It was five in the morning. Hamilton and his men were still some miles

off; and the avenues which they were to have secured were open. But the

orders which Glenlyon had received were precise; and he began to execute

them at the little village where he was himself quartered. His host

Inverriggen and nine other Macdonalds were dragged out of their beds,

bound hand and foot, and murdered. A boy twelve years old clung round

the Captain's legs, and begged hard for life. He would do any thing;

he would go any where; he would follow Glenlyon round the world. Even

Glenlyon, it is said, showed signs of relenting; but a ruffian named

Drummond shot the child dead.

At Auchnaion the tacksman Auchintriater was up early that morning, and

was sitting with eight of his family round the fire, when a volley

of musketry laid him and seven of his companions dead or dying on the

floor. His brother, who alone had escaped unhurt, called to Serjeant

Barbour, who commanded the slayers, and asked as a favour to be allowed

to die in the open air. "Well," said the Serjeant, "I will do you that

favour for the sake of your meat which I have eaten." The mountaineer,

bold, athletic, and favoured by the darkness, came forth, rushed on the

soldiers who were about to level their pieces at him, flung his plaid

over their faces, and was gone in a moment.

Meanwhile Lindsay had knocked at the door of the old Chief and had asked

for admission in friendly language. The door was opened. Mac Ian,

while putting on his clothes and calling to his servants to bring some

refreshment for his visitors, was shot through the head. Two of his

attendants were slain with him. His wife was already up and dressed in

such finery as the princesses of the rude Highland glens were accustomed

to wear. The assassins pulled off her clothes and trinkets. The rings

were not easily taken from her fingers but a soldier tore them away with

his teeth. She died on the following day.

The statesman, to whom chiefly this great crime is to be ascribed, had

planned it with consummate ability: but the execution was complete in

nothing but in guilt and infamy. A succession of blunders saved three

fourths of the Glencoe men from the fate of their chief. All the moral

qualities which fit men to bear a part in a massacre Hamilton and

Glenlyon possessed in perfection. But neither seems to have had much

professional skill; Hamilton had arranged his plan without making

allowance for bad weather, and this in a country and at a season when

the weather was very likely to be bad. The consequence was that the fox

earths, as he called them, were not stopped in time. Glenlyon and his

men committed the error of despatching their hosts with firearms instead

of using the cold steel. The peal and flash of gun after gun gave

notice, from three different parts of the valley at once; that murder

was doing. From fifty cottages the half naked peasantry fled under cover

of the night to the recesses of their pathless glen. Even the sons of

Mac Ian, who had been especially marked out for destruction, contrived

to escape. They were roused from sleep by faithful servants. John,

who, by the death of his father, had become the patriarch of the tribe,

quitted his dwelling just as twenty soldiers with fixed bayonets marched

up to it. It was broad day long before Hamilton arrived. He found the

work not even half performed. About thirty corpses lay wallowing in

blood on the dunghills before the doors. One or two women were seen

among the number, and, a yet more fearful and piteous sight, a little

hand, which had been lopped in the tumult of the butchery from some

infant. One aged Macdonald was found alive. He was probably too infirm

to fly, and, as he was above seventy, was not included in the orders

under which Glenlyon had acted. Hamilton murdered the old man in cold

blood. The deserted hamlets were then set on fire; and the troops

departed, driving away with them many sheep and goats, nine hundred

kine, and two hundred of the small shaggy ponies of the Highlands.

It is said, and may but too easily be believed, that the sufferings of

the fugitives were terrible. How many old men, how many women with babes

in their arms, sank down and slept their last sleep in the snow; how

many, having crawled, spent with toil and hunger, into nooks among the

precipices, died in those dark holes, and were picked to the bone by the

mountain ravens, can never be known. But it is probable that those who

perished by cold, weariness and want were not less numerous than those

who were slain by the assassins. When the troops had retired, the

Macdonalds crept out of the caverns of Glencoe, ventured back to the

spot where the huts had formerly stood, collected the scorched

corpses from among the smoking ruins, and performed some rude rites of

sepulture. The tradition runs that the hereditary bard of the tribe took

his seat on a rock which overhung the place of slaughter, and poured

forth a long lament over his murdered brethren, and his desolate home.

Eighty years later that sad dirge was still repeated by the population

of the valley. [233]

The survivors might well apprehend that they had escaped the shot

and the sword only to perish by famine. The whole domain was a waste.

Houses, barns, furniture, implements of husbandry, herds, flocks,

horses, were gone. Many months must elapse before the clan would be

able to raise on its own ground the means of supporting even the most

miserable existence. [234]

It may be thought strange that these events should not have been

instantly followed by a burst of execration from every part of the

civilised world. The fact, however, is that years elapsed before the

public indignation was thoroughly awakened, and that months elapsed

before the blackest part of the story found credit even among the

enemies of the government. That the massacre should not have been

mentioned in the London Gazettes, in the Monthly Mercuries which were

scarcely less courtly than the Gazettes, or in pamphlets licensed by

official censors, is perfectly intelligible. But that no allusion to it

should be found in private journals and letters, written by persons free

from all restraint, may seem extraordinary. There is not a word on the

subject in Evelyn's Diary. In Narcissus Luttrell's Diary is a remarkable

entry made five weeks after the butchery. The letters from Scotland, he

says, described that kingdom as perfectly tranquil, except that there

was still some grumbling about ecclesiastical questions. The Dutch

ministers regularly reported all the Scotch news to their government.

They thought it worth while, about this time, to mention that a collier

had been taken by a privateer near Berwick, that the Edinburgh mail had

been robbed, that a whale, with a tongue seventeen feet long and seven

feet broad, had been stranded near Aberdeen. But it is not hinted in

any of their despatches that there was any rumour of any extraordinary

occurrence in the Highlands. Reports that some of the Macdonalds had

been slain did indeed, in about three weeks, travel through Edinburgh up

to London. But these reports were vague and contradictory; and the very

worst of them was far from coming up to the horrible truth. The Whig

version of the story was that the old robber Mac Ian had laid an

ambuscade for the soldiers, that he had been caught in his own snare,

and that he and some of his clan had fallen sword in hand. The Jacobite

version, written at Edinburgh on the twenty-third of March, appeared in

the Paris Gazette of the seventh of April. Glenlyon, it was said, had

been sent with a detachment from Argyle's regiment, under cover of

darkness, to surprise the inhabitants of Glencoe, and had killed

thirty-six men and boys and four women. [235] In this there was nothing

very strange or shocking. A night attack on a gang of freebooters

occupying a strong natural fortress may be a perfectly legitimate

military operation; and, in the obscurity and confusion of such an

attack, the most humane man may be so unfortunate as to shoot a woman

or a child. The circumstances which give a peculiar character to the

slaughter of Glencoe, the breach of faith, the breach of hospitality,

the twelve days of feigned friendship and conviviality, of morning

calls, of social meals, of healthdrinking, of cardplaying, were not

mentioned by the Edinburgh correspondent of the Paris Gazette; and we

may therefore confidently infer that those circumstances were as yet

unknown even to inquisitive and busy malecontents residing in the

Scottish capital within a hundred miles of the spot where the deed had

been done. In the south of the island the matter produced, as far as

can now be judged, scarcely any sensation. To the Londoner of those days

Appin was what Caffraria or Borneo is to us. He was not more moved by

hearing that some Highland thieves had been surprised and killed than we

are by hearing that a band of Amakosah cattle stealers has been cut

off, or that a bark full of Malay pirates has been sunk. He took it for

granted that nothing had been done in Glencoe beyond what was doing in

many other glens. There had been a night brawl, one of a hundred night

brawls, between the Macdonalds and the Campbells; and the Campbells had

knocked the Macdonalds on the head.

By slow degrees the whole truth came out. From a letter written at

Edinburgh about two months after the crime had been committed, it

appears that the horrible story was already current among the Jacobites

of that city. In the summer Argyle's regiment was quartered in the south

of England, and some of the men made strange confessions, over their

ale, about what they had been forced to do in the preceding winter. The

nonjurors soon got hold of the clue, and followed it resolutely; their

secret presses went to work; and at length, near a year after the crime

had been committed, it was published to the world. [236] But the world

was long incredulous. The habitual mendacity of the Jacobite libellers

had brought on them an appropriate punishment. Now, when, for the first

time, they told the truth, they were supposed to be romancing. They

complained bitterly that the story, though perfectly authentic, was

regarded by the public as a factious lie. [237] So late as the year

1695, Hickes, in a tract in which he endeavoured to defend his darling

tale of the Theban legion against the unanswerable argument drawn

from the silence of historians, remarked that it might well be doubted

whether any historian would make mention of the massacre of Glencoe.

There were in England, he said, many thousands of well educated men who

had never heard of that massacre, or who regarded it as a mere fable.

[238]

Nevertheless the punishment of some of the guilty began very early.

Hill, who indeed can hardly be called guilty, was much disturbed.

Breadalbane, hardened as he was, felt the stings of conscience or the

dread of retribution. A few days after the Macdonalds had returned to

their old dwellingplace, his steward visited the ruins of the house of

Glencoe, and endeavoured to persuade the sons of the murdered chief to

sign a paper declaring that they held the Earl guiltless of the blood

which had been shed. They were assured that, if they would do this, all

His Lordship's great influence should be employed to obtain for them

from the Crown a free pardon and a remission of all forfeitures.

[239] Glenlyon did his best to assume an air of unconcern. He made his

appearance in the most fashionable coffeehouse at Edinburgh, and talked

loudly and self-complacently about the important service in which he

had been engaged among the mountains. Some of his soldiers, however, who

observed him closely, whispered that all this bravery was put on. He

was not the man that he had been before that night. The form of his

countenance was changed. In all places, at all hours, whether he waked

or slept, Glencoe was for ever before him. [240]

But, whatever apprehensions might disturb Breadalbane, whatever spectres

might haunt Glenlyon, the Master of Stair had neither fear nor remorse.

He was indeed mortified; but he was mortified only by the blunders of

Hamilton and by the escape of so many of the damnable breed. "Do right,

and fear nobody;" such is the language of his letters. "Can there be

a more sacred duty than to rid the country of thieving? The only thing

that I regret is that any got away." [241]

On the sixth of March, William, entirely ignorant, in all probability,

of the details of the crime which has cast a dark shade over his glory,

had set out for the Continent, leaving the Queen his viceregent in

England. [242]

He would perhaps have postponed his departure if he had been aware

that the French Government had, during some time, been making great

preparations for a descent on our island. [243] An event had taken place

which had changed the policy of the Court of Versailles. Louvois was

no more. He had been at the head of the military administration of his

country during a quarter of a century; he had borne a chief part in the

direction of two wars which had enlarged the French territory, and had

filled the world with the renown of the French arms; and he had lived

to see the beginning of a third war which tasked his great powers to the

utmost. Between him and the celebrated captains who carried his plans

into execution there was little harmony. His imperious temper and

his confidence in himself impelled him to interfere too much with the

conduct of troops in the field, even when those troops were commanded

by Conde, by Turenne or by Luxemburg. But he was the greatest Adjutant

General, the greatest Quartermaster General, the greatest Commissary

General, that Europe had seen. He may indeed be said to have made a

revolution in the art of disciplining, distributing, equipping and

provisioning armies. In spite, however, of his abilities and of his

services, he had become odious to Lewis and to her who governed Lewis.

On the last occasion on which the King and the minister transacted

business together, the ill humour on both sides broke violently forth.

The servant, in his vexation, dashed his portfolio on the ground. The

master, forgetting, what he seldom forgot, that a King should be a

gentleman, lifted his cane. Fortunately his wife was present. She, with

her usual prudence, caught his arm. She then got Louvois out of the

room, and exhorted him to come back the next day as if nothing had

happened. The next day he came; but with death in his face. The King,

though full of resentment, was touched with pity, and advised Louvois to

go home and take care of himself. That evening the great minister died.

[244]

Louvois had constantly opposed all plans for the invasion of England.

His death was therefore regarded at Saint Germains as a fortunate event.

[245] It was however necessary to look sad, and to send a gentleman

to Versailles with some words of condolence. The messenger found the

gorgeous circle of courtiers assembled round their master on the terrace

above the orangery. "Sir," said Lewis, in a tone so easy and cheerful

that it filled all the bystanders with amazement, "present my

compliments and thanks to the King and Queen of England, and tell them

that neither my affairs nor theirs will go on the worse by what has

happened." These words were doubtless meant to intimate that the

influence of Louvois had not been exerted in favour of the House of

Stuart. [246] One compliment, however, a compliment which cost France

dear, Lewis thought it right to pay to the memory of his ablest

servant. The Marquess of Barbesieux, son of Louvois, was placed, in his

twenty-fifth year, at the head of the war department. The young man was

by no means deficient in abilities, and had been, during some years,

employed in business of grave importance. But his passions were strong;

his judgment was not ripe; and his sudden elevation turned his head. His

manners gave general disgust. Old officers complained that he kept them

long in his antechamber while he was amusing himself with his spaniels

and his flatterers. Those who were admitted to his presence went away

disgusted by his rudeness and arrogance. As was natural at his age, he

valued power chiefly as the means of procuring pleasure. Millions of

crowns were expended on the luxurious villa where he loved to forget

the cares of office in gay conversation, delicate cookery and foaming

champagne. He often pleaded an attack of fever as an excuse for not

making his appearance at the proper hour in the royal closet, when

in truth he had been playing truant among his boon companions and

mistresses. "The French King," said William, "has an odd taste.

He chooses an old woman for his mistress, and a young man for his

minister." [247]

There can be little doubt that Louvois, by pursuing that course which

had made him odious to the inmates of Saint Germains, had deserved well

of his country. He was not maddened by Jacobite enthusiasm. He well knew

that exiles are the worst of all advisers. He had excellent information;

he had excellent judgment; he calculated the chances; and he saw that a

descent was likely to fail, and to fail disastrously and disgracefully.

James might well be impatient to try the experiment, though the odds

should be ten to one against him. He might gain; and he could not lose.

His folly and obstinacy had left him nothing to risk. His food, his

drink, his lodging, his clothes, he owed to charity. Nothing could be

more natural than that, for the very smallest chance of recovering the

three kingdoms which he had thrown away, he should be willing to stake

what was not his own, the honour of the French arms, the grandeur and

the safety of the French monarchy. To a French statesman such a wager

might well appear in a different light. But Louvois was gone. His

master yielded to the importunity of James, and determined to send an

expedition against England. [248]

The scheme was, in some respects, well concerted. It was resolved that

a camp should be formed on the coast of Normandy, and that in this

camp all the Irish regiments which were in the French service should be

assembled under their countryman Sarsfield. With them were to be joined

about ten thousand French troops. The whole army was to be commanded by

Marshal Bellefonds.

A noble fleet of about eighty ships of the line was to convoy this

force to the shores of England. In the dockyards both of Brittany and of

Provence immense preparations were made. Four and forty men of war, some

of which were among the finest that had ever been built, were assembled

in the harbour of Brest under Tourville. The Count of Estrees, with

thirty-five more, was to sail from Toulon. Ushant was fixed for the

place of rendezvous. The very day was named. In order that there might

be no want either of seamen or of vessels for the intended expedition,

all maritime trade, all privateering was, for a time, interdicted by a

royal mandate. [249] Three hundred transports were collected near the

spot where the troops were to embark. It was hoped that all would be

ready early in the spring, before the English ships were half rigged or

half manned, and before a single Dutch man of war was in the Channel.

[250]

James had indeed persuaded himself that, even if the English fleet

should fall in with him, it would not oppose him. He imagined that

he was personally a favourite with the mariners of all ranks. His

emissaries had been busy among the naval officers, and had found some

who remembered him with kindness, and others who were out of humour

with the men now in power. All the wild talk of a class of people not

distinguished by taciturnity or discretion was reported to him with

exaggeration, till he was deluded into a belief that he had more friends

than enemies on board of the vessels which guarded our coasts. Yet he

should have known that a rough sailor, who thought himself ill used by

the Admiralty, might, after the third bottle, when drawn on by artful

companions, express his regret for the good old times, curse the new

government, and curse himself for being such a fool as to fight for

that government, and yet might be by no means prepared to go over to the

French on the day of battle. Of the malecontent officers, who, as James

believed, were impatient to desert, the great majority had probably

given no pledge of their attachment to him except an idle word

hiccoughed out when they were drunk, and forgotten when they were sober.

One those from whom he expected support, Rear Admiral Carter, had indeed

heard and perfectly understood what the Jacobite agents had to say, had

given them fair words, and had reported the whole to the Queen and her

ministers. [251]

But the chief dependence of James was on Russell. That false, arrogant

and wayward politician was to command the Channel Fleet. He had never

ceased to assure the Jacobite emissaries that he was bent on effecting

a Restoration. Those emissaries fully reckoned, if not on his entire

cooperation, yet at least on his connivance; and there could be no doubt

that, with his connivance, a French fleet might easily convoy an army to

our shores. James flattered himself that, as soon as he had landed, he

should be master of the island. But in truth, when the voyage had ended,

the difficulties of his enterprise would have been only beginning. Two

years before he had received a lesson by which he should have profited.

He had then deceived himself and others into the belief that the English

were regretting him, were pining for him, were eager to rise in arms

by tens of thousands to welcome him. William was then, as now, at a

distance. Then, as now, the administration was entrusted to a woman.

Then, as now, there were few regular troops in England. Torrington had

then done as much to injure the government which he served as Russell

could now do. The French fleet had then, after riding, during several

weeks, victorious and dominant in the Channel, landed some troops on

the southern coast. The immediate effect had been that whole counties,

without distinction of Tory or Whig, Churchman or Dissenter, had risen

up, as one man, to repel the foreigners, and that the Jacobite party,

which had, a few days before, seemed to be half the nation, had crouched

down in silent terror, and had made itself so small that it had, during

some time, been invisible. What reason was there for believing that

the multitude who had, in 1690, at the first lighting of the beacons,

snatched up firelocks, pikes, scythes, to defend, their native soil

against the French, would now welcome the French as allies? And of the

army by which James was now to be accompanied the French formed the

least odious part. More than half of that army was to consist of Irish

Papists; and the feeling, compounded of hatred and scorn, with which the

Irish Papists had long been regarded by the English Protestants, had

by recent events been stimulated to a vehemence before unknown. The

hereditary slaves, it was said, had been for a moment free; and that

moment had sufficed to prove that they knew neither how to use nor how

to defend their freedom. During their short ascendency they had done

nothing but slay, and burn, and pillage, and demolish, and attaint, and

confiscate. In three years they had committed such waste on their native

land as thirty years of English intelligence and industry would scarcely

repair. They would have maintained their independence against the world,

if they had been as ready to fight as they were to steal. But they had

retreated ignominiously from the walls of Londonderry. They had fled

like deer before the yeomanry of Enniskillen. The Prince whom they

now presumed to think that they could place, by force of arms, on the

English throne, had himself, on the morning after the rout of the Boyne,

reproached them with their cowardice, and told them that he would never

again trust to their soldiership. On this subject Englishmen were of one

mind. Tories, Nonjurors, even Roman Catholics, were as loud as Whigs in

reviling the ill fated race. It is, therefore, not difficult to guess

what effect would have been produced by the appearance on our soil of

enemies whom, on their own soil, we had vanquished and trampled down.

James, however, in spite of the recent and severe teaching of

experience, believed whatever his correspondents in England told him;

and they told him that the whole nation was impatiently expecting him,

that both the West and the North were ready to rise, that he would

proceed from the place of landing to Whitehall with as little

opposition as when, in old times, he returned from a progress. Ferguson

distinguished himself by the confidence with which he predicted a

complete and bloodless victory. He and his printer, he was absurd enough

to write, would be the two first men in the realm to take horse for His

Majesty. Many other agents were busy up and down the country, during the

winter and the early part of the spring. It does not appear that they

had much success in the counties south of Trent. But in the north,

particularly in Lancashire, where the Roman Catholics were more numerous

and more powerful than in any other part of the kingdom, and where there

seems to have been, even among the Protestant gentry, more than the

ordinary proportion of bigoted Jacobites, some preparations for an

insurrection were made. Arms were privately bought; officers were

appointed; yeomen, small farmers, grooms, huntsmen, were induced to

enlist. Those who gave in their names were distributed into eight

regiments of cavalry and dragoons, and were directed to hold themselves

in readiness to mount at the first signal. [252]

One of the circumstances which filled James, at this time, with

vain hopes, was that his wife was pregnant and near her delivery. He

flattered himself that malice itself would be ashamed to repeat any

longer the story of the warming pan, and that multitudes whom that story

had deceived would instantly return to their allegiance. He took, on

this occasion, all those precautions which, four years before, he had

foolishly and perversely forborne to take. He contrived to transmit to

England letters summoning many Protestant women of quality to assist at

the expected birth; and he promised, in the name of his dear brother the

Most Christian King, that they should be free to come and go in safety.

Had some of these witnesses been invited to Saint James's on the morning

of the tenth of June 1688, the House of Stuart might, perhaps, now be

reigning in our island. But it is easier to keep a crown than to regain

one. It might be true that a calumnious fable had done much to bring

about the Revolution. But it by no means followed that the most complete

refutation of that fable would bring about a Restoration. Not a single

lady crossed the sea in obedience to James's call. His Queen was safely

delivered of a daughter; but this event produced no perceptible effect

on the state of public feeling in England. [253]

Meanwhile the preparations for his expedition were going on fast. He

was on the point of setting out for the place of embarkation before the

English government was at all aware of the danger which was impending.

It had been long known indeed that many thousands of Irish were

assembled in Normandy; but it was supposed that they had been assembled

merely that they might be mustered and drilled before they were sent

to Flanders, Piedmont, and Catalonia. [254] Now, however, intelligence,

arriving from many quarters, left no doubt that an invasion would be

almost immediately attempted. Vigorous preparations for defence were

made. The equipping and manning of the ships was urged forward with

vigour. The regular troops were drawn together between London and the

sea. A great camp was formed on the down which overlooks Portsmouth. The

militia all over the kingdom was called out. Two Westminster regiments

and six City regiments, making up a force of thirteen thousand fighting

men, were arrayed in Hyde Park, and passed in review before the Queen.

The trainbands of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey marched down to the coast.

Watchmen were posted by the beacons. Some nonjurors were imprisoned,

some disarmed, some held to bail. The house of the Earl of Huntingdon, a

noted Jacobite, was searched. He had had time to burn his papers and to

hide his arms; but his stables presented a most suspicious appearance.

Horses enough to mount a whole troop of cavalry were at the mangers;

and this evidence, though not legally sufficient to support a charge of

treason, was thought sufficient, at such a conjuncture, to justify the

Privy Council in sending him to the Tower. [255] Meanwhile James had

gone down to his army, which was encamped round the basin of La

Hogue, on the northern coast of the peninsula known by the name of the

Cotentin. Before he quitted Saint Germains, he held a Chapter of the

Garter for the purpose of admitting his son into the order. Two noblemen

were honoured with the same distinction, Powis, who, among his brother

exiles, was now called a Duke, and Melfort, who had returned from Rome,

and was again James's Prime Minister. [256] Even at this moment, when it

was of the greatest importance to conciliate the members of the Church

of England, none but members of the Church of Rome were thought worthy

of any mark of royal favour. Powis indeed was an eminent member of the

English aristocracy; and his countrymen disliked him as little as they

disliked any conspicuous Papist. But Melfort was not even an Englishman;

he had never held office in England; he had never sate in the English

Parliament; and he had therefore no pretensions to a dignity peculiarly

English. He was moreover hated by all the contending factions of all the

three kingdoms. Royal letters countersigned by him had been sent both to

the Convention at Westminster and to the Convention at Edinburgh; and,

both at Westminster and at Edinburgh, the sight of his odious name and

handwriting had made the most zealous friends of hereditary right hang

down their heads in shame. It seems strange that even James should have

chosen, at such a conjuncture, to proclaim to the world that the men

whom his people most abhorred were the men whom he most delighted to

honour.

Still more injurious to his interests was the Declaration in which he

announced his intentions to his subjects. Of all the State papers

which were put forth even by him it was the most elaborately and

ostentatiously injudicious. When it had disgusted and exasperated all

good Englishmen of all parties, the Papists at Saint Germains pretended

that it had been drawn up by a stanch Protestant, Edward Herbert, who

had been Chief Justice of the Common Pleas before the Revolution, and

who now bore the empty title of Chancellor. [257] But it is certain that

Herbert was never consulted about any matter of importance, and that

the Declaration was the work of Melfort and of Melfort alone. [258]

In truth, those qualities of head and heart which had made Melfort the

favourite of his master shone forth in every sentence. Not a word was

to be found indicating that three years of banishment had made the King

wiser, that he had repented of a single error, that he took to himself

even the smallest part of the blame of that revolution which had

dethroned him, or that he purposed to follow a course in any respect

differing from that which had already been fatal to him. All the

charges which had been brought against him he pronounced to be utterly

unfounded. Wicked men had put forth calumnies. Weak men had believed

those calumnies. He alone had been faultless. He held out no hope that

he would consent to any restriction of that vast dispensing power to

which he had formerly laid claim, that he would not again, in defiance

of the plainest statutes, fill the Privy Council, the bench of justice,

the public offices, the army, the navy, with Papists, that he would not

reestablish the High Commission, that he would not appoint a new set of

regulators to remodel all the constituent bodies of the kingdom. He did

indeed condescend to say that he would maintain the legal rights of the

Church of England; but he had said this before; and all men knew what

those words meant in his mouth. Instead of assuring his people of his

forgiveness, he menaced them with a proscription more terrible than any

which our island had ever seen. He published a list of persons who had

no mercy to expect. Among these were Ormond, Caermarthen, Nottingham,

Tillotson and Burnet. After the roll of those who were doomed to death

by name, came a series of categories. First stood all the crowd

of rustics who had been rude to His Majesty when he was stopped at

Sheerness in his flight. These poor ignorant wretches, some hundreds in

number, were reserved for another bloody circuit. Then came all persons

who had in any manner borne a part in the punishment of any Jacobite

conspirator; judges, counsel, witnesses, grand jurymen, petty jurymen,

sheriffs and undersheriffs, constables and turnkeys, in short, all

the ministers of justice from Holt down to Ketch. Then vengeance was

denounced against all spies and all informers who had divulged to the

usurpers the designs of the Court of Saint Germains. All justices of

the peace who should not declare for their rightful Sovereign the moment

that they heard of his landing, all gaolers who should not instantly set

political prisoners at liberty, were to be left to the extreme rigour of

the law. No exception was made in favour of a justice or of a gaoler

who might be within a hundred yards of one of William's regiments, and

a hundred miles from the nearest place where there was a single Jacobite

in arms.

It might have been expected that James, after thus denouncing vengeance

against large classes of his subjects, would at least have offered a

general amnesty to the rest. But of general amnesty he said not a

word. He did indeed promise that any offender who was not in any of the

categories of proscription, and who should by any eminent service merit

indulgence, should receive a special pardon. But, with this exception,

all the offenders, hundreds of thousands in number, were merely informed

that their fate should be decided in Parliament.

The agents of James speedily dispersed his Declaration over every part

of the kingdom, and by doing so rendered a great service to William.

The general cry was that the banished oppressor had at least given

Englishmen fair warning, and that, if, after such a warning, they

welcomed him home, they would have no pretence for complaining, though

every county town should be polluted by an assize resembling that

which Jeffreys had held at Taunton. That some hundreds of people,--the

Jacobites put the number so low as five hundred,--were to be hanged

without mercy was certain; and nobody who had concurred in the

Revolution, nobody who had fought for the new government by sea or

land, no soldier who had borne a part in the conquest of Ireland, no

Devonshire ploughman or Cornish miner who had taken arms to defend his

wife and children against Tourville, could be certain that he should

not be hanged. How abject too, how spiteful, must be the nature of a man

who, engaged in the most momentous of all undertakings, and aspiring to

the noblest of all prizes, could not refrain from proclaiming that he

thirsted for the blood of a multitude of poor fishermen, because,

more than three years before, they had pulled him about and called him

Hatchetface. If, at the very moment when he had the strongest motives

for trying to conciliate his people by the show of clemency, he could

not bring himself to hold towards them any language but that of an

implacable enemy, what was to be expected from him when he should be

again their master? So savage was his nature that, in a situation

in which all other tyrants have resorted to blandishments and fair

promises, he could utter nothing but reproaches and threats. The only

words in his Declaration which had any show of graciousness were those

in which he promised to send away the foreign troops as soon as his

authority was reestablished; and many said that those words, when

examined, would be found full of sinister meaning. He held out no hope

that he would send away Popish troops who were his own subjects. His

intentions were manifest. The French might go; but the Irish would

remain. The people of England were to be kept down by these thrice

subjugated barbarians. No doubt a Rapparee who had run away at Newton

Butler and the Boyne might find courage enough to guard the scaffolds on

which his conquerors were to die, and to lay waste our country as he had

laid waste his own.

The Queen and her ministers, instead of attempting to suppress James's

manifesto, very wisely reprinted it, and sent it forth licensed by the

Secretary of State, and interspersed with remarks by a shrewd and severe

commentator. It was refuted in many keen pamphlets; it was turned into

doggrel rhymes; and it was left undefended even by the boldest and most

acrimonious libellers among the nonjurors. [259]

Indeed, some of the nonjurors were so much alarmed by observing the

effect which this manifesto produced, that they affected to treat it as

spurious, and published as their master's genuine Declaration a paper

full of gracious professions and promises. They made him offer a free

pardon to all his people with the exception of four great criminals.

They made him hold out hopes of great remissions of taxation. They

made him pledge his word that he would entrust the whole ecclesiastical

administration to the nonjuring bishops. But this forgery imposed on

nobody, and was important only as showing that even the Jacobites were

ashamed of the prince whom they were labouring to restore. [260]

No man read the Declaration with more surprise and anger than Russell.

Bad as he was, he was much under the influence of two feelings, which,

though they cannot be called virtuous, have some affinity to virtue, and

are respectable when compared with mere selfish cupidity. Professional

spirit and party spirit were strong in him. He might be false to his

country, but not to his flag; and, even in becoming a Jacobite, he had

not ceased to be a Whig. In truth, he was a Jacobite only because he was

the most intolerant and acrimonious of Whigs. He thought himself and his

faction ungratefully neglected by William, and was for a time too much

blinded by resentment to perceive that it would be mere madness in the

old Roundheads, the old Exclusionists, to punish William by recalling

James. The near prospect of an invasion, and the Declaration in which

Englishmen were plainly told what they had to expect if that invasion

should be successful, produced, it should seem, a sudden and entire

change in Russell's feelings; and that change he distinctly avowed. "I

wish," he said to Lloyd, "to serve King James. The thing might be done,

if it were not his own fault. But he takes the wrong way with us. Let

him forget all the past; let him grant a general pardon; and then I will

see what I can do for him." Lloyd hinted something about the honours

and rewards designed for Russell himself. But the Admiral, with a spirit

worthy of a better man, cut him short. "I do not wish to hear anything

on that subject. My solicitude is for the public. And do not think that

I will let the French triumph over us in our own sea. Understand this,

that if I meet them I fight them, ay, though His Majesty himself should

be on board."

This conversation was truly reported to James; but it does not appear to

have alarmed him. He was, indeed, possessed with a belief that Russell,

even if willing, would not be able to induce the officers and sailors of

the English navy to fight against their old King, who was also their old

Admiral.

The hopes which James felt, he and his favourite Melfort succeeded in

imparting to Lewis and to Lewis's ministers. [261] But for those hopes,

indeed, it is probable that all thoughts of invading England in the

course of that year would have been laid aside. For the extensive plan

which had been formed in the winter had, in the course of the spring,

been disconcerted by a succession of accidents such as are beyond the

control of human wisdom. The time fixed for the assembling of all the

maritime forces of France at Ushant had long elapsed; and not a single

sail had appeared at the place of rendezvous. The Atlantic squadron was

still detained by bad weather in the port of Brest. The Mediterranean

squadron, opposed by a strong west wind, was vainly struggling to pass

the pillars of Hercules. Two fine vessels had gone to pieces on the

rocks of Ceuta. [262] Meanwhile the admiralties of the allied powers

had been active. Before the end of April the English fleet was ready to

sail. Three noble ships, just launched from our dockyards, appeared

for the first time on the water. [263] William had been hastening the

maritime preparations of the United Provinces; and his exertions had

been successful. On the twenty-ninth of April a fine squadron from the

Texel appeared in the Downs. Soon came the North Holland squadron,

the Maes squadron, the Zealand squadron. [264] The whole force of the

confederate powers was assembled at Saint Helen's in the second week

of May, more than ninety sail of the line, manned by between thirty and

forty thousand of the finest seamen of the two great maritime nations.

Russell had the chief command. He was assisted by Sir Ralph Delaval,

Sir John Ashley, Sir Cloudesley Shovel, Rear Admiral Carter, and Rear

Admiral Rooke. Of the Dutch officers Van Almonde was highest in rank.

No mightier armament had ever appeared in the British Channel. There was

little reason for apprehending that such a force could be defeated in a

fair conflict. Nevertheless there was great uneasiness in London. It was

known that there was a Jacobite party in the navy. Alarming rumours had

worked their way round from France. It was said that the enemy reckoned

on the cooperation of some of those officers on whose fidelity, in this

crisis, the safety of the State might depend. Russell, as far as can now

be discovered, was still unsuspected. But others, who were probably less

criminal, had been more indiscreet. At all the coffee houses admirals

and captains were mentioned by name as traitors who ought to be

instantly cashiered, if not shot. It was even confidently affirmed that

some of the guilty had been put under arrest, and others turned out of

the service. The Queen and her counsellors were in a great strait. It

was not easy to say whether the danger of trusting the suspected persons

or the danger of removing them were the greater. Mary, with many painful

misgivings, resolved, and the event proved that she resolved wisely,

to treat the evil reports as calumnious, to make a solemn appeal to the

honour of the accused gentlemen, and then to trust the safety of her

kingdom to their national and professional spirit.

On the fifteenth of May a great assembly of officers was convoked at

Saint Helen's on board the Britannia, a fine three decker, from which

Russell's flag was flying. The Admiral told them that he had received a

despatch which he was charged to read to them. It was from Nottingham.

The Queen, the Secretary wrote, had been informed that stories deeply

affecting the character of the navy were in circulation. It had

even been affirmed that she had found herself under the necessity of

dismissing many officers. But Her Majesty was determined to believe

nothing against those brave servants of the State. The gentlemen who

had been so foully slandered might be assured that she placed entire

reliance on them. This letter was admirably calculated to work on those

to whom it was addressed. Very few of them probably had been guilty of

any worse offence than rash and angry talk over their wine. They were as

yet only grumblers. If they had fancied that they were marked men, they

might in selfdefence have become traitors. They became enthusiastically

loyal as soon as they were assured that the Queen reposed entire

confidence in their loyalty. They eagerly signed an address in

which they entreated her to believe that they would, with the utmost

resolution and alacrity, venture their lives in defence of her rights,

of English freedom and of the Protestant religion, against all foreign

and Popish invaders. "God," they added, "preserve your person, direct

your counsels, and prosper your arms; and let all your people say Amen."

[265]

The sincerity of these professions was soon brought to the test. A

few hours after the meeting on board of the Britannia the masts

of Tourville's squadron were seen from the cliffs of Portland. One

messenger galloped with the news from Weymouth to London, and roused

Whitehall at three in the morning. Another took the coast road, and

carried the intelligence to Russell. All was ready; and on the morning

of the seventeenth of May the allied fleet stood out to sea. [266]

Tourville had with him only his own squadron, consisting of forty-four

ships of the line. But he had received positive orders to protect the

descent on England, and not to decline a battle. Though these orders had

been given before it was known at Versailles that the Dutch and

English fleets had joined, he was not disposed to take on himself the

responsibility of disobedience. He still remembered with bitterness the

reprimand which his extreme caution had drawn upon him after the fight

of Beachy Head. He would not again be told that he was a timid and

unenterprising commander, that he had no courage but the vulgar courage

of a common sailor. He was also persuaded that the odds against him were

rather apparent than real. He believed, on the authority of James and

Melfort, that the English seamen, from the flag officers down to the

cabin boys, were Jacobites. Those who fought would fight with half

a heart; and there would probably be numerous desertions at the most

critical moment. Animated by such hopes he sailed from Brest, steered

first towards the north east, came in sight of the coast of Dorsetshire,

and then struck across the Channel towards La Hogue, where the army

which he was to convoy to England had already begun to embark on board

of the transports. He was within a few leagues of Barfleur when, before

daybreak, on the morning of the nineteenth of May, he saw the great

armament of the allies stretching along the eastern horizon. He

determined to bear down on them. By eight the two lines of battle were

formed; but it was eleven before the firing began. It soon became plain

that the English, from the Admiral downward, were resolved to do their

duty. Russell had visited all his ships, and exhorted all his crews.

"If your commanders play false," he said, "overboard with them, and

with myself the first." There was no defection. There was no slackness.

Carter was the first who broke the French line. He was struck by a

splinter of one of his own yard arms, and fell dying on the deck. He

would not be carried below. He would not let go his sword. "Fight the

ship," were his last words: "fight the ship as long as she can swim."

The battle lasted till four in the afternoon. The roar of the guns

was distinctly heard more than twenty miles off by the army which was

encamped on the coast of Normandy. During the earlier part of the day

the wind was favourable to the French; they were opposed to half of the

allied fleet; and against that half they maintained the conflict with

their usual courage and with more than their usual seamanship. After a

hard and doubtful fight of five hours, Tourville thought that enough had

been done to maintain the honour of the white flag, and began to draw

off. But by this time the wind had veered, and was with the allies. They

were now able to avail themselves of their great superiority of force.

They came on fast. The retreat of the French became a flight. Tourville

fought his own ship desperately. She was named, in allusion to Lewis's

favourite emblem, the Royal Sun, and was widely renowned as the finest

vessel in the world. It was reported among the English sailors that she

was adorned with an image of the Great King, and that he appeared there,

as he appeared in the Place of Victories, with vanquished nations in

chains beneath his feet. The gallant ship, surrounded by enemies, lay

like a great fortress on the sea, scattering death on every side from

her hundred and four portholes. She was so formidably manned that all

attempts to board her failed. Long after sunset, she got clear of her

assailants, and, with all her scuppers spouting blood, made for the

coast of Normandy. She had suffered so much that Tourville hastily

removed his flag to a ship of ninety guns which was named the Ambitious.

By this time his fleet was scattered far over the sea. About twenty of

his smallest ships made their escape by a road which was too perilous

for any courage but the courage of despair. In the double darkness of

night and of a thick sea fog, they ran, with all their sails spread,

through the boiling waves and treacherous rocks of the Race of Alderney,

and, by a strange good fortune, arrived without a single disaster at

Saint Maloes. The pursuers did not venture to follow the fugitives into

that terrible strait, the place of innumerable shipwrecks. [267]

Those French vessels which were too bulky to venture into the Race of

Alderney fled to the havens of the Cotentin. The Royal Sun and two other

three deckers reached Cherburg in safety. The Ambitious, with twelve

other ships, all first rates or second rates, took refuge in the Bay of

La Hogue, close to the headquarters of the army of James.

The three ships which had fled to Cherburg were closely chased by an

English squadron under the command of Delaval. He found them hauled

up into shoal water where no large man of war could get at them. He

therefore determined to attack them with his fireships and boats. The

service was gallantly and successfully performed. In a short time the

Royal Sun and her two consorts were burned to ashes. Part of the crews

escaped to the shore; and part fell into the hands of the English. [268]

Meanwhile Russell with the greater part of his victorious fleet had

blockaded the Bay of La Hogue. Here, as at Cherburg, the French men of

war had been drawn up into shallow water. They lay close to the camp

of the army which was destined for the invasion of England. Six of them

were moored under a fort named Lisset. The rest lay under the guns of

another fort named Saint Vaast, where James had fixed his headquarters,

and where the Union flag, variegated by the crosses of Saint George

and Saint Andrew, hung by the side of the white flag of France. Marshal

Bellefonds had planted several batteries which, it was thought, would

deter the boldest enemy from approaching either Fort Lisset or Fort

Saint Vaast. James, however, who knew something of English seamen, was

not perfectly at ease, and proposed to send strong bodies of soldiers on

board of the ships. But Tourville would not consent to put such a slur

on his profession.

Russell meanwhile was preparing for an attack. On the afternoon of the

twenty-third of May all was ready. A flotilla consisting of sloops, of

fireships, and of two hundred boats, was entrusted to the command

of Rooke. The whole armament was in the highest spirits. The rowers,

flushed by success, and animated by the thought that they were going

to fight under the eyes of the French and Irish troops who had been

assembled for the purpose of subjugating England, pulled manfully and

with loud huzzas towards the six huge wooden castles which lay close to

Fort Lisset. The French, though an eminently brave people, have always

been more liable to sudden panics than their phlegmatic neighbours the

English and Germans. On this day there was a panic both in the fleet and

in the army. Tourville ordered his sailors to man their boats, and would

have led them to encounter the enemy in the bay. But his example and his

exhortations were vain. His boats turned round and fled in confusion.

The ships were abandoned. The cannonade from Fort Lisset was so feeble

and ill directed that it did no execution. The regiments on the beach,

after wasting a few musket shots, drew off. The English boarded the

men of war, set them on fire, and having performed this great service

without the loss of a single life, retreated at a late hour with the

retreating tide. The bay was in a blaze during the night; and now and

then a loud explosion announced that the flames had reached a powder

room or a tier of loaded guns. At eight the next morning the tide came

back strong; and with the tide came back Rooke and his two hundred

boats. The enemy made a faint attempt to defend the vessels which were

near Fort Saint Vaast. During a few minutes the batteries did some

execution among the crews of our skiffs; but the struggle was soon

over. The French poured fast out of their ships on one side; the English

poured in as fast on the other, and, with loud shouts, turned the

captured guns against the shore. The batteries were speedily silenced.

James and Melfort, Bellefonds and Tourville, looked on in helpless

despondency while the second conflagration proceeded. The conquerors,

leaving the ships of war in flames, made their way into an inner basin

where many transports lay. Eight of these vessels were set on fire.

Several were taken in tow. The rest would have been either destroyed or

carried off, had not the sea again begun to ebb. It was impossible to do

more, and the victorious flotilla slowly retired, insulting the hostile

camp with a thundering chant of "God save the King."

Thus ended, at noon on the twenty-fourth of May, the great conflict

which had raged during five days over a wide extent of sea and shore.

One English fireship had perished in its calling. Sixteen French men of

war, all noble vessels, and eight of them three-deckers, had been sunk

or burned down to the keel. The battle is called, from the place where

it terminated, the battle of La Hogue. [269]

The news was received in London with boundless exultation. In the fight

on the open sea, indeed, the numerical superiority of the allies had

been so great that they had little reason to boast of their success. But

the courage and skill with which the crews of the English boats had,

in a French harbour, in sight of a French army, and under the fire of

French batteries, destroyed a fine French fleet, amply justified the

pride with which our fathers pronounced the name of La Hogue. That we

may fully enter into their feelings, we must remember that this was

the first great check that had ever been given to the arms of Lewis the

Fourteenth, and the first great victory that the English had gained over

the French since the day of Agincourt. The stain left on our fame by the

shameful defeat of Beachy Head was effaced. This time the glory was all

our own. The Dutch had indeed done their duty, as they have always done

it in maritime war, whether fighting on our side or against us, whether

victorious or vanquished. But the English had borne the brunt of the

fight. Russell who commanded in chief was an Englishman. Delaval who

directed the attack on Cherburg was an Englishman. Rooke who led the

flotilla into the Bay of La Hogue was an Englishman. The only two

officers of note who had fallen, Admiral Carter and Captain Hastings of

the Sandwich, were Englishmen. Yet the pleasure with which the good news

was received here must not be ascribed solely or chiefly to national

pride. The island was safe. The pleasant pastures, cornfields and

commons of Hampshire and Surrey would not be the seat of war. The houses

and gardens, the kitchens and dairies, the cellars and plate chests, the

wives and daughters of our gentry and clergy would not be at the mercy

of Irish Rapparees, who had sacked the dwellings and skinned the cattle

of the Englishry of Leinster, or of French dragoons accustomed to live

at free quarters on the Protestants of Auvergne. Whigs and Tories joined

in thanking God for this great deliverance; and the most respectable

nonjurors could not but be glad at heart that the rightful King was not

to be brought back by an army of foreigners.

The public joy was therefore all but universal. During several days the

bells of London pealed without ceasing. Flags were flying on all the

steeples. Rows of candles were in all the windows. Bonfires were at

all the corners of the streets. [270] The sense which the government

entertained of the services of the navy was promptly, judiciously and

gracefully manifested. Sidney and Portland were sent to meet the fleet

at Portsmouth, and were accompanied by Rochester, as the representative

of the Tories. The three Lords took down with them thirty-seven thousand

pounds in coin, which they were to distribute as a donative among the

sailors. [271] Gold medals were given to the officers. [272] The remains

of Hastings and Carter were brought on shore with every mark of honour.

Carter was buried at Portsmouth, with a great display of military pomp.

[273] The corpse of Hastings was brought up to London, and laid, with

unusual solemnity, under the pavement of Saint James's Church. The

footguards with reversed arms escorted the hearse. Four royal state

carriages, each drawn by six horses, were in the procession; a crowd

of men of quality in mourning cloaks filled the pews; and the Bishop of

Lincoln preached the funeral sermon. [274] While such marks of respect

were paid to the slain, the wounded were not neglected. Fifty surgeons,

plentifully supplied with instruments, bandages, and drugs, were sent

down in all haste from London to Portsmouth. [275] It is not easy for us

to form a notion of the difficulty which there then was in providing at

short notice commodious shelter and skilful attendance for hundreds of

maimed and lacerated men. At present every county, every large town,

can boast of some spacious palace in which the poorest labourer who has

fractured a limb may find an excellent bed, an able medical attendant, a

careful nurse, medicines of the best quality, and nourishment such as an

invalid requires. But there was not then, in the whole realm, a single

infirmary supported by voluntary contribution. Even in the capital the

only edifices open to the wounded were the two ancient hospitals of

Saint Thomas and Saint Bartholomew. The Queen gave orders that in both

these hospitals arrangements should be made at the public charge for

the reception of patients from the fleet. [276] At the same time it

was announced that a noble and lasting memorial of the gratitude which

England felt for the courage and patriotism of her sailors would soon

rise on a site eminently appropriate. Among the suburban residences of

our kings, that which stood at Greenwich had long held a distinguished

place. Charles the Second liked the situation, and determined to rebuild

the house and to improve the gardens. Soon after his Restoration, he

began to erect, on a spot almost washed by the Thames at high tide, a

mansion of vast extent and cost. Behind the palace were planted long

avenues of trees which, when William reigned, were scarcely more than

saplings, but which have now covered with their massy shade the summer

rambles of several generations. On the slope which has long been the

scene of the holiday sports of the Londoners, were constructed flights

of terraces, of which the vestiges may still be discerned. The Queen now

publicly declared, in her husband's name, that the building commenced by

Charles should be completed, and should be a retreat for seamen disabled

in the service of their country. [277]

One of the happiest effects produced by the good news was the calming

of the public mind. During about a month the nation had been hourly

expecting an invasion and a rising, and had consequently been in an

irritable and suspicious mood. In many parts of England a nonjuror could

not show himself without great risk of being insulted. A report that

arms were hidden in a house sufficed to bring a furious mob to the door.

The mansion of one Jacobite gentleman in Kent had been attacked, and,

after a fight in which several shots were fired, had been stormed and

pulled down. [278] Yet such riots were by no means the worst symptoms of

the fever which had inflamed the whole society. The exposure of Fuller,

in February, had, as it seemed, put an end to the practices of that vile

tribe of which Oates was the patriarch. During some weeks, indeed, the

world was disposed to be unreasonably incredulous about plots. But in

April there was a reaction. The French and Irish were coming. There was

but too much reason to believe that there were traitors in the island.

Whoever pretended that he could point out those traitors was sure to be

heard with attention; and there was not wanting a false witness to avail

himself of the golden opportunity.

This false witness was named Robert Young. His history was in his own

lifetime so fully investigated, and so much of his correspondence has

been preserved, that the whole man is before us. His character is indeed

a curious study. His birthplace was a subject of dispute among three

nations. The English pronounced him Irish. The Irish, not being

ambitious of the honour of having him for a countryman, affirmed that he

was born in Scotland. Wherever he may have been born, it is impossible

to doubt where he was bred; for his phraseology is precisely that of

the Teagues who were, in his time, favourite characters on our stage. He

called himself a priest of the Established Church; but he was in truth

only a deacon; and his deacon's orders he had obtained by producing

forged certificates of his learning and moral character. Long before the

Revolution he held curacies in various parts of Ireland; but he did

not remain many days in any spot. He was driven from one place by the

scandal which was the effect of his lawless amours. He rode away from

another place on a borrowed horse, which he never returned. He settled

in a third parish, and was taken up for bigamy. Some letters which he

wrote on this occasion from the gaol of Cavan have been preserved. He

assured each of his wives, with the most frightful imprecations, that

she alone was the object of his love; and he thus succeeded in inducing

one of them to support him in prison, and the other to save his life by

forswearing herself at the assizes. The only specimens which remain to

us of his method of imparting religious instruction are to be found in

these epistles. He compares himself to David, the man after God's own

heart, who had been guilty both of adultery and murder. He declares

that he repents; he prays for the forgiveness of the Almighty, and then

intreats his dear honey, for Christ's sake, to perjure herself. Having

narrowly escaped the gallows, he wandered during several years about

Ireland and England, begging, stealing, cheating, personating, forging,

and lay in many prisons under many names. In 1684 he was convicted at

Bury of having fraudulently counterfeited Sancroft's signature, and was

sentenced to the pillory and to imprisonment. From his dungeon he wrote

to implore the Primate's mercy. The letter may still be read with all

the original bad grammar and bad spelling. [279] The writer acknowledged

his guilt, wished that his eyes were a fountain of water, declared that

he should never know peace till he had received episcopal absolution,

and professed a mortal hatred of Dissenters. As all this contrition

and all this orthodoxy produced no effect, the penitent, after swearing

bitterly to be revenged on Sancroft, betook himself to another device.

The Western Insurrection had just broken out. The magistrates all over

the country were but too ready to listen to any accusation that might be

brought against Whigs and Nonconformists. Young declared on oath that,

to his knowledge, a design had been formed in Suffolk against the life

of King James, and named a peer, several gentlemen, and ten Presbyterian

ministers, as parties to the plot. Some of the accused were brought to

trial; and Young appeared in the witness box; but the story which he

told was proved by overwhelming evidence to be false. Soon after the

Revolution he was again convicted of forgery, pilloried for the fourth

or fifth time, and sent to Newgate. While he lay there, he determined to

try whether he should be more fortunate as an accuser of Jacobites than

he had been as an accuser of Puritans. He first addressed himself to

Tillotson. There was a horrible plot against their Majesties, a plot as

deep as hell; and some of the first men in England were concerned in it.

Tillotson, though he placed little confidence in information coming

from such a source, thought that the oath which he had taken as a Privy

Councillor made it his duty to mention the subject to William. William,

after his fashion, treated the matter very lightly. "I am confident," he

said, "that this is a villany; and I will have nobody disturbed on such

grounds." After this rebuff, Young remained some time quiet. But when

William was on the Continent, and when the nation was agitated by the

apprehension of a French invasion and of a Jacobite insurrection, a

false accuser might hope to obtain a favourable audience. The mere oath

of a man who was well known to the turnkeys of twenty gaols was not

likely to injure any body. But Young was master of a weapon which is, of

all weapons, the most formidable to innocence. He had lived during

some years by counterfeiting hands, and had at length attained such

consummate skill in that bad art that even experienced clerks who

were conversant with manuscript could scarcely, after the most minute

comparison, discover any difference between his imitations and the

originals. He had succeeded in making a collection of papers written by

men of note who were suspected of disaffection. Some autographs he had

stolen; and some he had obtained by writing in feigned names to ask

after the characters of servants or curates. He now drew up a paper

purporting to be an Association for the Restoration of the banished

King. This document set forth that the subscribers bound themselves in

the presence of God to take arms for His Majesty, and to seize on the

Prince of Orange, dead or alive. To the Association Young appended the

names of Marlborough, of Cornbury, of Salisbury, of Sancroft, and of

Sprat, Bishop of Rochester and Dean of Westminster.

The next thing to be done was to put the paper into some hiding place in

the house of one of the persons whose signatures had been counterfeited.

As Young could not quit Newgate, he was forced to employ a subordinate

agent for this purpose. He selected a wretch named Blackhead, who

had formerly been convicted of perjury and sentenced to have his ears

clipped. The selection was not happy; for Blackhead had none of the

qualities which the trade of a false witness requires except wickedness.

There was nothing plausible about him. His voice was harsh. Treachery

was written in all the lines of his yellow face. He had no invention, no

presence of mind, and could do little more than repeat by rote the lies

taught him by others.

This man, instructed by his accomplice, repaired to Sprat's palace at

Bromley, introduced himself there as the confidential servant of an

imaginary Doctor of Divinity, delivered to the Bishop, on bended knee,

a letter ingeniously manufactured by Young, and received, with the

semblance of profound reverence, the episcopal benediction. The servants

made the stranger welcome. He was taken to the cellar, drank their

master's health, and entreated them to let him see the house. They could

not venture to show any of the private apartments. Blackhead, therefore,

after begging importunately, but in vain, to be suffered to have one

look at the study, was forced to content himself with dropping the

Association into a flowerpot which stood in a parlour near the kitchen.

Every thing having been thus prepared, Young informed the ministers that

he could tell them something of the highest importance to the welfare of

the State, and earnestly begged to be heard. His request reached them

on perhaps the most anxious day of an anxious month. Tourville had just

stood out to sea. The army of James was embarking. London was agitated

by reports about the disaffection of the naval officers. The Queen was

deliberating whether she should cashier those who were suspected, or try

the effect of an appeal to their honour and patriotism. At such a moment

the ministers could not refuse to listen to any person who professed

himself able to give them valuable information. Young and his accomplice

were brought before the Privy Council. They there accused Marlborough,

Cornbury, Salisbury, Sancroft and Sprat of high treason. These great

men, Young said, had invited James to invade England, and had promised

to join him. The eloquent and ingenious Bishop of Rochester had

undertaken to draw up a Declaration which would inflame the nation

against the government of King William. The conspirators were bound

together by a written instrument. That instrument, signed by their

own hands, would be found at Bromley if careful search was made. Young

particularly requested that the messengers might be ordered to examine

the Bishop's flowerpots.

The ministers were seriously alarmed. The story was circumstantial; and

part of it was probable. Marlborough's dealings with Saint Germains were

well known to Caermarthen, to Nottingham, and to Sidney. Cornbury was

a tool of Marlborough, and was the son of a nonjuror and of a notorious

plotter. Salisbury was a Papist. Sancroft had, not many months before,

been, with too much show of reason, suspected of inviting the French to

invade England. Of all the accused persons Sprat was the most unlikely

to be concerned in any hazardous design. He had neither enthusiasm

nor constancy. Both his ambition and his party spirit had always been

effectually kept in order by his love of ease and his anxiety for his

own safety. He had been guilty of some criminal compliances in the hope

of gaining the favour of James, had sate in the High Commission, had

concurred in several iniquitous decrees pronounced by that court, and

had, with trembling hands and faltering voice, read the Declaration of

Indulgence in the choir of the Abbey. But there he had stopped. As soon

as it began to be whispered that the civil and religious constitution

of England would speedily be vindicated by extraordinary means, he had

resigned the powers which he had during two years exercised in defiance

of law, and had hastened to make his peace with his clerical brethren.

He had in the Convention voted for a Regency; but he had taken the oaths

without hesitation; he had borne a conspicuous part in the coronation of

the new Sovereigns; and by his skilful hand had been added to the Form

of Prayer used on the fifth of November those sentences in which the

Church expresses her gratitude for the second great deliverance wrought

on that day. [280] Such a man, possessed of a plentiful income, of a

seat in the House of Lords, of one agreeable house among the elms

of Bromley, and of another in the cloisters of Westminster, was very

unlikely to run the risk of martyrdom. He was not, indeed, on perfectly

good terms with the government. For the feeling which, next to

solicitude for his own comfort and repose, seems to have had the

greatest influence on his public conduct, was his dislike of

the Puritans; a dislike which sprang, not from bigotry, but from

Epicureanism. Their austerity was a reproach to his slothful and

luxurious life; their phraseology shocked his fastidious taste; and,

where they were concerned, his ordinary good nature forsook him.

Loathing the nonconformists as he did, he was not likely to be

very zealous for a prince whom the nonconformists regarded as their

protector. But Sprat's faults afforded ample security that he would

never, from spleen against William, engage in any plot to bring back

James. Why Young should have assigned the most perilous part in an

enterprise full of peril to a man singularly pliant, cautious and

selfindulgent, it is difficult to say.

The first step which the ministers took was to send Marlborough to the

Tower. He was by far the most formidable of all the accused persons; and

that he had held a traitorous correspondence with Saint Germains was a

fact which, whether Young were perjured or not, the Queen and her chief

advisers knew to be true. One of the Clerks of the Council and several

messengers were sent down to Bromley with a warrant from Nottingham.

Sprat was taken into custody. All the apartments in which it could

reasonably be supposed that he would have hidden an important document

were searched, the library, the diningroom, the drawingroom, the

bedchamber, and the adjacent closets. His papers were strictly examined.

Much food prose was found, and probably some bad verse, but no treason.

The messengers pried into every flowerpot that they could find, but to

no purpose. It never occurred to them to look into the room in which

Blackhead had hidden the Association: for that room was near the offices

occupied by the servants, and was little used by the Bishop and his

family. The officers returned to London with their prisoner, but without

the document which, if it had been found, might have been fatal to him.

Late at night he was brought to Westminster, and was suffered to

sleep at his deanery. All his bookcases and drawers were examined; and

sentinels were posted at the door of his bedchamber, but with strict

orders to behave civilly and not to disturb the family.

On the following day he was brought before the Council. The examination

was conducted by Nottingham with great humanity and courtesy. The

Bishop, conscious of entire innocence, behaved with temper and firmness.

He made no complaints. "I submit," he said, "to the necessities of State

in such a time of jealousy and danger as this." He was asked whether

he had drawn up a Declaration for King James, whether he had held

any correspondence with France, whether he had signed any treasonable

association, and whether he knew of any such association. To all these

questions he, with perfect truth, answered in the negative, on the

word of a Christian and a Bishop. He was taken back to his deanery. He

remained there in easy confinement during ten days, and then, as nothing

tending to criminate him had been discovered, was suffered to return to

Bromley.

Meanwhile the false accusers had been devising a new scheme. Blackhead

paid another visit to Bromley, and contrived to take the forged

Association out of the place in which he had hid it, and to bring

it back to Young. One of Young's two wives then carried it to the

Secretary's Office, and told a lie, invented by her husband, to explain

how a paper of such importance had come into her hands. But it was not

now so easy to frighten the ministers as it had been a few days before.

The battle of La Hogue had put an end to all apprehensions of invasion.

Nottingham, therefore, instead of sending down a warrant to Bromley,

merely wrote to beg that Sprat would call on him at Whitehall. The

summons was promptly obeyed, and the accused prelate was brought face

to face with Blackhead before the Council. Then the truth came out fast.

The Bishop remembered the villanous look and voice of the man who had

knelt to ask the episcopal blessing. The Bishop's secretary confirmed

his master's assertions. The false witness soon lost his presence of

mind. His cheeks, always sallow, grew frightfully livid. His voice,

generally loud and coarse, sank into a whisper. The Privy Councillors

saw his confusion, and crossexamined him sharply. For a time he answered

their questions by repeatedly stammering out his original lie in the

original words. At last he found that he had no way of extricating

himself but by owning his guilt. He acknowledged that he had given an

untrue account of his visit to Bromley; and, after much prevarication,

he related how he had hidden the Association, and how he had removed it

from its hiding place, and confessed that he had been set on by Young.

The two accomplices were then confronted. Young, with unabashed

forehead, denied every thing. He knew nothing about the flowerpots.

"If so," cried Nottingham and Sidney together, "why did you give

such particular directions that the flowerpots at Bromley should be

searched?" "I never gave any directions about the flowerpots," said

Young. Then the whole board broke forth. "How dare you say so? We all

remember it." Still the knave stood up erect, and exclaimed, with an

impudence which Oates might have envied, "This hiding is all a trick got

up between the Bishop and Blackhead. The Bishop has taken Blackhead off;

and they are both trying to stifle the plot." This was too much. There

was a smile and a lifting up of hands all round the board. "Man," cried

Caermarthen, "wouldst thou have us believe that the Bishop contrived

to have this paper put where it was ten to one that our messengers had

found it, and where, if they had found it, it might have hanged him?"

The false accusers were removed in custody. The Bishop, after warmly

thanking the ministers for their fair and honourable conduct, took his

leave of them. In the antechamber he found a crowd of people staring at

Young, while Young sate, enduring the stare with the serene fortitude

of a man who had looked down on far greater multitudes from half the

pillories in England. "Young," said Sprat, "your conscience must tell

you that you have cruelly wronged me. For your own sake I am sorry that

you persist in denying what your associate has confessed." "Confessed!"

cried Young; "no, all is not confessed yet; and that you shall find

to your sorrow. There is such a thing as impeachment, my Lord. When

Parliament sits you shall hear more of me." "God give you repentance,"

answered the Bishop. "For, depend upon it, you are in much more danger

of being damned than I of being impeached." [281]

Forty-eight hours after the detection of this execrable fraud,

Marlborough was admitted to bail. Young and Blackhead had done him an

inestimable service. That he was concerned in a plot quite as criminal

as that which they had falsely imputed to him, and that the government

was to possession of moral proofs of his guilt, is now certain. But his

contemporaries had not, as we have, the evidence of his perfidy before

them. They knew that he had been accused of an offence of which he was

innocent, that perjury and forgery had been employed to ruin him, and

that, in consequence of these machinations, he had passed some weeks in

the Tower. There was in the public mind a very natural confusion between

his disgrace and his imprisonment. He had been imprisoned without

sufficient cause. Might it not, in the absence of all information, be

reasonably presumed that he had been disgraced without sufficient cause?

It was certain that a vile calumny, destitute of all foundation, had

caused him to be treated as a criminal in May. Was it not probable,

then, that calumny might have deprived him of his master's favour in

January?

Young's resources were not yet exhausted. As soon as he had been carried

back from Whitehall to Newgate, he set himself to construct a new

plot, and to find a new accomplice. He addressed himself to a man named

Holland, who was in the lowest state of poverty. Never, said Young, was

there such a golden opportunity. A bold, shrewd, fellow might easily

earn five hundred pounds. To Holland five hundred pounds seemed fabulous

wealth. What, he asked, was he to do for it? Nothing, he was told,

but to speak the truth, that was to say, substantial truth, a little

disguised and coloured. There really was a plot; and this would have

been proved if Blackhead had not been bought off. His desertion had made

it necessary to call in the help of fiction. "You must swear that you

and I were in a back room upstairs at the Lobster in Southwark. Some men

came to meet us there. They gave a password before they were admitted.

They were all in white camlet cloaks. They signed the Association in our

presence. Then they paid each his shilling and went away. And you must

be ready to identify my Lord Marlborough and the Bishop of Rochester as

two of these men." "How can I identify them?" said Holland, "I never saw

them." "You must contrive to see them," answered the tempter, "as soon

as you can. The Bishop will be at the Abbey. Anybody about the Court

will point out my Lord Marlborough." Holland immediately went to

Whitehall, and repeated this conversation to Nottingham. The unlucky

imitator of Oates was prosecuted, by order of the government, for

perjury, subornation of perjury, and forgery. He was convicted and

imprisoned, was again set in the pillory, and underwent, in addition to

the exposure, about which he cared little, such a pelting as had seldom

been known. [282] After his punishment, he was, during some years, lost

in the crowd of pilferers, ringdroppers and sharpers who infested the

capital. At length, in the year 1700, he emerged from his obscurity,

and excited a momentary interest. The newspapers announced that Robert

Young, Clerk, once so famous, had been taken up for coining, then that

he had been found guilty, then that the dead warrant had come down, and

finally that the reverend gentleman had been hanged at Tyburn, and had

greatly edified a large assembly of spectators by his penitence. [283]