presented a petition to the House of Lords, praying them to intercede with the king to commute the sentence to perpetual banishment, but without success. On the 28th of January Fenwick was conducted to execution on Tower Hill. On the scaffold he delivered to the sheriff a sealed paper, in which he complained of the irregularity of the proceeding against him, denied any participation in the plan of assassination, but confessed his attachment to James, and his belief in the right of the Prince of Wales after him. After an abortive attempt to pass a Bill establishing a property qualification for the Commons, another to put the press again under the licensing system, and another to abolish those dens of protected crime, the Savoy and Whitefriars, Parliament was prorogued on the 16th of April. Whilst this desperate conflict had been going on between Whig and Tory in England, in Scotland a most useful measure had passed the Scottish Parliament, namely, an Act establishing a school and schoolmaster in every parish, and to this admirable Act it is that Scotland owes the superior intelligence of its working classes. At the same time the rigid bigotry of the clergy perpetrated one of the most revolting acts in history. A youth of eighteen, named Thomas Aikenhead, had picked up some of the sceptical notions of Hobbes and Tindal, and was arrested, tried, and hanged for blasphemy between Leith and Edinburgh. It was in vain that he expressed the utmost repentance for his errors, the ministers were impatient for his death, and he died accordingly, to the disgrace of the Presbyterian Church and the whole country. William embarked for Holland on the 26th of April, having before his departure made several promotions. To the disgust of many, Sunderland was appointed one of the Lords Justices and Lord Chamberlain. The Protestants wondered that a man who had apostatised when there was a Popish king, should find such favour with a Presbyterian one; and the honourable-minded that a man who had stooped to so many dirty acts and arts should be thus exalted by a prince of sober morals. But William's only excuse was that his ministers were so bad that there was little to choose in their principles, and that he employed them not for their virtues but their abilities. Russell was rewarded for running down Fenwick with the title of Earl of Orford; the Lord Keeper Somers was elevated to the full dignity of Lord Chancellor, and created Baron Somers of Evesham. Montague was made First Lord of the Treasury, in place of Godolphin; Lord Wharton, in addition to his post of Comptroller of the Household, was appointed Chief Justice in Eyre, south of the Trent; and his brother, Godwin Wharton, became a Lord of the Admiralty. The campaign in Flanders was commenced by the French with an activity apparently intended to impress upon the Allies their ample ability to carry on the war, although, in fact, never had France more need of peace. Its finances were exhausted, its people were miserable; but far more than the sufferings of his subjects to Louis were the ambitious projects which he was now particularly cherishing. John Sobieski, the brave deliverer of Vienna from the Turks, the King of Poland, was dead, and Louis was anxious to place the Prince of Conti on the throne of that kingdom. He had, however, a still more weighty motive for peace. The King of Spain, the sickly and imbecile Charles II., was fast hastening to Spain and Germany, therefore, were averse from peace. William and Louis were the only parties, each for his own purposes, really anxious for it. Louis, early in the spring, had made overtures to Dykvelt through Cailleres, which were really surprising. They were no less than to relinquish all the conquests made by him during the war, to restore Lorraine to its duke, Luxemburg to Spain, Strasburg to the Empire, and to acknowledge William's title to the crown of England without condition or reserve. Such terms the Allies never could have expected. They were a renunciation by the ambitious Louis of all that he had been fighting for during so many years—of all that he had drained his kingdom of its life and wealth to accomplish. That he contemplated maintaining the peace any longer than till he had secured Spain and Poland is not to be supposed. If he obtained peace now, these objects would These undoubtedly were Louis's notions, and it was plausibly urged by Spain and Austria that it was better now to press him as he was sinking till he was perfectly prostrate, and then bind him effectually. But, on the other hand, William felt that England and Holland had to bear the brunt of the war; that it was all very well for Spain and Germany to cry "Keep on," but the fact was, they did little or nothing towards keeping on. The Germans had no union, and, therefore, no strength. They sent excuses instead of their contingents and instead of money to pay their share of the cost of the war. When they did rise, they were nearly always behind their time and divided in their counsels. As for Spain, it literally did nothing to defend its own territories. The whole of Flanders would have been lost but for William and his Dutch and English troops. Catalonia would have been lost but for Russell and his fleet. Moreover, without consulting the Allies, Spain had joined in a treaty with Savoy and France to save its Milanese territory, and to the extreme prejudice of the Allies, it had, by releasing the French armies from Italy, increased the force in Flanders. William was greatly incensed by the endeavours of these Powers to continue the war; and Louis, as the best spur to their backwardness, determined to seize Brussels, and conduct himself as if bent on active aggression. Catinat, relieved from his command in Savoy, had now joined Villeroi and Boufflers in Flanders, and these generals determined to surprise Brussels. They first advanced on the little town of Ath, and William, who was but just recovering from an attack of illness, uniting his forces with those of the Elector of Bavaria, endeavoured to prevent them. He was, however, too late; but he marched hastily towards Brussels to defend it against Villeroi and Boufflers. He passed over the very ground on which the battle of Waterloo was long afterwards fought, and posted himself on the height whence Villeroi had bombarded the city two years before. Neither side, however, was anxious to engage and incur all the miseries of a great battle, with the prospect of a near peace. They therefore entrenched themselves and continued to lie there for the rest of the summer, awaiting the course of events. Louis, however, assailed the King of Spain in another quarter—Catalonia. There VendÔme attacked the viceroy and defeated him, and invested Barcelona, which, though bravely defended by the Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, was obliged to capitulate. At the same time came the news of another blow. Louis had sent out a squadron under Admiral Pointes to attack the Spanish settlements in the West Indies, and he had sacked and plundered the town of Carthagena, and carried home an immense treasure. These disasters made Spain as eager for peace as she had before been averse, and the Emperor of Germany was obliged to cease talking of returning to the position of the Treaty of Westphalia—a state of things totally out of the power of the Allies to restore. The Plenipotentiaries of the different Powers now at last were ordered to meet; the only question was, Where? The Emperor proposed Aix-la-Chapelle or Frankfort, but Louis objected to any German town, but was willing that the place should be the Hague. It was at length settled to be the Hague. The Ambassadors of the Allies were to occupy the Hague itself; and the French, Delft, about five miles distant. Midway between these towns lies the village of Ryswick, and close to it a palace belonging then to William, called Neubourg House. There it was determined that the Plenipotentiaries should meet for business. The palace was admirably adapted, by its different entrances and alleys, for the approach of the different bodies of diplomatists without any confusion, and there was a fine, large, central hall for their deliberations. There appeared for England the Earl of Pembroke, the Viscount Villiers, Sir Joseph Williamson, and Matthew Prior, the poet, as their secretary. For the Emperor, the gruff Kaunitz, the celebrated Imperial Minister, was at the head of the German referees. For France came Harlay, Crecy, and Cailleres. Don Quiros was the Minister of Spain, and there were whole throngs of the representatives of the lesser Powers. The Minister of Sweden, Count Lilienroth, was appointed mediator, and, after various arrangements regarding precedence, on the 9th of May the Plenipotentiaries met; but, it seemed, only to entangle themselves in a multitude of absurd difficulties regarding their respective ranks and titles. The Ambassadors of Spain and of the Emperor were the most ridiculous in their punctilios. Then came the news of the death of the King of Sweden (Charles XI.), and the waiting of the mediator for a renewal of his powers, and for putting himself into mourning, and it was the middle of June before any real business had been William peremptorily refused to grant the amnesty—that was an interference with the prerogative of his crown which he could permit to no foreign Power. The jointure he was willing to pay, on condition that the money should not be employed in designs against his crown or life, and that James, his queen, and Court, should remove to Avignon and continue to reside there. Neither the residence of the exiled family nor the matter of the jointure was to be mentioned in the treaty, but William authorised his Plenipotentiaries at the Congress to say that Mary of Modena should have everything which on examination should be found to be lawfully her due. This, indeed, may be considered an ambiguous phrase, for Mary, as well as James, being deposed, all her legal rights connected with the Crown had lapsed. William was afterwards much blamed for the non-payment of this jointure; but those who charged him with breach of faith knew very well that the jointure was only conditionally offered, and that the conditions were altogether disregarded. The ceremonious and do-nothing Plenipotentiaries were greatly startled by the news that Portland and Boufflers were continually meeting, and were supposed to be actually making a treaty without them. A thing so irregular, so undiplomatic, was unheard of; but William was a man of business, and, in spite of forms and ceremonies, pushed on the treaty and concluded it. Spain, which had arranged a separate treaty in Savoy, was especially scandalised. But still more was James alarmed and incensed. He addressed two memorials to the princes of the confederacy—one to the Catholic Princes, entreating them to unite with him against England for his rights, reminding them that his case was theirs, and that the English revolution was setting a fatal precedent for them; the other was to the princes at large, warning them against infringing his inalienable rights by entering into any agreement with the usurper to transfer his crown and dignity to him. These producing no effect, he issued a third, protesting against any engagements they might enter into to his prejudice, or the prejudice of his son; and declaring that he should himself never feel bound by any of them. If Louis was not moved by his entreaties and remonstrances, it was not likely that the princes who had for eight years been fighting in alliance with his rival would. Perhaps, however, James felt it only his duty to put in his disclaimer. The negotiations went on. Besides the terms offered by France to William and his Allies being accepted by all except the Emperor, it was agreed that Commissioners should meet in London from France to settle the respective pretensions of France and England to the territories of Hudson's Bay. The Dutch made a separate treaty of commerce with France. France surrendered all conquests made since the Treaty of Nimeguen, and placed the chief fortresses in the Low Countries in the hands of Dutch garrisons; except eighty towns and villages, which the French claimed from longer possession, and the right to which was to be determined by commissioners, with a power of appeal to the States-General. A demand of toleration was made on behalf of the French Protestants, but was refused on the same ground as William refused the amnesty to the Jacobites—interference with the prerogative of Louis. On the 10th of July the representatives of the Emperor were asked by the French to sign, but, on declining, the 21st of August was fixed as the last day on which France would be bound by its offer. William and the rest of the Allies were greatly exasperated at this refusal of the Emperor. The 21st arrived, and, the On the 10th the rest of the Allies signed the treaty, but the Emperor still held out, and a further time was allowed him, namely, till the 1st of November. On the 11th of September an event occurred which made the resistance of the Emperor the more obstinate for a time. Prince Eugene fought a great battle at Zenta against the Sultan in person, completely routed the Turks, and killed or caused to be drowned in the Theiss the Grand Vizier, the Aga of the Janissaries, and thirty thousand of the enemy. There were six thousand more wounded or taken prisoners, with their artillery, baggage, tents, ammunition, and provisions. The Grand Seignior himself escaped with difficulty, whilst the Imperialists lost only about one thousand men in the action. The Emperor hoped that such a brilliant victory would induce the Allies to prolong the war; but, as it produced no such effect, he was obliged to comply. The petty princes, who had done nothing during the war but create delays and embarrassments, stood out to the very last on the demand that the Lutheran religion should be restored in Louis's territories, where it had been put down; but they stood out in vain. The treaty was duly signed and ratified at the time fixed. The new treaty produced very different sensations in France and England. In France there was much murmuring. For what, it was asked, had the king been fighting all these years? He had given up everything, and could only have done that under defeat. The Court of St. Germains and James's adherents were in despair. In England the most riotous joy broke forth. There were all the usual demonstrations of such occasions—bonfires, drinking, and firing of guns. The bells rang out from every steeple, and the Bank of England stocks, which were at twenty per cent. below par, rose to par. The Jacobites cursed Louis for a traitor to the cause of James, and fled to hide themselves. The rejoicings were equally enthusiastic all over the kingdom. When William entered his capital it was a regular triumph. From Greenwich to Whitehall it was one dense crowd of hurrahing people; troops of militia and train-bands, the City authorities attending him in all their paraphernalia, the Foot Guards standing under arms at Whitehall, and the windows all the way crowded with handsome or excited faces. The 2nd of December was appointed as a day of public thanksgiving, and the new cathedral of St. Paul's was crowded by its first great assemblage on the occasion. There were deputations bringing zealous addresses to the foot of the Throne, and foremost and most loyal in language amongst them was that of the University of Oxford, which had so long distinguished itself by its Toryism and devotion to the Stuarts. There was cause, indeed, for joy; for the country was for a time freed from the most exhausting war in which it had ever been engaged. It had passed through it with credit, though its armies and navies were in a great measure commanded by traitors. Its wealth and credit were higher than ever; and, above all, the tone and temper of the nation were sure guarantees that the return of James or his son was the most impossible of things. Still, had the Allies on the Continent been true to each other, and to the principles for which they professed to contend, they might have inflicted a far more complete punishment on the heartless ambition of Louis, and thus prevented the speedy recurrence of the horrors which they now hoped were for a long time at an end. |