CHAPTER XIX

Foreign Policy of William--The Northern Powers--The Pope--Conduct of

the Allies--The Emperor--Spain--William succeeds in preventing the

Dissolution of the Coalition--New Arrangements for the Government of

the Spanish Netherlands--Lewis takes the Field--Siege of Namur--Lewis

returns to Versailles--Luxemburg--Battle of Steinkirk--Conspiracy

of Grandval--Return of William to England--Naval

Maladministration--Earthquake at Port Royal--Distress in England;

Increase of Crime--Meeting of Parliament; State of Parties--The King's

Speech; Question of Privilege raised by the Lords--Debates on the

State of the Nation--Bill for the Regulation of Trials in Cases of

Treason--Case of Lord Mohun--Debates on the India Trade--Supply--Ways

and Means; Land Tax--Origin of the National Debt--Parliamentary

Reform--The Place Bill--The Triennial Bill--The First Parliamentary

Discussion on the Liberty of the Press--State of Ireland--The King

refuses to pass the Triennial Bill--Ministerial Arrangements--The King

goes to Holland; a Session of Parliament in Scotland

WHILE England was agitated, first by the dread of an invasion, and then

by joy at the deliverance wrought for her by the valour of her seamen,

important events were taking place on the Continent. On the sixth of

March the King had arrived at the Hague, and had proceeded to make his

arrangements for the approaching campaign. [284]

The prospect which lay before him was gloomy. The coalition of which he

was the author and the chief had, during some months, been in constant

danger of dissolution. By what strenuous exertions, by what ingenious

expedients, by what blandishments, by what bribes, he succeeded in

preventing his allies from throwing themselves, one by one, at the feet

of France, can be but imperfectly known. The fullest and most authentic

record of the labours and sacrifices by which he kept together, during

eight years, a crowd of fainthearted and treacherous potentates,

negligent of the common interest and jealous of each other, is to

be found in his correspondence with Heinsius. In that correspondence

William is all himself. He had, in the course of his eventful life, to

sustain some high parts for which he was not eminently qualified; and,

in those parts, his success was imperfect. As Sovereign of England, he

showed abilities and virtues which entitle him to honourable mention in

history; but his deficiencies were great. He was to the last a stranger

amongst us, cold, reserved, never in good spirits, never at his ease.

His kingdom was a place of exile. His finest palaces were prisons. He

was always counting the days which must elapse before he should

again see the land of his birth, the clipped trees, the wings of the

innumerable windmills, the nests of the storks on the tall gables, and

the long lines of painted villas reflected in the sleeping canals. He

took no pains to hide the preference which he felt for his native soil

and for his early friends; and therefore, though he rendered great

services to our country, he did not reign in our hearts. As a general

in the field, again, he showed rare courage and capacity; but, from

whatever cause, he was, as a tactician, inferior to some of his

contemporaries, who, in general powers of mind, were far inferior to

him. The business for which he was preeminently fitted was diplomacy, in

the highest sense of the word. It may be doubted whether he has ever had

a superior in the art of conducting those great negotiations on which

the welfare of the commonwealth of nations depends. His skill in this

department of politics was never more severely tasked or more signally

proved than during the latter part of 1691 and the earlier part of 1692.

One of his chief difficulties was caused by the sullen and menacing

demeanour of the Northern powers. Denmark and Sweden had at one time

seemed disposed to join the coalition; but they had early become cold,

and were fast becoming hostile. From France they flattered themselves

that they had little to fear. It was not very probable that her armies

would cross the Elbe, or that her fleets would force a passage through

the Sound. But the naval strength of England and Holland united might

well excite apprehension at Stockholm and Copenhagen. Soon arose

vexatious questions of maritime right, questions such as, in almost

every extensive war of modern times, have arisen between belligerents

and neutrals. The Scandinavian princes complained that the legitimate

trade between the Baltic and France was tyrannically interrupted. Though

they had not in general been on very friendly terms with each other,

they began to draw close together, intrigued at every petty German

court, and tried to form what William called a Third Party in Europe.

The King of Sweden, who, as Duke of Pomerania, was bound to send three

thousand men for the defence of the Empire, sent, instead of them, his

advice that the allies would make peace on the best terms which they

could get. [285] The King of Denmark seized a great number of Dutch

merchantships, and collected in Holstein an army which caused no small

uneasiness to his neighbours. "I fear," William wrote, in an hour of

deep dejection, to Heinsius, "I fear that the object of this Third Party

is a peace which will bring in its train the slavery of Europe. The day

will come when Sweden and her confederates will know too late how great

an error they have committed. They are farther, no doubt, than we from

the danger; and therefore it is that they are thus bent on working our

ruin and their own. That France will now consent to reasonable terms

is not to be expected; and it were better to fall sword in hand than to

submit to whatever she may dictate." [286]

While the King was thus disquieted by the conduct of the Northern

powers, ominous signs began to appear in a very different quarter. It

had, from the first, been no easy matter to induce sovereigns who hated,

and who, in their own dominions, persecuted, the Protestant religion,

to countenance the revolution which had saved that religion from a great

peril. But happily the example and the authority of the Vatican had

overcome their scruples. Innocent the Eleventh and Alexander the Eighth

had regarded William with ill concealed partiality. He was not indeed

their friend; but he was their enemy's enemy; and James had been, and,

if restored, must again be, their enemy's vassal. To the heretic nephew

therefore they gave their effective support, to the orthodox uncle only

compliments and benedictions. But Alexander the Eighth had occupied the

papal throne little more than fifteen months. His successor, Antonio

Pignatelli, who took the name of Innocent the Twelfth, was impatient to

be reconciled to Lewis. Lewis was now sensible that he had committed

a great error when he had roused against himself at once the spirit of

Protestantism and the spirit of Popery. He permitted the French Bishops

to submit themselves to the Holy See. The dispute, which had, at one

time, seemed likely to end in a great Gallican schism, was accommodated;

and there was reason to believe that the influence of the head of the

Church would be exerted for the purpose of severing the ties which bound

so many Catholic princes to the Calvinist who had usurped the British

throne.

Meanwhile the coalition, which the Third Party on one side and the Pope

on the other were trying to dissolve, was in no small danger of falling

to pieces from mere rottenness. Two of the allied powers, and two only,

were hearty in the common cause; England, drawing after her the other

British kingdoms; and Holland, drawing after her the other Batavian

commonwealths. England and Holland were indeed torn by internal

factions, and were separated from each other by mutual jealousies

and antipathies; but both were fully resolved not to submit to French

domination; and both were ready to bear their share, and more than

their share, of the charges of the contest. Most of the members of the

confederacy were not nations, but men, an Emperor, a King, Electors,

Dukes; and of these men there was scarcely one whose whole soul was in

the struggle, scarcely one who did not hang back, who did not find some

excuse for omitting to fulfil his engagements, who did not expect to be

hired to defend his own rights and interests against the common enemy.

But the war was the war of the people of England and of the people of

Holland. Had it not been so, the burdens which it made necessary would

not have been borne by either England or Holland during a single year.

When William said that he would rather die sword in hand than humble

himself before France, he expressed what was felt, not by himself alone,

but by two great communities of which he was the first magistrate. With

those two communities, unhappily, other states had little sympathy.

Indeed those two communities were regarded by other states as rich,

plaindealing, generous dupes are regarded by needy sharpers. England and

Holland were wealthy; and they were zealous. Their wealth excited the

cupidity of the whole alliance; and to that wealth their zeal was

the key. They were persecuted with sordid importunity by all their

confederates, from Caesar, who, in the pride of his solitary dignity,

would not honour King William with the title of Majesty, down to the

smallest Margrave who could see his whole principality from the cracked

windows of the mean and ruinous old house which he called his palace. It

was not enough that England and Holland furnished much more than their

contingents to the war by land, and bore unassisted the whole charge of

the war by sea. They were beset by a crowd of illustrious mendicants,

some rude, some obsequious, but all indefatigable and insatiable. One

prince came mumping to them annually with a lamentable story about his

distresses. A more sturdy beggar threatened to join the Third Party, and

to make a separate peace with France, if his demands were not granted.

Every Sovereign too had his ministers and favourites; and these

ministers and favourites were perpetually hinting that France was

willing to pay them for detaching their masters from the coalition, and

that it would be prudent in England and Holland to outbid France.

Yet the embarrassment caused by the rapacity of the allied courts was

scarcely greater than the embarrassment caused by their ambition and

their pride. This prince had set his heart on some childish distinction,

a title or a cross, and would do nothing for the common cause till his

wishes were accomplished. That prince chose to fancy that he had been

slighted, and would not stir till reparation had been made to him.

The Duke of Brunswick Lunenburg would not furnish a battalion for the

defence of Germany unless he was made an Elector. [287] The Elector

of Brandenburg declared that he was as hostile as he had ever been

to France; but he had been ill used by the Spanish government; and he

therefore would not suffer his soldiers to be employed in the defence

of the Spanish Netherlands. He was willing to bear his share of the war;

but it must be in his own way; he must have the command of a distinct

army; and he must be stationed between the Rhine and the Meuse. [288]

The Elector of Saxony complained that bad winter quarters had been

assigned to his troops; he therefore recalled them just when they should

have been preparing to take the field, but very coolly offered to send

them back if England and Holland would give him four hundred thousand

rixdollars. [289]

It might have been expected that at least the two chiefs of the House

of Austria would have put forth, at this conjuncture, all their strength

against the rival House of Bourbon. Unfortunately they could not be

induced to exert themselves vigorously even for their own preservation.

They were deeply interested in keeping the French out of Italy. Yet they

could with difficulty be prevailed upon to lend the smallest assistance

to the Duke of Savoy. They seemed to think it the business of England

and Holland to defend the passes of the Alps, and to prevent the armies

of Lewis from overflowing Lombardy. To the Emperor indeed the war

against France was a secondary object. His first object was the war

against Turkey. He was dull and bigoted. His mind misgave him that

the war against France was, in some sense, a war against the Catholic

religion; and the war against Turkey was a crusade. His recent campaign

on the Danube had been successful. He might easily have concluded an

honourable peace with the Porte, and have turned his arms westward. But

he had conceived the hope that he might extend his hereditary dominions

at the expense of the Infidels. Visions of a triumphant entry into

Constantinople and of a Te Deum in Saint Sophia's had risen in his

brain. He not only employed in the East a force more than sufficient to

have defended Piedmont and reconquered Loraine; but he seemed to think

that England and Holland were bound to reward him largely for neglecting

their interests and pursuing his own. [290]

Spain already was what she continued to be down to our own time. Of the

Spain which had domineered over the land and the ocean, over the Old

and the New World, of the Spain which had, in the short space of twelve

years, led captive a Pope and a King of France, a Sovereign of Mexico

and a Sovereign of Peru, of the Spain which had sent an army to the

walls of Paris and had equipped a mighty fleet to invade England,

nothing remained but an arrogance which had once excited terror and

hatred, but which could now excite only derision. In extent, indeed, the

dominions of the Catholic King exceeded those of Rome when Rome was

at the zenith of power. But the huge mass lay torpid and helpless, and

could be insulted or despoiled with impunity. The whole administration,

military and naval, financial and colonial, was utterly disorganized.

Charles was a fit representative of his kingdom, impotent physically,

intellectually and morally, sunk in ignorance, listlessness and

superstition, yet swollen with a notion of his own dignity, and quick to

imagine and to resent affronts. So wretched had his education been that,

when he was told of the fall of Mons, the most important fortress in

his vast empire, he asked whether Mons was in England. [291] Among the

ministers who were raised up and pulled down by his sickly caprice, was

none capable of applying a remedy to the distempers of the State. In

truth to brace anew the nerves of that paralysed body would have been a

hard task even for Ximenes. No servant of the Spanish Crown occupied a

more important post, and none was more unfit for an important post, than

the Marquess of Gastanaga. He was Governor of the Netherlands; and in

the Netherlands it seemed probable that the fate of Christendom would

be decided. He had discharged his trust as every public trust was

then discharged in every part of that vast monarchy on which it was

boastfully said that the sun never set. Fertile and rich as was the

country which he ruled, he threw on England and Holland the whole charge

of defending it. He expected that arms, ammunition, waggons, provisions,

every thing, would be furnished by the heretics. It had never occurred

to him that it was his business, and not theirs, to put Mons in a

condition to stand a siege. The public voice loudly accused him of

having sold that celebrated stronghold to France. But it is probable

that he was guilty of nothing worse than the haughty apathy and

sluggishness characteristic of his nation.

Such was the state of the coalition of which William was the head. There

were moments when he felt himself overwhelmed, when his spirits

sank, when his patience was wearied out, and when his constitutional

irritability broke forth. "I cannot," he wrote, "offer a suggestion

without being met by a demand for a subsidy." [292] "I have refused

point blank," he wrote on another occasion, when he had been importuned

for money, "it is impossible that the States General and England can

bear the charge of the army on the Rhine, of the army in Piedmont, and

of the whole defence of Flanders, to say nothing of the immense cost of

the naval war. If our allies can do nothing for themselves, the sooner

the alliance goes to pieces the better." [293] But, after every short

fit of despondency and ill humour, he called up all the force of his

mind, and put a strong curb on his temper. Weak, mean, false, selfish,

as too many of the confederates were, it was only by their help that

he could accomplish what he had from his youth up considered as his

mission. If they abandoned him, France would be dominant without a rival

in Europe. Well as they deserved to be punished, he would not, to punish

them, acquiesce in the subjugation of the whole civilised world. He set

himself therefore to surmount some difficulties and to evade others. The

Scandinavian powers he conciliated by waiving, reluctantly indeed, and

not without a hard internal struggle, some of his maritime rights. [294]

At Rome his influence, though indirectly exercised, balanced that of the

Pope himself. Lewis and James found that they had not a friend at the

Vatican except Innocent; and Innocent, whose nature was gentle and

irresolute, shrank from taking a course directly opposed to the

sentiments of all who surrounded him. In private conversations with

Jacobite agents he declared himself devoted to the interests of the

House of Stuart; but in his public acts he observed a strict neutrality.

He sent twenty thousand crowns to Saint Germains; but he excused himself

to the enemies of France by protesting that this was not a subsidy for

any political purpose, but merely an alms to be distributed among poor

British Catholics. He permitted prayers for the good cause to be read in

the English College at Rome; but he insisted that those prayers should

be drawn up in general terms, and that no name should be mentioned.

It was in vain that the ministers of the Houses of Stuart and Bourbon

adjured him to take a more decided course. "God knows," he exclaimed on

one occasion, "that I would gladly shed my blood to restore the King of

England. But what can I do? If I stir, I am told that I am favouring the

French, and helping them to set up an universal monarchy. I am not

like the old Popes. Kings will not listen to me as they listened to

my predecessors. There is no religion now, nothing but wicked, worldly

policy. The Prince of Orange is master. He governs us all. He has got

such a hold on the Emperor and on the King of Spain that neither of them

dares to displease him. God help us! He alone can help us." And, as the

old man spoke, he beat the table with his hand in an agony of impotent

grief and indignation. [295]

To keep the German princes steady was no easy task; but it was

accomplished. Money was distributed among them, much less indeed than

they asked, but much more than they had any decent pretence for asking.

With the Elector of Saxony a composition was made. He had, together with

a strong appetite for subsidies, a great desire to be a member of the

most select and illustrious orders of knighthood. It seems that, instead

of the four hundred thousand rixdollars which he had demanded, he

consented to accept one hundred thousand and the Garter. [296] His prime

minister Schoening, the most covetous and perfidious of mankind,

was secured by a pension. [297] For the Duke of Brunswick Lunenburg,

William, not without difficulty, procured the long desired title of

Elector of Hanover. By such means as these the breaches which had

divided the coalition were so skilfully repaired that it appeared still

to present a firm front to the enemy. William had complained bitterly to

the Spanish government of the incapacity and inertness of Gastanaga.

The Spanish government, helpless and drowsy as it was, could not be

altogether insensible to the dangers which threatened Flanders and

Brabant. Gastanaga was recalled; and William was invited to take upon

himself the government of the Low Countries, with powers not less than

regal. Philip the Second would not easily have believed that, within

a century after his death, his greatgrandson would implore the

greatgrandson of William the Silent to exercise the authority of a

sovereign at Brussels. [298]

The offer was in one sense tempting; but William was too wise to accept

it. He knew that the population of the Spanish Netherlands was firmly

attached to the Church of Rome. Every act of a Protestant ruler was

certain to be regarded with suspicion by the clergy and people of those

countries. Already Gastanaga, mortified by his disgrace, had written to

inform the Court of Rome that changes were in contemplation which would

make Ghent and Antwerp as heretical as Amsterdam and London. [299] It

had doubtless also occurred to William that if, by governing mildly

and justly, and by showing a decent respect for the ceremonies and the

ministers of the Roman Catholic religion, he should succeed in obtaining

the confidence of the Belgians, he would inevitably raise against

himself a storm of obloquy in our island. He knew by experience what it

was to govern two nations strongly attached to two different Churches. A

large party among the Episcopalians of England could not forgive him

for having consented to the establishment of the presbyterian polity in

Scotland. A large party among the Presbyterians of Scotland blamed him

for maintaining the episcopal polity in England. If he now took under

his protection masses, processions, graven images, friaries, nunneries,

and, worst of all, Jesuit pulpits, Jesuit confessionals and Jesuit

colleges, what could he expect but that England and Scotland would join

in one cry of reprobation? He therefore refused to accept the government

of the Low Countries, and proposed that it should be entrusted to the

Elector of Bavaria. The Elector of Bavaria was, after the Emperor, the

most powerful of the Roman Catholic potentates of Germany. He was young,

brave, and ambitious of military distinction. The Spanish Court was

willing to appoint him, and he was desirous to be appointed; but much

delay was caused by an absurd difficulty. The Elector thought it beneath

him to ask for what he wished to have. The formalists of the Cabinet of

Madrid thought it beneath the dignity of the Catholic King to give what

had not been asked. Mediation was necessary, and was at last successful.

But much time was lost; and the spring was far advanced before the new

Governor of the Netherlands entered on his functions. [300]

William had saved the coalition from the danger of perishing by

disunion. But by no remonstrance, by no entreaty, by no bribe, could

he prevail on his allies to be early in the field. They ought to have

profited by the severe lesson which had been given them in the preceding

year. But again every one of them lingered, and wondered why the rest

were lingering; and again he who singly wielded the whole power of

France was found, as his haughty motto had long boasted, a match for

a multitude of adversaries. [301] His enemies, while still unready,

learned with dismay that he had taken the field in person at the head of

his nobility. On no occasion had that gallant aristocracy appeared with

more splendour in his train. A single circumstance may suffice to give

a notion of the pomp and luxury of his camp. Among the musketeers of his

household rode, for the first time, a stripling of seventeen, who soon

afterwards succeeded to the title of Duke of Saint Simon, and to whom we

owe those inestimable memoirs which have preserved, for the delight and

instruction of many lands and of many generations, the vivid picture of

a France which has long passed away. Though the boy's family was at that

time very hard pressed for money, he travelled with thirty-five horses

and sumpter mules. The princesses of the blood, each surrounded by a

group of highborn and graceful ladies, accompanied the King; and

the smiles of so many charming women inspired the throng of vain and

voluptuous but highspirited gentlemen with more than common courage. In

the brilliant crowd which surrounded the French Augustus appeared the

French Virgil, the graceful, the tender, the melodious Racine. He had,

in conformity with the prevailing fashion, become devout, had given

up writing for the theatre; and, having determined to apply himself

vigorously to the discharge of the duties which belonged to him as

historiographer of France, he now came to see the great events which

it was his office to record. [302] In the neighbourhood of Mons, Lewis

entertained the ladies with the most magnificent review that had ever

been seen in modern Europe. A hundred and twenty thousand of the finest

troops in the world were drawn up in a line eight miles long. It may be

doubted whether such an army had ever been brought together under the

Roman eagles. The show began early in the morning, and was not over

when the long summer day closed. Racine left the ground, astonished,

deafened, dazzled, and tired to death. In a private letter he ventured

to give utterance to an amiable wish which he probably took good care

not to whisper in the courtly circle: "Would to heaven that all these

poor fellows were in their cottages again with their wives and their

little ones!" [303]

After this superb pageant Lewis announced his intention of attacking

Namur. In five days he was under the walls of that city, at the head

of more than thirty thousand men. Twenty thousand peasants, pressed in

those parts of the Netherlands which the French occupied, were compelled

to act as pioneers. Luxemburg, with eighty thousand men, occupied a

strong position on the road between Namur and Brussels, and was prepared

to give battle to any force which might attempt to raise the siege.

[304] This partition of duties excited no surprise. It had long been

known that the great Monarch loved sieges, and that he did not love

battles. He professed to think that the real test of military skill was

a siege. The event of an encounter between two armies on an open plain

was, in his opinion, often determined by chance; but only science could

prevail against ravelins and bastions which science had constructed. His

detractors sneeringly pronounced it fortunate that the department of

the military art which His Majesty considered as the noblest was one in

which it was seldom necessary for him to expose to serious risk a life

invaluable to his people.

Namur, situated at the confluence of the Sambre and the Meuse, was one

of the great fortresses of Europe. The town lay in the plain, and had

no strength except what was derived from art. But art and nature had

combined to fortify that renowned citadel which, from the summit of a

lofty rock, looks down on a boundless expanse of cornfields, woods and

meadows, watered by two fine rivers. The people of the city and of the

surrounding region were proud of their impregnable castle. Their boast

was that never, in all the wars which had devastated the Netherlands,

had skill or valour been able to penetrate those walls. The neighbouring

fastnesses, famed throughout the world for their strength, Antwerp and

Ostend, Ypres, Lisle and Tournay, Mons and Valenciennes, Cambray and

Charleroi, Limburg and Luxemburg, had opened their gates to conquerors;

but never once had the flag been pulled down from the battlements of

Namur. That nothing might be wanting to the interest of the siege,

the two great masters of the art of fortification were opposed to

each other. Vauban had during many years been regarded as the first of

engineers; but a formidable rival had lately arisen, Menno, Baron of

Cohorn, the ablest officer in the service of the States General. The

defences of Namur had been recently strengthened and repaired under

Cohorn's superintendence; and he was now within the walls. Vauban was in

the camp of Lewis. It might therefore be expected that both the attack

and the defence would be conducted with consummate ability.

By this time the allied armies had assembled; but it was too late. [305]

William hastened towards Namur. He menaced the French works, first from

the west, then from the north, then from the east. But between him and

the lines of circumvallation lay the army of Luxemburg, turning as he

turned, and always so strongly posted that to attack it would have been

the height of imprudence. Meanwhile the besiegers, directed by the skill

of Vauban and animated by the presence of Lewis, made rapid progress.

There were indeed many difficulties to be surmounted and many hardships

to be endured. The weather was stormy; and, on the eighth of June,

the feast of Saint Medard, who holds in the French Calendar the same

inauspicious place which in our Calendar belongs to Saint Swithin, the

rain fell in torrents. The Sambre rose and covered many square miles on

which the harvest was green. The Mehaigne whirled down its bridges to

the Meuse. All the roads became swamps. The trenches were so deep in

water and mire that it was the business of three days to move a gun from

one battery to another. The six thousand waggons which had accompanied

the French army were useless. It was necessary that gunpowder, bullets,

corn, hay, should be carried from place to place on the backs of the war

horses. Nothing but the authority of Lewis could, in such circumstances,

have maintained order and inspired cheerfulness. His soldiers, in truth,

showed much more reverence for him than for what their religion had made

sacred. They cursed Saint Medard heartily, and broke or burned every

image of him that could be found. But for their King there was nothing

that they were not ready to do and to bear. In spite of every obstacle

they constantly gained ground. Cohorn was severely wounded while

defending with desperate resolution a fort which he had himself

constructed, and of which he was proud. His place could not be supplied.

The governor was a feeble man whom Gastanaga had appointed, and whom

William had recently advised the Elector of Bavaria to remove. The

spirit of the garrison gave way. The town surrendered on the eighth day

of the siege, the citadel about three weeks later. [306]

The history of the fall of Namur in 1692 bears a close resemblance

to the history of the fail of Mons in 1691. Both in 1691 and in 1692,

Lewis, the sole and absolute master of the resources of his kingdom, was

able to open the campaign, before William, the captain of a coalition,

had brought together his dispersed forces. In both years the advantage

of having the first move decided the event of the game. At Namur, as at

Mons, Lewis, assisted by Vauban conducted the siege; Luxemburg covered

it; William vainly tried to raise it, and, with deep mortification,

assisted as a spectator at the victory of his enemy.

In one respect however the fate of the two fortresses was very

different. Mons was delivered up by its own inhabitants. Namur might

perhaps have been saved if the garrison had been as zealous and

determined as the population. Strange to say, in this place, so long

subject to a foreign rule, there was found a patriotism resembling that

of the little Greek commonwealths. There is no reason to believe that

the burghers cared about the balance of power, or had any preference

for James or for William, for the Most Christian King or for the Most

Catholic King. But every citizen considered his own honour as bound up

with the honour of the maiden fortress. It is true that the French did

not abuse their victory. No outrage was committed; the privileges of the

municipality were respected, the magistrates were not changed. Yet the

people could not see a conqueror enter their hitherto unconquered castle

without tears of rage and shame. Even the barefooted Carmelites, who

had renounced all pleasures, all property, all society, all domestic

affection, whose days were all fast days, who passed month after month

without uttering a word, were strangely moved. It was in vain that Lewis

attempted to soothe them by marks of respect and by munificent bounty.

Whenever they met a French uniform they turned their heads away with a

look which showed that a life of prayer, of abstinence and of silence

had left one earthly feeling still unsubdued. [307]

This was perhaps the moment at which the arrogance of Lewis reached the

highest point. He had achieved the last and the most splendid military

exploit of his life. His confederated foes, English, Dutch and German,

had, in their own despite, swelled his triumph, and had been witnesses

of the glory which made their hearts sick. His exultation was boundless.

The inscriptions on the medals which he struck to commemorate his

success, the letters by which he enjoined the prelates of his kingdom

to sing the Te Deum, were boastful and sarcastic. His people, a people

among whose many fine qualities moderation in prosperity cannot be

reckoned, seemed for a time to be drunk with pride. Even Boileau,

hurried along by the prevailing enthusiasm, forgot the good sense and

good taste to which he owed his reputation. He fancied himself a lyric

poet, and gave vent to his feelings in a hundred and sixty lines of

frigid bombast about Alcides, Mars, Bacchus, Ceres, the lyre of Orpheus,

the Thracian oaks and the Permessian nymphs. He wondered whether Namur,

had, like Troy, been built by Apollo and Neptune. He asked what power

could subdue a city stronger than that before which the Greeks lay ten

years; and he returned answer to himself that such a miracle could be

wrought only by Jupiter or by Lewis. The feather in the hat of Lewis

was the loadstar of victory. To Lewis all things must yield, princes,

nations, winds, waters. In conclusion the poet addressed himself to the

banded enemies of France, and tauntingly bade them carry back to their

homes the tidings that Namur had been taken in their sight. Before many

months had elapsed both the boastful king and the boastful poet were

taught that it is prudent as well as graceful to be modest in the hour

of victory.

One mortification Lewis had suffered even in the midst of his

prosperity. While he lay before Namur, he heard the sounds of rejoicing

from the distant camp of the allies. Three peals of thunder from a

hundred and forty pieces of cannon were answered by three volleys from

sixty thousand muskets. It was soon known that these salutes were fired

on account of the battle of La Hogue. The French King exerted himself to

appear serene. "They make a strange noise," he said, "about the burning

of a few ships." In truth he was much disturbed, and the more so because

a report had reached the Low Countries that there had been a sea fight,

and that his fleet had been victorious. His good humour however was soon

restored by the brilliant success of those operations which were under

his own immediate direction. When the siege was over, he left Luxemburg

in command of the army, and returned to Versailles. At Versailles

the unfortunate Tourville soon presented himself, and was graciously

received. As soon as he appeared in the circle, the King welcomed him in

a loud voice. "I am perfectly satisfied with you and with my sailors. We

have been beaten, it is true; but your honour and that of the nation are

unsullied." [308]

Though Lewis had quitted the Netherlands, the eyes of all Europe were

still fixed on that region. The armies there had been strengthened by

reinforcements drawn from many quarters. Every where else the military

operations of the year were languid and without interest. The Grand

Vizier and Lewis of Baden did little more than watch each other on the

Danube. Marshal Noailles and the Duke of Medina Sidonia did little more

than watch each other under the Pyrenees. On the Upper Rhine, and

along the frontier which separates France from Piedmont, an indecisive

predatory war was carried on, by which the soldiers suffered little

and the cultivators of the soil much. But all men looked, with anxious

expectation of some great event, to the frontier of Brabant, where

William was opposed to Luxemburg.

Luxemburg, now in his sixty-sixth year, had risen, by slow degrees,

and by the deaths of several great men, to the first place among the

generals of his time. He was of that noble house of Montmorency which

united many mythical and many historical titles to glory, which boasted

that it sprang from the first Frank who was baptized into the name of

Christ in the fifth century, and which had, since the eleventh century,

given to France a long and splendid succession of Constables and

Marshals. In valour and abilities Luxemburg was not inferior to any of

his illustrious race. But, highly descended and highly gifted as he was,

he had with difficulty surmounted the obstacles which impeded him in the

road to fame. If he owed much to the bounty of nature and fortune, he

had suffered still more from their spite. His features were frightfully

harsh, his stature was diminutive; a huge and pointed hump rose on his

back. His constitution was feeble and sickly. Cruel imputations had been

thrown on his morals. He had been accused of trafficking with sorcerers

and with vendors of poison, had languished long in a dungeon, and had at

length regained his liberty without entirely regaining his honour. [309]

He had always been disliked both by Louvois and by Lewis. Yet the war

against the European coalition had lasted but a very short time when

both the minister and the King felt that the general who was personally

odious to them was necessary to the state. Conde and Turenne were no

more; and Luxemburg was without dispute the first soldier that France

still possessed. In vigilance, diligence and perseverance he was

deficient. He seemed to reserve his great qualities for great

emergencies. It was on a pitched field of battle that he was all

himself. His glance was rapid and unerring. His judgment was clearest

and surest when responsibility pressed heaviest on him and when

difficulties gathered thickest around him. To his skill, energy and

presence of mind his country owed some glorious days. But, though

eminently successful in battles, he was not eminently successful in

campaigns. He gained immense renown at William's expense; and yet there

was, as respected the objects of the war, little to choose between the

two commanders. Luxemburg was repeatedly victorious; but he had not the

art of improving a victory. William was repeatedly defeated; but of all

generals he was the best qualified to repair a defeat.

In the month of July William's headquarters were at Lambeque. About six

miles off, at Steinkirk, Luxemburg had encamped with the main body

of his army; and about six miles further off lay a considerable force

commanded by the Marquess of Boufflers, one of the best officers in the

service of Lewis.

The country between Lambeque and Steinkirk was intersected by

innumerable hedges and ditches; and neither army could approach the

other without passing through several long and narrow defiles. Luxemburg

had therefore little reason to apprehend that he should be attacked in

his entrenchments; and he felt assured that he should have ample notice

before any attack was made; for he had succeeded in corrupting an

adventurer named Millevoix, who was chief musician and private secretary

of the Elector of Bavaria. This man regularly sent to the French

headquarters authentic information touching the designs of the allies.

The Marshal, confident in the strength of his position and in the

accuracy of his intelligence, lived in his tent as he was accustomed

to live in his hotel at Paris. He was at once a valetudinarian and a

voluptuary; and, in both characters, he loved his ease. He scarcely ever

mounted his horse. Light conversation and cards occupied most of his

hours. His table was luxurious; and, when he had sate down to supper, it

was a service of danger to disturb him. Some scoffers remarked that

in his military dispositions he was not guided exclusively by military

reasons, that he generally contrived to entrench himself in some place

where the veal and the poultry were remarkably good, and that he was

always solicitous to keep open such communications with the sea as

might ensure him, from September to April, a regular supply of Sandwich

oysters.

If there were any agreeable women in the neighbourhood of his camp, they

were generally to be found at his banquets. It may easily be supposed

that, under such a commander, the young princes and nobles of France

vied with one another in splendour and gallantry. [310]

While he was amusing himself after his wonted fashion, the confederate

princes discovered that their counsels were betrayed. A peasant picked

up a letter which had been dropped, and carried it to the Elector of

Bavaria. It contained full proofs of the guilt of Millevoix. William

conceived a hope that he might be able to take his enemies in the snare

which they had laid for him. The perfidious secretary was summoned to

the royal presence and taxed with his crime. A pen was put into his

hand; a pistol was held to his breast; and he was commanded to write on

pain of instant death. His letter, dictated by William, was conveyed to

the French camp. It apprised Luxemburg that the allies meant to send out

a strong foraging party on the next day. In order to protect this party

from molestation, some battalions of infantry, accompanied by artillery,

would march by night to occupy the defiles which lay between the armies.

The Marshal read, believed and went to rest, while William urged forward

the preparations for a general assault on the French lines.

The whole allied army was under arms while it was still dark. In the

grey of the morning Luxemburg was awakened by scouts, who brought

tidings that the enemy was advancing in great force. He at first treated

the news very lightly. His correspondent, it seemed, had been, as usual,

diligent and exact. The Prince of Orange had sent out a detachment to

protect his foragers, and this detachment had been magnified by fear

into a great host. But one alarming report followed another fast. All

the passes, it was said, were choked with multitudes of foot, horse

and artillery, under the banners of England and of Spain, of the

United Provinces and of the Empire; and every column was moving towards

Steinkirk. At length the Marshal rose, got on horseback, and rode out to

see what was doing.

By this time the vanguard of the allies was close to his outposts. About

half a mile in advance of his army was encamped a brigade named from the

province of Bourbonnais. These troops had to bear the first brunt of the

onset. Amazed and panicstricken, they were swept away in a moment, and

ran for their lives, leaving their tents and seven pieces of cannon to

the assailants.

Thus far William's plans had been completely successful but now fortune

began to turn against him. He had been misinformed as to the nature of

the ground which lay between the station of the brigade of Bourbonnais

and the main encampment of the enemy. He had expected that he should be

able to push forward without a moment's pause, that he should find the

French army in a state of wild disorder, and that his victory would be

easy and complete. But his progress was obstructed by several fences

and ditches; there was a short delay; and a short delay sufficed to

frustrate his design. Luxemburg was the very man for such a conjuncture.

He had committed great faults; he had kept careless guard; he had

trusted implicitly to information which had proved false; he had

neglected information which had proved true; one of his divisions was

flying in confusion; the other divisions were unprepared for action.

That crisis would have paralysed the faculties of an ordinary captain;

it only braced and stimulated those of Luxemburg. His mind, nay his

sickly and distorted body, seemed to derive health and vigour from

disaster and dismay. In a short time he had disposed every thing. The

French army was in battle order. Conspicuous in that great array were

the household troops of Lewis, the most renowned body of fighting men

in Europe; and at their head appeared, glittering in lace and embroidery

hastily thrown on and half fastened, a crowd of young princes and lords

who had just been roused by the trumpet from their couches or their

revels, and who had hastened to look death in the face with the gay and

festive intrepidity characteristic of French gentlemen. Highest in

rank among these highborn warriors was a lad of sixteen, Philip Duke of

Chartres, son of the Duke of Orleans, and nephew of the King of France.

It was with difficulty and by importunate solicitation that the gallant

boy had extorted Luxemburg's permission to be where the fire was

hottest. Two other youths of royal blood, Lewis Duke of Bourbon, and

Armand Prince of Conti, showed a spirit worthy of their descent. With

them was a descendant of one of the bastards of Henry the Fourth, Lewis

Duke of Vendome, a man sunk in indolence and in the foulest vice, yet

capable of exhibiting on a great occasion the qualities of a great

soldier. Berwick, who was beginning to earn for himself an honourable

name in arms, was there; and at his side rode Sarsfield, whose courage

and ability earned, on that day, the esteem of the whole French army.

Meanwhile Luxemburg had sent off a pressing message to summon Boufflers.

But the message was needless. Boufflers had heard the firing, and, like

a brave and intelligent captain, was already hastening towards the point

from which the sound came.

Though the assailants had lost all the advantage which belongs to a

surprise, they came on manfully. In the front of the battle were the

British commanded by Count Solmes. The division which was to lead the

way was Mackay's. He was to have been supported, according to William's

plan, by a strong body of foot and horse. Though most of Mackay's

men had never before been under fire, their behaviour gave promise of

Blenheim and Ramilies. They first encountered the Swiss, who held a

distinguished place in the French army. The fight was so close and

desperate that the muzzles of the muskets crossed. The Swiss were driven

back with fearful slaughter. More than eighteen hundred of them appear

from the French returns to have been killed or wounded. Luxemburg

afterwards said that he had never in his life seen so furious a

struggle. He collected in haste the opinion of the generals who

surrounded him. All thought that the emergency was one which could be

met by no common means. The King's household must charge the English.

The Marshal gave the word; and the household, headed by the princes

of the blood, came on, flinging their muskets back on their shoulders.

"Sword in hand," was the cry through all the ranks of that terrible

brigade: "sword in hand. No firing. Do it with the cold steel." After

a long and desperate resistance the English were borne down. They never

ceased to repeat that, if Solmes had done his duty by them, they would

have beaten even the household. But Solmes gave them no effective

support. He pushed forward some cavalry which, from the nature of the

ground, could do little or nothing. His infantry he would not suffer to

stir. They could do no good, he said, and he would not send them to

be slaughtered. Ormond was eager to hasten to the assistance of his

countrymen, but was not permitted. Mackay sent a pressing message to

represent that he and his men were left to certain destruction; but all

was vain. "God's will be done," said the brave veteran. He died as

he had lived, like a good Christian and a good soldier. With him fell

Douglas and Lanier, two generals distinguished among the conquerors of

Ireland. Mountjoy too was among the slain. After languishing three years

in the Bastile, he had just been exchanged for Richard Hamilton, and,

having been converted to Whiggism by wrongs more powerful than all the

arguments of Locke and Sidney, had instantly hastened to join William's

camp as a volunteer. [311] Five fine regiments were entirely cut to

pieces. No part of this devoted band would have escaped but for the

courage and conduct of Auverquerque, who came to the rescue in the

moment of extremity with two fresh battalions. The gallant manner

in which he brought off the remains of Mackay's division was long

remembered with grateful admiration by the British camp fires. The

ground where the conflict had raged was piled with corpses; and those

who buried the slain remarked that almost all the wounds had been given

in close fighting by the sword or the bayonet.

It was said that William so far forgot his wonted stoicism as to utter

a passionate exclamation at the way in which the English regiments

had been sacrificed. Soon, however, he recovered his equanimity, and

determined to fall back. It was high time; for the French army was every

moment becoming stronger, as the regiments commanded by Boufflers came

up in rapid succession. The allied army returned to Lambeque unpursued

and in unbroken order. [312]

The French owned that they had about seven thousand men killed and

wounded. The loss of the allies had been little, if at all, greater. The

relative strength of the armies was what it had been on the preceding

day; and they continued to occupy their old positions. But the moral

effect of the battle was great. The splendour of William's fame grew

pale. Even his admirers were forced to own that, in the field, he

was not a match for Luxemburg. In France the news was received with

transports of joy and pride. The Court, the Capital, even the peasantry

of the remotest provinces, gloried in the impetuous valour which had

been displayed by so many youths, the heirs of illustrious names. It was

exultingly and fondly repeated all over the kingdom that the young Duke

of Chartres could not by any remonstrances be kept out of danger, that

a ball had passed through his coat that he had been wounded in the

shoulder. The people lined the roads to see the princes and nobles who

returned from Steinkirk. The jewellers devised Steinkirk buckles; the

perfumers sold Steinkirk powder. But the name of the field of battle was

peculiarly given to a new species of collar. Lace neckcloths were then

worn by men of fashion; and it had been usual to arrange them with great

care. But at the terrible moment when the brigade of Bourbonnais was

flying before the onset of the allies, there was no time for foppery;

and the finest gentlemen of the Court came spurring to the front of the

line of battle with their rich cravats in disorder. It therefore

became a fashion among the beauties of Paris to wear round their necks

kerchiefs of the finest lace studiously disarranged; and these kerchiefs

were called Steinkirks. [313]

In the camp of the allies all was disunion and discontent. National

jealousies and animosities raged without restraint or disguise. The

resentment of the English was loudly expressed. Solmes, though he was

said by those who knew him well to have some valuable qualities, was not

a man likely to conciliate soldiers who were prejudiced against him as

a foreigner. His demeanour was arrogant, his temper ungovernable. Even

before the unfortunate day of Steinkirk the English officers did not

willingly communicate with him, and the private men murmured at his

harshness. But after the battle the outcry against him became furious.

He was accused, perhaps unjustly, of having said with unfeeling levity,

while the English regiments were contending desperately against great

odds, that he was curious to see how the bulldogs would come off.

Would any body, it was asked, now pretend that it was on account of his

superior skill and experience that he had been put over the heads of so

many English officers? It was the fashion to say that those officers

had never seen war on a large scale. But surely the merest novice was

competent to do all that Solmes had done, to misunderstand orders, to

send cavalry on duty which none but infantry could perform, and to look

on at safe distance while brave men were cut to pieces. It was too much

to be at once insulted and sacrificed, excluded from the honours of war,

yet pushed on all its extreme dangers, sneered at as raw recruits, and

then left to cope unsupported with the finest body of veterans in the

world. Such were the complains of the English army; and they were echoed

by the English nation.

Fortunately about this time a discovery was made which furnished both

the camp at Lambeque and the coffeehouses of London with a subject of

conversation much less agreeable to the Jacobites than the disaster of

Steinkirk.

A plot against the life of William had been, during some months,

maturing in the French War Office. It should seem that Louvois had

originally sketched the design, and had bequeathed it, still rude, to

his son and successor Barbesieux. By Barbesieux the plan was perfected.

The execution was entrusted to an officer named Grandval. Grandval was

undoubtedly brave, and full of zeal for his country and his religion.

He was indeed flighty and half witted, but not on that account the less

dangerous. Indeed a flighty and half witted man is the very instrument

generally preferred by cunning politicians when very hazardous work is

to be done. No shrewd calculator would, for any bribe, however enormous,

have exposed himself to the fate of Chatel, of Ravaillac, or of Gerarts.

[314]

Grandval secured, as he conceived, the assistance of two adventurers,

Dumont, a Walloon, and Leefdale, a Dutchman. In April, soon after

William had arrived in the Low Countries, the murderers were directed

to repair to their post. Dumont was then in Westphalia. Grandval and

Leefdale were at Paris. Uden in North Brabant was fixed as the place

where the three were to meet and whence they were to proceed together

to the headquarters of the allies. Before Grandval left Paris he paid

a visit to Saint Germains, and was presented to James and to Mary of

Modena. "I have been informed," said James, "of the business. If you and

your companions do me this service, you shall never want."

After this audience Grandval set out on his journey. He had not the

faintest suspicion that he had been betrayed both by the accomplice who

accompanied him and by the accomplice whom he was going to meet.

Dumont and Leefdale were not enthusiasts. They cared nothing for the

restoration of James, the grandeur of Lewis, or the ascendency of the

Church of Rome. It was plain to every man of common sense that, whether

the design succeeded or failed, the reward of the assassins would

probably be to be disowned, with affected abhorrence, by the Courts

of Versailles and Saint Germains, and to be torn with redhot pincers,

smeared with melted lead, and dismembered by four horses. To vulgar

natures the prospect of such a martyrdom was not alluring. Both these

men, therefore, had, almost at the same time, though, as far as appears,

without any concert, conveyed to William, through different channels,

warnings that his life was in danger. Dumont had acknowledged every

thing to the Duke of Zell, one of the confederate princes. Leefdale

had transmitted full intelligence through his relations who resided in

Holland. Meanwhile Morel, a Swiss Protestant of great learning who

was then in France, wrote to inform Burnet that the weak and hotheaded

Grandval had been heard to talk boastfully of the event which would soon

astonish the world, and had confidently predicted that the Prince of

Orange would not live to the end of the next month.

These cautions were not neglected. From the moment at which Grandval

entered the Netherlands, his steps were among snares. His movements were

watched; his words were noted; he was arrested, examined, confronted

with his accomplices, and sent to the camp of the allies. About a week

after the battle of Steinkirk he was brought before a Court Martial.

Ginkell, who had been rewarded for his great services in Ireland with

the title of Earl of Athlone, presided; and Talmash was among the

judges. Mackay and Lanier had been named members of the board; but they

were no more; and their places were filled by younger officers.

The duty of the Court Martial was very simple; for the prisoner

attempted no defence. His conscience had, it should seem, been suddenly

awakened. He admitted, with expressions of remorse, the truth of all

the charges, made a minute, and apparently an ingenuous, confession, and

owned that he had deserved death. He was sentenced to be hanged, drawn

and quartered, and underwent his punishment with great fortitude and

with a show of piety. He left behind him a few lines, in which he

declared that he was about to lose his life for having too faithfully

obeyed the injunctions of Barbesieux.

His confession was immediately published in several languages, and was

read with very various and very strong emotions. That it was genuine

could not be doubted; for it was warranted by the signatures of some of

the most distinguished military men living. That it was prompted by the

hope of pardon could hardly be supposed; for William had taken pains to

discourage that hope. Still less could it be supposed that the prisoner

had uttered untruths in order to avoid the torture. For, though it was

the universal practice in the Netherlands to put convicted assassins to

the rack in order to wring out from them the names of their employers

and associates, William had given orders that, on this occasion, the

rack should not be used or even named. It should be added, that the

Court did not interrogate the prisoner closely, but suffered him to tell

his story in his own way. It is therefore reasonable to believe that his

narrative is substantially true; and no part of it has a stronger air of

truth than his account of the audience with which James had honoured him

at Saint Germains.

In our island the sensation produced by the news was great. The Whigs

loudly called both James and Lewis assassins. How, it was asked, was it

possible, without outraging common sense, to put an innocent meaning on

the words which Grandval declared that he had heard from the lips of

the banished King of England? And who that knew the Court of Versailles

would believe that Barbesieux, a youth, a mere novice in politics, and

rather a clerk than a minister, would have dared to do what he had done

without taking his master's pleasure? Very charitable and very ignorant

persons might perhaps indulge a hope that Lewis had not been an

accessory before the fact. But that he was an accessory after the fact

no human being could doubt. He must have seen the proceedings of the

Court Martial, the evidence, the confession. If he really abhorred

assassination as honest men abhor it, would not Barbesieux have been

driven with ignominy from the royal presence, and flung into the

Bastile? Yet Barbesieux was still at the War Office; and it was not

pretended that he had been punished even by a word or a frown. It was

plain, then, that both Kings were partakers in the guilt of Grandval.

And if it were asked how two princes who made a high profession of

religion could have fallen into such wickedness, the answer was that

they had learned their religion from the Jesuits. In reply to these

reproaches the English Jacobites said very little; and the French

government said nothing at all. [315]

The campaign in the Netherlands ended without any other event deserving

to be recorded. On the eighteenth of October William arrived in England.

Late in the evening of the twentieth he reached Kensington, having

traversed the whole length of the capital. His reception was cordial.

The crowd was great; the acclamations were loud; and all the windows

along his route, from Aldgate to Piccadilly, were lighted up. [316]

But, notwithstanding these favourable symptoms, the nation was

disappointed and discontented. The war had been unsuccessful by land.

By sea a great advantage had been gained, but had not been improved. The

general expectation had been that the victory of May would be followed

by a descent on the coast of France, that Saint Maloes would he

bombarded, that the last remains of Tourville's squadron would be

destroyed, and that the arsenals of Brest and Rochefort would be laid in

ruins. This expectation was, no doubt, unreasonable. It did not follow,

because Rooke and his seamen had silenced the batteries hastily thrown

up by Bellefonds, that it would be safe to expose ships to the fire of

regular fortresses. The government, however, was not less sanguine than

the nation. Great preparations were made. The allied fleet, having been

speedily refitted at Portsmouth, stood out again to sea. Rooke was sent

to examine the soundings and the currents along the shore of Brittany.

[317] Transports were collected at Saint Helens. Fourteen thousand

troops were assembled on Portsdown under the command of Meinhart

Schomberg, who had been rewarded for his father's services and his

own with the highest rank in the Irish peerage, and was now Duke of

Leinster. Under him were Ruvigny, who, for his good service at Aghrim,

had been created Earl of Galway, La Melloniere and Cambon with their

gallant bands of refugees, and Argyle with the regiment which bore

his name, and which, as it began to be rumoured, had last winter done

something strange and horrible in a wild country of rocks and snow,

never yet explored by any Englishman.

On the twenty-sixth of July the troops were all on board. The

transports sailed, and in a few hours joined the naval armament in the

neighbourhood of Portland. On the twenty-eighth a general council of war

was held. All the naval commanders, with Russell at their head, declared

that it would be madness to carry their ships within the range of the

guns of Saint Maloes, and that the town must be reduced to straits by

land before the men of war in the harbour could, with any chance of

success, be attacked from the sea. The military men declared with equal

unanimity that the land forces could effect nothing against the town

without the cooperation of the fleet. It was then considered whether it

would be advisable to make an attempt on Brest or Rochefort. Russell

and the other flag officers, among whom were Rooke, Shovel, Almonde

and Evertsen, pronounced that the summer was too far spent for either

enterprise. [318] We must suppose that an opinion in which so many

distinguished admirals, both English and Dutch, concurred, however

strange it may seem to us, was in conformity with what were then the

established principles of the art of maritime war. But why all these

questions could not have been fully discussed a week earlier, why

fourteen thousand troops should have been shipped and sent to sea,

before it had been considered what they were to do, or whether it would

be possible for them to do any thing, we may reasonably wonder. The

armament returned to Saint Helens, to the astonishment and disgust

of the whole nation. [319] The ministers blamed the commanders; the

commanders blamed the ministers. The recriminations exchanged between

Nottingham and Russell were loud and angry. Nottingham, honest,

industrious, versed in civil business, and eloquent in parliamentary

debate, was deficient in the qualities of a war minister, and was not

at all aware of his deficiencies. Between him and the whole body of

professional sailors there was a feud of long standing. He had, some

time before the Revolution, been a Lord of the Admiralty; and his own

opinion was that he had then acquired a profound knowledge of maritime

affairs. This opinion however he had very much to himself. Men who

had passed half their lives on the waves, and who had been in battles,

storms and shipwrecks, were impatient of his somewhat pompous lectures

and reprimands, and pronounced him a mere pedant, who, with all his book

learning, was ignorant of what every cabin boy knew. Russell had always

been froward, arrogant and mutinous; and now prosperity and glory

brought out his vices in full strength. With the government which he

had saved he took all the liberties of an insolent servant who believes

himself to be necessary, treated the orders of his superiors with

contemptuous levity, resented reproof, however gentle, as an outrage,

furnished no plan of his own, and showed a sullen determination to

execute no plan furnished by any body else. To Nottingham he had a

strong and a very natural antipathy. They were indeed an ill matched

pair. Nottingham was a Tory; Russell was a Whig. Nottingham was a

speculative seaman, confident in his theories. Russell was a practical

seaman, proud of his achievements. The strength of Nottingham lay in

speech; the strength of Russell lay in action. Nottingham's demeanour

was decorous even to formality; Russell was passionate and rude. Lastly

Nottingham was an honest man; and Russell was a villain. They now became

mortal enemies. The Admiral sneered at the Secretary's ignorance of

naval affairs; the Secretary accused the Admiral of sacrificing the

public interests to mere wayward humour; and both were in the right.

[320]

While they were wrangling, the merchants of all the ports in the kingdom

raised a cry against the naval administration. The victory of which the

nation was so proud was, in the City, pronounced to have been a positive

disaster. During some months before the battle all the maritime

strength of the enemy had been collected in two great masses, one in

the Mediterranean and one in the Atlantic. There had consequently been

little privateering; and the voyage to New England or Jamaica had been

almost as safe as in time of peace. Since the battle, the remains of

the force which had lately been collected under Tourville were dispersed

over the ocean. Even the passage from England to Ireland was insecure.

Every week it was announced that twenty, thirty, fifty vessels belonging

to London or Bristol had been taken by the French. More than a hundred

prices were carried during that autumn into Saint Maloes alone. It

would have been far better, in the opinion of the shipowners and of the

underwriters, that the Royal Sun had still been afloat with her thousand

fighting men on board than that she should be lying a heap of ashes

on the beach at Cherburg, while her crew, distributed among twenty

brigantines, prowled for booty over the sea between Cape Finisterre and

Cape Clear. [321]

The privateers of Dunkirk had long been celebrated; and among them, John

Bart, humbly born, and scarcely able to sign his name, but eminently

brave and active, had attained an undisputed preeminence. In the country

of Anson and Hawke, of Howe and Rodney, of Duncan, Saint Vincent and

Nelson, the name of the most daring and skilful corsair would have

little chance of being remembered. But France, among whose many

unquestioned titles to glory very few are derived from naval war, still

ranks Bart among her great men. In the autumn of 1692 this enterprising

freebooter was the terror of all the English and Dutch merchants who

traded with the Baltic. He took and destroyed vessels close to the

eastern coast of our island. He even ventured to land in Northumberland,

and burned many houses before the trainbands could be collected to

oppose him. The prizes which he carried back into his native port were

estimated at about a hundred thousand pounds sterling. [322] About the

same time a younger adventurer, destined to equal or surpass Bart, Du

Guay Trouin, was entrusted with the command of a small armed vessel. The

intrepid boy,--for he was not yet twenty years old,--entered the estuary

of the Shannon, sacked a mansion in the county of Clare, and did not

reimbark till a detachment from the garrison of Limerick marched against

him. [323]

While our trade was interrupted and our shores menaced by these rovers,

some calamities which no human prudence could have averted increased the

public ill humour. An earthquake of terrible violence laid waste in less

than three minutes the flourishing colony of Jamaica. Whole plantations

changed their place. Whole villages were swallowed up. Port Royal, the

fairest and wealthiest city which the English had yet built in the New

World, renowned for its quays, for its warehouses, and for its stately

streets, which were said to rival Cheapside, was turned into a mass of

ruins. Fifteen hundred of the inhabitants were buried under their own

dwellings. The effect of this disaster was severely felt by many of the

great mercantile houses of London and Bristol. [324]

A still heavier calamity was the failure of the harvest. The summer had

been wet all over Western Europe. Those heavy rains which had impeded

the exertions of the French pioneers in the trenches of Namur had been

fatal to the crops. Old men remembered no such year since 1648. No

fruit ripened. The price of the quarter of wheat doubled. The evil was

aggravated by the state of the silver coin, which had been clipped to

such an extent that the words pound and shilling had ceased to have

a fixed meaning. Compared with France indeed England might well be

esteemed prosperous. Here the public burdens were heavy; there they were

crushing. Here the labouring man was forced to husband his coarse barley

loaf; but there it not seldom happened that the wretched peasant

was found dead on the earth with halfchewed grass in his mouth. Our

ancestors found some consolation in thinking that they were gradually

wearing out the strength of their formidable enemy, and that his

resources were likely to be drained sooner than theirs. Still there was

much suffering and much repining. In some counties mobs attacked the

granaries. The necessity of retrenchment was felt by families of every

rank. An idle man of wit and pleasure, who little thought that his

buffoonery would ever be cited to illustrate the history of his times,

complained that, in this year, wine ceased to be put on many hospitable

tables where he had been accustomed to see it, and that its place was

supplied by punch. [325]

A symptom of public distress much more alarming than the substitution

of brandy and lemons for claret was the increase of crime. During

the autumn of 1692 and the following winter, the capital was kept in

constant terror by housebreakers. One gang, thirteen strong, entered

the mansion of the Duke of Ormond in Saint James's Square, and all but

succeeded in carrying off his magnificent plate and jewels. Another gang

made an attempt on Lambeth Palace. [326] When stately abodes, guarded by

numerous servants, were in such danger, it may easily be believed that

no shopkeeper's till or stock could be safe. From Bow to Hyde Park, from

Thames Street to Bloomsbury, there was no parish in which some quiet

dwelling had not been sacked by burglars. [327] Meanwhile the great

roads were made almost impassable by freebooters who formed themselves

into troops larger than had before been known. There was a sworn

fraternity of twenty footpads which met at an alehouse in Southwark.

[328] But the most formidable band of plunderers consisted of two and

twenty horsemen. [329] It should seem that, at this time, a journey of

fifty miles through the wealthiest and most populous shires of England

was as dangerous as a pilgrimage across the deserts of Arabia. The

Oxford stage coach was pillaged in broad day after a bloody fight. [330]

A waggon laden with fifteen thousand pounds of public money was stopped

and ransacked. As this operation took some time, all the travellers who

came to the spot while the thieves were busy were seized and guarded.

When the booty had been secured the prisoners were suffered to depart

on foot; but their horses, sixteen or eighteen in number, were shot or

hamstringed, to prevent pursuit. [331] The Portsmouth mail was robbed

twice in one week by men well armed and mounted. [332] Some jovial Essex

squires, while riding after a hare, were themselves chased and run down

by nine hunters of a different sort, and were heartily glad to find

themselves at home again, though with empty pockets. [333]

The friends of the government asserted that the marauders were all

Jacobites; and indeed there were some appearances which gave colour to

the assertion. For example, fifteen butchers, going on a market day to

buy beasts at Thame, were stopped by a large gang, and compelled first

to deliver their moneybags, and then to drink King James's health in

brandy. [334] The thieves, however, to do them justice, showed, in

the exercise of their calling, no decided preference for any political

party. Some of them fell in with Marlborough near Saint Albans,

and, notwithstanding his known hostility to the Court and his recent

imprisonment, compelled him to deliver up five hundred guineas, which he

doubtless never ceased to regret to the last moment of his long career

of prosperity and glory. [335]

When William, on his return from the Continent, learned to what an

extent these outrages were carried, he expressed great indignation, and

announced his resolution to put down the malefactors with a strong hand.

A veteran robber was induced to turn informer, and to lay before the

King a list of the chief highwaymen, and a full account of their habits

and of their favourite haunts. It was said that this list contained not

less than eighty names. [336] Strong parties of cavalry were sent out

to protect the roads; and this precaution, which would, in ordinary

circumstances, have excited much murmuring, seems to have been generally

approved. A fine regiment, now called the Second Dragoon Guards, which

had distinguished itself in Ireland by activity and success in the

irregular war against the Rapparees, was selected to guard several of

the great avenues of the capital. Blackheath, Barnet, Hounslow, became

places of arms. [337] In a few weeks the roads were as safe as usual.

The executions were numerous for, till the evil had been suppressed, the

King resolutely refused to listen to any solicitations for mercy. [338]

Among those who suffered was James Whitney, the most celebrated captain

of banditti in the kingdom. He had been, during some months, the terror

of all who travelled from London either northward or westward, and was

at length with difficulty secured after a desperate conflict in which

one soldier was killed and several wounded. [339] The London Gazette

announced that the famous highwayman had been taken, and invited all

persons who had been robbed by him to repair to Newgate and to see

whether they could identify him. To identify him should have been easy;

for he had a wound in the face, and had lost a thumb. [340] He, however,

in the hope of perplexing the witnesses for the Crown, expended a

hundred pounds in procuring a sumptuous embroidered suit against the

day of trial. This ingenious device was frustrated by his hardhearted

keepers. He was put to the bar in his ordinary clothes, convicted and

sentenced to death. [341] He had previously tried to ransom himself by

offering to raise a fine troop of cavalry, all highwaymen, for service

in Flanders; but his offer had been rejected. [342] He had one resource

still left. He declared that he was privy to a treasonable plot. Some

Jacobite lords had promised him immense rewards if he would, at the head

of his gang, fall upon the King at a stag hunt in Windsor Forest. There

was nothing intrinsically improbable in Whitney's story. Indeed a design

very similar to that which he imputed to the malecontents was, only

three years later, actually formed by some of them, and was all but

carried into execution. But it was far better that a few bad men should

go unpunished than that all honest men should live in fear of being

falsely accused by felons sentenced to the gallows. Chief Justice Holt

advised the King to let the law take its course. William, never much

inclined to give credit to stories about conspiracies, assented. The

Captain, as he was called, was hanged in Smithfield, and made a most

penitent end. [343]

Meanwhile, in the midst of discontent, distress and disorder, had begun

a session of Parliament singularly eventful, a session from which dates

a new era in the history of English finance, a session in which some

grave constitutional questions, not yet entirely set at rest, were for

the first time debated.

It is much to be lamented that any account of this session which can

be framed out of the scanty and dispersed materials now accessible must

leave many things obscure. The relations of the parliamentary factions

were, during this year, in a singularly complicated state. Each of the

two Houses was divided and subdivided by several lines. To omit minor

distinctions, there was the great line which separated the Whig party

from the Tory party; and there was the great line which separated the

official men and their friends and dependents, who were sometimes

called the Court party, from those who were sometimes nicknamed the

Grumbletonians and sometimes honoured with the appellation of the

Country party. And these two great lines were intersecting lines. For

of the servants of the Crown and of their adherents about one half were

Whigs and one half Tories. It is also to be remembered that there was,

quite distinct from the feud between Whigs and Tories, quite distinct

also from the feud between those who were in and those who were out, a

feud between the Lords as Lords and the Commons as Commons. The spirit

both of the hereditary and of the elective chamber had been thoroughly

roused in the preceding session by the dispute about the Court of the

Lord High Steward; and they met in a pugnacious mood.

The speech which the King made at the opening of the session was

skilfully framed for the purpose of conciliating the Houses. He came, he

told them, to ask for their advice and assistance. He congratulated them

on the victory of La Hogue. He acknowledged with much concern that the

operations of the allies had been less successful by land than by sea;

but he warmly declared that, both by land and by sea, the valour of his

English subjects had been preeminently conspicuous. The distress of his

people, he said, was his own; his interest was inseparable from theirs;

it was painful to him to call on them to make sacrifices; but from

sacrifices which were necessary to the safety of the English nation and

of the Protestant religion no good Englishman and no good Protestant

would shrink. [344]

The Commons thanked the King in cordial terms for his gracious speech.

[345] But the Lords were in a bad humour. Two of their body, Marlborough

and Huntingdon, had, during the recess, when an invasion and an

insurrection were hourly expected, been sent to the Tower, and were

still under recognisances. Had a country gentleman or a merchant been

taken up and held to bail on even slighter grounds at so alarming a

crisis, the Lords would assuredly not have interfered. But they were

easily moved to anger by any thing that looked like an indignity offered

to their own order. They not only crossexamined with great severity

Aaron Smith, the Solicitor of the Treasury, whose character, to say the

truth, entitled him to little indulgence, but passed; by thirty-five

votes to twenty-eight, a resolution implying a censure on the judges of

the King's Bench, men certainly not inferior in probity, and very far

superior in legal learning, to any peer of the realm. The King thought

it prudent to soothe the wounded pride of the nobility by ordering the

recognisances to be cancelled; and with this concession the House was

satisfied, to the great vexation of the Jacobites, who had hoped that

the quarrel would be prosecuted to some fatal issue, and who, finding

themselves disappointed, vented their spleen by railing at the tameness

of the degenerate barons of England. [346]

Both Houses held long and earnest deliberations on the state of the

nation. The King, when he requested their advice, had, perhaps, not

foreseen that his words would be construed into an invitation to

scrutinise every part of the administration, and to offer suggestions

touching matters which parliaments have generally thought it expedient

to leave entirely to the Crown. Some of the discontented peers proposed

that a Committee, chosen partly by the Lords and partly by the Commons,

should be authorised to inquire into the whole management of public

affairs. But it was generally apprehended that such a Committee would

become a second and more powerful Privy Council, independent of the

Crown, and unknown to the Constitution. The motion was therefore

rejected by forty-eight votes to thirty-six. On this occasion the

ministers, with scarcely an exception, voted in the majority. A protest

was signed by eighteen of the minority, among whom were the bitterest

Whigs and the bitterest Tories in the whole peerage. [347]

The Houses inquired, each for itself, into the causes of the public

calamities. The Commons resolved themselves into a Grand Committee

to consider of the advice to be given to the King. From the concise

abstracts and fragments which have come down to us it seems that, in

this Committee, which continued to sit many days, the debates wandered

over a vast space. One member spoke of the prevalence of highway

robbery; another deplored the quarrel between the Queen and the

Princess, and proposed that two or three gentlemen should be deputed to

wait on Her Majesty and try to make matters up. A third described the

machinations of the Jacobites in the preceding spring. It was notorious,

he said, that preparations had been made for a rising, and that arms and

horses had been collected; yet not a single traitor had been brought to

justice. [348]

The events of the war by land and sea furnished matter for several

earnest debates. Many members complained of the preference given to

aliens over Englishmen. The whole battle of Steinkirk was fought over

again; and severe reflections were thrown on Solmes. "Let English

soldiers be commanded by none but English generals," was the almost

universal cry. Seymour, who had once been distinguished by his hatred of

the foreigners, but who, since he had been at the Board of Treasury,

had reconsidered his opinions, asked where English generals were to

be found. "I have no love for foreigners as foreigners; but we have no

choice. Men are not born generals; nay, a man may be a very valuable

captain or major, and not be equal to the conduct of an army. Nothing

but experience will form great commanders. Very few of our countrymen

have that experience; and therefore we must for the present employ

strangers." Lowther followed on the same side. "We have had a long

peace; and the consequence is that we have not a sufficient supply of

officers fit for high commands. The parks and the camp at Hounslow were

very poor military schools, when compared with the fields of battle

and the lines of contravallation in which the great commanders of the

continental nations have learned their art." In reply to these arguments

an orator on the other side was so absurd as to declare that he could

point out ten Englishmen who, if they were in the French service, would

be made Marshals. Four or five colonels who had been at Steinkirk took

part in the debate. It was said of them that they showed as much modesty

in speech as they had shown courage in action; and, from the very

imperfect report which has come down to us, the compliment seems to have

been not undeserved. They did not join in the vulgar cry against the

Dutch. They spoke well of the foreign officers generally, and did full

justice to the valour and conduct with which Auverquerque had rescued

the shattered remains of Mackay's division from what seemed certain

destruction. But in defence of Solmes not a word was said. His severity,

his haughty manners, and, above all, the indifference with which he had

looked on while the English, borne down by overwhelming numbers, were

fighting hand to hand with the French household troops, had made him so

odious that many members were prepared to vote for an address requesting

that he might be removed, and that his place might be filled by Talmash,

who, since the disgrace of Marlborough, was universally allowed to

be the best officer in the army. But Talmash's friends judiciously

interfered. "I have," said one of them, "a true regard for that

gentleman; and I implore you not to do him an injury under the notion of

doing him a kindness. Consider that you are usurping what is peculiarly

the King's prerogative. You are turning officers out and putting

officers in." The debate ended without any vote of censure on Solmes.

But a hope was expressed, in language not very parliamentary, that what

had been said in the Committee would be reported to the King, and that

His Majesty would not disregard the general wish of the representatives

of his people. [349]

The Commons next proceeded to inquire into the naval administration, and

very soon came to a quarrel with the Lords on that subject. That there

had been mismanagement somewhere was but too evident. It was hardly

possible to acquit both Russell and Nottingham; and each House stood

by its own member. The Commons had, at the opening of the session,

unanimously passed a vote of thanks to Russell for his conduct at

La Hogue. They now, in the Grand Committee of Advice, took into

consideration the miscarriages which had followed the battle. A motion

was made so vaguely worded that it could hardly be said to mean any

thing. It was understood however to imply a censure on Nottingham, and

was therefore strongly opposed by his friends. On the division the Ayes

were a hundred and sixty-five, the Noes a hundred and sixty-four. [350]

On the very next day Nottingham appealed to the Lords. He told his story

with all the skill of a practised orator, and with all the authority

which belongs to unblemished integrity. He then laid on the table a

great mass of papers, which he requested the House to read and consider.

The Peers seem to have examined the papers seriously and diligently. The

result of the examination was by no means favourable to Russell. Yet

it was thought unjust to condemn him unheard; and it was difficult to

devise any way in which their Lordships could hear him. At last it was

resolved to send the papers down to the Commons with a message which

imported that, in the opinion of the Upper House, there was a case

against the Admiral which he ought to be called upon to answer. With the

papers was sent an abstract of the contents. [351]

The message was not very respectfully received. Russell had, at that

moment, a popularity which he little deserved, but which will not

surprise us when we remember that the public knew nothing of his

treasons, and knew that he was the only living Englishman who had won a

great battle. The abstract of the papers was read by the clerk. Russell

then spoke with great applause; and his friends pressed for an immediate

decision. Sir Christopher Musgrave very justly observed that it was

impossible to pronounce judgment on such a pile of despatches without

perusing them; but this objection was overruled. The Whigs regarded the

accused member as one of themselves; many of the Tories were dazzled by

the splendour of his recent victory; and neither Whigs nor Tories were

disposed to show any deference for the authority of the Peers. The

House, without reading the papers, passed an unanimous resolution

expressing warm approbation of Russell's whole conduct. The temper of

the assembly was such that some ardent Whigs thought that they might

now venture to propose a vote of censure on Nottingham by name. But the

attempt failed. "I am ready," said Lowther,--and he doubtless expressed

what many felt,--"I am ready to support any motion that may do honour to

the Admiral; but I cannot join in an attack on the Secretary of State.

For, to my knowledge, their Majesties have no more zealous, laborious

or faithful servant than my Lord Nottingham." Finch exerted all his

mellifluous eloquence in defence of his brother, and contrived, without

directly opposing himself to the prevailing sentiment, to insinuate

that Russell's conduct had not been faultless. The vote of censure on

Nottingham was not pressed. The vote which pronounced Russell's conduct

to have been deserving of all praise was communicated to the Lords; and

the papers which they had sent down were very unceremoniously returned.

[352] The Lords, much offended, demanded a free conference. It was

granted; and the managers of the two Houses met in the Painted Chamber.

Rochester, in the name of his brethren, expressed a wish to be informed

of the grounds on which the Admiral had been declared faultless. To this

appeal the gentlemen who stood on the other side of the table answered

only that they had not been authorised to give any explanation, but that

they would report to those who had sent them what had been said. [353]

By this time the Commons were thoroughly tired of the inquiry into the

conduct of the war. The members had got rid of much of the ill humour

which they had brought up with them from their country seats by the

simple process of talking it away. Burnet hints that those arts of which

Caermarthen and Trevor were the great masters were employed for the

purpose of averting votes which would have seriously embarrassed the

government. But, though it is not improbable that a few noisy pretenders

to patriotism may have been quieted with bags of guineas, it would

be absurd to suppose that the House generally was influenced in this

manner. Whoever has seen anything of such assemblies knows that the

spirit with which they enter on long inquiries very soon flags, and that

their resentment, if not kept alive by injudicious opposition, cools

fast. In a short time every body was sick of the Grand Committee of

Advice. The debates had been tedious and desultory. The resolutions

which had been carried were for the most part merely childish. The King

was to be humbly advised to employ men of ability and integrity. He was

to be humbly advised to employ men who would stand by him against James.

The patience of the House was wearied out by long discussions ending in

the pompous promulgation of truisms like these. At last the explosion

came. One of the grumblers called the attention of the Grand Committee

to the alarming fact that two Dutchmen were employed in the Ordnance

department, and moved that the King should be humbly advised to dismiss

them. The motion was received with disdainful mockery. It was remarked

that the military men especially were loud in the expression of

contempt. "Do we seriously think of going to the King and telling him

that, as he has condescended to ask our advice at this momentous crisis,

we humbly advise him to turn a Dutch storekeeper out of the Tower?

Really, if we have no more important suggestion to carry up to the

throne, we may as well go to our dinners." The members generally were

of the same mind. The chairman was voted out of the chair, and was not

directed to ask leave to sit again. The Grand Committee ceased to exist.

The resolutions which it had passed were formally reported to the House.

One of them was rejected; the others were suffered to drop; and the

Commons, after considering during several weeks what advice they should

give to the King, ended by giving him no advice at all. [354]

The temper of the Lords was different. From many circumstances it

appears that there was no place where the Dutch were, at this time, so

much hated as in the Upper House. The dislike with which an Englishman

of the middle class regarded the King's foreign friends was merely

national. But the dislike with which an English nobleman regarded them

was personal. They stood between him and Majesty. They intercepted from

him the rays of royal favour. The preference given to them wounded him

both in his interests and in his pride. His chance of the Garter was

much smaller since they had become his competitors. He might have been

Master of the Horse but for Auverquerque, Master of the Robes but for

Zulestein, Groom of the Stole but for Bentinck. [355] The ill humour of

the aristocracy was inflamed by Marlborough, who, at this time, affected

the character of a patriot persecuted for standing up against the Dutch

in defence of the interests of his native land, and who did not foresee

that a day would come when he would be accused of sacrificing the

interests of his native land to gratify the Dutch. The Peers determined

to present an address, requesting William not to place his English

troops under the command of a foreign general. They took up very

seriously that question which had moved the House of Commons to

laughter, and solemnly counselled their Sovereign not to employ

foreigners in his magazines. At Marlborough's suggestion they urged the

King to insist that the youngest English general should take precedence

of the oldest general in the service of the States General. It was, they

said, derogatory to the dignity of the Crown, that an officer who held

a commission from His Majesty should ever be commanded by an officer

who held a similar commission from a republic. To this advice, evidently

dictated by an ignoble malevolence to Holland, William, who troubled

himself little about votes of the Upper House which were not backed by

the Lower, returned, as might have been expected, a very short and dry

answer. [356]

While the inquiry into the conduct of the war was pending, the Commons

resumed the consideration of an important subject which had occupied

much of their attention in the preceding year. The Bill for the

Regulation of Trials in cases of High Treason was again brought in, but

was strongly opposed by the official men, both Whigs and Tories. Somers,

now Attorney General, strongly recommended delay. That the law, as

it stood, was open to grave objections, was not denied; but it was

contended that the proposed reform would, at that moment, produce more

harm than good. Nobody would assert that, under the existing government,

the lives of innocent subjects were in any danger. Nobody would deny

that the government itself was in great danger. Was it the part of wise

men to increase the perils of that which was already in serious peril

for the purpose of giving new security to that which was already

perfectly secure? Those who held this language were twitted with their

inconsistency, and asked why they had not ventured to oppose the bill

in the preceding session. They answered very plausibly that the events

which had taken place during the recess had taught an important lesson

to all who were capable of learning. The country had been threatened at

once with invasion and insurrection. No rational man doubted that many

traitors had made preparations for joining the French, and had collected

arms, ammunition and horses for that purpose. Yet, though there was

abundant moral evidence against these enemies of their country, it had

not been possible to find legal evidence against a single one of them.

The law of treason might, in theory, be harsh, and had undoubtedly, in

times past, been grossly abused. But a statesman who troubled himself

less about theory than about practice, and less about times past than

about the time present, would pronounce that law not too stringent but

too lax, and would, while the commonwealth remained in extreme jeopardy,

refuse to consent to any further relaxation. In spite of all opposition,

however, the principle of the bill was approved by one hundred and

seventy-one votes to one hundred and fifty-two. But in the committee it

was moved and carried that the new rules of procedure should not come

into operation till after the end of the war with France. When the

report was brought up the House divided on this amendment, and ratified

it by a hundred and forty-five votes to a hundred and twenty-five. The

bill was consequently suffered to drop. [357] Had it gone up to the

Peers it would in all probability have been lost after causing another

quarrel between the Houses. For the Peers were fully determined that

no such bill should pass, unless it contained a clause altering the

constitution of the Lord High Steward's Court; and a clause altering

the constitution of the Lord High Steward's Court would have been less

likely than ever to find favour with the Commons. For in the course of

this session an event took place which proved that the great were only

too well protected by the law as it stood, and which well deserves to be

recorded as a striking illustration of the state of manners and morals

in that age.

Of all the actors who were then on the English stage the most graceful

was William Mountford. He had every physical qualification for his

calling, a noble figure, a handsome face, a melodious voice. It was not

easy to say whether he succeeded better in heroic or in ludicrous parts.

He was allowed to be both the best Alexander and the best Sir Courtly

Nice that ever trod the boards. Queen Mary, whose knowledge was very

superficial, but who had naturally a quick perception of what was

excellent in art, admired him greatly. He was a dramatist as well as a

player, and has left us one comedy which is not contemptible. [358]

The most popular actress of the time was Anne Bracegirdle. There were on

the stage many women of more faultless beauty, but none whose features

and deportment had such power to fascinate the senses and the hearts

of men. The sight of her bright black eyes and of her rich brown cheek

sufficed to put the most turbulent audience into good humour. It was

said of her that in the crowded theatre she had as many lovers as she

had male spectators. Yet no lover, however rich, however high in rank,

had prevailed on her to be his mistress. Those who are acquainted with

the parts which she was in the habit of playing, and with the epilogues

which it was her especial business to recite, will not easily give her

credit for any extraordinary measure of virtue or of delicacy. She

seems to have been a cold, vain and interested coquette, who perfectly

understood how much the influence of her charms was increased by the

fame of a severity which cost her nothing, and who could venture to

flirt with a succession of admirers in the just confidence that no flame

which she might kindle in them would thaw her own ice. [359] Among those

who pursued her with an insane desire was a profligate captain in the

army named Hill. With Hill was closely bound in a league of debauchery

and violence Charles Lord Mohun, a young nobleman whose life was one

long revel and brawl. Hill, finding that the beautiful brunette was

invincible, took it into his head that he was rejected for a more

favoured rival, and that this rival was the brilliant Mountford. The

jealous lover swore over his wine at a tavern that he would stab the

villain. "And I," said Mohun, "will stand by my friend." From the tavern

the pair went, with some soldiers whose services Hill had secured, to

Drury Lane where the lady resided. They lay some time in wait for her.

As soon as she appeared in the street she was seized and hurried to

a coach. She screamed for help; her mother clung round her; the whole

neighbourhood rose; and she was rescued. Hill and Mohun went away vowing

vengeance. They swaggered sword in hand during two hours about the

streets near Mountford's dwelling. The watch requested them to put up

their weapons. But when the young lord announced that he was a peer,

and bade the constables touch him if they durst, they let him pass. So

strong was privilege then; and so weak was law. Messengers were sent to

warn Mountford of his danger; but unhappily they missed him. He came. A

short altercation took place between him and Mohun; and, while they were

wrangling, Hill ran the unfortunate actor through the body, and fled.

The grand jury of Middlesex, consisting of gentlemen of note, found a

bill of murder against Hill and Mohun. Hill escaped. Mohun was taken.

His mother threw herself at William's feet, but in vain. "It was a cruel

act," said the King; "I shall leave it to the law." The trial came on

in the Court of the Lord High Steward; and, as Parliament happened to be

sitting, the culprit had the advantage of being judged by the whole

body of the peerage. There was then no lawyer in the Upper House. It

therefore became necessary, for the first time since Buckhurst had

pronounced sentence on Essex and Southampton, that a peer who had never

made jurisprudence his special study should preside over that grave

tribunal. Caermarthen, who, as Lord President, took precedence of all

the nobility, was appointed Lord High Steward. A full report of the

proceedings has come down to us. No person, who carefully examines that

report, and attends to the opinion unanimously given by the judges in

answer to a question which Nottingham drew up, and in which the facts

brought out by the evidence are stated with perfect fairness, can doubt

that the crime of murder was fully brought home to the prisoner. Such

was the opinion of the King who was present during the trial; and such

was the almost unanimous opinion of the public. Had the issue been tried

by Holt and twelve plain men at the Old Bailey, there can be no doubt

that a verdict of Guilty would have been returned. The Peers, however,

by sixty-nine votes to fourteen, acquitted their accused brother. One

great nobleman was so brutal and stupid as to say, "After all the fellow

was but a player; and players are rogues." All the newsletters, all the

coffeehouse orators, complained that the blood of the poor was shed with

impunity by the great. Wits remarked that the only fair thing about the

trial was the show of ladies in the galleries. Letters and journals

are still extant in which men of all shades of opinion, Whigs, Tories,

Nonjurors, condemn the partiality of the tribunal. It was not to be

expected that, while the memory of this scandal was fresh in the public

mind, the Commons would be induced to give any new advantage to accused

peers. [360]

The Commons had, in the meantime, resumed the consideration of another

highly important matter, the state of the trade with India. They had,

towards the close of the preceding session, requested the King to

dissolve the old Company and to constitute a new Company on such terms

as he should think fit; and he had promised to take their request into

his serious consideration. He now sent a message to inform them that

it was out of his power to do what they had asked. He had referred the

charter of the old Company to the Judges, and the judges had pronounced

that, under the provisions of that charter, the old Company could not

be dissolved without three years' notice, and must retain during those

three years the exclusive privilege of trading to the East Indies. He

added that, being sincerely desirous to gratify the Commons, and finding

himself unable to do so in the way which they had pointed out, he had

tried to prevail on the old Company to agree to a compromise; but that

body stood obstinately on its extreme rights; and his endeavours had

been frustrated. [361]

This message reopened the whole question. The two factions which divided

the City were instantly on the alert. The debates in the House were

long and warm. Petitions against the old Company were laid on the table.

Satirical handbills against the new Company were distributed in the

lobby. At length, after much discussion, it was resolved to present

an address requesting the King to give the notice which the judges had

pronounced necessary. He promised to bear the subject in mind, and to

do his best to promote the welfare of the kingdom. With this answer the

House was satisfied, and the subject was not again mentioned till the

next session. [362]

The debates of the Commons on the conduct of the war, on the law of

treason and on the trade with India, occupied much time, and produced no

important result. But meanwhile real business was doing in the Committee

of Supply and the Committee of Ways and Means. In the Committee of

Supply the estimates passed rapidly. A few members declared it to

be their opinion that England ought to withdraw her troops from the

Continent, to carry on the war with vigour by sea, and to keep up only

such an army as might be sufficient to repel any invader who might elude

the vigilance of her fleets. But this doctrine, which speedily became

and long continued to be the badge of one of the great parties in the

state, was as yet professed only by a small minority which did not

venture to call for a division. [363]

In the Committee of Ways and Means, it was determined that a great part

of the charge of the year should be defrayed by means of an impost,

which, though old in substance, was new in form. From a very early

period to the middle of the seventeenth century, our Parliaments had

provided for the extraordinary necessities of the government chiefly by

granting subsidies. A subsidy was raised by an impost on the people of

the realm in respect of their reputed estates. Landed property was the

chief subject of taxation, and was assessed nominally at four shillings

in the pound. But the assessment was made in such a way that it not only

did not rise in proportion to the rise in the value of land or to

the fall in the value of the precious metals, but went on constantly

sinking, till at length the rate was in truth less than twopence in the

pound. In the time of Charles the First a real tax of four shillings in

the pound on land would probably have yielded near a million and a half;

but a subsidy amounted to little more than fifty thousand pounds. [364]

The financiers of the Long Parliament devised a more efficient mode of

taxing estates. The sum which was to be raised was fixed. It was then

distributed among the counties in proportion to their supposed wealth,

and was levied within each county by a rate. The revenue derived

from these assessments in the time of the Commonwealth varied from

thirty-five thousand pounds to a hundred and twenty thousand pounds a

month.

After the Restoration the legislature seemed for a time inclined

to revert, in finance as in other things, to the ancient practice.

Subsidies were once or twice granted to Charles the Second. But it

soon appeared that the old system was much less convenient than the

new system. The Cavaliers condescended to take a lesson in the art

of taxation from the Roundheads; and, during the interval between the

Restoration and the Revolution, extraordinary calls were occasionally

met by assessments resembling the assessments of the Commonwealth. After

the Revolution, the war with France made it necessary to have recourse

annually to this abundant source of revenue. In 1689, in 1690 and in

1691, great sums had been raised on the land. At length in 1692 it was

determined to draw supplies from real property more largely than ever.

The Commons resolved that a new and more accurate valuation of estates

should be made over the whole realm, and that on the rental thus

ascertained a pound rate should be paid to the government.

Such was the origin of the existing land tax. The valuation made in

1692 has remained unaltered down to our own time. According to that

valuation, one shilling in the pound on the rental of the kingdom

amounted, in round numbers, to half a million. During a hundred and six

years, a land tax bill was annually presented to Parliament, and was

annually passed, though not always without murmurs from the country

gentlemen. The rate was, in time of war, four shillings in the pound. In

time of peace, before the reign of George the Third, only two or three

shillings were usually granted; and, during a short part of the prudent

and gentle administration of Walpole, the government asked for only one

shilling. But, after the disastrous year in which England drew the

sword against her American colonies, the rate was never less than four

shillings. At length, in the year 1798, the Parliament relieved itself

from the trouble of passing a new Act every spring. The land tax, at

four shillings in the pound, was made permanent; and those who were

subject to it were permitted to redeem it. A great part has been

redeemed; and at present little more than a fiftieth of the ordinary

revenue required in time of peace is raised by that impost which was

once regarded as the most productive of all the resources of the State.

[365]

The land tax was fixed, for the year 1693, at four shillings in the

pound, and consequently brought about two millions into the Treasury.

That sum, small as it may seem to a generation which has expended a

hundred and twenty millions in twelve months, was such as had never

before been raised here in one year by direct taxation. It seemed

immense both to Englishmen and to foreigners. Lewis, who found it almost

impossible to wring by cruel exactions from the beggared peasantry of

France the means of supporting the greatest army and the most gorgeous

court that had existed in Europe since the downfall of the Roman empire,

broke out, it is said, into an exclamation of angry surprise when he

learned that the Commons of England had, from dread and hatred of

his power, unanimously determined to lay on themselves, in a year of

scarcity and of commercial embarrassment, a burden such as neither they

nor their fathers had ever before borne. "My little cousin of Orange,"

he said, "seems to be firm in the saddle." He afterwards added:

"No matter, the last piece of gold will win." This however was a

consideration from which, if he had been well informed touching the

resources of England, he would not have derived much comfort. Kensington

was certainly a mere hovel when compared to his superb Versailles. The

display of jewels, plumes and lace, led horses and gilded coaches, which

daily surrounded him, far outshone the splendour which, even on great

public occasions, our princes were in the habit of displaying. But

the condition of the majority of the people of England was, beyond all

doubt, such as the majority of the people of France might well have

envied. In truth what was called severe distress here would have been

called unexampled prosperity there.