CHAPTER XIV

Disputes in the English Parliament--The Attainder of Russell

reversed--Other Attainders reversed; Case of Samuel Johnson--Case of

Devonshire--Case of Oates--Bill of Rights--Disputes about a Bill of

Indemnity--Last Days of Jeffreys--The Whigs dissatisfied with

the King--Intemperance of Howe--Attack on Caermarthen--Attack on

Halifax--Preparations for a Campaign in Ireland--Schomberg--Recess

of the Parliament--State of Ireland; Advice of Avaux--Dismission of

Melfort; Schomberg lands in Ulster--Carrickfergus taken--Schomberg

advances into Leinster; the English and Irish Armies encamp near

each other--Schomberg declines a Battle--Frauds of the English

Commissariat--Conspiracy among the French Troops in the English

Service--Pestilence in the English Army--The English and Irish Armies

go into Winter Quarters--Various Opinions about Schomberg's

Conduct--Maritime Affairs--Maladministration of Torrington--Continental

Affairs--Skirmish at Walcourt--Imputations thrown on Marlborough--Pope

Innocent XI. succeeded by Alexander VIII.--The High Church Clergy

divided on the Subject of the Oaths--Arguments for taking the

Oaths--Arguments against taking the Oaths--A great Majority of

the Clergy take the Oaths--The Nonjurors;

Ken--Leslie--Sherlock--Hickes--Collier--Dodwell--Kettlewell;

Fitzwilliam--General Character of the Nonjuring Clergy--The Plan

of Comprehension; Tillotson--An Ecclesiastical Commission

issued.--Proceedings of the Commission--The Convocation of the Province

of Canterbury summoned; Temper of the Clergy--The Clergy ill affected

towards the King--The Clergy exasperated against the Dissenters by

the Proceedings of the Scotch Presbyterians--Constitution of the

Convocation--Election of Members of Convocation; Ecclesiastical

Preferments bestowed,--Compton discontented--The Convocation meets--The

High Churchmen a Majority of the Lower House of Convocation--Difference

between the two Houses of Convocation--The Lower House of Convocation

proves unmanageable.--The Convocation prorogued

TWENTY-four hours before the war in Scotland was brought to a close by

the discomfiture of the Celtic army at Dunkeld, the Parliament broke up

at Westminster. The Houses had sate ever since January without a recess.

The Commons, who were cooped up in a narrow space, had suffered severely

from heat and discomfort; and the health of many members had given way.

The fruit however had not been proportioned to the toil. The last three

months of the session had been almost entirely wasted in disputes, which

have left no trace in the Statute Book. The progress of salutary laws

had been impeded, sometimes by bickerings between the Whigs and the

Tories, and sometimes by bickerings between the Lords and the Commons.

The Revolution had scarcely been accomplished when it appeared that

the supporters of the Exclusion Bill had not forgotten what they had

suffered during the ascendancy of their enemies, and were bent on

obtaining both reparation and revenge. Even before the throne was

filled, the Lords appointed a committee to examine into the truth of

the frightful stories which had been circulated concerning the death of

Essex. The committee, which consisted of zealous Whigs, continued its

inquiries till all reasonable men were convinced that he had fallen

by his own hand, and till his wife, his brother, and his most intimate

friends were desirous that the investigation should be carried no

further, [381] Atonement was made, without any opposition on the part

of the Tories, to the memory and the families of some other victims,

who were themselves beyond the reach of human power. Soon after the

Convention had been turned into a Parliament, a bill for reversing

the attainder of Lord Russell was presented to the peers, was speedily

passed by them, was sent down to the Lower House, and was welcomed there

with no common signs of emotion. Many of the members had sate in that

very chamber with Russell. He had long exercised there an influence

resembling the influence which, within the memory of this generation,

belonged to the upright and benevolent Althorpe; an influence derived,

not from superior skill in debate or in declamation, but from spotless

integrity, from plain good sense, and from that frankness, that

simplicity, that good nature, which are singularly graceful and winning

in a man raised by birth and fortune high above his fellows. By

the Whigs Russell had been honoured as a chief; and his political

adversaries had admitted that, when he was not misled by associates

less respectable and more artful than himself, he was as honest and

kindhearted a gentleman as any in England. The manly firmness and

Christian meekness with which he had met death, the desolation of his

noble house, the misery of the bereaved father, the blighted prospects

of the orphan children, [382] above all, the union of womanly tenderness

and angelic patience in her who had been dearest to the brave sufferer,

who had sate, with the pen in her hand, by his side at the bar, who had

cheered the gloom of his cell, and who, on his last day, had shared with

him the memorials of the great sacrifice, had softened the hearts of

many who were little in the habit of pitying an opponent. That Russell

had many good qualities, that he had meant well, that he had been hardly

used, was now admitted even by courtly lawyers who had assisted in

shedding his blood, and by courtly divines who had done their worst to

blacken his reputation. When, therefore, the parchment which annulled

his sentence was laid on the table of that assembly in which, eight

years before, his face and his voice had been so well known, the

excitement was great. One old Whig member tried to speak, but was

overcome by his feelings. "I cannot," he said, "name my Lord Russell

without disorder. It is enough to name him. I am not able to say more."

Many eyes were directed towards that part of the house where Finch sate.

The highly honourable manner in which he had quitted a lucrative office,

as soon as he had found that he could not keep it without supporting

the dispensing power, and the conspicuous part which he had borne in the

defence of the Bishops, had done much to atone for his faults. Yet,

on this day, it could not be forgotten that he had strenuously exerted

himself, as counsel for the Crown, to obtain that judgment which was now

to be solemnly revoked. He rose, and attempted to defend his conduct:

but neither his legal acuteness, nor that fluent and sonorous elocution

which was in his family a hereditary gift, and of which none of his

family had a larger share than himself, availed him on this occasion.

The House was in no humour to hear him, and repeatedly interrupted

him by cries of "Order." He had been treated, he was told, with great

indulgence. No accusation had been brought against him. Why then

should he, under pretence of vindicating himself, attempt to throw

dishonourable imputations on an illustrious name, and to apologise for

a judicial murder? He was forced to sit dorm, after declaring that

he meant only to clear himself from the charge of having exceeded the

limits of his professional duty; that he disclaimed all intention of

attacking the memory of Lord Russell; and that he should sincerely

rejoice at the reversing of the attainder. Before the House rose the

bill was read a second time, and would have been instantly read a third

time and passed, had not some additions and omissions been proposed,

which would, it was thought, make the reparation more complete. The

amendments were prepared with great expedition: the Lords agreed to

them; and the King gladly gave his assent, [383]

This bill was soon followed by three other bills which annulled three

wicked and infamous judgments, the judgment against Sidney, the judgment

against Cornish, and the judgment against Alice Lisle, [384]

Some living Whigs obtained without difficulty redress for injuries which

they had suffered in the late reign. The sentence of Samuel Johnson was

taken into consideration by the House of Commons. It was resolved that

the scourging which he had undergone was cruel, and that his degradation

was of no legal effect. The latter proposition admitted of no dispute:

for he had been degraded by the prelates who had been appointed to

govern the diocese of London during Compton's suspension. Compton had

been suspended by a decree of the High Commission, and the decrees

of the High Commission were universally acknowledged to be nullities.

Johnson had therefore been stripped of his robe by persons who had no

jurisdiction over him. The Commons requested the king to compensate

the sufferer by some ecclesiastical preferment, [385] William, however,

found that he could not, without great inconvenience, grant this

request. For Johnson, though brave, honest and religious, had always

been rash, mutinous and quarrelsome; and, since he had endured for his

opinions a martyrdom more terrible than death, the infirmities of his

temper and understanding had increased to such a degree that he was as

disagreeable to Low Churchmen as to High Churchmen. Like too many other

men, who are not to be turned from the path of right by pleasure, by

lucre or by danger, he mistook the impulses of his pride and resentment

for the monitions of conscience, and deceived himself into a belief

that, in treating friends and foes with indiscriminate insolence and

asperity, he was merely showing his Christian faithfulness and courage.

Burnet, by exhorting him to patience and forgiveness of injuries, made

him a mortal enemy. "Tell His Lordship," said the inflexible priest,

"to mind his own business, and to let me look after mine." [386] It soon

began to be whispered that Johnson was mad. He accused Burnet of being

the author of the report, and avenged himself by writing libels so

violent that they strongly confirmed the imputation which they were

meant to refute. The King, therefore, thought it better to give out of

his own revenue a liberal compensation for the wrongs which the Commons

had brought to his notice than to place an eccentric and irritable man

in a situation of dignity and public trust. Johnson was gratified with a

present of a thousand pounds, and a pension of three hundred a year for

two lives. His son was also provided for in the public service, [387]

While the Commons were considering the case of Johnson, the Lords were

scrutinising with severity the proceedings which had, in the late reign,

been instituted against one of their own order, the Earl of Devonshire.

The judges who had passed sentence on him were strictly interrogated;

and a resolution was passed declaring that in his case the privileges of

the peerage had been infringed, and that the Court of King's Bench, in

punishing a hasty blow by a fine of thirty thousand pounds, had violated

common justice and the Great Charter, [388]

In the cases which have been mentioned, all parties seem to have agreed

in thinking that some public reparation was due. But the fiercest

passions both of Whigs and Tories were soon roused by the noisy claims

of a wretch whose sufferings, great as they might seem, had been

trifling when compared with his crimes. Gates had come back, like a

ghost from the place of punishment, to haunt the spots which had been

polluted by his guilt. The three years and a half which followed his

scourging he had passed in one of the cells of Newgate, except when on

certain days, the anniversaries of his perjuries, he had been brought

forth and set on the pillory. He was still, however, regarded by many

fanatics as a martyr; and it was said that they were able so far

to corrupt his keepers that, in spite of positive orders from the

government, his sufferings were mitigated by many indulgences. While

offenders, who, compared with him, were innocent, grew lean on the

prison allowance, his cheer was mended by turkeys and chines, capons and

sucking pigs, venison pasties and hampers of claret, the offerings of

zealous Protestants, [389] When James had fled from Whitehall, and when

London was in confusion, it was moved, in the council of Lords which had

provisionally assumed the direction of affairs, that Gates should be

set at liberty. The motion was rejected: [390] but the gaolers, not knowing

whom to obey in that time of anarchy, and desiring to conciliate a man

who had once been, and might perhaps again be, a terrible enemy, allowed

their prisoner to go freely about the town, [391] His uneven legs and

his hideous face, made more hideous by the shearing which his ears had

undergone, were now again seen every day in Westminster Hall and the

Court of Requests, [392] He fastened himself on his old patrons, and,

in that drawl which he affected as a mark of gentility, gave them the

history of his wrongs and of his hopes. It was impossible, he said,

that now, when the good cause was triumphant, the discoverer of the plot

could be overlooked. "Charles gave me nine hundred pounds a year. Sure

William will give me more." [393]

In a few weeks he brought his sentence before the House of Lords by a

writ of error. This is a species of appeal which raises no question of

fact. The Lords, while sitting judicially on the writ of error, were not

competent to examine whether the verdict which pronounced Gates guilty

was or was not according to the evidence. All that they had to consider

was whether, the verdict being supposed to be according to the evidence,

the judgment was legal. But it would have been difficult even for a

tribunal composed of veteran magistrates, and was almost impossible for

an assembly of noblemen who were all strongly biassed on one side or

on the other, and among whom there was at that time not a single person

whose mind had been disciplined by the study of jurisprudence, to

look steadily at the mere point of law, abstracted from the special

circumstances of the case. In the view of one party, a party which even

among the Whig peers was probably a minority, the appellant was a

man who had rendered inestimable services to the cause of liberty and

religion, and who had been requited by long confinement, by degrading

exposure, and by torture not to be thought of without a shudder. The

majority of the House more justly regarded him as the falsest, the most

malignant and the most impudent being that had ever disgraced the human

form. The sight of that brazen forehead, the accents of that lying

tongue, deprived them of all mastery over themselves. Many of them

doubtless remembered with shame and remorse that they had been his

dupes, and that, on the very last occasion on which he had stood before

them, he had by perjury induced them to shed the blood of one of

their own illustrious order. It was not to be expected that a crowd of

gentlemen under the influence of feelings like these would act with

the cold impartiality of a court of justice. Before they came to any

decision on the legal question which Titus had brought before them,

they picked a succession of quarrels with him. He had published a paper

magnifying his merits and his sufferings. The Lords found out some

pretence for calling this publication a breach of privilege, and sent

him to the Marshalsea. He petitioned to be released; but an objection

was raised to his petition. He had described himself as a Doctor of

Divinity; and their lordships refused to acknowledge him as such. He was

brought to their bar, and asked where he had graduated. He answered, "At

the university of Salamanca." This was no new instance of his mendacity

and effrontery. His Salamanca degree had been, during many years, a

favourite theme of all the Tory satirists from Dryden downwards; and

even on the Continent the Salamanca Doctor was a nickname in ordinary

use, [394] The Lords, in their hatred of Oates, so far forgot their own

dignity as to treat this ridiculous matter seriously. They ordered him

to efface from his petition the words, "Doctor of Divinity." He replied

that he could not in conscience do it; and he was accordingly sent back

to gaol, [395]

These preliminary proceedings indicated not obscurely what the fate of

the writ of error would be. The counsel for Oates had been heard. No

counsel appeared against him. The judges were required to give their

opinions. Nine of them were in attendance; and among the nine were the

Chiefs of the three Courts of Common Law. The unanimous answer of these

grave, learned and upright magistrates was that the Court of King's

Bench was not competent to degrade a priest from his sacred office, or

to pass a sentence of perpetual imprisonment; and that therefore the

judgment against Oates was contrary to law, and ought to be reversed.

The Lords should undoubtedly have considered themselves as bound by this

opinion. That they knew Oates to be the worst of men was nothing to the

purpose. To them, sitting as a court of justice, he ought to have been

merely a John of Styles or a John of Nokes. But their indignation was

violently excited. Their habits were not those which fit men for the

discharge of judicial duties. The debate turned almost entirely on

matters to which no allusion ought to have been made. Not a single peer

ventured to affirm that the judgment was legal: but much was said about

the odious character of the appellant, about the impudent accusation

which he had brought against Catherine of Braganza, and about the evil

consequences which might follow if so bad a man were capable of being a

witness. "There is only one way," said the Lord President, "in which I

can consent to reverse the fellow's sentence. He has been whipped from

Aldgate to Tyburn. He ought to be whipped from Tyburn back to Aldgate."

The question was put. Twenty-three peers voted for reversing the

judgment; thirty-five for affirming it, [396]

This decision produced a great sensation, and not without reason. A

question was now raised which might justly excite the anxiety of every

man in the kingdom. That question was whether the highest tribunal,

the tribunal on which, in the last resort, depended the most precious

interests of every English subject, was at liberty to decide judicial

questions on other than judicial grounds, and to withhold from a suitor

what was admitted to be his legal right, on account of the depravity of

his moral character. That the supreme Court of Appeal ought not to

be suffered to exercise arbitrary power, under the forms of ordinary

justice, was strongly felt by the ablest men in the House of Commons,

and by none more strongly than by Somers. With him, and with those

who reasoned like him, were, on this occasion, allied many weak and

hot-headed zealots who still regarded Oates as a public benefactor, and

who imagined that to question the existence of the Popish plot was to

question the truth of the Protestant religion. On the very morning after

the decision of the Peers had been pronounced, keen reflections were

thrown, in the House of Commons, on the justice of their lordships.

Three days later, the subject was brought forward by a Whig Privy

Councillor, Sir Robert Howard, member for Castle Rising. He was one of

the Berkshire branch of his noble family, a branch which enjoyed, in

that age, the unenviable distinction of being wonderfully fertile of

bad rhymers. The poetry of the Berkshire Howards was the jest of three

generations of satirists. The mirth began with the first representation

of the Rehearsal, and continued down to the last edition of the Dunciad,

[397] But Sir Robert, in spite of his bad verses, and of some foibles

and vanities which had caused him to be brought on the stage under the

name of Sir Positive Atall, had in parliament the weight which a stanch

party man, of ample fortune, of illustrious name, of ready utterance,

and of resolute spirit, can scarcely fail to possess, [398] When he rose

to call the attention of the Commons to the case of Oates, some Tories,

animated by the same passions which had prevailed in the other House,

received him with loud hisses. In spite of this most unparliamentary

insult, he persevered; and it soon appeared that the majority was with

him. Some orators extolled the patriotism and courage of Oates: others

dwelt much on a prevailing rumour, that the solicitors who were employed

against him on behalf of the Crown had distributed large sums of money

among the jurymen. These were topics on which there was much difference

of opinion. But that the sentence was illegal was a proposition which

admitted of no dispute. The most eminent lawyers in the House of Commons

declared that, on this point, they entirely concurred in the opinion

given by the judges in the House of Lords. Those who had hissed when

the subject was introduced, were so effectually cowed that they did

not venture to demand a division; and a bill annulling the sentence was

brought in, without any opposition, [399]

The Lords were in an embarrassing situation. To retract was not

pleasant. To engage in a contest with the Lower House, on a question on

which that House was clearly in the right, and was backed at once by the

opinions of the sages of the law, and by the passions of the populace,

might be dangerous. It was thought expedient to take a middle course. An

address was presented to the King, requesting him to pardon Oates, [400]

But this concession only made bad worse. Titus had, like every other

human being, a right to justice: but he was not a proper object of

mercy. If the judgment against him was illegal, it ought to have been

reversed. If it was legal, there was no ground for remitting any part of

it. The Commons, very properly, persisted, passed their bill, and sent

it up to the Peers. Of this bill the only objectionable part was the

preamble, which asserted, not only that the judgment was illegal, a

proposition which appeared on the face of the record to be true, but

also that the verdict was corrupt, a proposition which, whether true or

false, was not proved by any evidence at all.

The Lords were in a great strait. They knew that they were in the wrong.

Yet they were determined not to proclaim, in their legislative capacity,

that they had, in their judicial capacity, been guilty of injustice.

They again tried a middle course. The preamble was softened down: a

clause was added which provided that Oates should still remain incapable

of being a witness; and the bill thus altered was returned to the

Commons.

The Commons were not satisfied. They rejected the amendments,

and demanded a free conference. Two eminent Tories, Rochester and

Nottingham, took their seats in the Painted Chamber as managers for the

Lords. With them was joined Burnet, whose well known hatred of Popery

was likely to give weight to what he might say on such an occasion.

Somers was the chief orator on the other side; and to his pen we owe a

singularly lucid and interesting abstract of the debate.

The Lords frankly owned that the judgment of the Court of King's Bench

could not be defended. They knew it to be illegal, and had known it to

be so even when they affirmed it. But they had acted for the best. They

accused Oates of bringing an impudently false accusation against Queen

Catherine: they mentioned other instances of his villany; and they asked

whether such a man ought still to be capable of giving testimony in a

court of justice. The only excuse which, in their opinion, could be made

for him was, that he was insane; and in truth, the incredible insolence

and absurdity of his behaviour when he was last before them seemed to

warrant the belief that his brain had been turned, and that he was not

to be trusted with the lives of other men. The Lords could not therefore

degrade themselves by expressly rescinding what they had done; nor could

they consent to pronounce the verdict corrupt on no better evidence than

common report.

The reply was complete and triumphant. "Oates is now the smallest part

of the question. He has, Your Lordships say, falsely accused the Queen

Dowager and other innocent persons. Be it so. This bill gives him no

indemnity. We are quite willing that, if he is guilty, he shall be

punished. But for him, and for all Englishmen, we demand that punishment

shall be regulated by law, and not by the arbitrary discretion of any

tribunal. We demand that, when a writ of error is before Your Lordships,

you shall give judgment on it according to the known customs and

statutes of the realm. We deny that you have any right, on such

occasions, to take into consideration the moral character of a plaintiff

or the political effect of a decision. It is acknowledged by yourselves

that you have, merely because you thought ill of this man, affirmed

a judgment which you knew to be illegal. Against this assumption of

arbitrary power the Commons protest; and they hope that you will now

redeem what you must feel to be an error. Your Lordships intimate a

suspicion that Oates is mad. That a man is mad may be a very good reason

for not punishing him at all. But how it can be a reason for inflicting

on him a punishment which would be illegal even if he were sane, the

Commons do not comprehend. Your Lordships think that you should not be

justified in calling a verdict corrupt which has not been legally proved

to be so. Suffer us to remind you that you have two distinct functions

to perform. You are judges; and you are legislators. When you judge,

your duty is strictly to follow the law. When you legislate, you may

properly take facts from common fame. You invert this rule. You are lax

in the wrong place, and scrupulous in the wrong place. As judges,

you break through the law for the sake of a supposed convenience. As

legislators, you will not admit any fact without such technical proof as

it is rarely possible for legislators to obtain." [401]

This reasoning was not and could not be answered. The Commons were

evidently flushed with their victory in the argument, and proud of

the appearance which Somers had made in the Painted Chamber. They

particularly charged him to see that the report which he had made of the

conference was accurately entered in the journals. The Lords very wisely

abstained from inserting in their records an account of a debate in

which they had been so signally discomfited. But, though conscious of

their fault and ashamed of it, they could not be brought to do public

penance by owning, in the preamble of the Act, that they had been guilty

of injustice. The minority was, however, strong. The resolution to

adhere was carried by only twelve votes, of which ten were proxies,

[402]

Twenty-one Peers protested. The bill dropped. Two Masters in Chancery

were sent to announce to the Commons the final resolution of the Peers.

The Commons thought this proceeding unjustifiable in substance and

uncourteous in form. They determined to remonstrate; and Somers drew

up an excellent manifesto, in which the vile name of Oates was scarcely

mentioned, and in which the Upper House was with great earnestness and

gravity exhorted to treat judicial questions judicially, and not, under

pretence of administering law, to make law, [403] The wretched man,

who had now a second time thrown the political world into confusion,

received a pardon, and was set at liberty. His friends in the Lower

House moved an address to the Throne, requesting that a pension

sufficient for his support might be granted to him, [404] He was

consequently allowed about three hundred a year, a sum which he thought

unworthy of his acceptance, and which he took with the savage snarl of

disappointed greediness.

From the dispute about Oates sprang another dispute, which might have

produced very serious consequences. The instrument which had declared

William and Mary King and Queen was a revolutionary instrument. It had

been drawn up by an assembly unknown to the ordinary law, and had never

received the royal sanction. It was evidently desirable that this great

contract between the governors and the governed, this titledeed by which

the King held his throne and the people their liberties, should be put

into a strictly regular form. The Declaration of Rights was therefore

turned into a Bill of Rights; and the Bill of Rights speedily passed the

Commons; but in the Lords difficulties arose.

The Declaration had settled the crown, first on William and Mary

jointly, then on the survivor of the two, then on Mary's posterity, then

on Anne and her posterity, and, lastly, on the posterity of William by

any other wife than Mary. The Bill had been drawn in exact conformity

with the Declaration. Who was to succeed if Mary, Anne, and William

should all die without posterity, was left in uncertainty. Yet the

event for which no provision was made was far from improbable. Indeed it

really came to pass. William had never had a child. Anne had repeatedly

been a mother, but had no child living. It would not be very strange if,

in a few months, disease, war, or treason should remove all those who

stood in the entail. In what state would the country then be left? To

whom would allegiance be due? The bill indeed contained a clause which

excluded Papists from the throne. But would such a clause supply the

place of a clause designating the successor by name? What if the next

heir should be a prince of the House of Savoy not three months old?

It would be absurd to call such an infant a Papist. Was he then to be

proclaimed King? Or was the crown to be in abeyance till he came to an

age at which he might be capable of choosing a religion? Might not the

most honest and the most intelligent men be in doubt whether they ought

to regard him as their Sovereign? And to whom could they look for

a solution of this doubt? Parliament there would be none: for the

Parliament would expire with the prince who had convoked it. There

would be mere anarchy, anarchy which might end in the destruction of

the monarchy, or in the destruction of public liberty. For these weighty

reasons, Barnet, at William's suggestion, proposed it the House of Lords

that the crown should, failing heirs of His Majesty's body, be entailed

on an undoubted Protestant, Sophia, Duchess of Brunswick Lunenburg,

granddaughter of James the First, and daughter of Elizabeth, Queen of

Bohemia.

The Lords unanimously assented to this amendment: but the Commons

unanimously rejected it. The cause of the rejection no contemporary

writer has satisfactorily explained. One Whig historian talks of the

machinations of the republicans, another of the machinations of

the Jacobites. But it is quite certain that four fifths of the

representatives of the people were neither Jacobites nor republicans.

Yet not a single voice was raised in the Lower House in favour of the

clause which in the Upper House had been carried by acclamation, [405]

The most probable explanation seems to be that the gross injustice which

had been committed in the case of Oates had irritated the Commons to

such a degree that they were glad of an opportunity to quarrel with the

Peers. A conference was held. Neither assembly would give way. While

the dispute was hottest, an event took place which, it might have been

thought, would have restored harmony. Anne gave birth to a son. The

child was baptized at Hampton Court with great pomp, and with many

signs of public joy. William was one of the sponsors. The other was the

accomplished Dorset, whose roof had given shelter to the Princess in her

distress. The King bestowed his own name on his godson, and announced

to the splendid circle assembled around the font that the little William

was henceforth to be called Duke of Gloucester, [406] The birth of

this child had greatly diminished the risk against which the Lords had

thought it necessary to guard. They might therefore have retracted with

a good grace. But their pride had been wounded by the severity with

which their decision on Oates's writ of error had been censured in the

Painted Chamber. They had been plainly told across the table that they

were unjust judges; and the imputation was not the less irritating

because they were conscious that it was deserved. They refused to make

any concession; and the Bill of Rights was suffered to drop, [407]

But the most exciting question of this long and stormy session was, what

punishment should be inflicted on those men who had, during the interval

between the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament and the Revolution,

been the advisers or the tools of Charles and James. It was happy for

England that, at this crisis, a prince who belonged to neither of

her factions, who loved neither, who hated neither, and who, for the

accomplishment of a great design, wished to make use of both, was the

moderator between them.

The two parties were now in a position closely resembling that in which

they had been twenty-eight years before. The party indeed which had then

been undermost was now uppermost: but the analogy between the situations

is one of the most perfect that can be found in history. Both the

Restoration and the Revolution was accomplished by coalitions. At the

Restoration, those politicians who were peculiarly zealous for liberty

assisted to reestablish monarchy: at the Revolution those politicians

who were peculiarly zealous for monarchy assisted to vindicate liberty.

The Cavalier would, at the former conjuncture, have been able to effect

nothing without the help of Puritans who had fought for the Covenant;

nor would the Whig, at the latter conjuncture, have offered a successful

resistance to arbitrary power, had he not been backed by men who had

a very short time before condemned resistance to arbitrary power as a

deadly sin. Conspicuous among those by whom, in 1660, the royal family

was brought back, were Hopis, who had in the days of the tyranny of

Charles the First held down the Speaker in the chair by main force,

while Black Rod knocked for admission in vain; Ingoldsby, whose name was

subscribed to the memorable death warrant; and Prynne, whose ears Laud

had cut off, and who, in return, had borne the chief part in cutting

off Laud's head. Among the seven who, in 1688, signed the invitation to

William, were Compton, who had long enforced the duty of obeying Nero;

Danby, who had been impeached for endeavouring to establish military

despotism; and Lumley, whose bloodhounds had tracked Monmouth to that

sad last hiding place among the fern. Both in 1660 and in 1688, while

the fate of the nation still hung in the balance, forgiveness

was exchanged between the hostile factions. On both occasions the

reconciliation, which had seemed to be cordial in the hour of danger,

proved false and hollow in the hour of triumph. As soon as Charles the

Second was at Whitehall, the Cavalier forgot the good service recently

done by the Presbyterians, and remembered only their old offences.

As soon as William was King, too many of the Whigs began to demand

vengeance for all that they had, in the days of the Rye House Plot,

suffered at the hands of the Tories. On both occasions the Sovereign

found it difficult to save the vanquished party from the fury of

his triumphant supporters; and on both occasions those whom he had

disappointed of their revenge murmured bitterly against the government

which had been so weak and ungrateful as to protect its foes against its

friends.

So early as the twenty-fifth of March, William called the attention of

the Commons to the expediency of quieting the public mind by an amnesty.

He expressed his hope that a bill of general pardon and oblivion would

be as speedily as possible presented for his sanction, and that no

exceptions would be made, except such as were absolutely necessary for

the vindication of public justice and for the safety of the state.

The Commons unanimously agreed to thank him for this instance of his

paternal kindness: but they suffered many weeks to pass without taking

any step towards the accomplishment of his wish. When at length the

subject was resumed, it was resumed in such a manner as plainly showed

that the majority had no real intention of putting an end to the

suspense which embittered the lives of all those Tories who were

conscious that, in their zeal for prerogative, they had some times

overstepped the exact line traced by law. Twelve categories were framed,

some of which were so extensive as to include tens of thousands of

delinquents; and the House resolved that, under every one of these

categories, some exceptions should be made. Then came the examination

into the cases of individuals. Numerous culprits and witnesses were

summoned to the bar. The debates were long and sharp; and it soon became

evident that the work was interminable. The summer glided away: the

autumn was approaching: the session could not last much longer; and

of the twelve distinct inquisitions, which the Commons had resolved to

institute, only three had been brought to a close. It was necessary to

let the bill drop for that year, [408]

Among the many offenders whose names were mentioned in the course of

these inquiries, was one who stood alone and unapproached in guilt and

infamy, and whom Whigs and Tories were equally willing to leave to the

extreme rigour of the law. On that terrible day which was succeeded by

the Irish Night, the roar of a great city disappointed of its revenge

had followed Jeffreys to the drawbridge of the Tower. His imprisonment

was not strictly legal: but he at first accepted with thanks and

blessings the protection which those dark walls, made famous by so many

crimes and sorrows, afforded him against the fury of the multitude,

[409] Soon, however, he became sensible that his life was still in

imminent peril. For a time he flattered himself with the hope that a

writ of Habeas Corpus would liberate him from his confinement, and that

he should be able to steal away to some foreign country, and to hide

himself with part of his ill gotten wealth from the detestation of

mankind: but, till the government was settled, there was no Court

competent to grant a writ of Habeas Corpus; and, as soon as the

government had been settled, the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, [410]

Whether the legal guilt of murder could be brought home to Jeffreys may

be doubted. But he was morally guilty of so many murders that, if there

had been no other way of reaching his life, a retrospective Act of

Attainder would have been clamorously demanded by the whole nation.

A disposition to triumph over the fallen has never been one of the

besetting sins of Englishmen: but the hatred of which Jeffreys was

the object was without a parallel in our history, and partook but too

largely of the savageness of his own nature. The people, where he was

concerned, were as cruel as himself, and exulted in his misery as he

had been accustomed to exult in the misery of convicts listening to

the sentence of death, and of families clad in mourning. The rabble

congregated before his deserted mansion in Duke Street, and read on the

door, with shouts of laughter, the bills which announced the sale of

his property. Even delicate women, who had tears for highwaymen and

housebreakers, breathed nothing but vengeance against him. The lampoons

on him which were hawked about the town were distinguished by an

atrocity rare even in those days. Hanging would be too mild a death for

him: a grave under the gibbet too respectable a resting place: he ought

to be whipped to death at the cart's tail: he ought to be tortured like

an Indian: he ought to be devoured alive. The street poets portioned out

all his joints with cannibal ferocity, and computed how many pounds of

steaks might be cut from his well fattened carcass. Nay, the rage of

his enemies was such that, in language seldom heard in England, they

proclaimed their wish that he might go to the place of wailing and

gnashing of teeth, to the worm that never dies, to the fire that is

never quenched. They exhorted him to hang himself in his garters, and

to cut his throat with his razor. They put up horrible prayers that he

might not be able to repent, that he might die the same hardhearted,

wicked Jeffreys that he had lived, [411] His spirit, as mean in

adversity as insolent and inhuman in prosperity, sank down under the

load of public abhorrence. His constitution, originally bad, and much

impaired by intemperance, was completely broken by distress and anxiety.

He was tormented by a cruel internal disease, which the most skilful

surgeons of that age were seldom able to relieve. One solace was left to

him, brandy. Even when he had causes to try and councils to attend, he

had seldom gone to bed sober. Now, when he had nothing to occupy his

mind save terrible recollections and terrible forebodings, he abandoned

himself without reserve to his favourite vice. Many believed him to be

bent on shortening his life by excess. He thought it better, they said,

to go off in a drunken fit than to be hacked by Ketch, or torn limb from

limb by the populace.

Once he was roused from a state of abject despondency by an agreeable

sensation, speedily followed by a mortifying disappointment. A parcel

had been left for him at the Tower. It appeared to be a barrel of

Colchester oysters, his favourite dainties. He was greatly moved: for

there are moments when those who least deserve affection are pleased

to think that they inspire it. "Thank God," he exclaimed, "I have still

some friends left." He opened the barrel; and from among a heap of

shells out tumbled a stout halter, [412]

It does not appear that one of the flatterers or buffoons whom he had

enriched out of the plunder of his victims came to comfort him in the

day of trouble. But he was not left in utter solitude. John Tutchin,

whom he had sentenced to be flogged every fortnight for seven years,

made his way into the Tower, and presented himself before the fallen

oppressor. Poor Jeffreys, humbled to the dust, behaved with abject

civility, and called for wine. "I am glad, sir," he said, "to see you."

"And I am glad," answered the resentful Whig, "to see Your Lordship

in this place." "I served my master," said Jeffreys: "I was bound in

conscience to do so." "Where was your conscience," said Tutchin, "when

you passed that sentence on me at Dorchester?" "It was set down in my

instructions," answered Jeffreys, fawningly, "that I was to show no

mercy to men like you, men of parts and courage. When I went back to

court I was reprimanded for my lenity." [413] Even Tutchin, acrimonious

as was his nature, and great as were his wrongs, seems to have been

a little mollified by the pitiable spectacle which he had at first

contemplated with vindictive pleasure. He always denied the truth of

the report that he was the person who sent the Colchester barrel to the

Tower.

A more benevolent man, John Sharp, the excellent Dean of Norwich, forced

himself to visit the prisoner. It was a painful task: but Sharp had been

treated by Jeffreys, in old times, as kindly as it was in the nature

of Jeffreys to treat any body, and had once or twice been able, by

patiently waiting till the storm of curses and invectives had spent

itself, and by dexterously seizing the moment of good humour, to obtain

for unhappy families some mitigation of their sufferings. The prisoner

was surprised and pleased. "What," he said, "dare you own me now?" It was

in vain, however, that the amiable divine tried to give salutary pain

to that seared conscience. Jeffreys, instead of acknowledging his guilt,

exclaimed vehemently against the injustice of mankind. "People call me

a murderer for doing what at the time was applauded by some who are now

high in public favour. They call me a drunkard because I take punch to

relieve me in my agony." He would not admit that, as President of the

High Commission, he had done any thing that deserved reproach. His

colleagues, he said, were the real criminals; and now they threw all

the blame on him. He spoke with peculiar asperity of Sprat, who had

undoubtedly been the most humane and moderate member of the board.

It soon became clear that the wicked judge was fast sinking under the

weight of bodily and mental suffering. Doctor John Scott, prebendary of

Saint Paul's, a clergyman of great sanctity, and author of the Christian

Life, a treatise once widely renowned, was summoned, probably on the

recommendation of his intimate friend Sharp, to the bedside of the dying

man. It was in vain, however, that Scott spoke, as Sharp had already

spoken, of the hideous butcheries of Dorchester and Taunton. To the last

Jeffreys continued to repeat that those who thought him cruel did not

know what his orders were, that he deserved praise instead of blame,

and that his clemency had drawn on him the extreme displeasure of his

master, [414]

Disease, assisted by strong drink and by misery, did its work fast. The

patient's stomach rejected all nourishment. He dwindled in a few weeks

from a portly and even corpulent man to a skeleton. On the eighteenth

of April he died, in the forty-first year of his age. He had been Chief

Justice of the King's Bench at thirty-five, and Lord Chancellor at

thirty-seven. In the whole history of the English bar there is no

other instance of so rapid an elevation, or of so terrible a fall.

The emaciated corpse was laid, with all privacy, next to the corpse of

Monmouth in the chapel of the Tower, [415]

The fall of this man, once so great and so much dreaded, the horror with

which he was regarded by all the respectable members of his own

party, the manner in which the least respectable members of that party

renounced fellowship with him in his distress, and threw on him the

whole blame of crimes which they had encouraged him to commit, ought

to have been a lesson to those intemperate friends of liberty who were

clamouring for a new proscription. But it was a lesson which too many of

them disregarded. The King had, at the very commencement of his reign,

displeased them by appointing a few Tories and Trimmers to high offices;

and the discontent excited by these appointments had been inflamed by

his attempt to obtain a general amnesty for the vanquished. He was

in truth not a man to be popular with the vindictive zealots of any

faction. For among his peculiarities was a certain ungracious humanity

which rarely conciliated his foes, which often provoked his adherents,

but in which he doggedly persisted, without troubling himself either

about the thanklessness of those whom he had saved from destruction, or

about the rage of those whom he had disappointed of their revenge. Some

of the Whigs now spoke of him as bitterly as they had ever spoken of

either of his uncles. He was a Stuart after all, and was not a Stuart

for nothing. Like the rest of the race, he loved arbitrary power.

In Holland, he had succeeded in making himself, under the forms of a

republican polity, scarcely less absolute than the old hereditary Counts

had been. In consequence of a strange combination of circumstances, his

interest had, during a short time, coincided with the interest of the

English people: but though he had been a deliverer by accident, he was

a despot by nature. He had no sympathy with the just resentments of the

Whigs. He had objects in view which the Whigs would not willingly suffer

any Sovereign to attain. He knew that the Tories were the only tools for

his purpose. He had therefore, from the moment at which he took his seat

on the throne, favoured them unduly. He was now trying to procure an

indemnity for those very delinquents whom he had, a few months before,

described in his Declaration as deserving of exemplary punishment. In

November he had told the world that the crimes in which these men had

borne a part had made it the duty of subjects to violate their oath of

allegiance, of soldiers to desert their standards, of children to make

war on their parents. With what consistency then could he recommend that

such crimes should be covered by a general oblivion? And was there not

too much reason to fear that he wished to save the agents of tyranny

from the fate which they merited, in the hope that, at some future time,

they might serve him as unscrupulously as they had served his father in

law? [416]

Of the members of the House of Commons who were animated by these

feelings, the fiercest and most audacious was Howe. He went so far on

one occasion as to move that an inquiry should be instituted into the

proceedings of the Parliament of 1685, and that some note of infamy

should be put on all who, in that Parliament, had voted with the Court.

This absurd and mischievous motion was discountenanced by all the most

respectable Whigs, and strongly opposed by Birch and Maynard, [417] Howe

was forced to give way: but he was a man whom no check could abash;

and he was encouraged by the applause of many hotheaded members of his

party, who were far from foreseeing that he would, after having been the

most rancorous and unprincipled of Whigs, become, at no distant time,

the most rancorous and unprincipled of Tories.

This quickwitted, restless and malignant politician, though himself

occupying a lucrative place in the royal household, declaimed, day after

day, against the manner in which the great offices of state were filled;

and his declamations were echoed, in tones somewhat less sharp and

vehement, by other orators. No man, they said, who had been a minister

of Charles or of James ought to be a minister of William. The first

attack was directed against the Lord President Caermarthen. Howe moved

that an address should be presented to the King, requesting that all

persons who had ever been impeached by the Commons might be dismissed

from His Majesty's counsels and presence. The debate on this motion was

repeatedly adjourned. While the event was doubtful, William sent Dykvelt

to expostulate with Howe. Howe was obdurate. He was what is vulgarly

called a disinterested man; that is to say, he valued money less than

the pleasure of venting his spleen and of making a sensation. "I am

doing the King a service," he said: "I am rescuing him from false

friends: and, as to my place, that shall never be a gag to prevent me

from speaking my mind." The motion was made, but completely failed.

In truth the proposition, that mere accusation, never prosecuted to

conviction, ought to be considered as a decisive proof of guilt, was

shocking to natural justice. The faults of Caermarthen had doubtless

been great; but they had been exaggerated by party spirit, had been

expiated by severe suffering, and had been redeemed by recent and

eminent services. At the time when he raised the great county of York in

arms against Popery and tyranny, he had been assured by some of the

most eminent Whigs that all old quarrels were forgotten. Howe indeed

maintained that the civilities which had passed in the moment of peril

signified nothing. "When a viper is on my hand," he said, "I am very

tender of him; but, as soon as I have him on the ground, I set my foot

on him and crush him." The Lord President, however, was so strongly

supported that, after a discussion which lasted three days, his enemies

did not venture to take the sense of the House on the motion against

him. In the course of the debate a grave constitutional question was

incidentally raised. This question was whether a pardon could be pleaded

in bar of a parliamentary impeachment. The Commons resolved, without a

division, that a pardon could not be so pleaded, [418]

The next attack was made on Halifax. He was in a much more invidious

position than Caermarthen, who had, under pretence of ill health,

withdrawn himself almost entirely from business. Halifax was generally

regarded as the chief adviser of the Crown, and was in an especial

manner held responsible for all the faults which had been committed with

respect to Ireland. The evils which had brought that kingdom to ruin

might, it was said, have been averted by timely precaution, or remedied

by vigorous exertion. But the government had foreseen nothing: it had

done little; and that little had been done neither at the right time nor

in the right way. Negotiation had been employed instead of troops, when

a few troops might have sufficed. A few troops had been sent when many

were needed. The troops that had been sent had been ill equipped and ill

commanded. Such, the vehement Whigs exclaimed, were the natural fruits

of that great error which King William had committed on the first day of

his reign. He had placed in Tories and Trimmers a confidence which they

did not deserve. He had, in a peculiar manner, entrusted the direction

of Irish affairs to the Trimmer of Trimmers, to a man whose ability

nobody disputed, but who was not firmly attached to the new government,

who, indeed, was incapable of being firmly attached to any government,

who had always halted between two opinions, and who, till the moment of

the flight of James, had not given up the hope that the discontents of

the nation might be quieted without a change of dynasty. Howe, on twenty

occasions, designated Halifax as the cause of all the calamities of the

country. Monmouth held similar language in the House of Lords. Though

First Lord of the Treasury, he paid no attention to financial business,

for which he was altogether unfit, and of which he had very soon become

weary. His whole heart was in the work of persecuting the Tories.

He plainly told the King that nobody who was not a Whig ought to

be employed in the public service. William's answer was cool and

determined. "I have done as much for your friends as I can do without

danger to the state; and I will do no more," [419] The only effect of

this reprimand was to make Monmouth more factious than ever. Against

Halifax especially he intrigued and harangued with indefatigable

animosity. The other Whig Lords of the Treasury, Delamere and Capel,

were scarcely less eager to drive the Lord Privy Seal from office; and

personal jealousy and antipathy impelled the Lord President to conspire

with his own accusers against his rival.

What foundation there may have been for the imputations thrown at this

time on Halifax cannot now be fully ascertained. His enemies, though

they interrogated numerous witnesses, and though they obtained William's

reluctant permission to inspect the minutes of the Privy Council, could

find no evidence which would support a definite charge, [420] But it was

undeniable that the Lord Privy Seal had acted as minister for Ireland,

and that Ireland was all but lost. It is unnecessary, and indeed

absurd, to suppose, as many Whigs supposed, that his administration

was unsuccessful because he did not wish it to be successful. The truth

seems to be that the difficulties of the situation were great, and that

he, with all his ingenuity and eloquence, was ill qualified to cope with

those difficulties. The whole machinery of government was out of joint;

and he was not the man to set it right. What was wanted was not what he

had in large measure, wit, taste, amplitude of comprehension, subtlety

in drawing distinctions; but what he had not, prompt decision,

indefatigable energy, and stubborn resolution. His mind was at best

of too soft a temper for such work as he had now to do, and had been

recently made softer by severe affliction. He had lost two sons in less

than twelve months. A letter is still extant, in which he at this time

complained to his honoured friend Lady Russell of the desolation of his

hearth and of the cruel ingratitude of the Whigs. We possess, also, the

answer, in which she gently exhorted him to seek for consolation where

she had found it under trials not less severe than his, [421]

The first attack on him was made in the Upper House. Some Whig Lords,

among whom the wayward and petulant First Lord of the Treasury was

conspicuous, proposed that the King should be requested to appoint a new

Speaker. The friends of Halifax moved and carried the previous question,

[422] About three weeks later his persecutors moved, in a Committee

of the whole House of Commons, a resolution which imputed to him

no particular crime either of omission or of commission, but simply

declared it to be advisable that he should be dismissed from the service

of the Crown. The debate was warm. Moderate politicians of both parties

were unwilling to put a stigma on a man, not indeed faultless, but

distinguished both by his abilities and by his amiable qualities. His

accusers saw that they could not carry their point, and tried to escape

from a decision which was certain to be adverse to them, by proposing

that the Chairman should report progress. But their tactics were

disconcerted by the judicious and spirited conduct of Lord Eland, now

the Marquess's only son. "My father has not deserved," said the young

nobleman, "to be thus trifled with. If you think him culpable, say so.

He will at once submit to your verdict. Dismission from Court has

no terrors for him. He is raised, by the goodness of God, above the

necessity of looking to office for the means of supporting his rank."

The Committee divided, and Halifax was absolved by a majority of

fourteen, [423]

Had the division been postponed a few hours, the majority would probably

have been much greater. The Commons voted under the impression that

Londonderry had fallen, and that all Ireland was lost. Scarcely had the

House risen when a courier arrived with news that the boom on the Foyle

had been broken. He was speedily followed by a second, who announced

the raising of the siege, and by a third who brought the tidings of the

battle of Newton Butler. Hope and exultation succeeded to discontent

and dismay, [424] Ulster was safe; and it was confidently expected that

Schomberg would speedily reconquer Leinster, Connaught, and Munster. He

was now ready to set out. The port of Chester was the place from which

he was to take his departure. The army which he was to command had

assembled there; and the Dee was crowded with men of war and transports.

Unfortunately almost all those English soldiers who had seen war had

been sent to Flanders. The bulk of the force destined for Ireland

consisted of men just taken from the plough and the threshing floor.

There was, however, an excellent brigade of Dutch troops under the

command of an experienced officer, the Count of Solmes. Four regiments,

one of cavalry and three of infantry, had been formed out of the French

refugees, many of whom had borne arms with credit. No person did more to

promote the raising of these regiments than the Marquess of Ruvigny. He

had been during many years an eminently faithful and useful servant of

the French government. So highly was his merit appreciated at Versailles

that he had been solicited to accept indulgences which scarcely any

other heretic could by any solicitation obtain. Had he chosen to remain

in his native country, he and his household would have been permitted to

worship God privately according to their own forms. But Ruvigny rejected

all offers, cast in his lot with his brethren, and, at upwards of eighty

years of age, quitted Versailles, where he might still have been a

favourite, for a modest dwelling at Greenwich. That dwelling was,

during the last months of his life, the resort of all that was most

distinguished among his fellow exiles. His abilities, his experience and

his munificent kindness, made him the undisputed chief of the refugees.

He was at the same time half an Englishman: for his sister had been

Countess of Southampton, and he was uncle of Lady Russell. He was long

past the time of action. But his two sons, both men of eminent courage,

devoted their swords to the service of William. The younger son,

who bore the name of Caillemote, was appointed colonel of one of

the Huguenot regiments of foot. The two other regiments of foot were

commanded by La Melloniere and Cambon, officers of high reputation. The

regiment of horse was raised by Schomberg himself, and bore his name.

Ruvigny lived just long enough to see these arrangements complete, [425]

The general to whom the direction of the expedition against Ireland was

confided had wonderfully succeeded in obtaining the affection and esteem

of the English nation. He had been made a Duke, a Knight of the Garter,

and Master of the Ordnance: he was now placed at the head of an army:

and yet his elevation excited none of that jealousy which showed itself

as often as any mark of royal favour was bestowed on Bentinck,

on Zulestein, or on Auverquerque. Schomberg's military skill was

universally acknowledged. He was regarded by all Protestants as a

confessor who had endured every thing short of martyrdom for the truth.

For his religion he had resigned a splendid income, had laid down the

truncheon of a Marshal of France, and had, at near eighty years of

age, begun the world again as a needy soldier of fortune. As he had

no connection with the United Provinces, and had never belonged to the

little Court of the Hague, the preference given to him over English

captains was justly ascribed, not to national or personal partiality,

but to his virtues and his abilities. His deportment differed widely

from that of the other foreigners who had just been created English

peers. They, with many respectable qualities, were, in tastes, manners,

and predilections, Dutchmen, and could not catch the tone of the society

to which they had been transferred. He was a citizen of the world, had

travelled over all Europe, had commanded armies on the Meuse, on the

Ebro, and on the Tagus, had shone in the splendid circle of Versailles,

and had been in high favour at the court of Berlin. He had often been

taken by French noblemen for a French nobleman. He had passed some time

in England, spoke English remarkably well, accommodated himself easily

to English manners, and was often seen walking in the park with English

companions. In youth his habits had been temperate; and his temperance

had its proper reward, a singularly green and vigorous old age. At

fourscore he retained a strong relish for innocent pleasures: he

conversed with great courtesy and sprightliness: nothing could be in

better taste than his equipages and his table; and every cornet of

cavalry envied the grace and dignity with which the veteran appeared in

Hyde Park on his charger at the head of his regiment, [426] The House

of Commons had, with general approbation, compensated his losses and

rewarded his services by a grant of a hundred thousand pounds. Before

he set out for Ireland, he requested permission to express his gratitude

for this magnificent present. A chair was set for him within the bar. He

took his seat there with the mace at his right hand, rose, and in a

few graceful words returned his thanks and took his leave. The Speaker

replied that the Commons could never forget the obligation under which

they already lay to His Grace, that they saw him with pleasure at the

head of an English army, that they felt entire confidence in his zeal

and ability, and that, at whatever distance he might be, he would always

be in a peculiar manner an object of their care. The precedent set on

this interesting occasion was followed with the utmost minuteness, a

hundred and twenty-five years later, on an occasion more interesting

still. Exactly on the same spot on which, in July 1689, Schomberg had

acknowledged the liberality of the nation, a chair was set, in July

1814, for a still more illustrious warrior, who came to return

thanks for a still more splendid mark of public gratitude. Few things

illustrate more strikingly the peculiar character of the English

government and people than the circumstance that the House of Commons,

a popular assembly, should, even in a moment of joyous enthusiasm, have

adhered to ancient forms with the punctilious accuracy of a College of

Heralds; that the sitting and rising, the covering and the uncovering,

should have been regulated by exactly the same etiquette in the

nineteenth century as in the seventeenth; and that the same mace which

had been held at the right hand of Schomberg should have been held in

the same position at the right hand of Wellington, [427]

On the twentieth of August the Parliament, having been constantly

engaged in business during seven months, broke up, by the royal command,

for a short recess. The same Gazette which announced that the Houses had

ceased to sit announced that Schomberg had landed in Ireland, [428]

During the three weeks which preceded his landing, the dismay and

confusion at Dublin Castle had been extreme. Disaster had followed

disaster so fast that the mind of James, never very firm, had been

completely prostrated. He had learned first that Londonderry had

been relieved; then that one of his armies had been beaten by the

Enniskilleners; then that another of his armies was retreating, or

rather flying, from Ulster, reduced in numbers and broken in spirit;

then that Sligo, the key of Connaught, had been abandoned to the

Englishry. He had found it impossible to subdue the colonists, even when

they were left almost unaided. He might therefore well doubt whether it

would be possible for him to contend against them when they were backed

by an English army, under the command of the greatest general living.

The unhappy prince seemed, during some days, to be sunk in despondency.

On Avaux the danger produced a very different effect. Now, he thought,

was the time to turn the war between the English and the Irish into a

war of extirpation, and to make it impossible that the two nations could

ever be united under one government. With this view, he coolly submitted

to the King a proposition of almost incredible atrocity. There must be

a Saint Bartholomew. A pretext would easily be found. No doubt, when

Schomberg was known to be in Ireland, there would be some excitement in

those southern towns of which the population was chiefly English. Any

disturbance, wherever it might take place, would furnish an excuse for a

general massacre of the Protestants of Leinster, Munster, and

Connaught, [429] As the King did not at first express any horror at this

suggestion, [430] the Envoy, a few days later, renewed the subject, and

pressed His Majesty to give the necessary orders. Then James, with a

warmth which did him honour, declared that nothing should induce him to

commit such a crime. "These people are my subjects; and I cannot be

so cruel as to cut their throats while they live peaceably under my

government." "There is nothing cruel," answered the callous diplomatist,

"in what I recommend. Your Majesty ought to consider that mercy to

Protestants is cruelty to Catholics." James, however, was not to be

moved; and Avaux retired in very bad humour. His belief was that the

King's professions of humanity were hypocritical, and that, if the

orders for the butchery were not given, they were not given only because

His Majesty was confident that the Catholics all over the country would

fall on the Protestants without waiting for orders, [431] But Avaux

was entirely mistaken. That he should have supposed James to be as

profoundly immoral as himself is not strange. But it is strange that

so able a man should have forgotten that James and himself had quite

different objects in view. The object of the Ambassador's politics was

to make the separation between England and Ireland eternal. The object

of the King's politics was to unite England and Ireland under his

own sceptre; and he could not but be aware that, if there should be a

general massacre of the Protestants of three provinces, and he should

be suspected of having authorised it or of having connived at it, there

would in a fortnight be not a Jacobite left even at Oxford, [432]

Just at this time the prospects of James, which had seemed hopelessly

dark, began to brighten. The danger which had unnerved him had roused

the Irish people. They had, six months before, risen up as one man

against the Saxons. The army which Tyrconnel had formed was, in

proportion to the population from which it was taken, the largest that

Europe had ever seen. But that army had sustained a long succession of

defeats and disgraces, unredeemed by a single brilliant achievement. It

was the fashion, both in England and on the Continent, to ascribe those

defeats and disgraces to the pusillanimity of the Irish race, [433] That

this was a great error is sufficiently proved by the history of every

war which has been carried on in any part of Christendom during five

generations. The raw material out of which a good army may be formed

existed in great abundance among the Irish. Avaux informed his

government that they were a remarkably handsome, tall, and well made

race; that they were personally brave; that they were sincerely attached

to the cause for which they were in arms; that they were violently

exasperated against the colonists. After extolling their strength and

spirit, he proceeded to explain why it was that, with all their strength

and spirit, they were constantly beaten. It was vain, he said, to

imagine that bodily prowess, animal courage, or patriotic enthusiasm

would, in the day of battle, supply the place of discipline. The

infantry were ill armed and ill trained. They were suffered to pillage

wherever they went. They had contracted all the habits of banditti.

There was among them scarcely one officer capable of showing them their

duty. Their colonels were generally men of good family, but men who had

never seen service. The captains were butchers, tailors, shoemakers.

Hardly one of them troubled himself about the comforts, the

accoutrements, or the drilling of those over whom he was placed. The

dragoons were little better than the infantry. But the horse were, with

some exceptions, excellent. Almost all the Irish gentlemen who had

any military experience held commissions in the cavalry; and, by

the exertions of these officers, some regiments had been raised and

disciplined which Avaux pronounced equal to any that he had ever seen.

It was therefore evident that the inefficiency of the foot and of the

dragoons was to be ascribed to the vices, not of the Irish character,

but of the Irish administration, [434]

The events which took place in the autumn of 1689 sufficiently proved

that the ill fated race, which enemies and allies generally agreed

in regarding with unjust contempt, had, together with the faults

inseparable from poverty, ignorance, and superstition, some fine

qualities which have not always been found in more prosperous and more

enlightened communities. The evil tidings which terrified and bewildered

James stirred the whole population of the southern provinces like the

peal of a trumpet sounding to battle. That Ulster was lost, that the

English were coming, that the death grapple between the two hostile

nations was at hand, was proclaimed from all the altars of three and

twenty counties. One last chance was left; and, if that chance failed,

nothing remained but the despotic, the merciless, rule of the Saxon

colony and of the heretical church. The Roman Catholic priest who had

just taken possession of the glebe house and the chancel, the Roman

Catholic squire who had just been carried back on the shoulders of the

shouting tenantry into the hall of his fathers, would be driven forth to

live on such alms as peasants, themselves oppressed and miserable,

could spare. A new confiscation would complete the work of the Act

of Settlement; and the followers of William would seize whatever the

followers of Cromwell had spared. These apprehensions produced such an

outbreak of patriotic and religious enthusiasm as deferred for a time

the inevitable day of subjugation. Avaux was amazed by the energy which,

in circumstances so trying, the Irish displayed. It was indeed the wild

and unsteady energy of a half barbarous people: it was transient: it

was often misdirected: but, though transient and misdirected, it did

wonders. The French Ambassador was forced to own that those officers

of whose incompetency and inactivity he had so often complained had

suddenly shaken off their lethargy. Recruits came in by thousands. The

ranks which had been thinned under the walls of Londonderry were soon

again full to overflowing. Great efforts were made to arm and clothe the

troops; and, in the short space of a fortnight, every thing presented a

new and cheering aspect, [435]

The Irish required of the King, in return for their strenuous exertions

in his cause, one concession which was by no means agreeable to him. The

unpopularity of Melfort had become such, that his person was scarcely

safe. He had no friend to speak a word in his favour. The French hated

him. In every letter which arrived at Dublin from England or from

Scotland, he was described as the evil genius of the House of Stuart. It

was necessary for his own sake to dismiss him. An honourable pretext was

found. He was ordered to repair to Versailles, to represent there the

state of affairs in Ireland, and to implore the French government to

send over without delay six or seven thousand veteran infantry. He laid

down the seals; and they were, to the great delight of the Irish, put

into the hands of an Irishman, Sir Richard Nagle, who had made himself

conspicuous as Attorney General and Speaker of the House of Commons.

Melfort took his departure under cover of the night: for the rage of

the populace against him was such that he could not without danger show

himself in the streets of Dublin by day. On the following morning James

left his capital in the opposite direction to encounter Schomberg, [436]

Schomberg had landed in Antrim. The force which he had brought with him

did not exceed ten thousand men. But he expected to be joined by the

armed colonists and by the regiments which were under Kirke's command.

The coffeehouse politicians of London fully expected that such a general

with such an army would speedily reconquer the island. Unhappily it soon

appeared that the means which had been furnished to him were altogether

inadequate to the work which he had to perform: of the greater part

of these means he was speedily deprived by a succession of unforeseen

calamities; and the whole campaign was merely a long struggle maintained

by his prudence and resolution against the utmost spite of fortune.

He marched first to Carrickfergus. That town was held for James by two

regiments of infantry. Schomberg battered the walls; and the Irish,

after holding out a week, capitulated. He promised that they should

depart unharmed; but he found it no easy matter to keep his word. The

people of the town and neighbourhood were generally Protestants of

Scottish extraction. They had suffered much during the short ascendency

of the native race; and what they had suffered they were now eager

to retaliate. They assembled in great multitudes, exclaiming that the

capitulation was nothing to them, and that they would be revenged. They

soon proceeded from words to blows. The Irish, disarmed, stripped, and

hustled, clung for protection to the English officers and soldiers.

Schomberg with difficulty prevented a massacre by spurring, pistol in

hand, through the throng of the enraged colonists, [437]

From Carrickfergus Schomberg proceeded to Lisburn, and thence, through

towns left without an inhabitant, and over plains on which not a cow,

nor a sheep, nor a stack of corn was to be seen, to Loughbrickland. Here

he was joined by three regiments of Enniskilleners, whose dress, horses,

and arms locked strange to eyes accustomed to the pomp of reviews, but

who in natural courage were inferior to no troops in the world, and who

had, during months of constant watching and skirmishing, acquired many

of the essential qualities of soldiers. [438]

Schomberg continued to advance towards Dublin through a desert. The few

Irish troops which remained in the south of Ulster retreated before

him, destroying as they retreated. Newry, once a well built and thriving

Protestant borough, he found a heap of smoking ashes. Carlingford too

had perished. The spot where the town had once stood was marked only by

the massy remains of the old Norman castle. Those who ventured to wander

from the camp reported that the country, as far as they could explore

it, was a wilderness. There were cabins, but no inmates: there was rich

pasture, but neither flock nor herd: there were cornfields; but the

harvest lay on the ground soaked with rain, [439]

While Schomberg was advancing through a vast solitude, the Irish forces

were rapidly assembling from every quarter. On the tenth of September

the royal standard of James was unfurled on the tower of Drogheda;

and beneath it were soon collected twenty thousand fighting men, the

infantry generally bad, the cavalry generally good, but both infantry

and cavalry full of zeal for their country and their religion, [440] The

troops were attended as usual by a great multitude of camp followers,

armed with scythes, half pikes, and skeans. By this time Schomberg had

reached Dundalk. The distance between the two armies was not more than

a long day's march. It was therefore generally expected that the fate of

the island would speedily be decided by a pitched battle.

In both camps, all who did not understand war were eager to fight; and,

in both camps; the few who head a high reputation for military science

were against fighting. Neither Rosen nor Schomberg wished to put every

thing on a cast. Each of them knew intimately the defects of his own

army, and neither of them was fully aware of the defects of the other's

army. Rosen was certain that the Irish infantry were "worse equipped,

worse officered, and worse drilled," than any infantry that he had ever

seen from the Gulf of Bothnia to the Atlantic; and he supposed that the

English troops were well trained, and were, as they doubtless ought

to have been, amply provided with every thing necessary to their

efficiency. Numbers, he rightly judged, would avail little against a

great superiority of arms and discipline. He therefore advised James to

fall back, and even to abandon Dublin to the enemy, rather than hazard a

battle the loss of which would be the loss of all. Athlone was the best

place in the kingdom for a determined stand. The passage of the Shannon

might be defended till the succours which Melfort had been charged to

solicit came from France; and those succours would change the whole

character of the war. But the Irish, with Tyrconnel at their head, were

unanimous against retreating. The blood of the whole nation was up.

James was pleased with the enthusiasm of his subjects, and positively

declared that he would not disgrace himself by leaving his capital to

the invaders without a blow, [441]

In a few days it became clear that Schomberg had determined not to

fight. His reasons were weighty. He had some good Dutch and French

troops. The Enniskilleners who had joined him had served a military

apprenticeship, though not in a very regular manner. But the bulk of his

army consisted of English peasants who had just left their cottages. His

musketeers had still to learn how to load their pieces: his dragoons

had still to learn how to manage their horses; and these inexperienced

recruits were for the most part commanded by officers as inexperienced

as themselves. His troops were therefore not generally superior in

discipline to the Irish, and were in number far inferior. Nay, he found

that his men were almost as ill armed, as ill lodged, as ill clad, as

the Celts to whom they were opposed. The wealth of the English nation

and the liberal votes of the English parliament had entitled him to

expect that he should be abundantly supplied with all the munitions of

war. But he was cruelly disappointed. The administration had, ever since

the death of Oliver, been constantly becoming more and more imbecile,

more and more corrupt; and now the Revolution reaped what the

Restoration had sown. A crowd of negligent or ravenous functionaries,

formed under Charles and James, plundered, starved, and poisoned the

armies and fleets of William. Of these men the most important was Henry

Shales, who, in the late reign, had been Commissary General to the camp

at Hounslow. It is difficult to blame the new government for continuing

to employ him: for, in his own department, his experience far surpassed

that of any other Englishman. Unfortunately, in the same school in

which he had acquired his experience, he had learned the whole art of

peculation. The beef and brandy which he furnished were so bad that

the soldiers turned from them with loathing: the tents were rotten: the

clothing was scanty: the muskets broke in the handling. Great numbers

of shoes were set down to the account of the government: but, two months

after the Treasury had paid the bill, the shoes had not arrived in

Ireland. The means of transporting baggage and artillery were almost

entirely wanting. An ample number of horses had been purchased in

England with the public money, and had been sent to the banks of the

Dee. But Shales had let them out for harvest work to the farmers of

Cheshire, had pocketed the hire, and had left the troops in Ulster to

get on as they best might, [442] Schomberg thought that, if he should,

with an ill trained and ill appointed army, risk a battle against a

superior force, he might not improbably be defeated; and he knew that a

defeat might be followed by the loss of one kingdom, perhaps by the

loss of three kingdoms. He therefore made up his mind to stand on the

defensive till his men had been disciplined, and till reinforcements and

supplies should arrive.

He entrenched himself near Dundalk in such a manner that he could not

be forced to fight against his will. James, emboldened by the caution of

his adversary, and disregarding the advice of Rosen, advanced to Ardee,

appeared at the head of the whole Irish army before the English lines,

drew up horse, foot and artillery, in order of battle, and displayed

his banner. The English were impatient to fall on. But their general had

made up his mind, and was not to be moved by the bravadoes of the enemy

or by the murmurs of his own soldiers. During some weeks he remained

secure within his defences, while the Irish lay a few miles off. He set

himself assiduously to drill those new levies which formed the greater

part of his army. He ordered the musketeers to be constantly exercised

in firing, sometimes at marks and sometimes by platoons; and, from the

way in which they at first acquitted themselves, it plainly appeared

that he had judged wisely in not leading them out to battle. It was

found that not one in four of the English soldiers could manage his

piece at all; and whoever succeeded in discharging it, no matter in what

direction, thought that he had performed a great feat.

While the Duke was thus employed, the Irish eyed his camp without daring

to attack it. But within that camp soon appeared two evils more terrible

than the foe, treason and pestilence. Among the best troops under his

command were the French exiles. And now a grave doubt arose touching

their fidelity. The real Huguenot refugee indeed might safely be

trusted. The dislike with which the most zealous English Protestant

regarded the House of Bourbon and the Church of Rome was a lukewarm

feeling when compared with that inextinguishable hatred which glowed

in the bosom of the persecuted, dragooned, expatriated Calvinist of

Languedoc. The Irish had already remarked that the French heretic

neither gave nor took quarter, [443] Now, however, it was found that

with those emigrants who had sacrificed every thing for the reformed

religion were intermingled emigrants of a very different sort, deserters

who had run away from their standards in the Low Countries, and had

coloured their crime by pretending that they were Protestants, and that

their conscience would not suffer them to fight for the persecutor of

their Church. Some of these men, hoping that by a second treason they

might obtain both pardon and reward, opened a correspondence with Avaux.

The letters were intercepted; and a formidable plot was brought to

light. It appeared that, if Schomberg had been weak enough to yield to

the importunity of those who wished him to give battle, several French

companies would, in the heat of the action, have fired on the English,

and gone over to the enemy. Such a defection might well have produced

a general panic in a better army than that which was encamped under

Dundalk. It was necessary to be severe. Six of the conspirators were

hanged. Two hundred of their accomplices were sent in irons to England.

Even after this winnowing, the refugees were long regarded by the rest

of the army with unjust but not unnatural suspicion. During some

days indeed there was great reason to fear that the enemy would be

entertained with a bloody fight between the English soldiers and their

French allies, [444]

A few hours before the execution of the chief conspirators, a general

muster of the army was held; and it was observed that the ranks of the

English battalions looked thin. From the first day of the campaign,

there had been much sickness among the recruits: but it was not till

the time of the equinox that the mortality became alarming. The autumnal

rains of Ireland are usually heavy; and this year they were heavier

than usual. The whole country was deluged; and the Duke's camp became a

marsh. The Enniskillen men were seasoned to the climate. The Dutch were

accustomed to live in a country which, as a wit of that age said, draws

fifty feet of water. They kept their huts dry and clean; and they had

experienced and careful officers who did not suffer them to omit any

precaution. But the peasants of Yorkshire and Derbyshire had neither

constitutions prepared to resist the pernicious influence, nor skill

to protect themselves against it. The bad provisions furnished by the

Commissariat aggravated the maladies generated by the air. Remedies

were almost entirely wanting. The surgeons were few. The medicine chests

contained little more than lint and plaisters for wounds. The English

sickened and died by hundreds. Even those who were not smitten by the

pestilence were unnerved and dejected, and, instead of putting forth the

energy which is the heritage of our race, awaited their fate with the

helpless apathy of Asiatics. It was in vain that Schomberg tried to

teach them to improve their habitations, and to cover the wet earth on

which they lay with a thick carpet of fern. Exertion had become more

dreadful to them than death. It was not to be expected that men who

would not help themselves should help each other. Nobody asked and

nobody showed compassion. Familiarity with ghastly spectacles produced

a hardheartedness and a desperate impiety, of which an example will not

easily be found even in the history of infectious diseases. The moans of

the sick were drowned by the blasphemy and ribaldry of their comrades.

Sometimes, seated on the body of a wretch who had died in the morning,

might be seen a wretch destined to die before night, cursing, singing

loose songs, and swallowing usquebaugh to the health of the devil. When

the corpses were taken away to be buried the survivors grumbled. A dead

man, they said, was a good screen and a good stool. Why, when there was

so abundant a supply of such useful articles of furniture, were

people to be exposed to the cold air and forced to crouch on the moist

ground? [445]

Many of the sick were sent by the English vessels which lay off the

coast to Belfast, where a great hospital had been prepared. But scarce

half of them lived to the end of the voyage. More than one ship lay

long in the bay of Carrickfergus heaped with carcasses, and exhaling the

stench of death, without a living man on board, [446]

The Irish army suffered much less. The kerne of Munster or Connaught

was dune as well off in the camp as if he had been in his own mud cabin

inhaling the vapours of his own quagmire. He naturally exulted in the

distress of the Saxon heretics, and flattered himself that they would be

destroyed without a blow. He heard with delight the guns pealing all

day over the graves of the English officers, till at length the funerals

became too numerous to be celebrated with military pomp, and the

mournful sounds were succeeded by a silence more mournful still.

The superiority of force was now so decidedly on the side of James that

he could safely venture to detach five regiments from his army, and to

send them into Connaught. Sarsfield commanded them. He did not, indeed,

stand so high as he deserved in the royal estimation. The King, with

an air of intellectual superiority which must have made Avaux and

Rosen bite their lips, pronounced him a brave fellow, but very scantily

supplied with brains. It was not without great difficulty that the

Ambassador prevailed on His Majesty to raise the best officer in the

Irish army to the rank of Brigadier. Sarsfield now fully vindicated

the favourable opinion which his French patrons had formed of him. He

dislodged the English from Sligo; and he effectually secured Galway,

which had been in considerable danger, [447]

No attack, however, was made on the English entrenchments before

Dundalk. In the midst of difficulties and disasters hourly multiplying,

the great qualities of Schomberg appeared hourly more and more

conspicuous. Not in the full tide of success, not on the field of Montes

Claros, not under the walls of Maestricht, had he so well deserved the

admiration of mankind. His resolution never gave way. His prudence never

slept. His temper, in spite of manifold vexations and provocations, was

always cheerful and serene. The effective men under his command, even

if all were reckoned as effective who were not stretched on the earth

by fever, did not now exceed five thousand. These were hardly equal to

their ordinary duty; and yet it was necessary to harass them with double

duty. Nevertheless so masterly were the old man's dispositions that with

this small force he faced during several weeks twenty thousand troops

who were accompanied by a multitude of armed banditti. At length early

in November the Irish dispersed, and went to winter quarters. The Duke

then broke up his camp and retired into Ulster. Just as the remains

of his army were about to move, a rumour spread that the enemy was

approaching in great force. Had this rumour been true, the danger would

have been extreme. But the English regiments, though they had been

reduced to a third part of their complement, and though the men who were

in best health were hardly able to shoulder arms, showed a strange

joy and alacrity at the prospect of battle, and swore that the Papists

should pay for all the misery of the last month. "We English," Schomberg

said, identifying himself good humouredly with the people of the country

which had adopted him, "we English have stomach enough for fighting.

It is a pity that we are not as fond of some other parts of a soldier's

business."

The alarm proved false: the Duke's army departed unmolested: but

the highway along which he retired presented a piteous and hideous

spectacle. A long train of waggons laden with the sick jolted over the

rugged pavement. At every jolt some wretched man gave up the ghost. The

corpse was flung out and left unburied to the foxes and crows. The whole

number of those who died, in the camp at Dundalk, in the hospital at

Belfast, on the road, and on the sea, amounted to above six thousand.

The survivors were quartered for the winter in the towns and villages of

Ulster. The general fixed his head quarters at Lisburn, [448]

His conduct was variously judged. Wise and candid men said that he had

surpassed himself, and that there was no other captain in Europe who,

with raw troops, with ignorant officers, with scanty stores, having

to contend at once against a hostile army of greatly superior force,

against a villanous commissariat, against a nest of traitors in his own

camp, and against a disease more murderous than the sword, would have

brought the campaign to a close without the loss of a flag or a gun. On

the other hand, many of those newly commissioned majors and captains,

whose helplessness had increased all his perplexities, and who had not

one qualification for their posts except personal courage, grumbled

at the skill and patience which had saved them from destruction. Their

complaints were echoed on the other side of Saint George's Channel. Some

of the murmuring, though unjust, was excusable. The parents, who had

sent a gallant lad, in his first uniform, to fight his way to glory,

might be pardoned if, when they learned that he had died on a wisp of

straw without medical attendance, and had been buried in a swamp without

any Christian or military ceremony, their affliction made them hasty and

unreasonable. But with the cry of bereaved families was mingled another

cry much less respectable. All the hearers and tellers of news abused

the general who furnished them with so little news to hear and to tell.

For men of that sort are so greedy after excitement that they far more

readily forgive a commander who loses a battle than a commander who

declines one. The politicians, who delivered their oracles from the

thickest cloud of tobacco smoke at Garroway's, confidently asked,

without knowing any thing, either of war in general, or of Irish war in

particular, why Schomberg did not fight. They could not venture to

say that he did not understand his calling. No doubt he had been an

excellent officer: but he was very old. He seemed to bear his years

well: but his faculties were not what they had been: his memory was

failing; and it was well known that he sometimes forgot in the afternoon

what he had done in the morning. It may be doubted whether there ever

existed a human being whose mind was quite as firmly toned at eighty

as at forty. But that Schomberg's intellectual powers had been little

impaired by years is sufficiently proved by his despatches, which

are still extant, and which are models of official writing, terse,

perspicuous, full of important facts and weighty reasons, compressed

into the smallest possible number of words. In those despatches he

sometimes alluded, not angrily, but with calm disdain, to the censures

thrown upon his conduct by shallow babblers, who, never having seen any

military operation more important than the relieving of the guard at

Whitehall, imagined that the easiest thing in the world was to gain

great victories in any situation and against any odds, and by sturdy

patriots who were convinced that one English tarter or thresher, who had

not yet learned how to load a gun or port a pike, was a match for any

five musketeers of King Lewis's household, [449]

Unsatisfactory as had been the results of the campaign in Ireland, the

results of the maritime operations of the year were more unsatisfactory

still. It had been confidently expected that, on the sea, England,

allied with Holland, would have been far more than a match for the power

of Lewis: but everything went wrong. Herbert had, after the unimportant

skirmish of Bantry Bay, returned with his squadron to Portsmouth. There

he found that he had not lost the good opinion either of the public or

of the government. The House of Commons thanked him for his services;

and he received signal marks of the favour of the Crown. He had not been

at the coronation, and had therefore missed his share of the rewards

which, at the time of that solemnity, had been distributed among the

chief agents in the Revolution. The omission was now repaired; and he

was created Earl of Torrington. The King went down to Portsmouth, dined

on board of the Admiral's flag ship, expressed the fullest confidence

in the valour and loyalty of the navy, knighted two gallant captains,

Cloudesley Shovel and John Ashby, and ordered a donative to be divided

among the seamen, [450]

We cannot justly blame William for having a high opinion of Torrington.

For Torrington was generally regarded as one of the bravest and most

skilful officers in the navy. He had been promoted to the rank of Rear

Admiral of England by James, who, if he understood any thing, understood

maritime affairs. That place and other lucrative places Torrington had

relinquished when he found that he could retain them only by submitting

to be a tool of the Jesuitical cabal. No man had taken a more active,

a more hazardous, or a more useful part in effecting the Revolution. It

seemed, therefore, that no man had fairer pretensions to be put at the

head of the naval administration. Yet no man could be more unfit for

such a post. His morals had always been loose, so loose indeed that the

firmness with which in the late reign he had adhered to his religion

had excited much surprise. His glorious disgrace indeed seemed to have

produced a salutary effect on his character. In poverty and exile he

rose from a voluptuary into a hero. But, as soon as prosperity returned,

the hero sank again into a voluptuary; and the lapse was deep and

hopeless. The nerves of his mind, which had been during a short time

braced to a firm tone, were now so much relaxed by vice that he was

utterly incapable of selfdenial or of strenuous exertion. The vulgar

courage of a foremast man he still retained. But both as Admiral and

as First Lord of the Admiralty he was utterly inefficient. Month after

month the fleet which should have been the terror of the seas lay in

harbour while he was diverting himself in London. The sailors, punning

upon his new title, gave him the name of Lord Tarry-in-town. When he

came on shipboard he was accompanied by a bevy of courtesans. There was

scarcely an hour of the day or of the night when he was not under the

influence of claret. Being insatiable of pleasure, he necessarily became

insatiable of wealth. Yet he loved flattery almost as much as either

wealth or pleasure. He had long been in the habit of exacting the most

abject homage from those who were under his command. His flagship was a

little Versailles. He expected his captains to attend him to his cabin

when he went to bed, and to assemble every morning at his levee. He even

suffered them to dress him. One of them combed his flowing wig; another

stood ready with the embroidered coat. Under such a chief there could be

no discipline. His tars passed their time in rioting among the rabble of

Portsmouth. Those officers who won his favour by servility and adulation

easily obtained leave of absence, and spent weeks in London, revelling

in taverns, scouring the streets, or making love to the masked ladies

in the pit of the theatre. The victuallers soon found out with whom they

had to deal, and sent down to the fleet casks of meat which dogs would

not touch, and barrels of beer which smelt worse than bilge water.

Meanwhile the British Channel seemed to be abandoned to French rovers.

Our merchantmen were boarded in sight of the ramparts of Plymouth. The

sugar fleet from the West Indies lost seven ships. The whole value

of the prizes taken by the cruisers of the enemy in the immediate

neighbourhood of our island, while Torrington was engaged with his

bottle and his harem, was estimated at six hundred thousand pounds. So

difficult was it to obtain the convoy of a man of war, except by giving

immense bribes, that our traders were forced to hire the services of

Dutch privateers, and found these foreign mercenaries much more useful

and much less greedy than the officers of our own royal navy, [451]

The only department with which no fault could be found was the

department of Foreign Affairs. There William was his own minister; and,

where he was his own minister, there were no delays, no blunders, no

jobs, no treasons. The difficulties with which he had to contend were

indeed great. Even at the Hague he had to encounter an opposition

which all his wisdom and firmness could, with the strenuous support of

Heinsius, scarcely overcome. The English were not aware that, while

they were murmuring at their Sovereign's partiality for the land of his

birth, a strong party in Holland was murmuring at his partiality for the

land of his adoption. The Dutch ambassadors at Westminster complained

that the terms of alliance which he proposed were derogatory to the

dignity and prejudicial to the interests of the republic; that wherever

the honour of the English flag was concerned, he was punctilious and

obstinate; that he peremptorily insisted on an article which interdicted

all trade with France, and which could not but be grievously felt on

the Exchange of Amsterdam; that, when they expressed a hope that the

Navigation Act would be repealed, he burst out a laughing, and told them

that the thing was not to be thought of. He carried all his points; and

a solemn contract was made by which England and the Batavian federation

bound themselves to stand firmly by each other against France, and

not to make peace except by mutual consent. But one of the Dutch

plenipotentiaries declared that he was afraid of being one day held

up to obloquy as a traitor for conceding so much; and the signature

of another plainly appeared to have been traced by a hand shaking with

emotion, [452]

Meanwhile under William's skilful management a treaty of alliance had

been concluded between the States General and the Emperor. To that

treaty Spain and England gave in their adhesion; and thus the four great

powers which had long been bound together by a friendly understanding

were bound together by a formal contract, [453]