CHAPTER XV

The Parliament meets; Retirement of Halifax--Supplies voted--The Bill

of Rights passed--Inquiry into Naval Abuses--Inquiry into the Conduct of

the Irish War--Reception of Walker in England--Edmund Ludlow--Violence

of the Whigs--Impeachments--Committee of Murder--Malevolence of John

Hampden--The Corporation Bill--Debates on the Indemnity Bill--Case of

Sir Robert Sawyer--The King purposes to retire to Holland--He is induced

to change his Intention; the Whigs oppose his going to Ireland--He

prorogues the Parliament--Joy of the Tories--Dissolution and General

Election--Changes in the Executive Departments--Caermarthen Chief

Minister--Sir John Lowther--Rise and Progress of Parliamentary

Corruption in England--Sir John Trevor--Godolphin retires; Changes at

the Admiralty--Changes in the Commissions of Lieutenancy--Temper of

the Whigs; Dealings of some Whigs with Saint Germains; Shrewsbury;

Ferguson--Hopes of the Jacobites--Meeting of the new Parliament;

Settlement of the Revenue--Provision for the Princess of Denmark--Bill

declaring the Acts of the preceding Parliament valid--Debate on the

Changes in the Lieutenancy of London--Abjuration Bill--Act of Grace--The

Parliament prorogued; Preparations for the first War--Administration of

James at Dublin--An auxiliary Force sent from France to Ireland--Plan

of the English Jacobites; Clarendon, Aylesbury,

Dartmouth--Penn--Preston--The Jacobites betrayed by Fuller--Crone

arrested--Difficulties of William--Conduct of Shrewsbury--The Council of

Nine--Conduct of Clarendon--Penn held to Bail--Interview between William

and Burnet; William sets out for Ireland--Trial of Crone--Danger of

Invasion and Insurrection; Tourville's Fleet in the--Channel--Arrests

of suspected Persons--Torrington ordered to give Battle to

Tourville--Battle of Beachy Head--Alarm in London; Battle of

Fleurus--Spirit of the Nation--Conduct of Shrewsbury

WHILE the Convocation was wrangling on one side of Old Palace Yard, the

Parliament was wrangling even more fiercely on the other. The Houses,

which had separated on the twentieth of August, had met again on the

nineteenth of October. On the day of meeting an important change struck

every eye. Halifax was no longer on the woolsack. He had reason to

expect that the persecution, from which in the preceding session he had

narrowly escaped, would be renewed. The events which had taken place

during the recess, and especially the disasters of the campaign in

Ireland, had furnished his persecutors with fresh means of annoyance.

His administration had not been successful; and, though his failure was

partly to be ascribed to causes against which no human wisdom could have

contended, it was also partly to be ascribed to the peculiarities of his

temper and of his intellect. It was certain that a large party in the

Commons would attempt to remove him; and he could no longer depend

on the protection of his master. It was natural that a prince who was

emphatically a man of action should become weary of a minister who was a

man of speculation. Charles, who went to Council as he went to the play,

solely to be amused, was delighted with an adviser who had a hundred

pleasant and ingenious things to say on both sides of every question.

But William had no taste for disquisitions and disputations, however

lively and subtle, which occupied much time and led to no conclusion. It

was reported, and is not improbable, that on one occasion he could

not refrain from expressing in sharp terms at the council board his

impatience at what seemed to him a morbid habit of indecision, [517]

Halifax, mortified by his mischances in public life, dejected by

domestic calamities, disturbed by apprehensions of an impeachment, and

no longer supported by royal favour, became sick of public life,

and began to pine for the silence and solitude of his seat in

Nottinghamshire, an old Cistercian Abbey buried deep among woods. Early

in October it was known that he would no longer preside in the Upper

House. It was at the same time whispered as a great secret that he meant

to retire altogether from business, and that he retained the Privy Seal

only till a successor should be named. Chief Baron Atkyns was appointed

Speaker of the Lords, [518]

On some important points there appeared to be no difference of opinion

in the legislature. The Commons unanimously resolved that they would

stand by the King in the work of reconquering Ireland, and that they

would enable him to prosecute with vigour the war against France, [519]

With equal unanimity they voted an extraordinary supply of two millions,

[520] It was determined that the greater part of this sum should be

levied by an assessment on real property. The rest was to be raised

partly by a poll tax, and partly by new duties on tea, coffee and

chocolate. It was proposed that a hundred thousand pounds should be

exacted from the Jews; and this proposition was at first favourably

received by the House: but difficulties arose. The Jews presented a

petition in which they declared that they could not afford to pay such a

sum, and that they would rather leave the kingdom than stay there to

be ruined. Enlightened politicians could not but perceive that special

taxation, laid on a small class which happens to be rich, unpopular and

defenceless, is really confiscation, and must ultimately improverish

rather than enrich the State. After some discussion, the Jew tax was

abandoned, [521]

The Bill of Rights, which, in the last Session, had, after causing

much altercation between the Houses, been suffered to drop, was again

introduced, and was speedily passed. The peers no longer insisted that

any person should be designated by name as successor to the crown, if

Mary, Anne and William should all die without posterity. During eleven

years nothing more was heard of the claims of the House of Brunswick.

The Bill of Rights contained some provisions which deserve special

mention. The Convention had resolved that it was contrary to the

interest of the kingdom to be governed by a Papist, but had prescribed

no test which could ascertain whether a prince was or was not a Papist.

The defect was now supplied. It was enacted that every English sovereign

should, in full Parliament, and at the coronation, repeat and subscribe

the Declaration against Transubstantiation.

It was also enacted that no person who should marry a Papist should be

capable of reigning in England, and that, if the Sovereign should marry

a Papist, the subject should be absolved from allegiance. Burnet boasts

that this part of the Bill of Rights was his work. He had little reason

to boast: for a more wretched specimen of legislative workmanship will

not easily be found. In the first place, no test is prescribed. Whether

the consort of a Sovereign has taken the oath of supremacy, has signed

the declaration against transubstantiation, has communicated according

to the ritual of the Church of England, are very simple issues of

fact. But whether the consort of a Sovereign is or is not a Papist is

a question about which people may argue for ever. What is a Papist?

The word is not a word of definite signification either in law or in

theology. It is merely a popular nickname, and means very different

things in different mouths. Is every person a Papist who is willing to

concede to the Bishop of Rome a primacy among Christian prelates? If so,

James the First, Charles the First, Laud, Heylyn, were Papists, [522] Or

is the appellation to be confined to persons who hold the ultramontane

doctrines touching the authority of the Holy See? If so, neither Bossuet

nor Pascal was a Papist.

What again is the legal effect of the words which absolve the subject

from his allegiance? Is it meant that a person arraigned for high

treason may tender evidence to prove that the Sovereign has married

a Papist? Would Whistlewood, for example, have been entitled to an

acquittal, if he could have proved that King George the Fourth had

married Mrs. Fitzherbert, and that Mrs. Fitzherbert was a Papist? It

is not easy to believe that any tribunal would have gone into such a

question. Yet to what purpose is it to enact that, in a certain case,

the subject shall be absolved from his allegiance, if the tribunal

before which he is tried for a violation of his allegiance is not to go

into the question whether that case has arisen?

The question of the dispensing power was treated in a very different

manner, was fully considered, and was finally settled in the only way in

which it could be settled. The Declaration of Right had gone no further

than to pronounce that the dispensing power, as of late exercised, was

illegal. That a certain dispensing power belonged to the Crown was a

proposition sanctioned by authorities and precedents of which even Whig

lawyers could not speak without respect; but as to the precise extent

of this power hardly any two jurists were agreed; and every attempt

to frame a definition had failed. At length by the Bill of Rights the

anomalous prerogative which had caused so many fierce disputes was

absolutely and for ever taken away, [523]

In the House of Commons there was, as might have been expected, a series

of sharp debates on the misfortunes of the autumn. The negligence

or corruption of the Navy Board, the frauds of the contractors, the

rapacity of the captains of the King's ships, the losses of the London

merchants, were themes for many keen speeches. There was indeed reason

for anger. A severe inquiry, conducted by William in person at the

Treasury, had just elicited the fact that much of the salt with which

the meat furnished to the fleet had been cured had been by accident

mixed with galls such as are used for the purpose of making ink.

The victuallers threw the blame on the rats, and maintained that the

provisions thus seasoned, though certainly disagreeable to the palate,

were not injurious to health, [524] The Commons were in no temper

to listen to such excuses. Several persons who had been concerned

in cheating the government and poisoning the sailors were taken into

custody by the Serjeant, [525] But no censure was passed on the chief

offender, Torrington, nor does it appear that a single voice was raised

against him. He had personal friends in both parties. He had many

popular qualities. Even his vices were not those which excite public

hatred. The people readily forgave a courageous openhanded sailor for

being too fond of his bottle, his boon companions and his mistresses and

did not sufficiently consider how great must be the perils of a country

of which the safety depends on a man sunk in indolence, stupified by

wine, enervated by licentiousness, ruined by prodigality, and enslaved

by sycophants and harlots.

The sufferings of the army in Ireland called forth strong expressions

of sympathy and indignation. The Commons did justice to the firmness

and wisdom with which Schomberg had conducted the most arduous of all

campaigns. That he had not achieved more was attributed chiefly to the

villany of the Commissariat. The pestilence itself it was said, would

have been no serious calamity if it had not been aggravated by the

wickedness of man. The disease had generally spared those who had warm

garments and bedding, and had swept away by thousands those who were

thinly clad and who slept on the wet ground. Immense sums had been drawn

out of the Treasury: yet the pay of the troops was in arrear. Hundreds

of horses, tens of thousands of shoes, had been paid for by the public:

yet the baggage was left behind for want of beasts to draw it; and the

soldiers were marching barefoot through the mire. Seventeen hundred

pounds had been charged to the government for medicines: yet the common

drugs with which every apothecary in the smallest market town was

provided were not to be found in the plaguestricken camp. The cry

against Shales was loud. An address was carried to the throne,

requesting that he might be sent for to England, and that his accounts

and papers might be secured. With this request the King readily

complied; but the Whig majority was not satisfied. By whom had Shales

been recommended for so important a place as that of Commissary General?

He had been a favourite at Whitehall in the worst times. He had been

zealous for the Declaration of Indulgence. Why had this creature of

James been entrusted with the business of catering for the army of

William? It was proposed by some of those who were bent on driving all

Tories and Trimmers from office to ask His Majesty by whose advice a

man so undeserving of the royal confidence had been employed. The most

moderate and judicious Whigs pointed out the indecency and impolicy

of interrogating the King, and of forcing him either to accuse his

ministers or to quarrel with the representatives of his people. "Advise

His Majesty, if you will," said Somers, "to withdraw his confidence

from the counsellors who recommended this unfortunate appointment. Such

advice, given, as we should probably give it, unanimously, must have

great weight with him. But do not put to him a question such as no

private gentleman would willingly answer. Do not force him, in defence

of his own personal dignity, to protect the very men whom you wish him

to discard." After a hard fight of two days, and several divisions, the

address was carried by a hundred and ninety five votes to a hundred and

forty six, [526] The King, as might have been foreseen, coldly refused

to turn informer; and the House did not press him further, [527] To

another address, which requested that a Commission might be sent to

examine into the state of things in Ireland, William returned a very

gracious answer, and desired the Commons to name the Commissioners. The

Commons, not to be outdone in courtesy, excused themselves, and left it

to His Majesty's wisdom to select the fittest persons, [528]

In the midst of the angry debates on the Irish war a pleasing incident

produced for a moment goodhumour and unanimity. Walker had arrived in

London, and had been received there with boundless enthusiasm. His

face was in every print shop. Newsletters describing his person and his

demeanour were sent to every corner of the kingdom. Broadsides of

prose and verse written in his praise were cried in every street. The

Companies of London feasted him splendidly in their halls. The common

people crowded to gaze on him wherever he moved, and almost stifled him

with rough caresses. Both the Universities offered him the degree of

Doctor of Divinity. Some of his admirers advised him to present himself

at the palace in that military garb in which he had repeatedly headed

the sallies of his fellow townsmen. But, with a better judgment than

he sometimes showed, he made his appearance at Hampton Court in the

peaceful robe of his profession, was most graciously received, and was

presented with an order for five thousand pounds. "And do not think,

Doctor," William said, with great benignity, "that I offer you this sum

as payment for your services. I assure you that I consider your claims

on me as not at all diminished." [529]

It is true that amidst the general applause the voice of detraction made

itself heard. The defenders of Londonderry were men of two nations

and of two religions. During the siege, hatred of the Irishry had

held together all Saxons; and hatred of Popery had held together all

Protestants. But, when the danger was over, the Englishman and the

Scotchman, the Episcopalian and the Presbyterian, began to wrangle about

the distribution of praises and rewards. The dissenting preachers, who

had zealously assisted Walker in the hour of peril, complained that,

in the account which he published of the siege, he had, though

acknowledging that they had done good service, omitted to mention

their names. The complaint was just; and, had it been made in language

becoming Christians and gentlemen, would probably have produced a

considerable effect on the public mind. But Walker's accusers in their

resentment disregarded truth and decency, used scurrilous language,

brought calumnious accusations which were triumphantly refuted, and

thus threw away the advantage which they had possessed. Walker defended

himself with moderation and candour. His friends fought his battle with

vigour, and retaliated keenly on his assailants. At Edinburgh perhaps

the public opinion might have been against him. But in London the

controversy seems only to have raised his character. He was regarded

as an Anglican divine of eminent merit, who, after having heroically

defended his religion against an army of Popish Rapparees, was rabbled

by a mob of Scotch Covenanters, [530]

He presented to the Commons a petition setting forth the destitute

condition to which the widows and orphans of some brave men who had

fallen during the siege were now reduced. The Commons instantly passed

a vote of thanks to him, and resolved to present to the King an address

requesting that ten thousand pounds might be distributed among the

families whose sufferings had been so touchingly described. The next day

it was rumoured about the benches that Walker was in the lobby. He was

called in. The Speaker, with great dignity and grace, informed him that

the House had made haste to comply with his request, commended him

in high terms for having taken on himself to govern and defend a city

betrayed by its proper governors and defenders, and charged him to tell

those who had fought under him that their fidelity and valour would

always be held in grateful remembrance by the Commons of England, [531]

About the same time the course of parliamentary business was diversified

by another curious and interesting episode, which, like the former,

sprang out of the events of the Irish war. In the preceding spring,

when every messenger from Ireland brought evil tidings, and when the

authority of James was acknowledged in every part of that kingdom,

except behind the ramparts of Londonderry and on the banks of Lough

Erne, it was natural that Englishmen should remember with how terrible

an energy the great Puritan warriors of the preceding generation had

crushed the insurrection of the Celtic race. The names of Cromwell, of

Ireton, and of the other chiefs of the conquering army, were in many

mouths. One of those chiefs, Edmund Ludlow, was still living. At

twenty-two he had served as a volunteer in the parliamentary army; at

thirty he had risen to the rank of Lieutenant General. He was now old;

but the vigour of his mind was unimpaired. His courage was of the

truest temper; his understanding strong, but narrow. What he saw he

saw clearly: but he saw not much at a glance. In an age of perfidy and

levity, he had, amidst manifold temptations and dangers, adhered firmly

to the principles of his youth. His enemies could not deny that his life

had been consistent, and that with the same spirit with which he had

stood up against the Stuarts he had stood up against the Cromwells.

There was but a single blemish on his fame: but that blemish, in the

opinion of the great majority of his countrymen, was one for which no

merit could compensate and which no time could efface. His name and seal

were on the death warrant of Charles the First.

After the Restoration, Ludlow found a refuge on the shores of the Lake

of Geneva. He was accompanied thither by another member of the High

Court of Justice, John Lisle, the husband of that Alice Lisle whose

death has left a lasting stain on the memory of James the Second. But

even in Switzerland the regicides were not safe. A large price was

set on their heads; and a succession of Irish adventurers, inflamed by

national and religious animosity, attempted to earn the bribe. Lisle

fell by the hand of one of these assassins. But Ludlow escaped unhurt

from all the machinations of his enemies. A small knot of vehement and

determined Whigs regarded him with a veneration, which increased as

years rolled away, and left him almost the only survivor, certainly the

most illustrious survivor, of a mighty race of men, the conquerors in

a terrible civil war, the judges of a king, the founders of a republic.

More than once he had been invited by the enemies of the House of Stuart

to leave his asylum, to become their captain, and to give the signal for

rebellion: but he had wisely refused to take any part in the desperate

enterprises which the Wildmans and Fergusons were never weary of

planning, [532]

The Revolution opened a new prospect to him. The right of the people to

resist oppression, a right which, during many years, no man could

assert without exposing himself to ecclesiastical anathemas and to civil

penalties, had been solemnly recognised by the Estates of the realm, and

had been proclaimed by Garter King at Arms on the very spot where the

memorable scaffold had been set up forty years before. James had not,

indeed, like Charles, died the death of a traitor. Yet the punishment of

the son might seem to differ from the punishment of the father rather in

degree than in principle. Those who had recently waged war on a tyrant,

who had turned him out of his palace, who had frightened him out of his

country, who had deprived him of his crown, might perhaps think that the

crime of going one step further had been sufficiently expiated by thirty

years of banishment. Ludlow's admirers, some of whom appear to have

been in high public situations, assured him that he might safely venture

over, nay, that he might expect to be sent in high command to Ireland,

where his name was still cherished by his old soldiers and by their

children, [533] He came and early in September it was known that he

was in London, [534] But it soon appeared that he and his friends had

misunderstood the temper of the English people. By all, except a small

extreme section of the Whig party, the act, in which he had borne a part

never to be forgotten, was regarded, not merely with the disapprobation

due to a great violation of law and justice, but with horror such as

even the Gunpowder Plot had not excited. The absurd and almost impious

service which is still read in our churches on the thirtieth of January

had produced in the minds of the vulgar a strange association of ideas.

The sufferings of Charles were confounded with the sufferings of the

Redeemer of mankind; and every regicide was a Judas, a Caiaphas or a

Herod. It was true that, when Ludlow sate on the tribunal in Westminster

Hall, he was an ardent enthusiast of twenty eight, and that he now

returned from exile a greyheaded and wrinkled man in his seventieth

year. Perhaps, therefore, if he had been content to live in close

retirement, and to shun places of public resort, even zealous Royalists

might not have grudged the old Republican a grave in his native soil.

But he had no thought of hiding himself. It was soon rumoured that one

of those murderers, who had brought on England guilt, for which she

annually, in sackcloth and ashes, implored God not to enter into

judgment with her, was strutting about the streets of her capital, and

boasting that he should ere long command her armies. His lodgings, it

was said, were the head quarters of the most noted enemies of monarchy

and episcopacy, [535] The subject was brought before the House of

Commons. The Tory members called loudly for justice on the traitor. None

of the Whigs ventured to say a word in his defence. One or two faintly

expressed a doubt whether the fact of his return had been proved by

evidence such as would warrant a parliamentary proceeding. The objection

was disregarded. It was resolved, without a division, that the King

should be requested to issue a proclamation for the apprehending of

Ludlow. Seymour presented the address; and the King promised to do what

was asked. Some days however elapsed before the proclamation appeared,

[536] Ludlow had time to make his escape, and again hid himself in his

Alpine retreat, never again to emerge. English travellers are still

taken to see his house close to the lake, and his tomb in a church among

the vineyards which overlook the little town of Vevay. On the house was

formerly legible an inscription purporting that to him to whom God is a

father every land is a fatherland; [537] and the epitaph on the tomb

still attests the feelings with which the stern old Puritan to the last

regarded the people of Ireland and the House of Stuart.

Tories and Whigs had concurred, or had affected to concur, in paying

honour to Walker and in putting a brand on Ludlow. But the feud between

the two parties was more bitter than ever. The King had entertained a

hope that, during the recess, the animosities which had in the preceding

session prevented an Act of Indemnity from passing would have been

mitigated. On the day on which the Houses reassembled, he had pressed

them earnestly to put an end to the fear and discord which could never

cease to exist, while great numbers held their property and their

liberty, and not a few even their lives, by an uncertain tenure. His

exhortation proved of no effect. October, November, December passed

away; and nothing was done. An Indemnity Bill indeed had been brought

in, and read once; but it had ever since lain neglected on the table of

the House, [538] Vindictive as had been the mood in which the Whigs had

left Westminster, the mood in which they returned was more vindictive

still. Smarting from old sufferings, drunk with recent prosperity,

burning with implacable resentment, confident of irresistible strength,

they were not less rash and headstrong than in the days of the Exclusion

Bill. Sixteen hundred and eighty was come again. Again all compromise

was rejected. Again the voices of the wisest and most upright friends

of liberty were drowned by the clamour of hotheaded and designing

agitators. Again moderation was despised as cowardice, or execrated as

treachery. All the lessons taught by a cruel experience were forgotten.

The very same men who had expiated, by years of humiliation, of

imprisonment, of penury, of exile, the folly with which they had misused

the advantage given them by the Popish plot, now misused with equal

folly the advantage given them by the Revolution. The second madness

would, in all probability, like the first, have ended in their

proscription, dispersion, decimation, but for the magnanimity and

wisdom of that great prince, who, bent on fulfilling his mission, and

insensible alike to flattery and to outrage, coldly and inflexibly saved

them in their own despite.

It seemed that nothing but blood would satisfy them. The aspect and

the temper of the House of Commons reminded men of the time of

the ascendency of Oates; and, that nothing might be wanting to the

resemblance, Oates himself was there. As a witness, indeed, he could now

render no service: but he had caught the scent of carnage, and came to

gloat on the butchery in which he could no longer take an active part.

His loathsome features were again daily seen, and his well known "Ah

Laard, ah Laard!" was again daily heard in the lobbies and in the

gallery, [539] The House fell first on the renegades of the late reign.

Of those renegades the Earls of Peterborough and Salisbury were the

highest in rank, but were also the lowest in intellect: for Salisbury

had always been an idiot; and Peterborough had long been a dotard. It

was however resolved by the Commons that both had, by joining the Church

of Rome, committed high treason, and that both should be impeached,

[540] A message to that effect was sent to the Lords. Poor old

Peterborough was instantly taken into custody, and was sent, tottering

on a crutch, and wrapped up in woollen stuffs, to the Tower. The next

day Salisbury was brought to the bar of his peers. He muttered something

about his youth and his foreign education, and was then sent to bear

Peterborough company, [541] The Commons had meanwhile passed on to

offenders of humbler station and better understanding. Sir Edward Hales

was brought before them. He had doubtless, by holding office in defiance

of the Test Act, incurred heavy penalties. But these penalties fell far

short of what the revengeful spirit of the victorious party demanded;

and he was committed as a traitor, [542] Then Obadiah Walker was led in.

He behaved with a pusillanimity and disingenuousness which deprived him

of all claim to respect or pity. He protested that he had never changed

his religion, that his opinions had always been and still were those of

some highly respectable divines of the Church of England, and that there

were points on which he differed from the Papists. In spite of this

quibbling, he was pronounced guilty of high treason, and sent to prison,

[543] Castlemaine was put next to the bar, interrogated, and committed

under a warrant which charged him with the capital crime of trying to

reconcile the kingdom to the Church of Rome, [544]

In the meantime the Lords had appointed a Committee to Inquire who

were answerable for the deaths of Russell, of Sidney, and of some other

eminent Whigs. Of this Committee, which was popularly called the Murder

Committee, the Earl of Stamford, a Whig who had been deeply concerned in

the plots formed by his party against the Stuarts, was chairman, [545]

The books of the Council were inspected: the clerks of the Council were

examined: some facts disgraceful to the Judges, to the Solicitors of

the Treasury, to the witnesses for the Crown, and to the keepers of the

state prisons, were elicited: but about the packing of the juries no

evidence could be obtained. The Sheriffs kept their own counsel. Sir

Dudley North, in particular, underwent a most severe cross examination

with characteristic clearness of head and firmness of temper, and

steadily asserted that he had never troubled himself about the political

opinions of the persons whom he put on any panel, but had merely

inquired whether they were substantial citizens. He was undoubtedly

lying; and so some of the Whig peers told him in very plain words and

in very loud tones: but, though they were morally certain of his guilt,

they could find no proofs which would support a criminal charge against

him. The indelible stain however remains on his memory, and is still a

subject of lamentation to those who, while loathing his dishonesty and

cruelty, cannot forget that he was one of the most original, profound

and accurate thinkers of his age, [546]

Halifax, more fortunate than Dudley North, was completely cleared, not

only from legal, but also from moral guilt. He was the chief object of

attack; and yet a severe examination brought nothing to light that was

not to his honour. Tillotson was called as a witness. He swore that he

had been the channel of communication between Halifax and Russell when

Russell was a prisoner in the Tower. "My Lord Halifax," said the Doctor,

"showed a very compassionate concern for my Lord Russell; and my Lord

Russell charged me with his last thanks for my Lord Halifax's humanity

and kindness." It was proved that the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth had

borne similar testimony to Halifax's good nature. One hostile witness

indeed was produced, John Hampden, whose mean supplications and enormous

bribes had saved his neck from the halter. He was now a powerful and

prosperous man: he was a leader of the dominant party in the House of

Commons; and yet he was one of the most unhappy beings on the face of

the earth. The recollection of the pitiable figure which he had made

at the bar of the Old Bailey embittered his temper, and impelled him

to avenge himself without mercy on those who had directly or indirectly

contributed to his humiliation. Of all the Whigs he was the most

intolerant and the most obstinately hostile to all plans of amnesty.

The consciousness that he had disgraced himself made him jealous of his

dignity and quick to take offence. He constantly paraded his services

and his sufferings, as if he hoped that this ostentatious display would

hide from others the stain which nothing could hide from himself. Having

during many months harangued vehemently against Halifax in the House

of Commons, he now came to swear against Halifax before the Lords. The

scene was curious. The witness represented himself as having saved

his country, as having planned the Revolution, as having placed their

Majesties on the throne. He then gave evidence intended to show that his

life had been endangered by the machinations of the Lord Privy Seal: but

that evidence missed the mark at which it was aimed, and recoiled on him

from whom it proceeded. Hampden was forced to acknowledge that he had

sent his wife to implore the intercession of the man whom he was now

persecuting. "Is it not strange," asked Halifax, "that you should have

requested the good offices of one whose arts had brought your head into

peril?" "Not at all," said Hampden; "to whom was I to apply except to

the men who were in power? I applied to Lord Jeffreys: I applied to

Father Petre; and I paid them six thousand pounds for their services."

"But did Lord Halifax take any money?" "No, I cannot say that he did."

"And, Mr. Hampden, did not you afterwards send your wife to thank him

for his kindness?" "Yes, I believe I did," answered Hampden; "but I know

of no solid effects of that kindness. If there were any, I should be

obliged to my Lord to tell me what they were." Disgraceful as had been

the appearance which this degenerate heir of an illustrious name

had made at the Old Bailey, the appearance which he made before the

Committee of Murder was more disgraceful still, [547] It is pleasing to

know that a person who had been far more cruelly wronged than he, but

whose nature differed widely from his, the nobleminded Lady Russell,

remonstrated against the injustice with which the extreme Whigs treated

Halifax, [548]

The malice of John Hampden, however, was unwearied and unabashed. A few

days later, in a committee of the whole House of Commons on the state

of the nation, he made a bitter speech, in which he ascribed all the

disasters of the year to the influence of the men who had, in the days

of the Exclusion Bill, been censured by Parliaments, of the men who had

attempted to mediate between James and William. The King, he said, ought

to dismiss from his counsels and presence all the three noblemen who had

been sent to negotiate with him at Hungerford. He went on to speak

of the danger of employing men of republican principles. He doubtless

alluded to the chief object of his implacable malignity. For Halifax,

though from temper averse to violent changes, was well known to be in

speculation a republican, and often talked, with much ingenuity and

pleasantry, against hereditary monarchy. The only effect, however, of

the reflection now thrown on him was to call forth a roar of derision.

That a Hampden, that the grandson of the great leader of the Long

Parliament, that a man who boasted of having conspired with Algernon

Sidney against the royal House, should use the word republican as a term

of reproach! When the storm of laughter had subsided, several members

stood up to vindicate the accused statesmen. Seymour declared that, much

as he disapproved of the manner in which the administration had lately

been conducted, he could not concur in the vote which John Hampden had

proposed. "Look where you will," he said, "to Ireland, to Scotland, to

the navy, to the army, you will find abundant proofs of mismanagement.

If the war is still to be conducted by the same hands, we can expect

nothing but a recurrence of the same disasters. But I am not prepared to

proscribe men for the best thing that they ever did in their lives, to

proscribe men for attempting to avert a revolution by timely mediation."

It was justly said by another speaker that Halifax and Nottingham had

been sent to the Dutch camp because they possessed the confidence of

the nation, because they were universally known to be hostile to the

dispensing power, to the Popish religion, and to the French ascendency.

It was at length resolved that the King should be requested in general

terms to find out and to remove the authors of the late miscarriages,

[549] A committee was appointed to prepare an Address. John Hampden was

chairman, and drew up a representation in terms so bitter that, when it

was reported to the House, his own father expressed disapprobation, and

one member exclaimed: "This an address! It is a libel." After a sharp

debate, the Address was recommitted, and was not again mentioned, [550]

Indeed, the animosity which a large part of the House had felt against

Halifax was beginning to abate. It was known that, though he had not yet

formally delivered up the Privy Seal, he had ceased to be a confidential

adviser of the Crown. The power which he had enjoyed during the first

months of the reign of William and Mary had passed to the more daring,

more unscrupulous and more practical Caermarthen, against whose

influence Shrewsbury contended in vain. Personally Shrewsbury stood high

in the royal favour: but he was a leader of the Whigs, and, like all

leaders of parties, was frequently pushed forward against his will by

those who seemed to follow him. He was himself inclined to a mild and

moderate policy: but he had not sufficient firmness to withstand the

clamorous importunity with which such politicians as John Howe and John

Hampden demanded vengeance on their enemies. His advice had therefore,

at this time, little weight with his master, who neither loved the

Tories nor trusted them, but who was fully determined not to proscribe

them.

Meanwhile the Whigs, conscious that they had lately sunk in the opinion

both of the King and of the nation, resolved on making a bold and crafty

attempt to become independent of both. A perfect account of that attempt

cannot be constructed out of the scanty and widely dispersed materials

which have come down to us. Yet the story, as it has come down to us, is

both interesting and instructive.

A bill for restoring the rights of those corporations which had

surrendered their charters to the Crown during the last two reigns had

been brought into the House of Commons, had been received with general

applause by men of all parties, had been read twice, and had been

referred to a select committee, of which Somers was chairman. On the

second of January Somers brought up the report. The attendance of Tories

was scanty: for, as no important discussion was expected, many country

gentlemen had left town, and were keeping a merry Christmas by the

chimney fires of their manor houses. The muster of zealous Whigs was

strong. As soon as the bill had been reported, Sacheverell, renowned in

the stormy parliaments of the reign of Charles the Second as one of the

ablest and keenest of the Exclusionists, stood up and moved to add a

clause providing that every municipal functionary who had in any manner

been a party to the surrendering of the franchises of a borough should

be incapable for seven years of holding any office in that borough.

The constitution of almost every corporate town in England had been

remodelled during that hot fit of loyalty which followed the detection

of the Rye House Plot; and, in almost every corporate town, the voice

of the Tories had been for delivering up the charter, and for trusting

every thing to the paternal care of the Sovereign. The effect of

Sacheverell's clause, therefore, was to make some thousands of the most

opulent and highly considered men in the kingdom incapable, during seven

years, of bearing any part in the government of the places in which

they resided, and to secure to the Whig party, during seven years, an

overwhelming influence in borough elections.

The minority exclaimed against the gross injustice of passing, rapidly

and by surprise, at a season when London was empty, a law of the highest

importance, a law which retrospectively inflicted a severe penalty on

many hundreds of respectable gentlemen, a law which would call forth the

strongest passions in every town from Berwick to St. Ives, a law which

must have a serious effect on the composition of the House itself.

Common decency required at least an adjournment. An adjournment was

moved: but the motion was rejected by a hundred and twenty-seven votes

to eighty-nine. The question was then put that Sacheverell's clause

should stand part of the bill, and was carried by a hundred and

thirty-three to sixty-eight. Sir Robert Howard immediately moved that

every person who, being under Sacheverell's clause disqualified for

municipal office, should presume to take any such office, should forfeit

five hundred pounds, and should be for life incapable of holding any

public employment whatever. The Tories did not venture to divide, [551]

The rules of the House put it in the power of a minority to obstruct

the progress of a bill; and this was assuredly one of the very rare

occasions on which that power would have been with great propriety

exerted. It does not appear, however, that the parliamentary tacticians

of that age were aware of the extent to which a small number of members

can, without violating any form, retard the course of business.

It was immediately resolved that the bill, enlarged by Sacheverell's and

Howard's clauses, should be ingrossed. The most vehement Whigs were bent

on finally passing it within forty-eight hours. The Lords, indeed, were

not likely to regard it very favourably. But it should seem that some

desperate men were prepared to withhold the supplies till it should

pass, nay, even to tack it to the bill of supply, and thus to place

the Upper House under the necessity of either consenting to a vast

proscription of the Tories or refusing to the government the means of

carrying on the war, [552] There were Whigs, however, honest enough to

wish that fair play should be given to the hostile party, and prudent

enough to know that an advantage obtained by violence and cunning could

not be permanent. These men insisted that at least a week should be

suffered to elapse before the third reading, and carried their point.

Their less scrupulous associates complained bitterly that the good

cause was betrayed. What new laws of war were these? Why was chivalrous

courtesy to be shown to foes who thought no stratagem immoral, and who

had never given quarter? And what had been done that was not in strict

accordance with the law of Parliament? That law knew nothing of short

notices and long notices, of thin houses and full houses. It was the

business of a representative of the people to be in his place. If he

chose to shoot and guzzle at his country seat when important business

was under consideration at Westminster, what right had he to murmur

because more upright and laborious servants of the public passed, in his

absence, a bill which appeared to them necessary to the public safety?

As however a postponement of a few days appeared to be inevitable, those

who had intended to gain the victory by stealing a march now disclaimed

that intention. They solemnly assured the King, who could not help

showing some displeasure at their conduct, and who felt much more

displeasure than he showed, that they had owed nothing to surprise,

and that they were quite certain of a majority in the fullest house.

Sacheverell is said to have declared with great warmth that he would

stake his seat on the issue, and that if he found himself mistaken

he would never show his face in Parliament again. Indeed, the general

opinion at first was that the Whigs would win the day. But it soon

became clear that the fight would be a hard one. The mails had carried

out along all the high roads the tidings that, on the second of January,

the Commons had agreed to a retrospective penal law against the whole

Tory party, and that, on the tenth, that law would be considered for the

last time. The whole kingdom was moved from Northumberland to Cornwall.

A hundred knights and squires left their halls hung with mistletoe and

holly, and their boards groaning with brawn and plum porridge, and rode

up post to town, cursing the short days, the cold weather, the

miry roads and the villanous Whigs. The Whigs, too, brought up

reinforcements, but not to the same extent; for the clauses were

generally unpopular, and not without good cause. Assuredly no reasonable

man of any party will deny that the Tories, in surrendering to the Crown

all the municipal franchises of the realm, and, with those franchises,

the power of altering the constitution of the House of Commons,

committed a great fault. But in that fault the nation itself had been

an accomplice. If the Mayors and Aldermen whom it was now proposed to

punish had, when the tide of loyal enthusiasm ran high, sturdily refused

to comply with the wish of their Sovereign, they would have been

pointed at in the street as Roundhead knaves, preached at by the Rector,

lampooned in ballads, and probably burned in effigy before their own

doors. That a community should be hurried into errors alternately by

fear of tyranny and by fear of anarchy is doubtless a great evil. But

the remedy for that evil is not to punish for such errors some persons

who have merely erred with the rest, and who have since repented with

the rest. Nor ought it to have been forgotten that the offenders

against whom Sacheverell's clause was directed had, in 1688, made large

atonement for the misconduct of which they had been guilty in 1683. They

had, as a class, stood up firmly against the dispensing power; and most

of them had actually been turned out of their municipal offices by James

for refusing to support his policy. It is not strange therefore that

the attempt to inflict on all these men without exception a degrading

punishment should have raised such a storm of public indignation as many

Whig members of parliament were unwilling to face.

As the decisive conflict drew near, and as the muster of the Tories

became hourly stronger and stronger, the uneasiness of Sacheverell and

of his confederates increased. They found that they could hardly hope

for a complete victory. They must make some concession. They must

propose to recommit the bill. They must declare themselves willing

to consider whether any distinction could be made between the chief

offenders and the multitudes who had been misled by evil example. But as

the spirit of one party fell the spirit of the other rose. The Tories,

glowing with resentment which was but too just, were resolved to listen

to no terms of compromise.

The tenth of January came; and, before the late daybreak of that season,

the House was crowded. More than a hundred and sixty members had come

up to town within a week. From dawn till the candles had burned down to

their sockets the ranks kept unbroken order; and few members left their

seats except for a minute to take a crust of bread or a glass of claret.

Messengers were in waiting to carry the result to Kensington, where

William, though shaken by a violent cough, sate up till midnight,

anxiously expecting the news, and writing to Portland, whom he had sent

on an important mission to the Hague.

The only remaining account of the debate is defective and confused. But

from that account it appears that the excitement was great. Sharp things

were said. One young Whig member used language so hot that he was in

danger of being called to the bar. Some reflections were thrown on the

Speaker for allowing too much licence to his own friends. But in truth

it mattered little whether he called transgressors to order or not. The

House had long been quite unmanageable; and veteran members bitterly

regretted the old gravity of debate and the old authority of the chair,

[553] That Somers disapproved of the violence of the party to which he

belonged may be inferred, both from the whole course of his public life,

and from the very significant fact that, though he had charge of the

Corporation Bill, he did not move the penal clauses, but left that

ungracious office to men more impetuous and less sagacious than himself.

He did not however abandon his allies in this emergency, but spoke for

them, and tried to make the best of a very bad case. The House divided

several times. On the first division a hundred and seventy-four voted

with Sacheverell, a hundred and seventy-nine against him. Still the

battle was stubbornly kept up; but the majority increased from five to

ten, from ten to twelve, and from twelve to eighteen. Then at length,

after a stormy sitting of fourteen hours, the Whigs yielded. It was near

midnight when, to the unspeakable joy and triumph of the Tories, the

clerk tore away from the parchment on which the bill had been engrossed

the odious clauses of Sacheverell and Howard, [554]

Emboldened by this great victory, the Tories made an attempt to push

forward the Indemnity Bill which had lain many weeks neglected on the

table, [555] But the Whigs, notwithstanding their recent defeat, were

still the majority of the House; and many members, who had shrunk

from the unpopularity which they would have incurred by supporting the

Sacheverell clause and the Howard clause, were perfectly willing to

assist in retarding the general pardon. They still propounded their

favourite dilemma. How, they asked, was it possible to defend this

project of amnesty without condemning the Revolution? Could it be

contended that crimes which had been grave enough to justify resistance

had not been grave enough to deserve punishment? And, if those crimes

were of such magnitude that they could justly be visited on the

Sovereign whom the Constitution had exempted from responsibility, on

what principle was immunity to be granted to his advisers and tools,

who were beyond all doubt responsible? One facetious member put this

argument in a singular form. He contrived to place in the Speaker's

chair a paper which, when examined, appeared to be a Bill of Indemnity

for King James, with a sneering preamble about the mercy which had,

since the Revolution, been extended to more heinous offenders, and about

the indulgence due to a King, who, in oppressing his people, had only

acted after the fashion of all Kings, [556]

On the same day on which this mock Bill of Indemnity disturbed the

gravity of the Commons, it was moved that the House should go into

Committee on the real Bill. The Whigs threw the motion out by a hundred

and ninety-three votes to a hundred and fifty-six. They then proceeded

to resolve that a bill of pains and penalties against delinquents should

be forthwith brought in, and engrafted on the Bill of Indemnity, [557]

A few hours later a vote passed that showed more clearly than any thing

that had yet taken place how little chance there was that the public

mind would be speedily quieted by an amnesty. Few persons stood higher

in the estimation of the Tory party than Sir Robert Sawyer. He was a man

of ample fortune and aristocratical connections, of orthodox opinions

and regular life, an able and experienced lawyer, a well read scholar,

and, in spite of a little pomposity, a good speaker. He had been

Attorney General at the time of the detection of the Rye House Plot; he

had been employed for the Crown in the prosecutions which followed; and

he had conducted those prosecutions with an eagerness which would, in

our time, be called cruelty by all parties, but which, in his own time,

and to his own party, seemed to be merely laudable zeal. His friends

indeed asserted that he was conscientious even to scrupulosity in

matters of life and death; [558] but this is an eulogy which persons who

bring the feelings of the nineteenth century to the study of the

State Trials of the seventeenth century will have some difficulty in

understanding. The best excuse which can be made for this part of his

life is that the stain of innocent blood was common to him with almost

all the eminent public men of those evil days. When we blame him for

prosecuting Russell, we must not forget that Russell had prosecuted

Stafford.

Great as Sawyer's offences were, he had made great atonement for them.

He had stood up manfully against Popery and despotism; he had, in

the very presence chamber, positively refused to draw warrants in

contravention of Acts of Parliament; he had resigned his lucrative

office rather than appear in Westminster Hall as the champion of the

dispensing power; he had been the leading counsel for the seven Bishops;

and he had, on the day of their trial, done his duty ably, honestly, and

fearlessly. He was therefore a favourite with High Churchmen, and might

be thought to have fairly earned his pardon from the Whigs. But the

Whigs were not in a pardoning mood; and Sawyer was now called to account

for his conduct in the case of Sir Thomas Armstrong.

If Armstrong was not belied, he was deep in the worst secrets of the

Rye House Plot, and was one of those who undertook to slay the two royal

brothers. When the conspiracy was discovered, he fled to the Continent

and was outlawed. The magistrates of Leyden were induced by a bribe to

deliver him up. He was hurried on board of an English ship, carried to

London, and brought before the King's Bench. Sawyer moved the Court to

award execution on the outlawry. Armstrong represented that a year had

not yet elapsed since he had been outlawed, and that, by an Act passed

in the reign of Edward the Sixth, an outlaw who yielded himself within

the year was entitled to plead Not Guilty, and to put himself on his

country. To this it was answered that Armstrong had not yielded himself,

that he had been dragged to the bar a prisoner, and that he had no

right to claim a privilege which was evidently meant to be given only

to persons who voluntarily rendered themselves up to public justice.

Jeffreys and the other judges unanimously overruled Armstrong's

objection, and granted the award of execution. Then followed one of

the most terrible of the many terrible scenes which, in those times,

disgraced our Courts. The daughter of the unhappy man was at his side.

"My Lord," she cried out, "you will not murder my father. This is

murdering a man." "How now?" roared the Chief Justice. "Who is this

woman? Take her, Marshal. Take her away." She was forced out, crying

as she went, "God Almighty's judgments light on you!" "God Almighty's

judgment," said Jeffreys, "will light on traitors. Thank God, I am

clamour proof." When she was gone, her father again insisted on what

he conceived to be his right. "I ask" he said, "only the benefit of the

law." "And, by the grace of God, you shall have it," said the judge.

"Mr. Sheriff, see that execution be done on Friday next. There is the

benefit of the law for you." On the following Friday, Armstrong was

hanged, drawn and quartered; and his head was placed over Westminster

Hall, [559]

The insolence and cruelty of Jeffreys excite, even at the distance of so

many years, an indignation which makes it difficult to be just to him.

Yet a perfectly dispassionate inquirer may perhaps think it by no means

clear that the award of execution was illegal. There was no precedent;

and the words of the Act of Edward the Sixth may, without any straining,

be construed as the Court construed them. Indeed, had the penalty

been only fine or imprisonment, nobody would have seen any thing

reprehensible in the proceeding. But to send a man to the gallows as a

traitor, without confronting him with his accusers, without hearing his

defence, solely because a timidity which is perfectly compatible with

innocence has impelled him to hide himself, is surely a violation, if

not of any written law, yet of those great principles to which all laws

ought to conform. The case was brought before the House of Commons. The

orphan daughter of Armstrong came to the bar to demand vengeance; and

a warm debate followed. Sawyer was fiercely attacked and strenuously

defended. The Tories declared that he appeared to them to have done

only what, as counsel for the Crown, he was bound to do, and to have

discharged his duty to God, to the King, and to the prisoner. If the

award was legal, nobody was to blame; and, if the award was illegal,

the blame lay, not with the Attorney General, but with the Judges. There

would be an end of all liberty of speech at the bar, if an advocate was

to be punished for making a strictly regular application to a Court, and

for arguing that certain words in a statute were to be understood in a

certain sense. The Whigs called Sawyer murderer, bloodhound, hangman.

If the liberty of speech claimed by advocates meant the liberty of

haranguing men to death, it was high time that the nation should rise

up and exterminate the whole race of lawyers. "Things will never be well

done," said one orator, "till some of that profession be made examples."

"No crime to demand execution!" exclaimed John Hampden. "We shall be

told next that it was no crime in the Jews to cry out 'Crucify him.'" A

wise and just man would probably have been of opinion that this was

not a case for severity. Sawyer's conduct might have been, to a certain

extent, culpable: but, if an Act of Indemnity was to be passed at all,

it was to be passed for the benefit of persons whose conduct had been

culpable. The question was not whether he was guiltless, but whether his

guilt was of so peculiarly black a dye that he ought, notwithstanding

all his sacrifices and services, to be excluded by name from the mercy

which was to be granted to many thousands of offenders. This question

calm and impartial judges would probably have decided in his favour. It

was, however, resolved that he should be excepted from the Indemnity,

and expelled from the House, [560]

On the morrow the Bill of Indemnity, now transformed into a Bill of

Pains and Penalties, was again discussed. The Whigs consented to refer

it to a Committee of the whole House, but proposed to instruct the

Committee to begin its labours by making out a list of the offenders who

were to be proscribed. The Tories moved the previous question. The House

divided; and the Whigs carried their point by a hundred and ninety votes

to a hundred and seventy-three, [561]

The King watched these events with painful anxiety. He was weary of his

crown. He had tried to do justice to both the contending parties; but

justice would satisfy neither. The Tories hated him for protecting the

Dissenters. The Whigs hated him for protecting the Tories. The amnesty

seemed to be more remote than when, ten months before, he first

recommended it from the throne. The last campaign in Ireland had been

disastrous. It might well be that the next campaign would be more

disastrous still. The malpractices, which had done more than the

exhalations of the marshes of Dundalk to destroy the efficiency of the

English troops, were likely to be as monstrous as ever. Every part of

the administration was thoroughly disorganized; and the people were

surprised and angry because a foreigner, newly come among them,

imperfectly acquainted with them, and constantly thwarted by them, had

not, in a year, put the whole machine of government to rights. Most of

his ministers, instead of assisting him, were trying to get up addresses

and impeachments against each other. Yet if he employed his own

countrymen, on whose fidelity and attachment he could rely, a general

cry of rage was set up by all the English factions. The knavery of

the English Commissariat had destroyed an army: yet a rumour that he

intended to employ an able, experienced, and trusty Commissary from

Holland had excited general discontent. The King felt that he could not,

while thus situated, render any service to that great cause to which his

whole soul was devoted. Already the glory which he had won by conducting

to a successful issue the most important enterprise of that age was

becoming dim. Even his friends had begun to doubt whether he really

possessed all that sagacity and energy which had a few months before

extorted the unwilling admiration of his enemies. But he would endure

his splendid slavery no longer. He would return to his native country.

He would content himself with being the first citizen of a commonwealth

to which the name of Orange was dear. As such, he might still be

foremost among those who were banded together in defence of the

liberties of Europe. As for the turbulent and ungrateful islanders, who

detested him because he would not let them tear each other in pieces,

Mary must try what she could do with them. She was born on their soil.

She spoke their language. She did not dislike some parts of their

Liturgy, which they fancied to be essential, and which to him seemed at

best harmless. If she had little knowledge of politics and war, she had

what might be more useful, feminine grace and tact, a sweet temper, a

smile and a kind word for every body. She might be able to compose the

disputes which distracted the State and the Church. Holland, under his

government, and England under hers, might act cordially together against

the common enemy.

He secretly ordered preparations to be made for his voyage. Having done

this, he called together a few of his chief counsellors, and told

them his purpose. A squadron, he said, was ready to convey him to his

country. He had done with them. He hoped that the Queen would be more

successful. The ministers were thunderstruck. For once all quarrels were

suspended. The Tory Caermarthen on one side, the Whig Shrewsbury on the

other, expostulated and implored with a pathetic vehemence rare in the

conferences of statesmen. Many tears were shed. At length the King was

induced to give up, at least for the present, his design of abdicating

the government. But he announced another design which he was fully

determined not to give up. Since he was still to remain at the head of

the English administration, he would go himself to Ireland. He would try

whether the whole royal authority strenuously exerted on the spot where

the fate of the empire was to be decided, would suffice to prevent

peculation and to maintain discipline, [562]

That he had seriously meditated a retreat to Holland long continued to

be a secret, not only to the multitude, but even to the Queen, [563]

That he had resolved to take the command of his army in Ireland was

soon rumoured all over London. It was known that his camp furniture was

making, and that Sir Christopher Wren was busied in constructing a house

of wood which was to travel about, packed in two waggons, and to be set

up wherever His Majesty might fix his quarters, [564] The Whigs raised

a violent outcry against the whole scheme. Not knowing, or affecting not

to know, that it had been formed by William and by William alone, and

that none of his ministers had dared to advise him to encounter the

Irish swords and the Irish atmosphere, the whole party confidently

affirmed that it had been suggested by some traitor in the cabinet,

by some Tory who hated the Revolution and all that had sprung from the

Revolution. Would any true friend have advised His Majesty, infirm in

health as he was, to expose himself, not only to the dangers of war, but

to the malignity of a climate which had recently been fatal to thousands

of men much stronger than himself? In private the King sneered bitterly

at this anxiety for his safety. It was merely, in his judgment, the

anxiety which a hard master feels lest his slaves should become unfit

for their drudgery. The Whigs, he wrote to Portland, were afraid to lose

their tool before they had done their work. "As to their friendship," he

added, "you know what it is worth." His resolution, he told his friend,

was unalterably fixed. Every thing was at stake; and go he must, even

though the Parliament should present an address imploring him to stay,

[565]

He soon learned that such an address would be immediately moved in

both Houses and supported by the whole strength of the Whig party. This

intelligence satisfied him that it was time to take a decisive step.

He would not discard the Whigs but he would give them a lesson of which

they stood much in need. He would break the chain in which they imagined

that they had him fast. He would not let them have the exclusive

possession of power. He would not let them persecute the vanquished

party. In their despite, he would grant an amnesty to his people. In

their despite, he would take the command of his army in Ireland. He

arranged his plan with characteristic prudence, firmness, and secrecy.

A single Englishman it was necessary to trust: for William was not

sufficiently master of our language to address the Houses from the

throne in his own words; and, on very important occasions, his practice

was to write his speech in French, and to employ a translator. It is

certain that to one person, and to one only, the King confided the

momentous resolution which he had taken; and it can hardly be doubted

that this person was Caermarthen.

On the twenty-seventh of January, Black Rod knocked at the door of the

Commons. The Speaker and the members repaired to the House of Lords. The

King was on the throne. He gave his assent to the Supply Bill, thanked

the Houses for it, announced his intention of going to Ireland, and

prorogued the Parliament. None could doubt that a dissolution would

speedily follow. As the concluding words, "I have thought it convenient

now to put an end to this session," were uttered, the Tories, both above

and below the bar, broke forth into a shout of joy. The King meanwhile

surveyed his audience from the throne with that bright eagle eye which

nothing escaped. He might be pardoned if he felt some little vindictive

pleasure in annoying those who had cruelly annoyed him. "I saw," he

wrote to Portland the next day, "faces an ell long. I saw some of those

men change colour with vexation twenty times while I was speaking."

[566]

A few hours after the prorogation, a hundred and fifty Tory members of

Parliament had a parting dinner together at the Apollo Tavern in Fleet

Street, before they set out for their counties. They were in better

temper with William than they had been since his father in law had been

turned out of Whitehall. They had scarcely recovered from the joyful

surprise with which they had heard it announced from the throne that the

session was at an end. The recollection of their danger and the sense of

their deliverance were still fresh. They talked of repairing to Court in

a body to testify their gratitude: but they were induced to forego their

intention; and not without cause: for a great crowd of squires after a

revel, at which doubtless neither October nor claret had been spared,

might have caused some inconvenience in the presence chamber. Sir

John Lowther, who in wealth and influence was inferior to no country

gentleman of that age, was deputed to carry the thanks of the assembly

to the palace. He spoke, he told the King, the sense of a great body of

honest gentlemen. They begged His Majesty to be assured that they would

in their counties do their best to serve him; and they cordially wished

him a safe voyage to Ireland, a complete victory, a speedy return, and

a long and happy reign. During the following week, many, who had never

shown their faces in the circle at Saint James's since the Revolution,

went to kiss the King's hand. So warmly indeed did those who had

hitherto been regarded as half Jacobites express their approbation of

the policy of the government that the thoroughgoing Jacobites were much

disgusted, and complained bitterly of the strange blindness which seemed

to have come on the sons of the Church of England, [567]

All the acts of William, at this time, indicated his determination to

restrain, steadily though gently, the violence of the Whigs, and to

conciliate, if possible, the good will of the Tories. Several persons

whom the Commons had thrown into prison for treason were set at liberty

on bail, [568] The prelates who held that their allegiance was still

due to James were treated with a tenderness rare in the history of

revolutions. Within a week after the prorogation, the first of February

came, the day on which those ecclesiastics who refused to take the oath

were to be finally deprived. Several of the suspended clergy, after

holding out till the last moment, swore just in time to save themselves

from beggary. But the Primate and five of his suffragans were still

inflexible. They consequently forfeited their bishoprics; but Sancroft

was informed that the King had not yet relinquished the hope of being

able to make some arrangement which might avert the necessity of

appointing successors, and that the nonjuring prelates might continue

for the present to reside in their palaces. Their receivers were

appointed receivers for the Crown, and continued to collect the revenues

of the vacant sees, [569] Similar indulgence was shown to some

divines of lower rank. Sherlock, in particular, continued, after his

deprivation, to live unmolested in his official mansion close to the

Temple Church.

And now appeared a proclamation dissolving the Parliament. The writs for

a general election went out; and soon every part of the kingdom was in

a ferment. Van Citters, who had resided in England during many eventful

years, declared that he had never seen London more violently agitated,

[570] The excitement was kept up by compositions of all sorts, from

sermons with sixteen heads down to jingling street ballads. Lists of

divisions were, for the first time in our history, printed and dispersed

for the information of constituent bodies. Two of these lists may still

be seen in old libraries. One of the two, circulated by the Whigs,

contained the names of those Tories who had voted against declaring the

throne vacant. The other, circulated by the Tories, contained the names

of those Whigs who had supported the Sacheverell clause.

It soon became clear that public feeling had undergone a great change

during the year which had elapsed since the Convention had met; and

it is impossible to deny that this change was, at least in part, the

natural consequence and the just punishment of the intemperate and

vindictive conduct of the Whigs. Of the city of London they thought

themselves sure. The Livery had in the preceding year returned four

zealous Whigs without a contest. But all the four had voted for the

Sacheverell clause; and by that clause many of the merchant princes of

Lombard Street and Cornhill, men powerful in the twelve great companies,

men whom the goldsmiths followed humbly, hat in hand, up and down the

arcades of the Royal Exchange, would have been turned with all indignity

out of the Court of Aldermen and out of the Common Council. The struggle

was for life or death. No exertions, no artifices, were spared. William

wrote to Portland that the Whigs of the City, in their despair, stuck

at nothing, and that, as they went on, they would soon stand as much

in need of an Act of Indemnity as the Tories. Four Tories however were

returned, and that by so decisive a majority, that the Tory who stood

lowest polled four hundred votes more than the Whig who stood highest,

[571] The Sheriffs, desiring to defer as long as possible the triumph

of their enemies, granted a scrutiny. But, though the majority was

diminished, the result was not affected, [572] At Westminster, two

opponents of the Sacheverell clause were elected without a contest,

[573] But nothing indicated more strongly the disgust excited by

the proceedings of the late House of Commons than what passed in the

University of Cambridge. Newton retired to his quiet observatory over

the gate of Trinity College. Two Tories were returned by an overwhelming

majority. At the head of the poll was Sawyer, who had, but a few days

before, been excepted from the Indemnity Bill and expelled from the

House of Commons. The records of the University contain curious proofs

that the unwise severity with which he had been treated had raised an

enthusiastic feeling in his favour. Newton voted for Sawyer; and this

remarkable fact justifies us in believing that the great philosopher,

in whose genius and virtue the Whig party justly glories, had seen

the headstrong and revengeful conduct of that party with concern and

disapprobation, [574]

It was soon plain that the Tories would have a majority in the new House

of Commons, [575] All the leading Whigs however obtained seats, with one

exception. John Hampden was excluded, and was regretted only by the most

intolerant and unreasonable members of his party, [576]

The King meanwhile was making, in almost every department of the

executive government, a change corresponding to the change which the

general election was making in the composition of the legislature.

Still, however, he did not think of forming what is now called a

ministry. He still reserved to himself more especially the direction

of foreign affairs; and he superintended with minute attention all

the preparations for the approaching campaign in Ireland. In his

confidential letters he complained that he had to perform, with little

or no assistance, the task of organizing the disorganized military

establishments of the kingdom. The work, he said, was heavy; but it must

be done; for everything depended on it, [577] In general, the government

was still a government by independent departments; and in almost every

department Whigs and Tories were still mingled, though not exactly in

the old proportions. The Whig element had decidedly predominated, in

1689. The Tory element predominated, though not very decidedly, in 1690.

Halifax had laid down the Privy Seal. It was offered to Chesterfield,

a Tory who had voted in the Convention for a Regency. But Chesterfield

refused to quit his country house and gardens in Derbyshire for

the Court and the Council Chamber; and the Privy Seal was put into

Commission, [578] Caermarthen was now the chief adviser of the Crown

on all matters relating to the internal administration and to the

management of the two Houses of Parliament. The white staff, and the

immense power which accompanied the white staff, William was still

determined never to entrust to any subject. Caermarthen therefore,

continued to be Lord President; but he took possession of a suite of

apartments in Saint James's Palace which was considered as peculiarly

belonging to the Prime Minister, [579] He had, during the preceding

year, pleaded ill health as an excuse for seldom appearing at the

Council Board; and the plea was not without foundation, for his

digestive organs had some morbid peculiarities which puzzled the whole

College of Physicians; his complexion was livid; his frame was meagre;

and his face, handsome and intellectual as it was, had a haggard look

which indicated the restlessness of pain as well as the restlessness

of ambition, [580] As soon, however, as he was once more minister, he

applied himself strenuously to business, and toiled every day, and all

day long, with an energy which amazed every body who saw his ghastly

countenance and tottering gait.

Though he could not obtain for himself the office of Lord Treasurer, his

influence at the Treasury was great. Monmouth, the First Commissioner,

and Delamere, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, two of the most violent

Whigs in England, quitted their seats. On this, as on many other

occasions, it appeared that they had nothing but their Whiggism

in common. The volatile Monmouth, sensible that he had none of the

qualities of a financier, seems to have taken no personal offence at

being removed from a place which he never ought to have occupied. He

thankfully accepted a pension, which his profuse habits made necessary

to him, and still continued to attend councils, to frequent the Court,

and to discharge the duties of a Lord of the Bedchamber, [581] He also

tried to make himself useful in military business, which he understood,

if not well, yet better than most of his brother nobles; and he

professed, during a few months, a great regard for Caermarthen. Delamere

was in a very different mood. It was in vain that his services were

overpaid with honours and riches. He was created Earl of Warrington. He

obtained a grant of all the lands that could be discovered belonging

to Jesuits in five or six counties. A demand made by him on account

of expenses incurred at the time of the Revolution was allowed; and

he carried with him into retirement as the reward of his patriotic

exertions a large sum, which the State could ill spare. But his anger

was not to be so appeased; and to the end of his life he continued to

complain bitterly of the ingratitude with which he and his party had

been treated, [582]

Sir John Lowther became First Lord of the Treasury, and was the person

on whom Caermarthen chiefly relied for the conduct of the ostensible

business of the House of Commons. Lowther was a man of ancient descent,

ample estate, and great parliamentary interest. Though not an old man,

he was an old senator: for he had, before he was of age, succeeded

his father as knight of the shire for Westmoreland. In truth

the representation of Westmoreland was almost as much one of the

hereditaments of the Lowther family as Lowther Hall. Sir John's

abilities were respectable; his manners, though sarcastically noticed

in contemporary lampoons as too formal, were eminently courteous;

his personal courage he was but too ready to prove; his morals were

irreproachable; his time was divided between respectable labours and

respectable pleasures; his chief business was to attend the House of

Commons and to preside on the Bench of justice; his favourite amusements

were reading and gardening. In opinions he was a very moderate Tory. He

was attached to hereditary monarchy and to the Established Church; but

he had concurred in the Revolution; he had no misgivings touching the

title of William and Mary; he had sworn allegiance to them without

any mental reservation; and he appears to have strictly kept his oath.

Between him and Caermarthen there was a close connection. They had acted

together cordially in the Northern insurrection; and they agreed in

their political views, as nearly as a very cunning statesman and a

very honest country gentleman could be expected to agree, [583] By

Caermarthen's influence Lowther was now raised to one of the most

important places in the kingdom. Unfortunately it was a place requiring

qualities very different from those which suffice to make a valuable

county member and chairman of quarter sessions. The tongue of the new

First Lord of the Treasury was not sufficiently ready, nor was his

temper sufficiently callous for his post. He had neither adroitness to

parry, nor fortitude to endure, the gibes and reproaches to which, in

his new character of courtier and placeman, he was exposed. There was

also something to be done which he was too scrupulous to do; something

which had never been done by Wolsey or Burleigh; something which has

never been done by any English statesman of our generation; but which,

from the time of Charles the Second to the time of George the Third, was

one of the most important parts of the business of a minister.

The history of the rise, progress, and decline of parliamentary

corruption in England still remains to be written. No subject has called

forth a greater quantity of eloquent vituperation and stinging sarcasm.

Three generations of serious and of sportive writers wept and laughed

over the venality of the senate. That venality was denounced on the

hustings, anathematized from the pulpit, and burlesqued on the stage;

was attacked by Pope in brilliant verse, and by Bolingbroke in stately

prose, by Swift with savage hatred, and by Gay with festive malice. The

voices of Tories and Whigs, of Johnson and Akenside, of Smollett and

Fielding, contributed to swell the cry. But none of those who railed

or of those who jested took the trouble to verify the phaenomena, or to

trace them to the real causes.

Sometimes the evil was imputed to the depravity of a particular

minister: but, when he had been driven from power, and when those who

had most loudly accused him governed in his stead, it was found that the

change of men had produced no change of system. Sometimes the evil

was imputed to the degeneracy of the national character. Luxury and

cupidity, it was said, had produced in our country the same effect which

they had produced of old in the Roman republic. The modern Englishman

was to the Englishman of the sixteenth century what Verres and Curio

were to Dentatus and Fabricius. Those who held this language were as

ignorant and shallow as people generally are who extol the past at the

expense of the present. A man of sense would have perceived that, if the

English of the time of George the Second had really been more sordid and

dishonest than their forefathers, the deterioration would not have shown

itself in one place alone. The progress of judicial venality and

of official venality would have kept pace with the progress of

parliamentary venality. But nothing is more certain than that, while the

legislature was becoming more and more venal, the courts of law and the

public offices were becoming purer and purer. The representatives of

the people were undoubtedly more mercenary in the days of Hardwicke and

Pelham than in the days of the Tudors. But the Chancellors of the

Tudors took plate and jewels from suitors without scruple or shame; and

Hardwicke would have committed for contempt any suitor who had dared

to bring him a present. The Treasurers of the Tudors raised princely

fortunes by the sale of places, titles, and pardons; and Pelham would

have ordered his servants to turn out of his house any man who had

offered him money for a peerage or a commissionership of customs. It is

evident, therefore, that the prevalence of corruption in the Parliament

cannot be ascribed to a general depravation of morals. The taint was

local; we must look for some local cause; and such a cause will without

difficulty be found.

Under our ancient sovereigns the House of Commons rarely interfered with

the executive administration. The Speaker was charged not to let

the members meddle with matters of State. If any gentleman was very

troublesome he was cited before the Privy Council, interrogated,

reprimanded, and sent to meditate on his undutiful conduct in the

Tower. The Commons did their best to protect themselves by keeping their

deliberations secret, by excluding strangers, by making it a crime to

repeat out of doors what had passed within doors. But these precautions

were of small avail. In so large an assembly there were always

talebearers ready to carry the evil report of their brethren to the

palace. To oppose the Court was therefore a service of serious danger.

In those days of course, there was little or no buying of votes. For an

honest man was not to be bought; and it was much cheaper to intimidate

or to coerce a knave than to buy him.

For a very different reason there has been no direct buying of votes

within the memory of the present generation. The House of Commons is

now supreme in the State, but is accountable to the nation. Even those

members who are not chosen by large constituent bodies are kept in awe

by public opinion. Every thing is printed; every thing is discussed;

every material word uttered in debate is read by a million of people on

the morrow. Within a few hours after an important division, the lists

of the majority and the minority are scanned and analysed in every town

from Plymouth to Inverness. If a name be found where it ought not to be,

the apostate is certain to be reminded in sharp language of the promises

which he has broken and of the professions which he has belied. At

present, therefore, the best way in which a government can secure the

support of a majority of the representative body is by gaining the

confidence of the nation.

But between the time when our Parliaments ceased to be controlled by

royal prerogative and the time when they began to be constantly and

effectually controlled by public opinion there was a long interval.

After the Restoration, no government ventured to return to those methods

by which, before the civil war, the freedom of deliberation has been

restrained. A member could no longer be called to account for his

harangues or his votes. He might obstruct the passing of bills of

supply; he might arraign the whole foreign policy of the country; he

might lay on the table articles of impeachment against all the chief

ministers; and he ran not the smallest risk of being treated as Morrice

had been treated by Elizabeth, or Eliot by Charles the First. The

senator now stood in no awe of the Court. Nevertheless all the defences

behind which the feeble Parliaments of the sixteenth century had

entrenched themselves against the attacks of prerogative were not only

still kept up, but were extended and strengthened. No politician seems

to have been aware that these defences were no longer needed for their

original purpose, and had begun to serve a purpose very different.

The rules which had been originally designed to secure faithful

representatives against the displeasure of the Sovereign, now operated

to secure unfaithful representatives against the displeasure of the

people, and proved much more effectual for the latter end than they had

ever been for the former. It was natural, it was inevitable, that, in

a legislative body emancipated from the restraints of the sixteenth

century, and not yet subjected to the restraints of the nineteenth

century, in a legislative body which feared neither the King nor the

public, there should be corruption.

The plague spot began to be visible and palpable in the days of the

Cabal. Clifford, the boldest and fiercest of the wicked Five, had

the merit of discovering that a noisy patriot, whom it was no longer

possible to send to prison, might be turned into a courtier by a

goldsmith's note. Clifford's example was followed by his successors.

It soon became a proverb that a Parliament resembled a pump. Often, the

wits said, when a pump appears to be dry, if a very small quantity of

water is poured in, a great quantity of water gushes out: and so, when

a Parliament appears to be niggardly, ten thousand pounds judiciously

given in bribes will often produce a million in supplies. The evil was

not diminished, nay, it was aggravated, by that Revolution which freed

our country from so many other evils. The House of Commons was now more

powerful than ever as against the Crown, and yet was not more strictly

responsible than formerly to the nation. The government had a new motive

for buying the members; and the members had no new motive for refusing

to sell themselves. William, indeed, had an aversion to bribery; he

resolved to abstain from it; and, during the first year of his reign, he

kept his resolution. Unhappily the events of that year did not encourage

him to persevere in his good intentions. As soon as Caermarthen was

placed at the head of the internal administration of the realm, a

complete change took place. He was in truth no novice in the art of

purchasing votes. He had, sixteen years before, succeeded Clifford at

the Treasury, had inherited Clifford's tactics, had improved upon them,

and had employed them to an extent which would have amazed the inventor.

From the day on which Caermarthen was called a second time to the

chief direction of affairs, parliamentary corruption continued to be

practised, with scarcely any intermission, by a long succession of

statesmen, till the close of the American war. Neither of the great

English parties can justly charge the other with any peculiar guilt on

this account. The Tories were the first who introduced the system and

the last who clung to it; but it attained its greatest vigour in the

time of Whig ascendency. The extent to which parliamentary support was

bartered for money cannot be with any precision ascertained. But it

seems probable that the number of hirelings was greatly exaggerated by

vulgar report, and was never large, though often sufficient to turn the

scale on important divisions. An unprincipled minister eagerly accepted

the services of these mercenaries. An honest minister reluctantly

submitted, for the sake of the commonwealth, to what he considered as

a shameful and odious extortion. But during many years every minister,

whatever his personal character might be, consented, willingly or

unwillingly, to manage the Parliament in the only way in which the

Parliament could then be managed. It at length became as notorious that

there was a market for votes at the Treasury as that there was a market

for cattle in Smithfield. Numerous demagogues out of power declaimed

against this vile traffic; but every one of those demagogues, as soon as

he was in power, found himself driven by a kind of fatality to engage in

that traffic, or at least to connive at it. Now and then perhaps a man

who had romantic notions of public virtue refused to be himself the

paymaster of the corrupt crew, and averted his eyes while his less

scrupulous colleagues did that which he knew to be indispensable, and

yet felt to be degrading. But the instances of this prudery were

rare indeed. The doctrine generally received, even among upright and

honourable politicians, was that it was shameful to receive bribes, but

that it was necessary to distribute them. It is a remarkable fact that

the evil reached the greatest height during the administration of Henry

Pelham, a statesman of good intentions, of spotless morals in private

life, and of exemplary disinterestedness. It is not difficult to guess

by what arguments he and other well meaning men, who, like him, followed

the fashion of their age, quieted their consciences. No casuist, however

severe, has denied that it may be a duty to give what it is a crime to

take. It was infamous in Jeffreys to demand money for the lives of the

unhappy prisoners whom he tried at Dorchester and Taunton. But it was

not infamous, nay, it was laudable, in the kinsmen and friends of a

prisoner to contribute of their substance in order to make up a purse

for Jeffreys. The Sallee rover, who threatened to bastinado a Christian

captive to death unless a ransom was forthcoming, was an odious ruffian.

But to ransom a Christian captive from a Sallee rover was, not merely

an innocent, but a highly meritorious act. It would be improper in such

cases to use the word corruption. Those who receive the filthy lucre are

corrupt already. He who bribes them does not make them wicked: he finds

them so; and he merely prevents their evil propensities from producing

evil effects. And might not the same plea be urged in defence of a

minister who, when no other expedient would avail, paid greedy and

lowminded men not to ruin their country?

It was by some such reasoning as this that the scruples of William were

overcome. Honest Burnet, with the uncourtly courage which distinguished

him, ventured to remonstrate with the King. "Nobody," William answered,

"hates bribery more, than I. But I have to do with a set of men who must

be managed in this vile way or not at all. I must strain a point or the

country is lost." [584]

It was necessary for the Lord President to have in the House of Commons

an agent for the purchase of members; and Lowther was both too awkward

and too scrupulous to be such an agent. But a man in whom craft and

profligacy were united in a high degree was without difficulty found.

This was the Master of the Rolls, Sir John Trevor, who had been Speaker

in the single Parliament held by James. High as Trevor had risen in the

world, there were people who could still remember him a strange looking

lawyer's clerk in the Inner Temple. Indeed, nobody who had ever seen

him was likely to forget him. For his grotesque features and his hideous

squint were far beyond the reach of caricature. His parts, which were

quick and vigorous, had enabled him early to master the science of

chicane. Gambling and betting were his amusements; and out of these

amusements he contrived to extract much business in the way of his

profession. For his opinion on a question arising out of a wager or

a game at chance had as much authority as a judgment of any court in

Westminster Hall. He soon rose to be one of the boon companions whom

Jeffreys hugged in fits of maudlin friendship over the bottle at night,

and cursed and reviled in court on the morrow. Under such a teacher,

Trevor rapidly became a proficient in that peculiar kind of rhetoric

which had enlivened the trials of Baxter and of Alice Lisle. Report

indeed spoke of some scolding matches between the Chancellor and his

friend, in which the disciple had been not less voluble and scurrilous

than the master. These contests, however, did not take place till the

younger adventurer had attained riches and dignities such that he no

longer stood in need of the patronage which had raised him, [585] Among

High Churchmen Trevor, in spite of his notorious want of principle, had

at this time a certain popularity, which he seems to have owed chiefly

to their conviction that, however insincere he might be in general, his

hatred of the dissenters was genuine and hearty. There was little doubt

that, in a House of Commons in which the Tories had a majority, he

might easily, with the support of the Court, be chosen Speaker. He was

impatient to be again in his old post, which he well knew how to make

one of the most lucrative in the kingdom; and he willingly undertook

that secret and shameful office for which Lowther was altogether

unqualified.

Richard Hampden was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer. This

appointment was probably intended as a mark of royal gratitude for the

moderation of his conduct, and for the attempts which he had made to

curb the violence of his Whig friends, and especially of his son.

Godolphin voluntarily left the Treasury; why, we are not informed. We

can scarcely doubt that the dissolution and the result of the general

election must have given him pleasure. For his political opinions leaned

towards Toryism; and he had, in the late reign, done some things which,

though not very heinous, stood in need of an indemnity. It is probable

that he did not think it compatible with his personal dignity to sit at

the board below Lowther, who was in rank his inferior, [586]

A new Commission of Admiralty was issued. At the head of the naval

administration was placed Thomas Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, a high born

and high bred man, who had ranked among the Tories, who had voted for

a Regency, and who had married the daughter of Sawyer. That Pembroke's

Toryism, however, was not of a narrow and illiberal kind is sufficiently

proved by the fact that, immediately after the Revolution, the Essay on

the Human Understanding was dedicated to him by John Locke, in token of

gratitude for kind offices done in evil times, [587]

Nothing was omitted which could reconcile Torrington to this change.

For, though he had been found an incapable administrator, he still

stood so high in general estimation as a seaman that the government

was unwilling to lose his services. He was assured that no slight was

intended to him. He could not serve his country at once on the ocean

and at Westminster; and it had been thought less difficult to supply his

place in his office than on the deck of his flagship. He was at first

very angry, and actually laid down his commission: but some concessions

were made to his pride: a pension of three thousand pounds a year and a

grant of ten thousand acres of crown land in the Peterborough level were

irresistible baits to his cupidity; and, in an evil hour for England, he

consented to remain at the head of the naval force, on which the safety

of her coasts depended, [588]

While these changes were making in the offices round Whitehall, the

Commissions of Lieutenancy all over the kingdom were revised. The Tories

had, during twelve months, been complaining that their share in the

government of the districts in which they lived bore no proportion

to their number, to their wealth, and to the consideration which they

enjoyed in society. They now regained with great delight their former

position in their shires. The Whigs raised a cry that the King was

foully betrayed, and that he had been induced by evil counsellors to put

the sword into the hands of men who, as soon as a favourable opportunity

offered, would turn the edge against himself. In a dialogue which was

believed to have been written by the newly created Earl of Warrington,

and which had a wide circulation at the time, but has long been

forgotten, the Lord Lieutenant of a county was introduced expressing his

apprehensions that the majority of his deputies were traitors at heart,

[589] But nowhere was the excitement produced by the new distribution of

power so great as in the capital. By a Commission of Lieutenancy which

had been issued immediately after the Revolution, the train bands of the

City had been put under the command of staunch Whigs. Those powerful and

opulent citizens whose names were omitted complained that the list was

filled with elders of Puritan congregations, with Shaftesbury's brisk

boys, with Rye House plotters, and that it was scarcely possible to

find, mingled with that multitude of fanatics and levellers, a single

man sincerely attached to monarchy and to the Church. A new Commission

now appeared framed by Caermarthen and Nottingham. They had taken

counsel with Compton, the Bishop of the diocese; and Compton was not

a very discreet adviser. He had originally been a High Churchman and a

Tory. The severity with which he had been treated in the late reign had

transformed him into a Latitudinarian and a rebel; and he had now, from

jealousy of Tillotson, turned High Churchman and Tory again. The Whigs

complained that they were ungratefully proscribed by a government

which owed its existence to them; that some of the best friends of King

William had been dismissed with contumely to make room for some of

his worst enemies, for men who were as unworthy of trust as any Irish

Rapparee, for men who had delivered up to a tyrant the charter and

the immemorial privileges of the City, for men who had made themselves

notorious by the cruelty with which they had enforced the penal laws

against Protestant dissenters, nay, for men who had sate on those juries

which had found Russell and Cornish guilty, [590] The discontent was

so great that it seemed, during a short time, likely to cause pecuniary

embarrassment to the State. The supplies voted by the late Parliament

came in slowly. The wants of the public service were pressing. In such

circumstances it was to the citizens of London that the government

always looked for help; and the government of William had hitherto

looked especially to those citizens who professed Whig opinions. Things

were now changed. A few eminent Whigs, in their first anger, sullenly

refused to advance money. Nay, one or two unexpectedly withdrew

considerable sums from the Exchequer, [591] The financial difficulties

might have been serious, had not some wealthy Tories, who, if

Sacheverell's clause had become law, would have been excluded from all

municipal honours, offered the Treasury a hundred thousand pounds down,

and promised to raise a still larger sum, [592]

While the City was thus agitated, came a day appointed by royal

proclamation for a general fast. The reasons assigned for this solemn

act of devotion were the lamentable state of Ireland and the approaching

departure of the King. Prayers were offered up for the safety of His

Majesty's person and for the success of his arms. The churches of London

were crowded. The most eminent preachers of the capital, who were, with

scarcely an exception, either moderate Tories or moderate Whigs, exerted

themselves to calm the public mind, and earnestly exhorted their flocks

not to withhold, at this great conjuncture, a hearty support from the

prince, with whose fate was bound up the fate of the whole nation.

Burnet told a large congregation from the pulpit how the Greeks, when

the Great Turk was preparing to besiege Constantinople, could not be

persuaded to contribute any part of their wealth for the common defence,

and how bitterly they repented of their avarice when they were compelled

to deliver up to the victorious infidels the treasures which had been

refused to the supplications of the last Christian emperor, [593]

The Whigs, however, as a party, did not stand in need of such an

admonition. Grieved and angry as they were, they were perfectly sensible

that on the stability of the throne of William depended all that they

most highly prized. What some of them might, at this conjuncture, have

been tempted to do if they could have found another leader, if, for

example, their Protestant Duke, their King Monmouth, had still been

living, may be doubted. But their only choice was between the Sovereign

whom they had set up and the Sovereign whom they had pulled down. It

would have been strange indeed if they had taken part with James in

order to punish William, when the worst fault which they imputed to

William was that he did not participate in the vindictive feeling with

which they remembered the tyranny of James. Much as they disliked the

Bill of Indemnity, they had not forgotten the Bloody Circuit. They

therefore, even in their ill humour, continued true to their own King,

and, while grumbling at him, were ready to stand by him against his

adversary with their lives and fortunes, [594]

There were indeed exceptions; but they were very few; and they were

to be found almost exclusively in two classes, which, though widely

differing from each other in social position, closely resembled each

other in laxity of principle. All the Whigs who are known to have

trafficked with Saint Germains belonged, not to the main body of

the party, but either to the head or to the tail. They were either

patricians high in rank and office, or caitiffs who had long been

employed in the foulest drudgery of faction. To the former class

belonged Shrewsbury. Of the latter class the most remarkable specimen

was Robert Ferguson. From the day on which the Convention Parliament was

dissolved, Shrewsbury began to waver in his allegiance: but that he had

ever wavered was not, till long after, suspected by the public. That

Ferguson had, a few months after the Revolution, become a furious

Jacobite, was no secret to any body, and ought not to have been matter

of surprise to any body. For his apostasy he could not plead even the

miserable excuse that he had been neglected. The ignominious services

which he had formerly rendered to his party as a spy, a raiser of

riots, a dispenser of bribes, a writer of libels, a prompter of false

witnesses, had been rewarded only too prodigally for the honour of

the new government. That he should hold any high office was of course

impossible. But a sinecure place of five hundred a year had been created

for him in the department of the Excise. He now had what to him was

opulence: but opulence did not satisfy him. For money indeed he had

never scrupled to be guilty of fraud aggravated by hypocrisy; yet the

love of money was not his strongest passion. Long habits had developed

in him a moral disease from, which people who make political agitation

their calling are seldom wholly free. He could not be quiet. Sedition,

from being his business, had become his pleasure. It was as impossible

for him to live without doing mischief as for an old dram drinker or

an old opium eater to live without the daily dose of poison. The very

discomforts and hazards of a lawless life had a strange attraction for

him. He could no more be turned into a peaceable and loyal subject than

the fox can be turned into a shepherd's dog, or than the kite can be

taught the habits of the barn door fowl. The Red Indian prefers his

hunting ground to cultivated fields and stately cities: the gipsy,

sheltered by a commodious roof, and provided with meat in due season,

still pines for the ragged tent on the moor and the meal of carrion, and

even so Ferguson became weary of plenty and security, of his salary, his

house, his table and his coach, and longed to be again the president

of societies where none could enter without a password, the director of

secret presses, the distributor of inflammatory pamphlets; to see the

walls placarded with descriptions of his Person and offers of reward for

his apprehension; to have six or seven names, with a different wig and

cloak for each, and to change his lodgings thrice a week at dead

of night. His hostility was not to Popery or to Protestantism, to

monarchical government or to republican government, to the House of

Stuart or to the House of Nassau, but to whatever was at the time

established.