CHAPTER XV.

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REIGN OF WILLIAM III. (concluded).

William Meets his Parliament—Reduction of the Standing Army—Visit of Peter the Great—Schemes of Louis—The East India Company—Spanish Partition Scheme—Its Inception and Progress—Somers's Hesitation—The Treaty is Signed—New Parliament—Tory Reaction—Dismissal of the Dutch Guards—William forms an Intention of Quitting England—Attack on the late Ministry—Jobbery in the Admiralty—Paterson's Darien Scheme—Douglas's Reasons against It—Enthusiasm of the Scots—Departure of the First Expedition and its Miserable Failure—The Untimely End of the Second Expedition—Second Partition Scheme—Double-dealing of the French—New Parliament—Attack on Somers—Report on the Irish Grants—Resumption Bill passed—William's Unpopularity—Death of the Duke of Gloucester—Conclusion of the New Partition Treaty and its Results—Charles makes over his Dominions to the French Candidate—His Death—Disgust of William at Louis's Duplicity—Tory Temper of the House—The Succession Question—Debates on Foreign Policy—The Succession Act passed—New Negotiations with France—Attack on the Whig Ministers—Acknowledgment of the Spanish King—Impeachment of the Whigs—The Kentish Petition—Its Reception by the House—The Legion Memorial—Panic in the House—Violent Struggle between the two Houses—The Impeachments dropped—William goes Abroad—The Grand Alliance and its Objects—Beginning of the War—Death of James II.—Louis acknowledges the Pretender—Reaction in England—New Parliament and Ministry—The King's Speech—British Patriotism is Roused—Voting of Supplies—The Bills of Attainder and Abjuration—Illness and Death of William—His Character.

William met his Parliament on the 3rd of December. He congratulated it on the achievement of a peace in which the Confederates had accomplished all they had fought for—the repression of the ambitious attempts of France to bring under its yoke the rest of the kingdoms on the Continent. She had been compelled to yield up everything which she had seized from the commencement of the war. But he reminded them that this had not been accomplished except at a heavy cost. They had supported him nobly in furnishing that cost, and he trusted they would not now be less prompt to discharge the remaining unpaid claims, and in taking measures to liquidate by degrees the debts incurred. He expressed his hope that they would provide him for life with a sufficient Civil List to maintain the necessary dignity of the Crown. Though the war was over, he reminded them that there were many reasons why the army and navy should yet be maintained on a respectable footing.

The Commons voted him an address, in which they united in the congratulations on the restoration of peace, but passed over the subject of the army. William noticed the omission, and felt it deeply. Nobody was more aware than himself that, though they had bound France by the treaty of Ryswick, no bonds of that kind ever held Louis XIV. any longer than it suited his necessities or his schemes of aggrandisement. He observed that Louis still kept on foot his large armies, and that he still retained James and his Court at St. Germains, in open violation of the treaty; and the circumstances of Spain, whose king was gradually dying childless, with Louis intently watching to pounce on his dominions, filled him, as it did every far-seeing man, with deep anxiety. Though no king ever less sought to infringe the liberties of his subjects, yet William, naturally fond of an army and of military affairs, was especially anxious at this crisis for the retention of a respectable force. He knew that Europe, though freed from actual war, was, through the restless ambition of Louis, still living only in an armed peace.

The Commons did not leave him long in suspense. In a few days they went into the subject of the proposal to keep up the army. The spirit of the House was high against a standing army. All the old arguments were produced—that a standing army was totally inconsistent with the liberties of the people; that the moment you put the sword into the hands of mercenaries, the king became the master of the rights of the nation, and a despot. They asked, "If a standing army were to be maintained, what should they have gained by the revolution?" The Tories, who were anxious to damage the Whigs, and the Jacobites, who were anxious to damage William's government altogether, were particularly eloquent on these topics. The true patriots, and they were few, were eloquent from principle. It was in vain that the friends of William represented that it was a very different thing to maintain an army in particular circumstances which depended on the will of Parliament, from maintaining one at the sole pleasure of the king. The opponents of a standing army contended that a militia was the natural force for internal defence, which could be brought to nearly as much perfection as regular troops, and could be called out when wanted; and that the navy was our proper army, and that if kept in due efficiency it was able, not only to protect us and our trade, but to render all such assistance to other nations as became a generous and Christian nation. By a division of a hundred and eighty-five votes against a hundred and forty-eight, the House resolved that all the forces raised since 1686 should be disbanded.

PETER THE GREAT AT DEPTFORD DOCKYARD.

From the Painting by Daniel Maclise, R.A.
in the Royal Holloway College, Egham.

This fell with an appalling shock on William. All his army of brave mercenaries, his Dutch guards, his Huguenot cavalry, must be sent away. He would, it was found, be left only with about eight thousand regular troops. Never was there such a stripping of a martial monarch, who had figured at the head of upwards of a hundred thousand men against the greatest military power of Europe. He made little remark publicly, but he poured out his grief to his great correspondent the Dutch Grand Pensionary, Heinsius, and to Burnet. To them he said that it would make his alliance of so little value, his state so contemptible, that he did not see how he was to carry on the government; that he never could have imagined, after what he had done for the nation, that they would treat him thus; and that, had he imagined it, he would never have meddled with the affairs of England; that he was weary of governing a country which had rather lay itself open to its enemies than trust him, who had acted all his life so faithfully for them. But it was useless complaining; the country was resolved on having no standing army, and every attempt of Ministers to modify or enlarge the resolution was disregarded. They proposed that the Bill should be committed, because it would leave the king in the hands of the old Tory regiments; and, again, that five hundred thousand pounds per annum should be granted for the maintenance of Guards and garrisons. Both motions were negatived. There was a strong feeling excited against Sunderland, on the supposition that he had encouraged the king in his desire for a large army, because he warmly argued for it; and that minister, equally odious to both parties, felt it safest to retire. He therefore resigned his post of Lord Chamberlain, though William did all he could to dissuade him from doing so, and sought the seclusion of his princely abode of Althorp.

These were the last transactions of the English Government in 1697; but there was at this moment a person residing in England who was destined to produce greater changes in the face of Europe, and in its relations, than any who had gone before him. This was Peter the Czar of Muscovy, who was at this time residing at Sayes Court, a house of the celebrated John Evelyn, at Deptford, and studying the fleet and shipbuilding of England, in order to create a naval power for himself. He was only a youth of five-and-twenty, and was the monarch of a country then sunk in barbarism, which was unrepresented at the Courts of Europe, was little heard of by the rest of the Continent, and whose merchants were forbidden, on pain of death, to trade with other countries. Yet already Peter had raised a regular army, and something of a navy, putting them under the management of Scottish and French officers. By means of these, in 1696, he had besieged and taken Azov. He had put himself through all the ranks of the army, beginning as a common soldier; and he had then determined to see personally the chief maritime nations, Holland and England, and learn what he could of the arts that made them so powerful. He set out with only twelve attendants, amongst whom were his two chief princes, Menschikoff, who had been originally a pieman, and Galitzin. These were to act as his ambassadors to the Courts of Holland and England, he himself remaining incognito. He first settled at Zaandam, in Holland, where he lived in a small lodging, dressed and worked with his attendants as ship-carpenters, learning to forge the ironwork of ships, as well as to prepare their woodwork. He had a yacht on the Zuyder Zee, and practised its management, and studied rope-making and sail-making. He found himself too much crowded about and stared at on his removal to London, where he spent his time chiefly in the dockyards of Deptford, Woolwich, and Chatham. William used to go and see him at Sayes Court, and sent the Marquis of Caermarthen to attend upon him, where they are said to have drunk brandy and pepper together during the long winter evenings. In the ensuing April disturbances at home called him away, but not before he had destroyed Evelyn's fine holly hedges by driving over them in the deep snows in his sledge, to Evelyn's great mortification.

At the opening of the year 1698, all appeared peace in Europe, but it was the quiet only which lies in the bosom of a volcano. Enormous expenditure of blood and treasure had been made to repel the unprincipled schemes of Louis XIV. Europe seemed to have triumphed over him. He had suddenly surrendered all that he had striven for, as if he perceived the impossibility of his aspirations. Nothing was less the fact. Never had he been so daring in his plans of aggrandisement as at this moment. Why should he continue to drain his kingdom of its population and its substance to grasp merely at Flanders, when, by exerting the arts of diplomacy, he might possess himself, not only of Flanders, but of all Spain, the north of Italy, the Sicilies, the South American and Indian dependencies? This grand scheme Louis now resolved to compass. He had married, as we have said, the Infanta, Maria Theresa, the sister of Charles II. of Spain, and had children by her. On marrying her he had sworn to renounce all claims to the Spanish throne through her; but this weighed nothing with Louis. He resolved that a son of the Dauphin—that is, his grandson through Maria Theresa—should be put forward as the French candidate in lieu of his father. Against him was the Emperor of Germany, the first cousin of Charles II., but he had resigned his claims in favour of his son by a second marriage—the Archduke Charles. By his first marriage with a younger sister of Charles II. he was the grandfather of the Electoral Prince of Bavaria. But the rights of this claimant, like those of the Dauphin's son Philip, were somewhat discountenanced by the fact that his grandfather's marriage had been accompanied by a renunciation of rights. It will be seen, therefore, that the question was one of some intricacy, and it was complicated by doubts as to the validity of the renunciations. Louis determined that the House of Austria should be set aside, and his own issue occupy the Spanish throne, when France, in fact, stretching from Gibraltar to Flanders, and including a large share of Italy, would be able to give law to the Continent, and swallow up Flanders and Holland, if not Germany too. This was the danger which wrought on the anxious heart of William at this moment.

Montague, in the height of his popularity, undertook and carried a measure which eventually, however, did the Whigs infinite mischief. Ministers had applied to the East India Company for a loan. The Company offered to lend them seven hundred thousand pounds, to be repaid out of the supplies at the convenience of Government. The new Company, which had so long been striving after a charter, hearing of the proposal, immediately outbade the old Company, offering to lend the Government two million pounds at eight per cent. The bait was too tempting to resist; a Bill was brought into the Commons, and passed its first reading by a large majority. The old Company, alarmed, petitioned the House, stating the claims it possessed, from having been encouraged by many royal charters to invest its capital, and to create a trade with India. It begged the House to consider that a thousand families depended on the stock, and that the property of the Company in India, producing an annual revenue of forty-four thousand pounds, would all be destroyed or reduced to trifling value. They deposed that they had expended a million of money in fortifications alone; that during the war they had lost twelve ships and cargoes worth fifteen hundred thousand pounds; that since the last subscription they had paid two hundred and ninety-five thousand pounds for customs, and above eighty-five thousand pounds in taxes. They had furnished ten thousand barrels of gunpowder when the Government was greatly pressed for it, and taken eighty thousand pounds' worth of Exchequer Bills. The House weighed the proposal, but was persuaded by Montague to give the preference to the new Company. On this the old Company offered, notwithstanding their great losses, to advance two millions to Government, on condition that the charter to the new Company was not granted. The offer came too late; the Bill for the new Company was passed, and carried also in the Lords, but with considerable opposition, and a protest from one-and-twenty peers. This Act was, notwithstanding, deemed a very unjust and arbitrary measure; and the arguments of the Whigs for a standing army, and their embezzlements in the Government offices and by most flagrant contracts, seriously affected their popularity.

Towards the end of July William went to Holland, and having addressed the States-General, and given audience to a number of ambassadors at the Hague, he betook himself to his favourite seat at Loo, where, in August, he was joined by Portland, the Pensionary Heinsius, and the Count Tallard, an emissary from Louis XIV. In this retirement they discussed one of the boldest projects which could possibly be entertained by statesmen, namely, a partition of the Spanish dominions. That the scheme was Louis XIV.'s there can be no question, and, daring as it was, served but as the blinding manoeuvre which covered still more daring ones. The ultimate object of Louis was the seizure of the crown and territories of Spain, to which we have already alluded, but William, with great address, at once set to work to countermine him.

This plan of dividing the empire of Spain amongst such parties as should suit the views of William and Louis had been suggested by France, apparently very soon after the peace of Ryswick, and had been going on all the spring in England in profound secrecy. One of the motives for sending Portland to Paris in January had been to learn the full particulars of this scheme, which had been somewhat mysteriously opened to William. In writing to Heinsius on the 3rd of January, when Portland was about to start for France, William expressed his surprise as to the real meaning of "something that was proposed to be done by the Republic, France, and England, towards the maintenance of the peace," and imagined it might relate to their position with the Emperor. However, he added, "the earl of Portland will readily be able to get at the bottom of this affair in France, and that is another reason for hastening his departure as much as possible."

VIEW IN THE HAGUE: OLD GATE IN THE BINNENHOF, WITH THE ARMS OF THE COUNTY OF HOLLAND.

Portland was scarcely settled in his diplomatic position in Paris when the scheme was broached to him, but at first cautiously. On the 15th of March he wrote to William that the Ministers Pomponne and De Torcy had communicated to him, but in the profoundest secrecy, that the king their master desired to make him the medium of a most important negotiation with the king of England. The impending death of the king of Spain was likely to throw the whole of Europe into war again, unless this were prevented by engagements entered into by the kings of France and England to prevent it. For if the Emperor were allowed to succeed to Spain with its dependencies, Flanders, Italy, and the colonies, he would become so powerful that he would be dangerous to all Europe. Portland declared that he could give no opinion, nor could the king his master give an answer, so far as he could see, until he had the full views of the king of France on the subject; and that the naval and maritime interests of England and Holland might be greatly affected by any arrangement regarding the succession of the Spanish territories. The French Ministers said it would be easy to order matters regarding the Low Countries to the satisfaction of England and Holland, and that France would guarantee that the crown of Spain should not be annexed to that of France; but as to the Indies, or the security of English trade in the Mediterranean, Portland could draw nothing from them. The views of France were so far not very clear; but Portland added the important piece of information that the Count de Tallard was at that very moment setting out for London, ostensibly to congratulate William, but really to prosecute this negotiation.

Accordingly, Tallard arrived in London on the 19th of March, and he and William, in strict secrecy, admitting no one else to their confidence, discussed this scheme of Louis. This was no other than that the crown of Spain, with the Spanish Netherlands and colonies, should not be allowed to pass to the Emperor, but should be settled on the Electoral Prince of Bavaria, the third claimant; that Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, the province of Guipuzcoa on the French side of the Pyrenees, Fontarabia, San Sebastian, Ferrol, and some towns on the Tuscan coast then owned by Spain, and called Presidii, should be settled by a mutual treaty between them on the Dauphin; and that Milan should be settled on the Archduke Charles, the second son of the Emperor, to whom he had resigned his rights.

The negotiations were carried on in England in closest secrecy between William and Tallard, William entering into engagements which most momentously affected England as well as all Europe, without taking a particle of advice from his Council, much less seeking the advice of Parliament—a proceeding which we should now consider unconstitutional, but which was then by no means unusual. When he quitted England after the dissolution of Parliament, it was only the more unobservedly to complete this extraordinary business. Tallard followed him to Loo, and they were soon after joined by Portland. It was now about the middle of August, and William wrote to Somers, desiring him to send him full powers under the Great Seal to complete the negotiation, leaving the names in blanks. He said he had ordered Portland to write to Vernon, the Secretary of State, to draw out the commission with his own hand, so that no creature should know anything of it except Somers and one or two of the other most trusted Ministers. He told Somers that it was confidently believed that the King of Spain could not outlive the month of October—might die much sooner, and, therefore, not a moment was to be lost.

In consequence of this communication, Somers, who was seeking health at Tunbridge Wells, immediately called into his counsels Russell (now Lord Orford), Montague, and Shrewsbury. He informed William that Montague and Secretary Vernon had come down to him at Tunbridge; they had seriously discussed this very momentous question, and that it seemed to them that it might be attended with very many ill consequences if the French did not act a sincere part; that the people of England would undoubtedly resent being drawn into any fresh war; and that it required deep consideration what would be the condition of Europe should this proposed partition be carried out. To them it seemed that if Sicily were in French hands, they would become entire masters of the Levant trade; that if they obtained any of the Spanish ports on the Tuscan coast, Milan would be so entirely shut in from independent intercourse or commerce by sea and land that it would be utterly powerless; that if France had Guipuzcoa and the other Spanish places on the French side of the Pyrenees, the rest of Spain would be as completely open to French invasion as Catalonia now was; and, finally, if this negotiation was concluded, what guarantee had William for the king of France's faithful execution of it? Were England and Holland to sit still and see France enforce this partition? "If that be so," says Somers, "what security ought we to expect from the French that, while we are neuter, they will confine themselves to the terms of the treaty, and not attempt to take further advantage?" These considerations were sound, but William had certainly chosen the lesser of two evils, for the placing of the French candidate on the throne of Spain would have entirely overturned the European balance.

In obedience to the king's orders, Somers sent the carte blanche with the Great Seal affixed; but he had failed in inducing Vernon to give him a warrant for affixing the Seal. The Secretary was too well aware of the unconstitutional character of this proceeding to issue such a warrant, and Somers was obliged to content himself with keeping the king's letter as his authority for the act. Undeterred by the plain suggestions of Somers and the other Ministers as to the total want of security which he had for Louis's observance of this treaty, and the dangerous power it conferred on France, William was in such haste to conclude the treaty, that the Earl of Portland and Sir Joseph Williamson had signed a rough draft before Somers's carte blanche arrived; and on the 11th of October, or about six weeks after its receipt, the formal treaty was signed by Portland, Williamson, Tallard, and Heinsius.

William returned to England in the beginning of December. He arrived on the 4th, and opened his new Parliament on the 6th. It had been obliged to be prorogued owing to his prolonged stay, having been called for August. The Ministers in William's absence had not taken much pains to influence the elections, and it soon appeared that a very independent body of gentlemen had been sent up. Not only had the electors put forward men of free principles, but the press had warmly urged the selection of a Liberal Speaker as essential to the full exercise of Parliamentary freedom. There were three candidates for the Speakership more particularly in view—Sir Edward Seymour, Sir Thomas Littleton, and Harley, the one supported by the Tories.

A paper on the choice of a Speaker had been actively circulated, which said that the great Lord Burleigh declared "that England could never be undone except by a Parliament," and that whenever we were enslaved like our Continental neighbours, it would be by the joint influence of a corrupt Parliament and a standing army. It cried down Seymour as a man who had constantly been bargaining with the Court since the days of the Pension Parliament of Charles II.; and it declared that men holding office under the Crown were most unfit for the office of Speaker. This was aimed at Littleton, which seemed a good omen for the Court, but, as it soon appeared, was no sound indication, for Harley was not elected, but Littleton.

In his opening speech William told the Commons that, notwithstanding the state of peace, it would be necessary for them to consider well the strength which they ought to maintain both at sea and on land; that the honour and even safety of the nation depended on not stripping it too much of its forces in the eyes of foreign nations. It was necessary, he contended, that Europe should be impressed with the idea that they would not be wanting to themselves. They had acquired a great position among the nations, and it was their duty to preserve it. He recommended them to make some progress in the discharge of the debts incurred in this long and expensive war, for an English Parliament could never, he imagined, neglect the sacred obligations which it had assumed. He also suggested to them some measures for the improvement of trade and for the discouragement of profaneness, and he begged them to act with unanimity.

The remarks on the necessity of maintaining more troops than the last Parliament had determined on, and on defraying the debts incurred by the war, seemed to rouse an extraordinary spirit of anger and disrespect in the new House. It neglected the ordinary courtesy of an Address. Before leaving for Holland in the summer, William left a sealed paper, ordering Ministers not to reduce the army in compliance to less than sixteen thousand men. Probably this was become known, and there had got abroad a persuasion that the king meant to resist the will of the Parliament in this respect; no other cause appeared sufficient to explain the animus which now manifested itself. The House resounded with speeches against standing armies, and on the waste of the people's substance on foreign wars, and it resolved that all the land forces of England in English pay should not exceed seven thousand, and that these should all be natural-born subjects; that not more than twelve thousand should be maintained in Ireland—these, too, all natural-born subjects, and to be supported by the revenue of Ireland. The Ministers had told the king before the meeting of Parliament that they thought they could obtain a grant of ten or twelve thousand in England, and William had replied that they might as well leave none as so few. But now that this storm broke out, the Ministers, seeing no possibility of carrying the number they had hoped for, sat silent, to the great disgust of the king.

This resolution went to strip William of his Dutch Guards whom he had brought with him, and who had attended him in so many actions, and of the brave Huguenots, who had done such signal service in Ireland. The spirit of the Commons, instead of being merely economical, was in this instance petty and miserable. It was neither grateful nor becoming to its dignity, to make so sweeping a reduction of the army, to begrudge the king who had rescued them from the miserable race of the Stuarts, and had so nobly acquiesced in everything which regarded their liberties, the small satisfaction of a few Dutch and Huguenot troops. The Huguenots especially, it might have been expected, would have experienced some sympathy from the Parliament, not only in return for their own gallant services, but because their friends and fellow-religionists were at this moment suffering the severest persecution. But a deep dislike of foreigners had seized the nation, and this had been rendered the more intense from the lavish wealth which William heaped on Portland and others, and from his retiring every year to spend the summer months in Holland. They had never been accustomed to have their monarch passing a large portion of his time abroad, and they regarded it as an evidence that he only had any regard for the Dutch. The Commons, without considering his feelings, introduced a Bill founded on their resolution, carried it briskly through the House, and sent it up to the Lords, where it also passed.

Deeply annoyed, William is said to have walked to and fro on learning that the Commons insisted on his dismissing the Dutch Guards, and to have muttered, "By God, if I had a son, these Guards should not quit me." He wrote to Lord Galway, one of his foreign friends, "There is a spirit of ignorance and malice prevails here beyond conception." To Heinsius he wrote in a similar strain, "that he was so chagrined at the conduct of the Commons, that he was scarcely master of his thoughts, and hinted at coming to extremities, and being in Holland sooner than he had thought." In fact, he was so much excited as to menace again throwing up the government. He sat down and penned a speech which he proposed to address to the two Houses; it is still preserved in the British Museum. It ran:—"My Lords and Gentlemen,—I came into this kingdom, at the desire of the nation, to save it from ruin, and to preserve your religion, laws, and liberties; and for this object I have been obliged to sustain a long and burthensome war for this kingdom, which, by the grace of God and the bravery of this nation, is at present terminated by a good peace; in which you may live happily and in repose if you would contribute to your own security, as I recommended at the opening of the Session. But seeing, on the contrary, that you have so little regard for my advice, and take so very little care of your own safety, and that you expose yourselves to evident ruin in depriving yourselves of the only means for your defence, it would neither be just nor reasonable for me to be witness of your ruin, not being able on my part to avoid it, being in no condition to defend and protect you, which was the only view I had in coming to this country." And it then went on to desire them to name proper persons to take charge of the government, promising, however, to come again whenever they would put him in his proper place, with proper power to defend them. The entreaties of Somers, however, induced him to abandon his purpose.

The mischief which the Whigs had done themselves by granting a charter to the new East India Company, in violation of the existing charter of the old Company, merely because the former Company had offered them a large money bait, encouraged the Tories greatly in their endeavours to regain power. They exhorted the old Company to petition that means should be taken to enable it to maintain its trade and property against the new Company for the remaining portion of the twenty-one years of its charter; and there were not wanting some in the House who declared that the new charter, granted in violation of an existing one, and from such corrupt motives, should be abolished. Montague, however, who had passed the Act for this charter, was able to protect it, but not to prevent fresh onslaughts on the unpopular Whigs. They were charged with gross corruption, and with embezzlement of the public revenue, for the purchase of great estates for themselves, and the grievous burthen of the people by taxation. Russell, Earl of Orford, was specially singled out by the Commons. He was both First Lord of the Admiralty and Treasurer of the Navy, as well as Admiral, and assumed great authority, forgetful of the humble station from which he had risen. He was charged with keeping large sums of public money for his own private use, instead of paying the officers and seamen when their pay was due. They called for his accounts, and there appeared to be four hundred and sixty thousand pounds in his hands. In his defence he represented that this was actually in course of payment, and that part of the sum was yet in tallies, which must be converted into cash before it could be distributed. But this did not satisfy the Commons. They voted an address to the king, complaining of the impropriety of one and the same person being Lord High Admiral, Chief Commissioner of the Board of Admiralty, and Treasurer; of gross misapplication of the public money; of many unnecessary changes introduced into the navy; of delays in granting convoys; and of favouritism to particular officers. Orford was prudent enough to retire from his offices before the storm which was gathering burst in all its fury upon him. The Tories, elated by this success, endeavoured to get Sir George Rooke put into Orford's place; but the Whigs were yet strong enough and imprudent enough to get the Earl of Bridgewater named First Lord of the Admiralty—a man almost wholly unacquainted with naval affairs; and Lord Haversham, another of the "land admirals," as the sailors called these unprofessional men, succeeded to Priestman, one of the Junior Lords, who retired.

CHARLES MONTAGUE, EARL OF HALIFAX. (After the Portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller.)

Those matters being settled, the House voted fifteen thousand pounds for sailors for the year, the vote expressly stipulating for sailors only, lest the king should include some land forces under the name of marines. They also granted one million four hundred and eighty-four thousand pounds for the service of the year, to be raised by a land and income tax of three shillings in the pound. To this Act, availing themselves of their sole right to introduce money Bills, they also "tacked" a clause appointing commissioners to take an account of the estates forfeited in Ireland by the last rebellion, in order to their being applied in ease of the subjects in England. This was another sharp reminder of the king's proceedings. It had been promised by him that he would not bestow the forfeited estates without the sanction of the House, but in disregard of this he had given large estates to his favourites. William was deeply mortified by this clause, and some of the Lords entered a protest against it, on the ground that the clause was foreign to the contents of the Bill, and was contrary to the practice of Parliament. The king, however, did not venture to refuse his signature to the Act, which he passed on the 4th of May, 1699, and at the same time prorogued the Parliament.

Before quitting England, William was obliged to almost entirely remodel his Ministry. The Duke of Leeds retired from the Presidency of the Council; his influence had expired with the discovery of his bribe from the East India Company. The Earl of Pembroke, a moderate Tory, who performed his official duties with zeal and integrity, was put in his place. Villiers, Earl of Jersey, having returned from his embassy to France, was made Secretary of State in place of the Duke of Shrewsbury, who became Lord Chamberlain. The Earl of Manchester went as ambassador to France in place of Jersey, and Lord Lonsdale, another Tory, obtained the Privy Seal. On the 2nd of June, William, having appointed a regency, embarked for Holland, where he retired to Loo, but not to peace of mind, for he saw events marching to an ominous result. The forces of England and of the Continent were disbanded, except those of Louis, which were rapidly increased; and not only the Spanish monarchy, but all Europe, appeared at his mercy. But before following these movements, we must trace some nearer home.

Ireland was quiet. The Parliament of that kingdom had voted one hundred and twenty thousand pounds for the maintenance of the twelve thousand troops ordered by the English Parliament to be quartered in that country, and the Duke of Bolton and the Earls of Berkeley and Galway were appointed Lords Justices.

In Scotland far different was the state of things. There excitement raged against the Ministry of England, and not the less against the king, who disowned their Company, organised to carry out the Act granted for trading to Africa and the Indies. The charter for this Company was granted by the Scottish Parliament, and ratified by William in 1695. Its professed object was to trade with the East and West Indies and Africa; but there was a plan for carrying out these objects, which does not seem to have been made known to the Government, or made public generally, till after the acquisition of the charter. This was to seize on the Isthmus of Darien, to establish a strong colony there, and not only to grow rich through possession of the gold mines, but to found ports both on the Atlantic and on the Pacific, so that a great carrying trade might be prosecuted between Europe and China and the East Indies by that route.

William Paterson, the projector of this scheme, was the same man who had projected and carried into being, through the influence of Montague, the Bank of England. He has been generally represented as a visionary speculator and schemer, and has not unfrequently been confounded with John Law, of Lauriston, the author of the famous South Sea Bubble and Mississippi Scheme, which spread such ruin through both France and England. Paterson, however, was a very different man. Undoubtedly he was a most speculative genius, but in his speculations there was something grand, substantial, and based, for the most part, on the purest moral principles. The Bank of England is a lasting memorial of his real sagacity and acute talents. It was well devised, and immediately rose to entire success. Through some disagreement in the mode of management Paterson sold out his stock, and proposed the erection of an Orphan Bank, connected with the Orphan Fund established by the Corporation of London already mentioned. This was not entertained, and he then projected his grand scheme for the Scottish Company to trade to the Indies. This scheme, so far from being visionary, had all the elements of a great and far-seeing reality. The unsound portion of Paterson's project was the not sufficiently taking into account these political obstacles:—Spain possessed, or rather claimed to possess, the Isthmus of Darien. Louis of France was contemplating the seizure of Spain, and its American territories. William was under treaty of peace with both Spain and Louis. It was impossible, therefore, to obtain possession of the Isthmus of Darien without producing a fresh European war. To attempt it by treaty was useless, for Spain would never consent to permit England, of which she was in the highest degree jealous, thus to establish a great mercantile colony in the midst of her most valuable Transatlantic colonies, from which she was annually drawing her cargoes of gold and other valuable products. Louis of France, who was resolved to succeed to the Spanish Empire, was as little likely to permit such a thing. To obtain possession of Darien, then, could only be done by invasion, and that invasion must produce immediate war, for which William was not prepared.

But the scheme was got up ostensibly to trade to the East and West Indies and Africa. There was no mention of Panama; and its prospects were so fair that they seized on the imaginations of the English and Scottish public. The Company was to have the monopoly of trade with Asia, Africa, and America for thirty-one years. Paterson had spent ten years in the West Indies, and, as it is supposed, in Panama. At all events, he had the reputation of being intimately acquainted with those regions and their resources. His proposals of the Company were eagerly accepted both in London and Edinburgh. Though it was intended to raise only three hundred and sixty thousand pounds as the original stock for both countries, three hundred thousand pounds were subscribed in London alone in a few days. But this remarkable success excited all the vindictive feelings of Companies whose interests this new league appeared likely to affect. The East India Companies, new and old, immediately were on the alert, and raised such a feeling in the House of Commons that it resolved to impeach Paterson and the bankers, Coutts and Cohen, for the commission of an illegal act in daring to levy money in England without the sanction of the English Legislature. In the meantime a subscription list had been opened at Hamburg, and by this the Dutch East India Company was equally alarmed, and the influence both of the Dutch and of the English Companies was made to bear on the king. William, who had been too much absorbed by his warfare with Louis to perceive the hostile feelings which he was exciting by passing the Scottish Act, now made haste to condemn his own precipitancy. He complained that he had been deceived by the Scottish Government, and at once gave orders to prohibit the scheme, and sent similar orders to his consul at Hamburg to forbid the subscription there. The senate of the city of Hamburg was induced to prohibit the canvassing of the Company's agents; and the English subscribers, alarmed at the menaces of the king and Commons, withdrew their names. Nor were these all the enemies of this scheme. There were Scottish traders united for commerce with India by the ordinary route, and these joined in the cry. One of these, Mr. Robert Douglas, attacked the scheme in a very able letter. In this letter we are first let into the secret that the real destination is not so much the West Indies as Darien, on the mainland. It is not, however, from Paterson having mentioned expressly Darien that Douglas declares it to be that place, but he infers it from the fact that the locality darkly hinted at by Paterson is at once near the Caribbean isles, and at the same time so situated "that it will alter the whole method of trade in Europe, and effectually ruin both the English and Dutch East Indian Companies, because it opens a shorter, safer, and more convenient way to the East Indies by the Pacific from England and Holland."

Douglas then points out that it is not nearer or more convenient than the old way to the western or Bombay coast of the Indian peninsula; that it was then a very dangerous route, because our merchant vessels on that track would have to pass the Dutch, Batavian, and Spice Island settlements, which would show the utmost hostility to such a traffic; but still more, that it was impossible, because this Isthmus of Panama was the track by which Spain conveyed her treasure from Peru to Portobello; that as to the rightful possession of the country by Spain, the city of Darien, called Santa Maria, was one of the first cities built by them on the mainland of America, as the province was the first province possessed by them. These were sound reasons why the king could not consent to any such invasion of the territory of Spain, and why Spain was not likely to concede it by treaty. These reasons should have made Paterson and the Scots pause.

Unwarned by the great outcry, the firm opposition, and insurmountable obstacles, Paterson and the Scots went on. The Scottish people, who conceived the idea of achieving enormous wealth in the golden regions of Central America, regarded themselves as victims of the jealousy of William's favourite Dutch, and of the haughty monopolising spirit of the English, and the whole country was in a ferment. They considered themselves insulted and most perfidiously treated by the king, who had freely sanctioned the Company, and then as unceremoniously disowned and trampled on it. They went on with the subscriptions, and speedily the amount rose to four hundred thousand pounds. The highest and most intelligent of the Scottish nobility, as well as the people generally, were sanguine contributors. Their younger sons saw a new highway to opulence and distinction suddenly opened. Many lords mortgaged all that they could to secure an ample share of the expected benefits. Their tenantry and servants were enthusiastic in their adhesion to it; and the officers whom the peace had left at large, prepared for fresh campaigns and adventures in the golden regions.

The Company had a number of stout ships built in Holland to convey the emigrants and their stores. On the 25th of July, 1698, four of these ships—the St. Andrew, the Unicorn, the Caledonia, and the Endeavour—containing one thousand two hundred men, set sail from Leith. Such was the excitement that all Edinburgh seemed to have poured out to see the departure of the colonists, and hundreds of soldiers and sailors who could not be engaged clamoured to be taken on board. Many contrived to get into the vessels and endeavour to conceal themselves in the hold, and when discovered they clung to the timbers and riggings, offering service without pay.

When the vessels had sailed, the Scottish Parliament unanimously addressed the king on behalf of the Company and the validity of the charter. The Lord President, Sir Hugh Dalrymple, the brother of Lord Stair, and Sir James Stuart, the Lord Advocate, also presented memorials defending the rights of the Company. Paterson committed the error of sailing in the fleet as a private individual. He had incurred the resentment of the Company by having remitted twenty thousand pounds to Hamburg for stores, part of which, through no fault of his own, was embezzled by the agent. The Company, therefore, refused to give him the command of the colony, but appointed a council of seven members without a head. This was certain to entail want of unity of purpose, and consequent failure. Paterson was the only man qualified by his abilities, his experience, and his knowledge of the country to take the command. He is said to have seen and conversed with the celebrated buccaneer Dampier and his surgeon Lionel Wafer on the statistics of Darien; and, if the expedition was sent at all, it should have been under his entire control. Nothing, in the political circumstances, could have insured the establishment of the colony; but Paterson's guidance would have prevented the dire calamities which ensued. He was certain that the vessels were not properly furnished with provisions and stores before setting out, and he in vain urged an examination. When out at sea a few days, he was enabled to get an examination, when there was discovered to be a serious deficiency, but then it was too late. They next sailed for Madeira, where their sealed orders were opened, and they then bore away for the West Indies. They put into St. Thomas's, and there might have obtained plenty of provisions from a ship-captain but for the perverseness of the council. The advice of Paterson was uniformly rejected out of jealousy. On the 30th of October they landed in a fine bay on the coast of Darien, capable of holding one thousand ships, and about four miles east of Golden Island.

The incapable council, in spite of Paterson's advice, would plant their new town in a bog, but the effects on their health soon forced them to remove to higher ground. They erected a fort and threw up defences at Acta, which they named New St. Andrews; and on a hill opposite made a signal-station, where they placed a corps of Highlanders to keep a good look-out for the approach of any enemy.

But the miserable management of the council brought speedy misfortune on the infant colony. The people were suffering from want of everything. Paterson soon lost his wife, and numbers sank under disappointment, insufficient food, and the climate. The natives were friendly to them, but wanted them to go and fight the Spaniards. It was soon found that the mountains and forests offered enormous obstacles to a transit to the shores of the Pacific. The different leaders of the expedition fell to quarrelling, and Paterson endeavoured in vain to reconcile them. They sent out vessels to the West Indian islands for provisions. One they lost, and another endeavouring to get to New York, after beating about for a month, was driven back. Amid the rapidly-sinking colonists and the fatal feuds of the leaders, they received on the 18th of May, 1699, the stunning news that the king had issued a proclamation denouncing the act of the colonists as having infringed his treaty with Spain by forcibly entering the Spanish territory of Panama, and forbidding any of the English governors of the West Indian islands to furnish them with provisions or any necessaries.

The moment Louis XIV. heard of their settling in Darien he had offered to the king of Spain to send ships and forces and drive them out for him. The Spanish Minister at London, the Marquis de Canales, on the 3rd of May presented a remonstrance against this breach of the peace with his master. Dalrymple, who has left much information on this expedition in his "Memoirs," says the Dutch and English opponents were at the bottom of this remonstrance; that Spain had let the affair go on a long time without noticing it; and that the rights of the Company had been debated before William, in presence of the Spanish ambassador, before the colony sailed. All this may be true, for the real destination of the expedition was kept secret till the fleet arrived at Madeira, and Spain protested as soon as she discovered whither it had gone. William, who was just now making treaties with Louis, and anxious to be on good terms with Spain, strictly enforced the orders to deprive the suffering colony of all means of remaining. These measures of the king produced the most fatal consequences in the colony. Every one, says Paterson, was in haste to be gone from it. In vain he tried to persuade them to stay for more positive orders. Pennicook, the captain of the fleet, was reported to be intending to steal away with his ship, on the supposition that they had all been proclaimed pirates, and would be hanged. The poor colonists continued to die off rapidly, and news now came that the Spaniards were marching against them with a strong force.

SCENE AT THE DEPARTURE FROM LEITH OF THE DARIEN EXPEDITION. (See p. 512.)

Famine, sickness, and the fear of being massacred in their weakness by the enemy, compelled the colonists to evacuate the place. On the 18th of June, 1699, the Unicorn, St. Andrew, and Caledonia sailed from Golden Island for New York. On the voyage they met the sloop which they had sent to Jamaica for provisions. It had got none, owing to the royal proclamation, and they all proceeded on their route. They lost one hundred and fifty out of two hundred and fifty of their number on the voyage, and arrived at New York in October, more like skeletons than living men. On the 13th of November Paterson and his companions reached England in the Caledonia. The indignation of the Scots at their treatment was beyond bounds, and the more so because, unacquainted with the real facts of the case, they had sent out a second expedition of one thousand three hundred men.

The history of this second expedition was as miserable as that of the first. On arriving, the new adventurers, instead of a flourishing colony, found the place deserted, and only a few miserable Indians to tell them the fate of their predecessors. With this new arrival came four Presbyterian clergymen, who assumed the command, and seemed to think of nothing but establishing a presbytery in all its rigour and uncharitableness. Paterson, like Penn in Pennsylvania, and Lord Baltimore in Baltimore, had proclaimed perfect civil and religious liberty to men of all creeds and nations. This was now reversed; there was nothing but the most harsh and senseless Phariseeism. Instead of a comfort, these men proved one of the worst curses of this unfortunate colony, thwarting and damping the exertions of the people, and continually threatening them with hell fire. Two of these ministers perished.

In the midst of these miseries arrived Captain Campbell, of Ferrol, with a force of his own men. He attacked and dispersed a body of one thousand Spaniards sent against him; but this was only a fresh offence against Spain, and, therefore, against William. They were soon, however, assailed by a more powerful Spanish squadron. Campbell got away to New York, the rest of the colony capitulated, and there was an end of the unhappy expedition to Darien. The Spaniards humanely allowed the remnant of this wretched company to embark in one of their vessels, the Rising Sun; but as the British authorities at all the islands refused them any succour or stores whatever, only eighty of them arrived alive in England.

Scotland was in a frenzy of indignation at this cold-blooded conduct of the king, who, if he had visited the projectors with severity, ought to have had some compassion for the poor deluded sufferers. The exasperated Scots called on the king to withdraw his proclamation against a Company which had an undoubted right by charter to trade to the West Indies, if not to the mainland. They demanded that the Scottish Parliament should be summoned; but William only sent evasive answers, and the fury of the people rose to such a height that nothing was talked of but that the king had forfeited his right to the allegiance of Scotland by his conduct, and of war with England.

Meanwhile the partition treaty had become known to the Court at Madrid, and William's share in it excited great indignation. At the same time the agents of Louis had prevailed on the dying king to nominate the Electoral Prince of Bavaria his heir to the crown. Scarcely, however, was this done when this young prince died, being only eight years of age. Louis still kept up the farce of disinterestedness, and persuaded William to enter into a second treaty, mentioned later on, settling the crown of Spain on the Archduke Charles, but leaving the Italian States to the Dauphin. Again were William, Portland, and Tallard, with an agent of the Emperor, busy on the new partition at Loo. But whilst they were busy there, the French ambassador was equally busy at Madrid, inflaming the mind of the imbecile king against William and the Emperor, and prevailed on him, as we shall see, to leave the whole Spanish monarchy to the Dauphin's son Philip. The king of Spain was also induced to send a strong remonstrance against the interference of William in the affairs of the Spanish monarchy to Mr. Stanhope, the English Minister at Madrid. Similar remonstrances were presented for form's sake to the Ministers of France and Holland. The Spanish Minister in London, Canales, was ordered to present a still stronger remonstrance to the Lords Justices in London, in which the Court of Spain informed them that his Spanish Majesty would take the necessary measures himself for the succession of his crown; adding that if these proceedings, these machinations and projects, were not speedily put an end to, there would undoubtedly commence a terrible war, in which the English, who had felt what the last war had brought upon them, would have the worst of it. Canales, who had a high personal resentment against William, who had forbidden him the Court for the insolence of appearing covered, announced haughtily that on the meeting of Parliament he should appeal to it against the king's proceedings.

No sooner was this paper transmitted to Loo than William sent orders to the Spanish ambassador to quit England in eighteen days, and during that period to confine himself to his house. He was informed that no communication whatever would be received from him or any of his servants. Mr. Stanhope was instructed at the Court of Madrid to complain of this conduct of Canales, as an attempt to excite sedition in the kingdom by appealing to the people and Parliament against the king. Mr. Stanhope was then instructed to cease all diplomatic intercourse with the Court and to return home. The Spanish Court, on its part, justified the act of its Minister, and Mr. Stanhope took his leave. The Spanish ambassador at the Hague delivered a similar memorial to that delivered in London, which the States-General refused to read. In these circumstances William returned to England about the middle of October.

The temper of his people had not improved during his absence. The Tories were bent on driving every Whig from office. They even now compelled the lately all-powerful Montague to resign his seat at the Treasury Board as well as the Chancellorship of the Exchequer. Montague was well aware of the humour of the present House of Commons, and anticipated an attack on his two offices by his resignation. Lord Tankerville, formerly Lord Grey of Wark, took his place at the Treasury, and Smith, another member of that Board, became Chancellor. At the same time William gave the office of Lord Chamberlain to the Duke of Shrewsbury, vacant since the retirement of Sunderland. Besides Shrewsbury, there remained no other Whig in office except Somers, and the Tories were at this moment endeavouring to spring a mine under his feet.

William met his Parliament on the 16th of November. He addressed them with much studied care to avoid topics of offence, but he found it impossible. He recommended them to take further measures, both by sea and land, for the safety of the kingdom, to punish unlawful and clandestine trading, and to devise, if possible, measures for the employment of the poor. He expressed his resolution to discourage vice, and declared that he would do anything in his power towards the welfare of the nation. "And to conclude," he said, "since our aims are only for the general good, let us act with confidence in each other; which will not fail, with God's blessing, to make me a happy king, and you a great and flourishing people."

The very words "let us act with confidence" roused up this captious Parliament. They sent him a remonstrance instead of an Address of thanks, complaining of there being some who endeavoured to sow distrust and dissension between them and the king. It was in vain that William protested that this supposition was totally unfounded, and that if any should presume to bring to him any calumnies against his faithful Commons, he would treat them as his worst enemies; they were unappeased. They wanted, in fact, occasion to drive Somers from his councils, and they soon found a plea.

During the war, piracy had grown to a great height upon the coasts of North America, and the colonists were themselves deep in it. Lord Bellamont, the Governor of New York, had recommended that a man-of-war should be sent to clear the pirates away; but the Admiralty objected that they had not sailors enough to spare for such a service. It was then determined by the Lord Chancellor Somers, the Duke of Shrewsbury, the Earls of Romney, Orford, and Bellamont, with a few private individuals, to send out a vessel at their own expense. This the king approved of, and promised to contribute one-half of the expense, and stipulated for one-tenth of the profits. Besides the usual letters of marque given to privateers, the captain was furnished with a warrant under the Great Seal, authorising him to make war on the pirates and the French, both in those and other seas. Unfortunately, this commission was given to a man who was himself a notorious pirate—one Captain Kidd, whose fame still lives on the American coasts, and is the theme of popular ballads. The man promptly showed in his true colours.

The old East India Company complained bitterly of Kidd's outrages in the Indian seas, declaring that they would bring it into trouble with the Great Mogul. In the beginning of December a motion was made in the Commons that "the letters patent granted to the Earl of Bellamont and others of pirates' goods were dishonourable to the king, and contrary to the laws of nations and the laws and statutes of the realm, invasive of property, and destructive of trade and commerce." There was a violent debate, in which the Tories contended that the Lord Chancellor Somers had knowingly affixed the Great Seal to the commission to enrich himself, his colleagues, and the king, out of the plunder of unfortunate merchants. The motion was rejected by a large majority; the character of Somers stood too high for such a charge to reach him. But the Opposition did not rest here; it was determined to wound the king and his Government in every possible quarter.

There lay a cause in Ireland much more dangerous to the king and his Chancellor than the affairs of Captain Kidd. William had promised not to bestow any of the confiscated lands there without consent of Parliament. In disregard of his word he had conferred immense estates on his Dutch favourites, Portland, Albemarle, Athlone, and his French one, Lord Galway (Ruvigny), as well as on his mistress, Mrs. Villiers. The Commons, therefore, appointed Commissioners to inquire into the royal grants there. These Commissioners were the Earl of Drogheda, Sir Francis Brewster, Sir Richard Leving, Hamilton, Annesley, Trenchard, and Langford. The four last-named Commissioners were earnest supporters of the Commons' inquiry; but it was soon perceived by them that the Earl of Drogheda, Brewster, and Leving were in the interest of the Government. When they came to draw up their report, those three Commissioners vehemently dissented, and made an appeal to each House of Parliament, declaring that the report had not their concurrence, and that it was not borne out by the evidence laid before them. They complained that the other Commissioners had endeavoured to overbear them in a most arbitrary manner, trying to influence them by letters and instructions which they alleged they had received from members of the Commons. The Commons, however, regarding Drogheda, Brewster, and Leving as tools of the Court, paid no attention to their remonstrance. They received the report signed by the other four, who, on their part, complained that in the prosecution of their inquiry they had been greatly hindered by the backwardness of the people of Ireland to give information for fear of the vengeance of the grantees, and from reports industriously spread that the inquiry, through the influence of the Crown and the new grantees, would come to nothing. The three dissentient Commissioners agreed to much of this, but attributed the fear of the people to the grantees at large, and not to those recently favoured by Government. They affirmed that John Burke, commonly called Lord Bophin, had agreed to pay to Lord Albemarle seven thousand five hundred pounds for procuring from the king letters patent restoring him to his honours and estates. They gave amazing details of the wholesale plunder of cattle, horses, sheep, etc., from the Catholics, which had never been accounted for to the Crown. The report stated the persons who had been outlawed since the 13th of February, 1689, for participation in the rebellion amounted in England to fifty-seven, but in Ireland to 3,921; that the lands confiscated in Ireland since that period amounted to 1,060,792 acres, with a rental of £211,623; which, at twenty years' purchase were of the value of over £4,000,000; that some of these lands had been restored to their ancient proprietors, but chiefly by heavy bribes to the persons who had betrayed his Majesty's trust in them. They then gave a list of seventy-six grants under the Great Seal, amongst which stood prominent those to Lord Romney, who as Lord Sidney had been Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, consisting of 49,517 acres; two to the king's recent favourite, Keppel of Guelderland, made by William Earl of Albemarle, amounting to 106,633 acres; to William Bentinck, Lord Woodstock, the son of Portland, 135,820 acres; to Ginkell, Earl of Athlone, 26,480 acres; and to Ruvigny, the Huguenot, Earl of Galway, 36,148 acres. After all the deductions and allowances, they valued the estates forfeited since the 13th of February, 1689, and not restored at £2,699,343—a ridiculous over-estimate.

The Commons instantly set themselves to frame a Bill of Resumption of all the grants. They ordered the report of the Commissioners, the speeches and promises of the king regarding these forfeited estates, and their former resolutions regarding them, to be printed, that the whole country might judge of this matter for itself. And they resolved that any member of the Privy Council who should procure or be concerned in procuring grants from the Crown for their own purposes, should be deemed guilty of a high crime and misdemeanour. As the Tories were the means of carrying this Resumption Bill, the Whigs, to avenge themselves, moved by way of amendment that all grants made since the 6th of February, 1684, should be resumed, and the Tories were caught in their own snare, for they could not with any show of consistency oppose a measure of their own originating. Therefore the Bill passed, and they were compelled to disgorge all the Crown property they had settled on themselves from the accession of James. Ministers proposed to insert a clause to reserve one third of the forfeited property for the king's own disposal; but the Commons would not listen to it, and resolved not to receive any petition from any person whatever concerning the grants. That justice might be done to purchasers and creditors in the Act of Resumption, they appointed thirteen trustees to hear and determine all claims, to sell to the highest purchasers, and to appropriate the money to pay the arrears of the army. The Lords introduced some alterations, but the Commons rejected them, and to prevent the Bill from being lost in the Lords they consolidated it with a money Bill for the service of the year. The Lords demanded a conference, and the Commons, exasperated at their interference in a money Bill, prepared to go greater lengths. They assumed the aspect of the Commons in Charles I.'s time. They ordered the doors to be closed, and called for a list of the Privy Councillors. They then moved that John, Lord Somers, should be expelled from the service of the king for ever. The resolution was not carried, but the temper of the House was such as made wise men tremble for an approaching crisis. The king was disposed to refuse to pass the Bill even if the Lords did; but when the Commons left the Bill in the hands of the Lords, and that House was warned on all sides that they would have to pass the Bill, or the consequences might be fatal, he gave way, though with undisguised resentment. The Commons were proceeding with a fresh resolution for an address to his Majesty, praying that not any foreigner, except Prince George of Denmark, should be admitted to his Majesty's Council in England or Ireland, the resolution being aimed at Portland, Albemarle, and Galway, when the king sent a private message to the peers, desiring them to pass the Resumption Bill, and on the 11th of April he went down to the House, and gave it the royal assent. He then ordered the Earl of Bridgewater, in the absence of Somers, who was ill, to prorogue Parliament, and it was accordingly prorogued to the 23rd of May without any speech.

William left England in the beginning of July, but before his departure he endeavoured to persuade Somers to give way to the rancour of the Commons, and resign the Seals. Somers refused to resign voluntarily, arguing that it would imply a fear of his enemies, or a consciousness of guilt; but William, who knew the necessity of leaving a better feeling behind him if possible, sent Lord Jersey to Somers for the Seals, and offered them successively to Chief Justice Holt, and to Treby the Attorney-General; both declined, however, what would have turned the enmity of Parliament on them, and William was eventually obliged to bestow them on Nathan Wright, one of the Serjeants-at-Law, a man of no mark and very indifferent qualifications for the office. William offered the government of Ireland to Shrewsbury; but he, too, declined the office, and set out for Italy. Every one seemed afraid of engaging in his Government, so bitter was the Parliament against him. Even his trusty Portland, now absolutely groaning under the weight of riches which William had heaped upon him, retired from his place in his household, and Lord Jersey was appointed Chamberlain, and Lord Romney, Groom of the Stole. William had never left the kingdom in circumstances of so much unpopularity, and scarcely had he gone when the Duke of Gloucester, the only child of the Princess Anne, died at the age of eleven (July 30, 1700). This gave fresh hopes to the Jacobites. They sent a messenger to St. Germains with the news, and began to bestir themselves all over the kingdom. In truth, the outlook was very gloomy for the Protestant succession. No such successor was as yet appointed. The health and spirits of William were fast sinking. His person and government were extremely unpopular. The House of Brunswick had treated his advances with marked contempt, but they now came forward, urged by the critical state of things, and made their first visit of acknowledgment to the king. The Princess Sophia, Electress Dowager of Hanover, was the person on whom the eyes of the Protestants were now turned; but the nation was in a state of much uncertainty. It was rumoured that even Anne had sent a conciliatory letter to her father, and the public mind was disturbed by fears of a disputed succession, and of the reviving chances of a Stuart king.

William during this year had been busy concluding the new treaty of partition. Tallard, Portland, and Jersey had assisted in it. It was signed by them in London early in March, and by Briord and the Plenipotentiaries of the States at the Hague on the 25th of October. It had substituted the Archduke Charles, the second son of the Emperor, for the deceased Electoral Prince of Bavaria, as heir to Spain with the Spanish Flanders and colonies; but the Dauphin was still to possess Naples and the other Italian States, with Lorraine and Bar, which the Duke of Lorraine was to exchange for Milan. In case of the archduke dying, some other son of the Emperor was to succeed, but not the king of the Romans, for it was stipulated that Spain and the Empire, or France and Spain, were never to be united under one crown. The first treaty was made known to the different Powers, and excited much astonishment and disapprobation. The Emperor of Germany, notwithstanding his son was made successor to the Spanish monarchy, Flanders, America, and the Indies, was not conciliated. He expressed his amazement that the kings of other countries should take it upon them to carve up the Spanish monarchy without the consent of the present possessor and the Estates of the kingdom. He denied the right of these Powers to compel him to accept a part when he was heir to the whole, and to pronounce his forfeiture of even that part if within three months he did not consent to this unwarrantable proceeding. The other princes of Germany were unwilling to excite the enmity of the House of Austria by expressing their approval of the scheme, and Brandenburg, which was just now in treaty with the Emperor for the acknowledgment of Prussia as a kingdom, which was signed on the 16th of November, of course united with him. The Italian States were alarmed at the prospects of being handed over to France, and the Swiss declined to sanction the treaty. In Spain the aristocracy, who had vast estates in Sicily, Naples, and the other Italian provinces, and who enjoyed the viceroyalties, and governorships, and other good offices there, were greatly incensed at the idea of all these passing to the French.

The miserable and dying king was in agonies. He had already made a will, leaving the crown and all its dependencies to the Emperor, but neither he nor the Emperor had taken the precaution of securing the Italian provinces by marching a strong army thither—probably from fear of arousing Louis to a premature war. He now called a Council of State to deliberate on the succession; but the unfortunate prince had to deliberate with a Council which had long been bought over by the French. Only two of the Council had the patriotism to vote that the question should be submitted to the Cortes; they were overborne by the voices of the rest, who had been corrupted by Harcourt, the French Minister. Amongst them were prominent the Marquis de Monterey and Cardinal Portocarrero. They advised that they should consult the faculties of law and theology, and these faculties were already bribed by France. The French faction persuaded further the starving people that all their troubles had been produced by the partisans of Austria; and the enraged mob surrounded the palace and demanded to see the king, who was compelled to show himself, though he was too weak to stand without help. All this time the condition of the king of Spain was frightful. His conscience, accustomed to be swayed by his religious advisers, was torn to and fro by the contending exertions of Portocarrero and the queen. Portocarrero was a man of vast influence; he was not only cardinal but Archbishop of Toledo, and affected a deep concern for the king. Charles, intensely attached to his own family, and having a strong persuasion that its claims were the claims of the nation, was yet so tortured by the arguments of the priests of the opposite factions, and the entreaties of the queen, that no poor soul was ever in so dreadful a purgatory. At length, after the most violent contests, he sank in passive weakness, and on the 2nd of October he signed the will dictated by France. Having done it, he burst into tears, and sighed out "Now I am nothing!"

But this signing was effected in deepest secrecy; neither the queen nor any one but a small junto of the French faction was aware of it. As Charles, however, still lingered between life and death for a month yet, the French made every preparation for the event, and Portocarrero took possession of the Great Seals, and dispersed all his agents, so as to secure the transfer of the crown to France. On the 1st of November, 1700, the unhappy monarch died, at the age of thirty-nine, and the will was made known, to the consternation of the queen and the Austrian and English ambassadors, who were till that moment in profound ignorance of it. As soon as the news reached Paris, Count Zinzendorf, the Imperial ambassador, presented himself at Versailles, and inquired whether the king meant to abide by the treaty of partition or accept the will. The Marquis de Torcy answered for Louis that he meant certainly to abide by the treaty. But this was only to gain time. Louis had long made up his mind, and when he heard that Charles was dead, he exclaimed, "There are no longer any Pyrenees." William's statesmanlike plans had been foiled by his confederate's treachery.

William had returned to England towards the end of October, a few days before the death of the King of Spain. He was deeply chagrined at this unexpected event, but, in the present temper of England—disgusted with his proceedings with Louis for the partition of Spain—he could not openly complain. Not the less, however, did he unburthen his feelings to his friend the Pensionary Heinsius. Writing to him, he said, "I never relied much on the engagements with France, but I must confess that I did not think they would on this occasion have broken, in the face of the whole world, a solemn treaty before it was well accomplished." He confessed that he had been duped, and that he felt it the more because his English subjects did not disguise their opinion that the will was better than the partition, against which one party had complained because of the large amount given to France, the other at the injustice of forestalling the wishes of the French, and both at the secrecy with which the negotiations had been conducted. He expressed his deep anxiety regarding the Spanish Netherlands, which, it seemed, must fall into the hands of France, and as to what barrier was to be set up between them and Holland; and he concluded by saying that he should bear all the blame for having trusted to France after his experience that no trust was to be put in it.

But, besides his health and the mortification of Louis's triumphant deceit, William had plenty of troubles from the temper of his Parliament, and the state of the factions which harassed his Government. With such gloomy auspices came in the year 1701. The king had now replaced the retiring Whigs of his Ministry by Tories. Lord Godolphin was made First Commissioner of the Treasury; Lord Tankerville succeeded Lord Lonsdale, deceased, as Privy Seal; Lord Rochester was sent as Lord-Lieutenant to Ireland; and Sir Charles Hedges was appointed Secretary of State. By their advice Parliament was dissolved, and writs were issued for the meeting of the new one on the 6th of February.

When Parliament met, it was found that the late Speaker, Sir Thomas Littleton, had absented himself from the House, and the Tories proposed in his stead Robert Harley, who was now fast rising into favour with that party. The king had requested Littleton, in fact, to withdraw, that the Tories might get in their man; but there was such a ferment in the House that it was obliged to be adjourned till the 20th. Then the Whigs brought forward Sir Richard Onslow, but he was defeated by a majority of two hundred and forty-nine to one hundred and twenty-five. This showed that a strong Tory Commons had been returned, and yet it was not true that all the Tories were unanimous. There was, indeed, a considerable breach in the party. Those of them who had been passed over in the selection of the Ministry, or had other causes of pique against the Government, remained in opposition, and occasioned the king and their own party no little embarrassment. Amongst these were the Duke of Leeds, the Marquis of Normanby, the Earl of Nottingham, Seymour, Musgrave, Howe, Finch, and Showers. It was strongly suspected, too, that Louis had made use of Tallard to bribe some members of Parliament and of the Government to an awful extent to oppose any measures for war and Continental combinations.

In his opening speech William informed the Parliament that the death of the Duke of Gloucester had rendered it necessary that they should take into consideration the succession to the Crown after him and the Princess Anne, who had now no heir; for the happiness of the nation and the security of the Protestant religion made it the subject of the highest moment. The subject of next importance, and scarcely inferior, he said, was the death of the late King of Spain, and the succession arranged by his will, which had made so great an alteration in affairs abroad as demanded their most serious consideration for the interests and safety of England, and the preservation of the peace of Europe and of the Protestant religion. That these great topics might have due consideration, he had desired that they should receive it in a new Parliament. He next referred to the necessity for making a proper provision for the current expenditure, and for the reduction of the debt, and recommended them to put the fleet into effective condition.

The Electress Sophia of Hanover, the next in succession to Anne, was the daughter of Frederick the Prince Palatine, and Elizabeth Queen of Bohemia, therefore granddaughter of James I. No sooner did Sophia hear of the death of the Duke of Gloucester than she took with her her daughter, the Electress of Brandenburg, and made a visit to William at Loo. She had a twofold object, to obtain his promise of favouring her succession to the crown of England, and his acknowledgment of Brandenburg as a kingdom under the name of Prussia, a favour which the Emperor, as we have seen, had already conceded. William seems to have assured the Electress of his intention to support both her claim to the English crown, and that of her daughter to the title of Queen of Prussia, and immediately left for England.

THE ROYAL PALACE OF WHITEHALL FROM THE THAMES, IN THE BEGINNING OF THE 17TH CENTURY.

At the same time, the Court of St. Germains was on the alert to get the Prince of Wales accepted, and the English Jacobites sent Mr. F. Graham, a brother of the late Lord Preston, to James, to make certain proposals regarding the succession of the Prince of Wales. It was proposed that he should be sent to England and there educated in Protestantism; but this condition James was certain not to agree to, and accordingly the whole scheme fell to the ground. It is said that the Princess Anne was favourable to the prince's succession could he have been brought up a Protestant; but his parents declared that they would rather see him dead.

The Tories, who were averse from a Continental war, appear to have held a large meeting, to propose an address to his Majesty, praying him to acknowledge the new King of Spain; and had they done this, they would probably have found the king ready to listen to them, for the States were urging him to do the same thing. But though the proposition was warmly advocated, Mr. Monckton, happening to say that if they carried this motion, the next he supposed would be to recommend the acknowledgment of the Prince of Wales, the idea appeared to startle the meeting, and the matter was dropped. But the Whig party was still inclined to war. They had been the advocates and supporters of the former one; they knew that William was strongly disposed to it, and that to support him was the way to regain his favour. Besides, Marlborough was anxious to distinguish himself at the head of an army; in that respect he was at one with the Whigs, and had their support. The Whigs saw the fast-failing health of William, and looked towards the Princess Anne with whom the Marlboroughs were everything. A strong spirit of war, therefore, manifested itself in the Commons, in spite of the inclinations of Ministers. Secretary Vernon, writing to the Earl of Manchester at Paris, told him that so great a spirit had rarely been seen in the House of Commons for supporting the interests of England and Holland; and this was fully borne out by a unanimous vote of the House on the 24th of February, declaring that it would stand by the king, and support him in all such measures as went to maintain the independence of England, the security of the Protestant religion, and the peace of Europe. The question, however, of the best mode of maintaining peace, whether by conceding the French claims on Spain, or arming to resist them, was warmly debated by the different factions. William was agreeably surprised at the tone of the House, and on the 17th he informed them of his satisfaction at their assurances, which he took to be important for the honour and safety of England. He then handed to them the pressing memorial of the States-General to him, to acknowledge the Duke of Anjou as the king of Spain. They had themselves agreed to do this, in terror lest the French should march over their defenceless frontiers; yet they told William that they would do nothing without his consent and approbation. They counted, however, fully on this, and painted earnestly the dangers to which they were exposed by any opposition to France, and called on him to supply the English aid secured to them by treaty. But they did not seem inclined to vote supplies for the purpose.

Parliament now entered on the great deliberation of the Session, the appointment of the successor to the crown after the Princess of Denmark. It was a subject which the king had recommended from the throne at the commencement of the Session, and which the failing health of William and the prospect of agitations all over Europe warned them not to defer. This important business, however, was set about in an extraordinary manner. Roger Coke says a Whig member meant to bring in a Bill to fix the succession on the House of Brunswick, but that the Tories, becoming aware of it, set Sir John Bowles, one of their own party, to bring one in. This Bowles was a half-crazy man, and in the end became altogether insane; and the Bill being put into his hands looked as though the Tories meant to cast contempt upon it. The Bill was sent into Committee, and Bowles was put in the chair; but whenever the discussion was brought in the members hastened out of the House, and the matter seemed to hang for several weeks as though no one would proceed with it under the present management. But at length Harley took it up in earnest, and remarked that there were some very necessary preliminary questions to be settled before they proceeded to vote the different clauses of the Bill; that the nation had been in too great haste when it settled the Government on the previous occasion, and had consequently overlooked many securities to the liberties of the nation which might have been obtained; that now they were under no immediate pressure, and it would be inexcusable to fall into the same error. Before, therefore, they proceeded to nominate the person who should succeed, they ought to settle the conditions under which he and his descendants should succeed. This advice was taken, much to the surprise of William, who found the Tories, now in the ascendant, endeavouring to curtail the royal prerogative, and by every one of their restrictions casting a decided censure upon him. The public, likewise, were so much puzzled by this conduct that they suspected that the motion of Harley was intended to defeat the Brunswick succession altogether. But the terms on which William and Mary had been admitted to the throne were the work of the Whigs, and the Tories could not let slip this opportunity of showing how negligent they had been of the rights of the nation.

Accordingly, after great discussions carried on for about three months, the following resolutions were agreed to and embodied in the Bill:—"That whoever should hereafter come to the possession of this Crown shall join in communion with the Church of England as by law established; that in case the Crown and dignity of this realm shall hereafter come to any person not being a native of this kingdom of England, this nation be not obliged to engage in any war for the defence of any dominions or territories which do not belong to the Crown of England without the consent of Parliament; that no person who shall hereafter come to the possession of the Crown shall go out of the dominions of England, Scotland, or Ireland without consent of Parliament; that from and after the time that further limitations by this Act shall take effect, all matters and things relating to the well-governing of this kingdom, which are properly cognisable in the Privy Council by the laws and customs of the realm, shall be transacted there, and all resolutions taken thereupon shall be signed by such of the Privy Council as shall advise and consent to the same; that after the limitations shall take effect, no person born out of the kingdom of England, Scotland, or Ireland, or the dominions thereunto belonging, although he be naturalised and made a denizen, except such as are born of English parents, shall be capable to be of the Privy Council, or a member of either House of Parliament, or to enjoy any office or place of trust, either civil or military, or to have any grant of lands, tenements, or hereditaments from the Crown to himself, or to any other in trust for him; that no person who has an office or place of profit under the King, or receives a pension from the Crown, shall be capable of serving as a member of the House of Commons; that after the limitation shall take effect, judges' commissions shall be made quamdiu se bene gesserint,[A] and their salaries ascertained and established, but, upon the address of both Houses of Parliament, it may be lawful to remove them; that no pardon under the Great Seal of England be pleadable to an impeachment by the Commons in Parliament." Having settled these preliminaries, the Bill provided that the Princess Sophia, Duchess Dowager of Hanover, be declared the next in succession to the Crown of England in the Protestant line after his Majesty and the Princess Anne, and the heirs of their bodies respectively; and that the further limitation of the Crown be to the said Princess Sophia and the heirs of her body, being Protestants.

When this extraordinary Bill was sent up to the Lords, it was not expected to pass there without much opposition and cutting down. There was, in fact, an evident reluctance there, as well as in the Commons, to enter on the question. Many lords absented themselves, and others, as the Marquis of Normanby, the Earls of Huntingdon and Plymouth, and the Lords Guildford and Jeffreys, opposed it. Burnet attempted to move some amendments; but some lords crying out "No amendments! no amendments!" none were further attempted, and the Bill was sent down to the Commons as it went up.

Had such a sweeping Bill as this passed the Houses some years ago, William would have refused to ratify it, as he refused so long to ratify the Triennial Bill. Certainly it was from beginning to end the most trenchant piece of censure on his conduct.

During these transactions negotiations were going on at the Hague between England, France, Holland, and Spain. Mr. Stanhope, Envoy Extraordinary to the States-General, was empowered to treat, in union with Holland, for a continuation of the peace on certain conditions. These conditions were, that Louis should withdraw all his troops from the Spanish Netherlands, and engage to send no fresh ones into any of the Flemish towns; that no troops but native-born troops of Flanders or Spain should be kept there, except in Nieuport and Ostend, which should be given up to king William as cautionary towns, and in Luxemburg, Namur, and Mons, which should be garrisoned by the States-General, for the security of their frontiers, but without prejudice to the rights and revenues of the Crown of Spain; that no towns in the Spanish Netherlands, nor any port belonging to Spain, should be given up to or exchanged with France on any pretence whatever; that the subjects of England should enjoy the same liberties and privileges as they did on the demise of the late king of Spain, and in as ample a manner as the French or any other nation, in all parts of the Spanish dominions, whether by land or sea; that the Emperor should be invited to join, and that any other princes or States who desired to unite for the preservation of the peace of Europe should be admitted to the treaty.

D'Avaux, the French Minister, received these demands with an air of the utmost astonishment, and declared that they could not have been higher if his master had lost four successive battles. That the French troops would be removed from Flanders as soon as Spain could send forces to replace them, he said was certain; but for the rest of the Articles, he could only send them to Versailles for the consideration of the king. Louis expressed the utmost indignation at these demands, which he declared to be most insolent, and could only be put forward by William with a desire to provoke a war. He said that he would renew the treaty of Ryswick, which was all that could be reasonably expected. In fact, though the demands were no more than were necessary for the security of Holland, William, knowing the nature of Louis, and that he was now at the head of France, Spain, and a great part of Italy, could not seriously have expected that he would accede to them. Perhaps William intended him to reject them, as that would furnish a good casus belli, and would enable him to rouse the spirit of the English people to a martial tone. Accordingly he communicated the refusal of the French Court to accede to the terms offered; but the Commons, feeling that the object was to engage them in support of a Continental Congress, which might lead them into another war more oppressive than the former one, they thanked his Majesty in an address for his communication, but called for copies of the Partition Treaty, that they might inform themselves on the precise terms agreed upon in that treaty with France. The Tories, however much they might be disposed to maintain the same course themselves, would by no means omit the opportunity of damaging the Whig Ministers who had been concerned in that business. They had already agreed to send ten thousand men to the aid of the States-General in support of the treaty of 1677, and they now set to work to establish by this inquiry a plea against Lord Somers, Portland, and the others engaged in the treaty.

The Lords, not to be behind, also called for copies of the two treaties. They appointed a Committee to examine them, and placed Nottingham, a thorough Tory, in the chair. There was a sprinkling of Whigs in the Committee to give it an air of fairness, and a strong contest went on between the two parties. On the fourth resolution, that there were no instructions in writing given to the Plenipotentiaries of England, and that, if verbal orders were given, they were given without being submitted to the Council, Portland, who had been almost the sole manager of these treaties, in conjunction with William, by permission of the king informed them that he had, by the king's order, laid the matter before six of the king's Ministers—namely, Pembroke, Marlborough, Lonsdale, Somers, Halifax, and Secretary Vernon. These lords then endeavoured to excuse themselves by admitting that, the Earl of Jersey having read the first treaty to them, they had objected to various particulars, but being informed that the king had already carried the matter as far as possible, and could get no better terms, and that, in fact, everything was settled, they had nothing for it but to desist from their objections. Various protests were entered against the resolutions in Committee, but the Report, when brought up, was to this effect:—That the lords spiritual and temporal had found, to their great sorrow, that the treaty made with the French king had been very prejudicial to the peace and safety of Europe; that it had probably given occasion to the late king of Spain to make his will in favour of the Duke of Anjou; that the sanction of France having possession of Sicily, Naples, several ports in the Mediterranean, the province of Guipuzcoa, and the Duchy of Lorraine, was not only very injurious to the interests of Europe, but contrary to the pretence of the treaty itself, which was to prevent too many territories being united under one crown; that it appeared that this treaty never was submitted to the consideration of the Council, or the Committee of the Council [in our phrase, the Cabinet], and they prayed his Majesty in future to take the advice of his natural-born subjects, whose interest and natural affection to their country would induce them to seek its welfare and prosperity. This last observation was aimed at Portland.

The Ministers, such as were admitted to the secret of the treaty, as well as the king, had undoubtedly violated the Constitution; and had the Tories been honest, they might have rendered essential service to the country by punishing them. But their object was too apparently to crush Portland and Somers, and to let the rest go, whom they quietly passed over. The new Lord Keeper carried up the address to the king, but the members at large, not relishing the unpleasant office, took care not to accompany him, and he found himself at the palace almost alone. Two or three of the lords-in-waiting were all that served to represent the House of Peers. On its being read, William endeavoured to conceal his chagrin, and merely replied that the address contained matter of grave moment, and that he would always take care that all treaties should be made so as to contribute to the honour and safety of England.

The debates in the Commons were in the meantime still more vehement on the same subject. Sir Edward Seymour declared that the Partition Treaty was as infamous as a highway robbery, and Howe went further, denouncing it as a felonious treaty; an expression which so exasperated the king that he protested, if the disparity of condition between him and that member had not been too great, he would have demanded satisfaction by his sword. These discussions in the two Houses excited out of doors a general condemnation of the treaty, and threw fresh odium on the Government.

On the last day of March a message was communicated to both Houses by Secretary Hedges, that no further negotiation appeared possible with France, from its decided rejection of the terms offered, and its continuing to concede only the renewal of the treaty of Ryswick. The Commons, instead of an immediate answer, adjourned to the 2nd of April, and then resolved unanimously to desire his Majesty to carry on the negotiations with the States-General, and take such measures as should conduce to the safety of the kingdom. In reply to two resolutions from the States-General, and a memorial presented by their envoy in England, which the king laid before them, they assured him that they would support him, supplying the twenty ships and ten thousand men which they were bound to find by the treaty of 1677. This gave no sanction to any negotiations for a fresh alliance with the Powers formerly combined against France; and William was deeply mortified, but he merely thanked them for their assurances of aid, and informed them that he had sent orders to his Ambassador at the Hague still to endeavour to come to terms with France and Spain.

On the 19th of April the Marquis de Torcy handed to the Earl of Manchester, at Paris, a letter from the new king of Spain to the king of England, announcing his accession to the throne, and expressing a desire to cultivate terms of friendship with him. This announcement had been made long before to the other European Powers, and it might well have been doubted whether William would now acknowledge his right. To do that was to admit the validity of the late king of Spain's will, and there could then be no real reason to refuse the conditions of the treaty of Ryswick. William was from this cause in a state of great perplexity; but the Earl of Rochester and the new Ministers urged him to reply and admit the Duke of Anjou's right. The States-General had already done it, and, in fact, unless England and the old allies of the Emperor were prepared to dispute it with efficient arms, it was useless to refuse. Accordingly, after a severe struggle with himself, William wrote to "the Most Serene and Potent Prince, Brother, and Cousin," congratulating him on his happy arrival in his kingdom of Spain, and expressing his assurance that the ancient friendship between the two Crowns would remain inviolate, to the mutual advantage and prosperity of the two nations. With this was certainly ended every right of England to dispute the possession of all the territories and dependencies of the Spanish monarch by the new king; and there could be no justifiable cause of war with France until she attempted to renew her hostilities to neighbouring peoples.

Whilst affairs were in this position abroad, the anxiety of William was increased to the utmost by the war which was waging between the two rival factions in Parliament. In endeavouring to damage the Whigs to the utmost, the Tories damaged and tortured the king, who was sufficiently miserable with the prospects on the Continent and his fast-failing health. The Commons now determined to impeach Portland and Somers on the ground of their concern in the second Partition Treaty, contrary to the constitutional usages of the country. To procure fresh matter against Somers and Orford, the pirate, Captain Kidd, was brought from Newgate, where he was now lying, and examined at the bar of the House; but nothing was got thereby. In the case of Portland and Montague there were additional charges in reference to the grants and dilapidations of the royal revenue for which they were said to be answerable.

At this juncture the men of Kent manifested their old public spirit by sending in a petition, praying the House to endeavour to rise above their party squabbles, and to combine for the furtherance of the public business. The whole community were beginning to grow disgusted with the dissensions, which had evidently more of party rancour than patriotism at their bottom. This petition had been got up and signed by grand jurors, magistrates, and freeholders of the county, assembled at Maidstone, and confided to Sir Thomas Hales, one of their members. But Sir Thomas, on looking over it, was so much alarmed that he handed it to the other member, Mr. Meredith. Meredith, in his turn, was so impressed with the hazardous nature of the petition that, on presenting it, he informed the House that some of the supporters of it, five gentlemen of fortune and distinction, were in the lobby, and ready to attest their signatures. They were called in accordingly, and owned their signatures, when they were ordered to withdraw, and the petition was read. It concluded by saying, "that the experience of all ages made it manifest that no nation can be great or happy without union. We hope that no pretence whatever shall be able to create a misunderstanding amongst ourselves, or the least distrust of His Most Sacred Majesty, whose great actions for this nation are writ in the hearts of his subjects, and can never, without the blackest ingratitude, be forgot. We most humbly implore this honourable House to have regard to the voice of the people, that our religion and safety may be effectually provided for, that your addresses may be turned into Bills of Supply, and that His Most Sacred Majesty, whose propitious and unblemished reign over us we pray God long to continue, may be able powerfully to assist his allies before it is too late."

CAPTAIN KIDD BEFORE THE BAR OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. (See p. 524.)

In proportion to the excellence of the advice was the indignation with which it was received by the angry Commons. When men are conscious that they are acting from private motives of no very respectable kind under the mask of patriotism, the discovery that they are seen through invariably exasperates them. Accordingly, the House was furious at this very seasonable petition. Some of the members went out to the petitioners, and called upon them to make a proper submission to the affronted House; but they strongly refused, maintaining that they had only done their duty, whereupon the House voted that the petition was scandalous, insolent, seditious, and tending to the destruction of the Constitution; and they ordered the Sergeant-at-Arms to take the petitioners into custody. But the stout men of Kent were not secured without a vigorous resistance. They were then sent to the Gatehouse prison; but their treatment only damaged the Commons, for the public were greatly of the same opinion. Similar petitions were soon preparing in different quarters, and these gentlemen were much visited in their confinement, which continued till the prorogation. It was, moreover, much questioned whether the Commons had not greatly outstripped their real authority, and infringed the statute of the 13th of Charles II., which guarantees the right of petition.

The Tory party in the Commons then returned to their prosecutions of the late Whig Ministers. But the day of strange things seemed to have arrived. One day Harley, the Speaker of the Commons, received a packet from the hands of a poor woman as he entered the House. Such an incident could not take place now, the Commons having protected themselves from such irregular missives by making it necessary that all petitions should have the names of the places, as well as the persons whence they came, clearly stated, and be confided to the care of a member in good time for him to note its character and contents. This, however, turned out to be no petition, but a command. "The enclosed memorial," it was stated in a letter accompanying, "you are charged with in behalf of many thousands of the good people of England. There is neither Popish, Jacobite, seditious, Court, or party, interest concerned in it, but honesty and truth. You are commanded by two hundred thousand Englishmen to deliver it to the House of Commons, and to inform them that it is no banter, but serious truth, and a serious regard to it is expected. Nothing but justice and their duty is required; and it is required by them who have both a right to require, and power to compel it—namely, the people of England. We could have come to the House strong enough to oblige you to hear us, but we have avoided any tumults, not desiring to embroil, but to serve, our native country. If you refuse to communicate it to them, you will find cause in a short time to repent it."

This strange memorial, which is known to have been written by Defoe, was signed "Legion," and charged the House with unwarrantable practices under fifteen heads. A new claim of right was arranged under seven heads. Amongst the reprehensible proceedings of the Commons were stated to be, the voting of the Partition Treaty fatal to Europe, because it gave too much of the Spanish dominions to France, and not concerning themselves to prevent them from taking possession of them all. Deserting of the Dutch when the French were almost at their doors, and till it was almost too late to help them, it declared to be unjust to our treaties, unkind to our confederates, dishonourable to the English nation, and negligent of the safety of both our neighbours and ourselves. Addressing the king to displace his friends on base surmises, before the legal trial or any article proven, was pronounced illegal, contrary to the course of law, and putting execution before judgment. It also declared the delaying of proceedings on impeachments to blast the reputations of the accused without proving the charges, to be illegal, oppressive, destructive of the liberties of Englishmen, and a reproach to Parliaments. In the same strain it criticised the attacks on the king's person, especially those of that "impudent rascal John Howe," who had said openly that his Majesty had made a "felonious treaty," insinuating that the Partition Treaty was a combination to rob the king of Spain, when it was quite as just as to blow up one man's house to save that of his neighbour. The Commons were admonished to mend their ways, as shown to them in the memorial, on pain of incurring the resentment of an injured nation; and the document concluded thus, "for Englishmen are no more to be slaves to Parliament than to kings—our name is Legion, and we are many."

No sooner was this paper read than the blustering Commons were filled with consternation. They summoned all the members of the House by the Sergeant-at-Arms; anticipations of sedition and tumult were expressed, and an address to his Majesty was drawn up in haste, calling on him to take measures for the public peace. Howe, one of the noisiest men in the House, and accustomed to say very bold things, and other Tory members, declared their lives in danger; others got away into the country, believing that "Legion" was on the point of attacking the Parliament. A Committee was appointed to sit permanently in the Speaker's chamber, to take every means for averting a catastrophe, with power to call before them all persons necessary for throwing light on the danger, and to examine papers. At length, however, as "Legion" did not appear, and all remained quiet, the House began to recover its senses; it began at the same time to dawn upon their apprehensions that they had been hoaxed by some clever wag. This wag, as we have said, was none other than the inimitable author of "Robinson Crusoe," one of the shrewdest political writers of the time.

The Lords now demanded that the trial of Somers and the other noblemen should proceed without any further delay, but the Commons proposed that it should be conducted before a Committee of both Houses. This they did to bar the way of the trial, for they appeared rather to desire to destroy the characters of the accused than to proceed to extremities. They were aware that the accused nobles had a majority in their favour in their own House, and that to impeach them there was to fail. They, therefore, passed an unjustifiable address to the King, praying him to dismiss the five peers from his Council, even before the impeachments were heard. For the same reasons the Lords refused to admit the Commons to a share in the trial, because in their House there was a majority the other way. They replied, therefore, that such Committees were contrary to custom in cases of impeachment for misdemeanour; that the only exception was that in the case of the Earl of Danby and the five Popish lords, and that the fate of it was sufficient warning to avoid such a precedent, for the Committee could not proceed for altercations, and the affair could only be got rid of by dissolving Parliament. The Commons still argued for it, the Lords persisted in their refusal, and at this moment the dispute was interrupted by the king calling on both Houses to attend to the ratification of the new Succession Bill.

After this the contest regarding the mode of trial of the impeached nobles was renewed with unabated acrimony. In one of the conferences on the subject Lord Haversham declared his opinion that the Commons themselves really believed the accused lords innocent; "for there are," he said, "various other lords implicated in the very same business, and yet the Commons make no charge against them, but leave them at the head of affairs, near the King's person, to do any mischief they are inclined to, and impeach others, when they are all alike guilty, and concerned in the same facts." This was a hard hit, for it was the simple truth, and the delegates of the Commons, as they could not deny it, could only affect to take violent offence at it. There was fresh correspondence, but the Lords cut the matter short by deciding that there should be no Committee of both Houses for regulating the trials of the impeached nobles. The Commons, however, on the 14th of June sent up their charges against the Earl of Halifax, declining to proceed against Portland, as they said, out of respect to his Majesty.

The Lords now gave notice that they would proceed with the trials of the accused nobles, beginning with that of Lord Somers first, as the Commons had proposed, and called on the Commons to make good their charge. On the other hand, the Commons, still insisting on their right to have a voice in regulating the trials, made an order that no member of their House should appear at the "pretended" trial of the Lord Somers. Notwithstanding, the Lords gave notice that they would proceed on the 17th of June to the trial of Somers, in Westminster Hall. The Commons refused to attend, declaring that they were the only judges, and that the evidence was not yet prepared. This produced a violent debate in the Lords, where the Tory Ministers supported their party in the Commons; but the order for the trial was carried, followed by strong protests against it. On the day of the trial the Lords sent a message to the Commons to inform them that they were going to the Hall, and the Commons not appearing there, the Lords again returned to their own House, and settled the question to be put; and again returning to Westminster Hall, the question was then put:—"That John Lord Somers be acquitted of the articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Commons, and all things therein contained; and that the impeachment be dismissed." This was carried by a majority of thirty-five. A similar course was taken with regard to the other accused.

It had been a miserable Session to the king. His health continued to fail, and, amid his endeavours to conceal the decay of his constitution, that his Allies might not be discouraged, he had found his favourite Minister violently attacked, himself by no means spared, and the Session almost wholly wasted in party feud. It had, however, passed the Succession Bill, and now, to his agreeable surprise, voted him unexpectedly liberal supplies, and sanctioned his forming alliances against France. He now lost no time in appointing a regency; and gave the command of the ten thousand troops, sent to Holland, to Marlborough—an appointment, however despicable the man, the very best he could have made in a military point of view. At the commencement of July he sailed for Holland, accompanied by the Earls of Carlisle, Romney, Albemarle, General Overkirk, and others, and landed on the 3rd of the month. The Scottish troops voted had arrived in Holland before him, and the ten thousand men from England and Ireland were just arriving, so that William appeared again amongst his countrymen at the head of a respectable army of his new subjects. When he presented himself, however, before the States-General the day after his arrival, his appearance was such as to create great alarm in all that saw him. In his energies they put the almost sole trust of effectual resistance to France, and he was clearly fast sinking. He was wasted, pale, and haggard. The last Session of Parliament, and the fierce dissensions which had been carried on between the factions of Whig and Tory, neither of which looked to anything but the indulgence of their own malice, had done more to wear him out than a dozen campaigns. He might well declare that that had been the most miserable year of his existence. What strength he had left, however, he devoted unshrinkingly to the grand object of his existence, the war for the balance of power. He expressed his great joy to be once more amongst his faithful countrymen; and, in truth, he must have felt it like a cordial, for around him in England he saw nothing but unprincipled strife of parties. William told the States that he had hoped, after the peace of Ryswick, to have been able to pass his remaining days in repose, but that the changes which had taken place in Europe were such as no man could see the end of. He was still resolved, he said, notwithstanding this, to pursue the great object of the peace of Europe with unremitting zeal, whether it was to be achieved by negotiation or war; and he assured them of the active support of his English subjects. The States, in their reply, took care to express how much they depended on the courage and power of the English, and to compliment them on the splendid fame for valour which they had acquired in the late struggle.

William then set out to survey the defences of the frontiers, and the state of the garrisons; and having visited Bergen-op-Zoom, Sluys, and other places, and taken such measures as appeared necessary, he returned to the Hague, where the news met him that Louis had recalled his Ambassador, D'Avaux, who left a memorial in a very insolent tone, asserting that his royal master was convinced that no good could come of the negotiations, but still declaring that it depended on themselves whether there should be peace or war. This event by no means surprised William, for both he and Marlborough had felt from the first that there was no sincerity in the professions of D'Avaux, and that they were meant only to gain time. The treaty between England, Holland, and the Emperor was, therefore, urged forward, and was signed on the 7th of September, being styled "The Second Grand Alliance." By this treaty it was contracted that the three Allies should mutually exert themselves to procure satisfaction for the Emperor for the Spanish succession, and security for the peace and trade of the Allies. Two months were yet to be allowed for obtaining the objects by negotiation. If this failed, war was to be made to recover the Spanish Flanders, the kingdoms of Sicily, Naples, and the other Spanish territories in Italy; moreover, the States and England might seize and keep for themselves whatever they could of the colonial possessions of Spain. No peace was to be made by any one of the Allies until they had obtained security for the absolute separation of France and Spain, and that France should not hold the Spanish Indies. All kings, princes, and States were invited to enter the alliance, and tempting offers of advantages were made to induce them to do so. William had already secured the interest of Denmark, and the promises of Sweden; but the young King of Sweden, Charles XII., was too busily pursuing the war with Russia and Poland to lend any real service to this cause. At the very moment that the Allies were canvassing for confederates, this "Madman of the North," as he was called, gave the Czar Peter a most terrible overthrow at Narva on the 30th of November, 1700, killing thirty thousand of his men. Holstein and the Palatinate came into the treaty, and the news from Italy soon induced the German petty princes to profess their adhesion, especially the Electors of Bavaria and Cologne, who had received subsidies from France, and raised troops, with which they would have declared for Louis had not the victories of Prince Eugene swayed their mercenary minds the other way.

Several months before the signing of the treaty at the Hague, Eugene, at the head of the Emperor's troops in Italy, had opened the war. He had entered Italy at Vicenza, and passed the Adige near Carpi, where, being opposed by Catinat and the Duke of Savoy, he defeated them with considerable slaughter, and forced them to retire into Mantuan territory. Catinat and the French had excited the hatred of the peasantry by their insolence and oppressions, and they flew to arms and assisted Eugene, who was very popular with them, by harassing the outposts of the French, cutting off their foragers, and obstructing their supplies. Marshal Villeroi being sent to their aid, Catinat retired in disgust. Villeroi marched towards Chiari, and attacked Eugene in his camp, but was repulsed with the loss of five thousand men. By the end of the campaign the Prince had reduced all the Mantuan territory except Mantua itself and Goito, which he blockaded. He reduced all the places on the Oglio, and continued in the field all the winter, displaying a genius for war which greatly alarmed the king of France. He despatched fresh reinforcements to Piedmont under Marshal VendÔme, but he found the Duke of Savoy now cold and backward in assisting him. The duke had got all that he could look for from France; his second daughter was married to the new king of Spain, and, satisfied with that, he was by no means ambitious of French domination in his own territories.

On the other hand, France endeavoured to distract Austria by sowing insurrection in Hungary, and Louis's emissaries were busy all over Europe. He managed to make an alliance with Portugal, though the king himself was attached to the House of Austria, but was a weak prince, and was betrayed by his Ministers, who were corrupted by France. Meanwhile the English and Dutch fleets sailed in strong force along the coasts of Spain, to overawe the French, and another fleet was despatched to the West Indies, to be ready in case of hostilities. In Spain itself both people and nobles began to repent bitterly of their subjection to France. They felt greatly annoyed at the insolence of the king's French Ministers and attendants, who treated the highest grandees with very little consideration. The French dress was introduced into the Court, and French manners also, and a formal edict was issued, putting the French nobles on the same level with the proud hidalgoes of Spain. The finances of Spain were at the lowest ebb, the spirit of the nation was thoroughly demoralised, and the condition of France was very little better. These circumstances, being universally known, encouraged the Allies in their projects. Yet the Emperor, for whose cause the Alliance was ostensibly created, was almost equally poor. He had engaged to bring 90,000 troops into the field—66,000 infantry and 24,000 horse; yet he was compelled to negotiate a loan with Holland for 500,000 crowns. William, on his part, was to furnish 33,000 infantry and 7,000 horse; and the States-General 32,000 infantry and 20,000 horse.

THE PRETENDER PROCLAIMED KING OF ENGLAND BY ORDER OF LOUIS XIV. (See p. 529.)

At this juncture James II. lay on his deathbed. Louis XIV. made three successive visits to the dying king; and this strange monarch—who had no feeling for human misery in the gross, who let loose his legions to lay waste happy human homes in all the countries round him, to ravage, massacre, and destroy the unoffending people by barbarities which must have instructed the very devils in cruelty—shed tears over the departure of this poor old man, whose life had been one vast miserable blunder, and whose death was the best thing that could happen to him. He promised the dying man that he would maintain the right of his son to the English crown as he had maintained his, though he had sworn at the treaty of Ryswick to do nothing to disturb the throne of William; and (September 16, 1701), as soon as the breath was out of James's body, he proclaimed the prince King of England by the title of James III. This title was acknowledged by the King of Spain, the Duke of Savoy, and the Pope. The moment William received the news of Louis having proclaimed James's son King of England, he despatched a messenger to inform the King of Sweden, who was guarantee of the peace of Ryswick, of this flagrant breach of it. He ordered the Earl of Manchester immediately to retire from Paris without taking leave, and Poussin, the Secretary of Tallard, to quit London. Louis pretended that his acknowledgment of the Prince of Wales was mere form; that he meant no infraction of the treaty, and might justly complain of William's declarations and preparations in favour of the Emperor. In fact, kings never want pleas when they have a purpose, however unwarrantable it may be. The people of England hastened to express their abhorrence of the perfidy of the French king. Addresses of resentment were poured in from London and from all parts of the kingdom, with declarations of a strong determination to defend the king and his crown against all pretenders or invaders.

William was impatient to be in London to make the necessary arrangements for a new Ministry and a new Parliament, and also for the war which was now inevitable. But he was detained by a severe illness; in fact, he was fast succumbing to the weakness of his constitution, and the ravages made on it by his stupendous exertions in the wars he had been constantly engaged in, and, still more, by the eternal war and harass of the unprincipled factions which raged around his island throne. He arrived in England on the 4th of November, where he found the two factions raging against each other with unabated rancour, and the public in a ferment of indignation at the proclamation of the king of the French acknowledging the Pretender, and still more at an edict which Louis had published on the 16th of September, prohibiting all trade with England, except in beer, cider, glass bottles, and wool, and the wearing of any article of English manufacture after the 1st of November next. William closeted himself with some of his Ministry who, he still hoped, might be disposed to different measures; but finding them still as determined as ever to pursue their former course and to insist on their impeachments, he dissolved Parliament on the 4th of November, and called a new one for the 31st of December.

The two parties went to the election for the new Parliament with the same fierce bitterness with which they had fought through the last Session. The bribery, corruption, and intimidation were of the most open and shameless kind; but the Whigs, having the moneyed interest in their favour, carried the day, having no doubt with them at the same time the sentiment of the better part of the nation.

The new Ministry was immediately arranged. On the 24th of December Charles Howard, the Earl of Carlisle, was appointed First Lord of the Treasury, in place of Lord Godolphin. On the 4th of January, 1702, Charles Montague, Earl of Manchester, who had been ambassador at Paris, was made Secretary of State in place of Sir Charles Hedges; on the 18th the Earl of Pembroke was transferred from the Presidency of the Council, and made Lord High Admiral; and Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset, took the Presidency. Henry Boyle, afterwards Earl of Carleton, was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer; the Privy Seal, having been in commission since the death of the Earl of Tankerville, remained so. The Cabinet thus consisted of the personal friends of the king, and the Whigs had strengthened their party, having carried the elections in most of the counties and chief boroughs; yet they found themselves so far from a commanding majority that they were immediately defeated in the election of the Speaker. The king was desirous of seeing Sir Thomas Littleton in the chair; but the Tories managed to elect Harley; Henry St. John, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke, who was sent up from Wootton Basset, seconding the motion for Harley. The speech, which was drawn up by Somers according to Sunderland's advice, was then read by William.

In this speech, which was greatly admired, the king said that he trusted that they had met together with a full sense of the common danger of Europe, and of that resentment of the conduct of the French king which had been so strongly and universally expressed in the loyal addresses of the people; that in setting up the pretended Prince of Wales as King of England they had offered to him and to the nation the highest indignity, and put in jeopardy the Protestant religion, and the peace and security of the realm, and he was sure they would take every means to secure the Crown in the Protestant line, and to extinguish the hopes of all pretenders and their abettors; that the French king, by placing his grandson on the throne of Spain, had put himself in a condition to oppress the rest of Europe, and, under the pretence of maintaining it as a separate monarchy, had yet made himself master of the dominions of Spain, placed it entirely under his control, and so surrounded his neighbours that, though the name of peace continued, they were put to the expense and inconvenience of war; that this endangered the whole of our trade, and even our peace and safety at home, and deprived us of that position which we ought to maintain for the preservation of the liberties of Europe; that to obviate these calamities he had entered into several alliances according to the encouragement given him by both Houses of Parliament, and was still forming others. And he then said emphatically, "It is fit I should tell you that the eyes of all Europe are upon this Parliament. All matters are at a stand till your resolutions are known; therefore no time ought to be lost. You have yet an opportunity, by God's blessing, to secure to you and your posterity the quiet enjoyment of your religion and liberties if you are not wanting to yourselves, but will exert the ancient vigour of the English nation; but I tell you plainly my opinion is, if you do not lay hold on this occasion, you have no reason to hope for another."

He then recommended the Commons to take measures for the discharge of the debt and for preserving public credit, by the sacred maxim that they shall never be losers who trust to a Parliamentary security. In asking them for the necessary aids he was only urging that they should care for their safety and honour at a critical time. He reminded them that in the late war he ordered yearly accounts of the expenditure to be laid before them, and passed several Bills for securing a proper examination of accounts. He was quite willing that any further measures should be adopted for that end, so that it might appear whether the debts had arisen from misapplication or mere deficiency of the funds. He then finally touched on the sore point of the dissensions; trusting that both Houses were determined to avoid all manner of disputes and differences, and resolved to act with a general and hearty concurrence for promoting the common cause which alone could insure a happy Session. He should think it as great a blessing as could befall England, if he could perceive them inclined to lay aside those unhappy feuds which divided and weakened them, for that he himself was disposed to make all his subjects easy as to even the highest offences committed against him. He conjured them to disappoint the hopes of their enemies, and let there be no other distinction amongst them for the future but of those who were for the Protestant religion and the present establishment, and those who were for a Popish prince and a French Government. For his part, he desired to be the common father of his people, and if they desired to see England placed at the head of the Protestant interest and hold the balance of Europe, they had only to improve the present opportunity.

The effect of this speech was wonderful. It flew through the nation, which was already worked up into a war-fever, with the rapidity of lightning, and was everywhere received with enthusiasm. The zealous supporters of the principles of the Revolution had it printed in ornamental style, in English, Dutch, and French, and it was soon translated into other languages and disseminated all over Europe. It was the announcement of a determined war against the grasping ambition of France, and the eyes of the whole world were truly fixed on England, which volunteered to take the lead in this serious enterprise. As for the supporters of William and the Protestant government, they framed his speech and hung it in their houses as the last legacy of the Protestant king to his people. The Lords immediately drew up a zealous address, in which they echoed his resentment of the conduct of the French king in acknowledging the pretended Prince of Wales, and declared that they would not only support and defend him against the pretended Prince of Wales and all other pretenders, but, should they be deprived of his Majesty's protection, they would still defend the crown of England, by virtue of the Acts of Parliament, against all but the recognised successors. On the 5th of January the Commons presented a similar address, and assured the king that they would enable him to make good the alliances he had made and such as he should yet make for the peace of Europe. The Lords, not to be behind the Commons, presented a second and more explicit address, in which they not only engaged to support the king in his alliances, but declared that Europe could never be safe till the Emperor was restored to all his rights, and the invaders of Spain should be expelled. And they, too, declared their full approbation of the king's new alliances, and their full determination to support him in them.

William, warned by the resentment of the last House of Commons at the concealment of the Partition Treaties, now laid his present treaties at once before the new Parliament. On the 6th of January Secretary Vernon laid before both Houses copies of the treaty with the King of Denmark and the States-General, the secret Articles attached to this treaty, the treaty between the King of Sweden, the States-General, and William, and the separate treaty between William and the States-General, signed in the month of November. The Commons were as prompt in expressing their approbation of them, and on the 9th of January they proposed, by an address to his Majesty, to take care that an article should be introduced into the several treaties of alliance, binding the Allies never to make peace with France until reparation was made for the indignity offered by the French king in declaring the pretended Prince of Wales King of England. They also resolved that a Bill should be brought in for the abjuration of the pretended Prince of Wales.

They then went into the question of the supplies, and voted unanimously that £600,000 should be borrowed at six per cent. for the services of the navy, and £50,000 for Guards and garrisons. They agreed to the number of troops which the king had stipulated as his contingent in the war, namely, 30,000 foot and 7,000 horse; and added 8,300 more English soldiers to the 10,000 already sent to Holland, and voted 40,000 seamen. His Majesty's Allies were to be invited to embark a certain proportion of troops on board his Majesty's ships of war. All the king's contracts for subsidising troops belonging to foreign princes were confirmed, and to defray the charges of these naval and military forces they imposed taxes with an alacrity almost unparalleled. They imposed four shillings in the pound on all lands and incomes, including annuities, pensions, and stipends, and on all the professional profits of lawyers, doctors, surgeons, teachers of separate congregations, brokers, factors, etc. Then an additional tax of two and a half per cent. was put on all stock-in-trade and money out at interest, and of five shillings in the pound on all salaries, fees, and perquisites. They laid on a poll-tax of four shillings per head, so completely had this generation come to tolerate this hated form of imposition, which formerly roused the people to open rebellion. Besides this, they taxed the capital stock of all corporations and public companies which should be transferred in sale to the amount of one per cent., and, finally, they placed sixpence a bushel on malt, and a further duty on mum, cider, and perry.

On the 15th of January they passed unanimously a Bill for the attainder of the pretended Prince of Wales, and sent it up to the Lords, and the Lords, exceeding them in zeal, added a clause attainting also the ex-queen Mary of Modena as regent of the pretended Prince of Wales. The Commons, however, objected to this amendment as calculated to sanction a practice of attainting persons by added clauses instead of original Bills, which they designated as a pernicious course, as not allowing the full consideration due to so momentous a measure. They struck it out, but the Lords demanded a conference, and pressed their amendment on the ground that the Commons had themselves adopted that practice so long ago as the 3rd of Henry VIII. The Commons were not likely to pay much regard to the practice of either House in the reign of that lawless monarch, and returned the Bill to the Lords without the clause, and the Lords, on further reflection, passed it.

This was followed in the Lords by the Bill so strongly recommended by Sunderland for the abjuration of the pretended Prince of Wales, in which was a clause introduced into the oath, acknowledging William rightful and lawful sovereign. There was a violent debate on the point whether this oath should be voluntary or compulsory. The Earl of Nottingham strongly opposed its being compulsory, and he was supported by other lords of the Tory party. They contended that the Government was first settled with another oath, which had the value of an original contract, and any other oath was unnecessary; that this oath could do nothing more than that oath had done. All inclined to keep that oath had kept it, and all inclined to break it had broken it, and these would break this or any other oath. Whilst they were in debate, Sir Charles Hedges introduced a clause which made it obligatory on all persons enjoying appointments in Church and State, and with an obligation to maintain the Government in King, Lords, and Commons, and to maintain the Church of England, with toleration to the Dissenters. After a sharp debate it passed the Commons, but only by a majority of one. In this Bill it was made equally penal to compass or imagine the death of the Princess of Denmark as it was the death of the king. The Bill was strenuously opposed in the Lords, but it was carried, and Nottingham and nineteen other peers entered their protest against it. The Quakers had endeavoured to get themselves exempted from the operation of the Bill, but in vain. This zeal of the Whigs in Parliament for imposing fresh oaths did them no good, but tended to revive the unpopularity which had so lately driven them from office. Whilst these subjects were before Parliament, the Lords made a fresh attempt, by a Bill of their own, to procure the attainder of Mary of Modena, but the Commons let the Bill lie.

In Scotland the clamour against the Government for its treatment of the Darien scheme still continued. The Earl of Nottingham, therefore, moved that the Scottish Parliament should be dissolved, and an attempt be made to unite the two kingdoms, by which all causes of complaint would be hereafter removed, since all parties would have a like interest in the trade of the nation. The king was greatly bent on this design, but he had met with an accident which prevented him from going to the House of Lords to propose it. But he sent a message both to the Lords and to the Commons, expressing his earnest desire that a union should take place, and that Commissioners were already appointed in Scotland to treat with such Commissioners as should be appointed in England for that end. He represented that he was fully satisfied that nothing could more contribute to the security and happiness of the two kingdoms than such a union, and that he should esteem it a peculiar felicity if, during his reign, so great an event should take place.

VIEW IN THE HAGUE: CHAMBERS OF THE STATES-GENERAL IN THE BINNENHOF.

But the accident alluded to was of a more serious nature than was suspected, and, falling on a weak and exhausted frame, was about to bring his reign to an abrupt close. In riding towards Hampton Court on the 20th of February, on his accustomed Saturday's excursion to hunt there, his horse fell with him and fractured his collar-bone, besides doing him other serious injury. He was carried to Hampton Court, where the bone was set; and though the surgeon remarked that his pulse was feverish, he was deemed in too feeble a condition to admit of benefit by bleeding. Contrary, moreover, to the advice of his medical attendants, he would insist on returning that same evening to Kensington, and was, accordingly, conveyed thither in a carriage; but on arriving, it was found that the collar-bone, by the jolting of the carriage, was again displaced. It was again set, and the king slept well the night through after it. For several days no bad consequences appeared; but on the 1st of March great pain and weakness were felt in his knee. Ronjat, his surgeon, a Frenchman, who had re-set the bone, had contended that he ought to have been bled; Bidloo, his Dutch physician, had opposed it as injurious in his debilitated state. He was now attended by Sir Thomas Millington, Sir Richard Blackmore, Sir Theodore Colledon, Dr. Bidloo, and other eminent physicians. Again he appeared to rally, and on the 4th of March he took several turns in the gallery at Kensington; but, sitting down on a couch, he fell asleep, and awoke shivering and in high fever. On this there was a hurry to pass several Bills through the Lords that they might receive his signature, in case of fatal termination of his illness. These were the Malt-tax Bill, the Bill for the Prince of Wales's Attainder, and one in favour of the Quakers, making their affirmation valid instead of an oath. These being prepared, and the king not being able to use his hand, the royal signature was affixed by a stamp made for the purpose.

This took place on the 7th of March, and was not a moment too soon, for the king's symptoms rapidly gained strength, and he died the next day. The Earl of Albemarle, his great favourite, arrived from Holland on the day preceding his death, and it was thought the good news which he brought would cheer him, but William appeared to receive his information with indifference, and merely replied, "Je tire vers ma fin" ("I approach my end"). The news of the king's danger filled the antechamber with such a throng of courtiers as is generally witnessed at the expected moment of a monarch's decease; not prompted by affection, but on the watch to seize the earliest moment to make their court to his successor. Physicians, statesmen, and emissaries of interested parties were there mingled, eagerly listening for the reports of his state, and ready to fly with the news of his decease. Amongst these were the messengers of the Princess Anne and of Lady Marlborough, who, with her husband, now absent with the army in Holland, had scarcely less to expect from the event. Yet even Lady Marlborough, assuredly by no means sensitive where her ambition was concerned, expresses her disgust at the scene. "When the king came to die, I felt nothing of the satisfaction which I once thought I should have had on this occasion; and my Lord and Lady Jersey's writing and sending perpetually to give an account [to the Princess Anne] as his breath grew shorter and shorter, filled me with horror." These Jerseys, who were thus courting the favour of the heiress to the Crown by these incessant messages of the advancing death of the king, had been amongst those on whom he had heaped favours and benefits pre-eminently. Such is the end of princes. The closing scene is thus detailed by Bishop Burnet, who to the last showed himself one of the steadiest and most grateful of his courtiers:—"The king's strength and pulse were still sinking as the difficulty of breathing increased, so that no hope was left. The Archbishop of Canterbury and I went to him on Saturday morning, and did not stir from him till he died. The Archbishop prayed on Saturday some time with him, but he was then so weak that he could scarce speak, but gave him his hand, as a sign that he firmly believed the truth of the Christian religion, and said he intended to receive the Sacrament. His reason and all his senses were entire to the last minute. About five in the morning he desired the Sacrament, and went through the Office with great appearance of seriousness, but could not express himself; when this was done, he called for the Earl of Albemarle, and gave him a charge to take care of his papers. He thanked M. Auverquerque for his long and faithful services. He took leave of the Duke of Ormond, and called for the Earl of Portland, but before he came his voice quite failed; so he took him by the hand and carried it to his heart with great tenderness. He was often looking up to heaven in many short ejaculations. Between seven and eight o'clock the rattle began; the commendatory prayer was said to him, and as it ended he died, on Sunday, the 8th of March, in the fifty-second year of his age, having reigned thirteen years and a few days."

It was found on opening the body that he had had an adhesion of the lungs, which being torn from the side to which it had adhered by the fall from his horse, was the cause of his death. His head and heart were sound, but he had scarcely any blood in his body.

In person William was of a spare frame, middle stature, and delicate constitution, being subject to an asthma and cough from his childhood, supposed to be the consequences of small-pox. He had an aquiline nose, clear bright eyes, a finely-developed forehead, a grave aspect, and was very taciturn, except amongst his immediate friends, who were almost all his own countrymen. His reserved and repellent manner gave great offence to his English courtiers and nobles, and the lavish wealth which he heaped on his favourite Dutchmen heightened this feeling. He never liked Englishmen, and they never liked him. For his neglect to attach himself to the English there is, however, much excuse. The men about his Court, and the very party who brought him in, were a most selfish, rapacious, and unprincipled set. It is difficult to point to a truly noble and genuinely patriotic man amongst them. Perhaps the most unexceptionable were the Earl of Devonshire and Lord Somers; but the greater part of them were men whose chief object was self-aggrandisement; and the party fight which the two factions kept up around the Throne made it anything but an enviable seat. The peculation and jobbery in every department of the State were wholesale and unblushing, and the greater part of those who were ostensibly serving him and receiving his pay, were secretly engaged to his enemies, spies upon all his actions and intentions, and traitors, in a perpetual transmission of his projects to the Court of his deadly foes. The forbearance which he constantly manifested towards those despicable men was something admirable and almost superhuman. Though he was well aware of their treason, he still employed and endeavoured to conciliate them. With a cold exterior, William was far from destitute of affection. This he showed in the confidence with which he entrusted the government to his wife in his absence, and in his passionate grief for her death. It was also manifested in his warm and unshaken attachment to the friends who had shared his fortunes, who spoke his tongue, who knew his whole mind and nature, and who served him with a fidelity, amid an age of treachery and a Court of deep corruption, than which there is nothing more beautiful in history.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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