CHAPTER XX

State of the Court of Saint Germains--Feeling of the Jacobites;

Compounders and Noncompounders--Change of Ministry at Saint Germains;

Middleton--New Declaration put forth by James--Effect of the new

Declaration--French Preparations for the Campaign; Institution of the

Order of Saint Lewis--Middleton's Account of Versailles--William's

Preparations for the Campaign--Lewis takes the Field--Lewis returns to

Versailles--Manoeuvres of Luxemburg--Battle of Landen--Miscarriage

of the Smyrna Fleet--Excitement in London--Jacobite Libels; William

Anderton--Writings and Artifices of the Jacobites--Conduct of

Caermarthen--Now Charter granted to the East India Company--Return of

William to England; Military Successes of France--Distress of France--A

Ministry necessary to Parliamentary Government--The First Ministry

gradually formed--Sunderland--Sunderland advises the King to give the

Preference to the Whigs--Reasons for preferring the Whigs--Chiefs of

the Whig Party; Russell--Somers--Montague--Wharton--Chiefs of the Tory

Party; Harley--Foley--Howe--Meeting of Parliament--Debates about the

Naval Miscarriages--Russell First Lord of the Admiralty; Retirement

of Nottingham--Shrewsbury refuses Office--Debates about the Trade with

India--Bill for the Regulation of Trials in Cases of Treason--Triennial

Bill--Place Bill--Bill for the Naturalisation of Foreign

Protestants--Supply--Ways and Means; Lottery Loan--The Bank of

England--Prorogation of Parliament; Ministerial Arrangements; Shrewsbury

Secretary of State--New Titles bestowed--French Plan of War; English

Plan of War--Expedition against Brest--Naval Operations in

the Mediterranean--War by Land--Complaints of Trenchard's

Administration--The Lancashire Prosecutions--Meeting of the Parliament;

Death of Tillotson--Tenison Archbishop of Canterbury; Debates on the

Lancashire Prosecutions--Place Bill--Bill for the Regulation of Trials

in Cases of Treason; the Triennial Bill passed--Death of Mary--Funeral

of Mary--Greenwich Hospital founded

IT is now time to relate the events which, since the battle of La Hogue,

had taken place at Saint Germains.

James, after seeing the fleet which was to have convoyed him back to his

kingdom burned down to the water edge, had returned in no good humour to

his abode near Paris. Misfortune generally made him devout after his

own fashion; and he now starved himself and flogged himself till his

spiritual guides were forced to interfere. [420]

It is difficult to conceive a duller place than Saint Germains was when

he held his Court there; and yet there was scarcely in all Europe a

residence more enviably situated than that which the generous Lewis had

assigned to his suppliants. The woods were magnificent, the air clear

and salubrious, the prospects extensive and cheerful. No charm of

rural life was wanting; and the towers of the most superb city of the

Continent were visible in the distance. The royal apartments were richly

adorned with tapestry and marquetry, vases of silver and mirrors in

gilded frames. A pension of more than forty thousand pounds sterling

was annually paid to James from the French Treasury. He had a guard of

honour composed of some of the finest soldiers in Europe. If he

wished to amuse himself with field sports, he had at his command an

establishment far more sumptuous than that which had belonged to him

when he was at the head of a great kingdom, an army of huntsmen and

fowlers, a vast arsenal of guns, spears, buglehorns and tents, miles of

network, staghounds, foxhounds, harriers, packs for the boar and packs

for the wolf, gerfalcons for the heron and haggards for the wild

duck. His presence chamber and his antechamber were in outward show as

splendid as when he was at Whitehall. He was still surrounded by blue

ribands and white staves. But over the mansion and the domain brooded

a constant gloom, the effect, partly of bitter regrets and of deferred

hopes, but chiefly of the abject superstition which had taken complete

possession of his own mind, and which was affected by almost all those

who aspired to his favour. His palace wore the aspect of a monastery.

There were three places of worship within the spacious pile. Thirty or

forty ecclesiastics were lodged in the building; and their apartments

were eyed with envy by noblemen and gentlemen who had followed the

fortunes of their Sovereign, and who thought it hard that, when there

was so much room under his roof, they should be forced to sleep in the

garrets of the neighbouring town. Among the murmurers was the brilliant

Anthony Hamilton. He has left us a sketch of the life of Saint Germains,

a slight sketch indeed, but not unworthy of the artist to whom we owe

the most highly finished and vividly coloured picture of the English

Court in the days when the English Court was gayest. He complains that

existence was one round of religious exercises; that, in order to live

in peace, it was necessary to pass half the day in devotion or in the

outward show of devotion; that, if he tried to dissipate his melancholy

by breathing the fresh air of that noble terrace which looks down on the

valley of the Seine, he was driven away by the clamour of a Jesuit who

had got hold of some unfortunate Protestant royalists from England,

and was proving to them that no heretic could go to heaven. In general,

Hamilton said, men suffering under a common calamity have a strong

fellow feeling and are disposed to render good offices to each other.

But it was not so at Saint Germains. There all was discord, jealousy,

bitterness of spirit. Malignity was concealed under the show of

friendship and of piety. All the saints of the royal household were

praying for each other and backbiting each other from morning, to night.

Here and there in the throng of hypocrites might be remarked a man too

highspirited to dissemble. But such a man, however advantageously he

might have made himself known elsewhere, was certain to be treated with

disdain by the inmates of that sullen abode. [421]

Such was the Court of James, as described by a Roman Catholic. Yet,

however disagreeable that Court may have been to a Roman Catholic, it

was infinitely more disagreeable to a Protestant. For the Protestant had

to endure, in addition to all the dulness of which the Roman Catholic

complained, a crowd of vexations from which the Roman Catholic was free.

In every competition between a Protestant and a Roman Catholic the Roman

Catholic was preferred. In every quarrel between a Protestant and a

Roman Catholic the Roman Catholic was supposed to be in the right.

While the ambitious Protestant looked in vain for promotion, while

the dissipated Protestant looked in vain for amusement, the serious

Protestant looked in vain for spiritual instruction and consolation.

James might, no doubt, easily have obtained permission for those members

of the Church of England who had sacrificed every thing in his cause to

meet privately in some modest oratory, and to receive the eucharistic

bread and wine from the hands of one of their own clergy; but he did not

wish his residence to be defiled by such impious rites. Doctor Dennis

Granville, who had quitted the richest deanery, the richest archdeaconry

and one of the richest livings in England, rather than take the oaths,

gave mortal offence by asking leave to read prayers to the exiles of his

own communion. His request was refused; and he was so grossly insulted

by his master's chaplains and their retainers that he was forced to

quit Saint Germains. Lest some other Anglican doctor should be equally

importunate, James wrote to inform his agents in England that he wished

no Protestant divine to come out to him. [422] Indeed the nonjuring

clergy were at least as much sneered at and as much railed at in his

palace as in his nephew's. If any man had a claim to be mentioned with

respect at Saint Germains, it was surely Sancroft. Yet it was reported

that the bigots who were assembled there never spoke of him but with

aversion and disgust. The sacrifice of the first place in the Church,

of the first place in the peerage, of the mansion at Lambeth and the

mansion at Croydon, of immense patronage and of a revenue of more than

five thousand a year was thought but a poor atonement for the great

crime of having modestly remonstrated against the unconstitutional

Declaration of Indulgence. Sancroft was pronounced to be just such a

traitor and just such a penitent as Judas Iscariot. The old hypocrite

had, it was said, while affecting reverence and love for his master,

given the fatal signal to his master's enemies. When the mischief had

been done and could not be repaired, the conscience of the sinner had

begun to torture him. He had, like his prototype, blamed himself and

bemoaned himself. He had, like his prototype, flung down his wealth at

the feet of those whose instrument he had been. The best thing that he

could now do was to make the parallel complete by hanging himself. [423]

James seems to have thought that the strongest proof of kindness which

he could give to heretics who had resigned wealth, country, family, for

his sake, was to suffer them to be beset, on their dying beds, by his

priests. If some sick man, helpless in body and in mind, and deafened

by the din of bad logic and bad rhetoric, suffered a wafer to be thrust

into his mouth, a great work of grace was triumphantly announced to the

Court; and the neophyte was buried with all the pomp of religion. But

if a royalist, of the highest rank and most stainless character, died

professing firm attachment to the Church of England, a hole was dug in

the fields; and, at dead of night, he was flung into it and covered

up like a mass of carrion. Such were the obsequies of the Earl of

Dunfermline, who had served the House of Stuart with the hazard of

his life and to the utter ruin of his fortunes, who had fought at

Killiecrankie, and who had, after the victory, lifted from the earth the

still breathing remains of Dundee. While living he had been treated with

contumely. The Scottish officers who had long served under him had in

vain entreated that, when they were formed into a company, he might

still be their commander. His religion had been thought a fatal

disqualification. A worthless adventurer, whose only recommendation was

that he was a Papist, was preferred. Dunfermline continued, during a

short time, to make his appearance in the circle which surrounded the

Prince whom he had served too well; but it was to no purpose. The bigots

who ruled the Court refused to the ruined and expatriated Protestant

Lord the means of subsistence; he died of a broken heart; and they

refused him even a grave. [424]

The insults daily offered at Saint Germains to the Protestant religion

produced a great effect in England. The Whigs triumphantly asked whether

it were not clear that the old tyrant was utterly incorrigible; and many

even of the nonjurors observed his proceedings with shame, disgust and

alarm. [425] The Jacobite party had, from the first, been divided into

two sections, which, three or four years after the Revolution, began to

be known as the Compounders and the Noncompounders. The Compounders were

those who wished for a restoration, but for a restoration accompanied by

a general amnesty, and by guarantees for the security of the civil and

ecclesiastical constitution of the realm. The Noncompounders thought

it downright Whiggery, downright rebellion; to take advantage of His

Majesty's unfortunate situation for the purpose of imposing on him any

condition. The plain duty of his subjects was to bring him back. What

traitors he would punish and what traitors he would spare, what laws he

would observe and with what laws he would dispense, were questions to be

decided by himself alone. If he decided them wrongly, he must answer for

his fault to heaven and not to his people.

The great body of the English Jacobites were more or less Compounders.

The pure Noncompounders were chiefly to be found among the Roman

Catholics, who, very naturally, were not solicitous to obtain any

security for a religion which they thought heretical, or for a polity

from the benefits of which they were excluded. There were also some

Protestant nonjurors, such as Kettlewell and Hickes, who resolutely

followed the theory of Filmer to all the extreme consequences to which

it led. But, though Kettlewell tried to convince his countrymen that

monarchical government had been ordained by God, not as a means of

making them happy here, but as a cross which it was their duty to

take up and bear in the hope of being recompensed for their sufferings

hereafter, and though Hickes assured them that there was not a single

Compounder in the whole Theban legion, very few churchmen were inclined

to run the risk of the gallows merely for the purpose of reestablishing

the High Commission and the Dispensing Power.

The Compounders formed the main strength of the Jacobite party in

England; but the Noncompounders had hitherto had undivided sway at Saint

Germains. No Protestant, no moderate Roman Catholic, no man who dared to

hint that any law could bind the royal prerogative, could hope for the

smallest mark of favour from the banished King. The priests and the

apostate Melfort, the avowed enemy of the Protestant religion and of

civil liberty, of Parliaments, of trial by jury and of the Habeas Corpus

Act, were in exclusive possession of the royal ear. Herbert was called

Chancellor, walked before the other officers of state, wore a black robe

embroidered with gold, and carried a seal; but he was a member of the

Church of England; and therefore he was not suffered to sit at the

Council Board. [426]

The truth is that the faults of James's head and heart were incurable.

In his view there could be between him and his subjects no reciprocity

of obligation. Their duty was to risk property, liberty, life, in order

to replace him on the throne, and then to bear patiently whatever he

chose to inflict upon them. They could no more pretend to merit

before him than before God. When they had done all, they were still

unprofitable servants. The highest praise due to the royalist who shed

his blood on the field of battle or on the scaffold for hereditary

monarchy was simply that he was not a traitor. After all the severe

discipline which the deposed King had undergone, he was still as much

bent on plundering and abasing the Church of England as on the day when

he told the kneeling fellows of Magdalene to get out of his sight, or

on the day when he sent the Bishops to the Tower. He was in the habit

of declaring that he would rather die without seeing England again than

stoop to capitulate with those whom he ought to command. [427] In the

Declaration of April 1692 the whole man appears without disguise, full

of his own imaginary rights, unable to understand how any body but

himself can have any rights, dull, obstinate and cruel. Another paper

which he drew up about the same time shows, if possible, still more

clearly, how little he had profited by a sharp experience. In that paper

he set forth the plan according to which he intended to govern when he

should be restored. He laid it down as a rule that one Commissioner of

the Treasury, one of the two Secretaries of State, the Secretary at War,

the majority of the Great Officers of the Household, the majority of

the Lords of the Bedchamber, the majority of the officers of the army,

should always be Roman Catholics. [428]

It was to no purpose that the most eminent Compounders sent from

London letter after letter filled with judicious counsel and earnest

supplication. It was to no purpose that they demonstrated in the

plainest manner the impossibility of establishing Popish ascendancy in

a country where at least forty-nine fiftieths of the population and much

more than forty-nine fiftieths of the wealth and the intelligence were

Protestant. It was to no purpose that they informed their master that

the Declaration of April 1692 had been read with exultation by his

enemies and with deep affliction by his friends, that it had been

printed and circulated by the usurpers, that it had done more than all

the libels of the Whigs to inflame the nation against him, and that it

had furnished those naval officers who had promised him support with a

plausible pretext for breaking faith with him, and for destroying the

fleet which was to have convoyed him back to his kingdom. He continued

to be deaf to the remonstrances of his best friends in England

till those remonstrances began to be echoed at Versailles. All the

information which Lewis and his ministers were able to obtain touching

the state of our island satisfied them that James would never be

restored unless he could bring himself to make large concessions to his

subjects. It was therefore intimated to him, kindly and courteously,

but seriously, that he would do well to change his counsels and his

counsellors. France could not continue the war for the purpose of

forcing a Sovereign on an unwilling nation. She was crushed by public

burdens. Her trade and industry languished. Her harvest and her vintage

had failed. The peasantry were starving. The faint murmurs of the

provincial Estates began to be heard. There was a limit to the amount

of the sacrifices which the most absolute prince could demand from those

whom he ruled. However desirous the Most Christian King might be to

uphold the cause of hereditary monarchy and of pure religion all

over the world, his first duty was to his own kingdom; and, unless a

counterrevolution speedily took place in England, his duty to his own

kingdom might impose on him the painful necessity of treating with the

Prince of Orange. It would therefore be wise in James to do without

delay whatever he could honourably and conscientiously do to win back

the hearts of his people.

Thus pressed, James unwillingly yielded. He consented to give a share

in the management of his affairs to one of the most distinguished of the

Compounders, Charles Earl of Middleton.

Middleton's family and his peerage were Scotch. But he was closely

connected with some of the noblest houses of England; he had resided

long in England; he had been appointed by Charles the Second one of the

English Secretaries of State, and had been entrusted by James with the

lead of the English House of Commons. His abilities and acquirements

were considerable; his temper was easy and generous; his manners were

popular; and his conduct had generally been consistent and honourable.

He had, when Popery was in the ascendant, resolutely refused to purchase

the royal favour by apostasy. Roman Catholic ecclesiastics had been sent

to convert him; and the town had been much amused by the dexterity with

which the layman baffled the divines. A priest undertook to demonstrate

the doctrine of transubstantiation, and made the approaches in the usual

form. "Your Lordship believes in the Trinity." "Who told you so?" said

Middleton. "Not believe in the Trinity!" cried the priest in amazement.

"Nay," said Middleton; "prove your religion to be true if you can; but

do not catechize me about mine." As it was plain that the Secretary

was not a disputant whom it was easy to take at an advantage, the

controversy ended almost as soon as it began. [429] When fortune

changed, Middleton adhered to the cause of hereditary monarchy with a

stedfastness which was the more respectable because he would have had no

difficulty in making his peace with the new government. His sentiments

were so well known that, when the kingdom was agitated by apprehensions

of an invasion and an insurrection, he was arrested and sent to the

Tower; but no evidence on which he could be convicted of treason was

discovered; and, when the dangerous crisis was past, he was set at

liberty. It should seem indeed that, during the three years which

followed the Revolution, he was by no means an active plotter. He saw

that a Restoration could be effected only with the general assent of the

nation, and that the nation would never assent to a Restoration without

securities against Popery and arbitrary power. He therefore conceived

that, while his banished master obstinately refused to give such

securities, it would be worse than idle to conspire against the existing

government.

Such was the man whom James, in consequence of strong representations

from Versailles, now invited to join him in France. The great body

of Compounders learned with delight that they were at length to be

represented in the Council at Saint Germains by one of their favourite

leaders. Some noblemen and gentlemen, who, though they had not approved

of the deposition of James, had been so much disgusted by his perverse

and absurd conduct that they had long avoided all connection with him,

now began to hope that he had seen his error. They had refused to

have any thing to do with Melfort; but they communicated freely with

Middleton. The new minister conferred also with the four traitors whose

infamy has been made preeminently conspicuous by their station, their

abilities, and their great public services; with Godolphin, the great

object of whose life was to be in favour with both the rival Kings at

once, and to keep, through all revolutions and counterrevolutions, his

head, his estate and a place at the Board of Treasury; with Shrewsbury,

who, having once in a fatal moment entangled himself in criminal and

dishonourable engagements, had not had the resolution to break through

them; with Marlborough, who continued to profess the deepest repentance

for the past and the best intentions for the future; and with Russell,

who declared that he was still what he had been before the day of La

Hogue, and renewed his promise to do what Monk had done, on condition

that a general pardon should be granted to all political offenders,

and that the royal power should be placed under strong constitutional

restraints.

Before Middleton left England he had collected the sense of all the

leading Compounders. They were of opinion that there was one expedient

which would reconcile contending factions at home, and lead to the

speedy pacification of Europe. This expedient was that James should

resign the Crown in favour of the Prince of Wales, and that the Prince

of Wales should be bred a Protestant. If, as was but too probable, His

Majesty should refuse to listen to this suggestion, he must at least

consent to put forth a Declaration which might do away the unfavourable

impression made by his Declaration of the preceding spring. A paper such

as it was thought expedient that he should publish was carefully drawn

up, and, after much discussion, approved.

Early in the year 1693, Middleton, having been put in full possession of

the views of the principal English Jacobites, stole across the Channel,

and made his appearance at the Court of James. There was at that Court

no want of slanderers and sneerers whose malignity was only the more

dangerous because it wore a meek and sanctimonious air. Middleton found,

on his arrival, that numerous lies, fabricated by the priests who feared

and hated him, were already in circulation. Some Noncompounders too

had written from London that he was at heart a Presbyterian and a

republican. He was however very graciously received, and was appointed

Secretary of State conjointly with Melfort. [430]

It very soon appeared that James was fully resolved never to resign the

Crown, or to suffer the Prince of Wales to be bred a heretic; and it

long seemed doubtful whether any arguments or entreaties would induce

him to sign the Declaration which his friends in England had prepared.

It was indeed a document very different from any that had yet appeared

under his Great Seal. He was made to promise that he would grant a free

pardon to all his subjects who should not oppose him after he should

land in the island; that, as soon as he was restored, he would call

a Parliament; that he would confirm all such laws, passed during the

usurpation, as the Houses should tender to him for confirmation; that

he would waive his right to the chimney money; that he would protect and

defend the Established Church in the enjoyment of all her possessions

and privileges; that he would not again violate the Test Act; that he

would leave it to the legislature to define the extent of his dispensing

power; and that he would maintain the Act of Settlement in Ireland.

He struggled long and hard. He pleaded his conscience. Could a son of

the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church bind himself to protect and

defend heresy, and to enforce a law which excluded true believers from

office? Some of the ecclesiastics who swarmed in his household told

him that he could not without sin give any such pledge as his undutiful

subjects demanded. On this point the opinion of Middleton, who was a

Protestant, could be of no weight. But Middleton found an ally in

one whom he regarded as a rival and an enemy. Melfort, scared by the

universal hatred of which he knew himself to be the object, and afraid

that he should be held accountable, both in England and in France, for

his master's wrongheadedness, submitted the case to several eminent

Doctors of the Sorbonne. These learned casuists pronounced the

Declaration unobjectionable in a religious point of view. The great

Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, who was regarded by the Gallican Church as a

father scarcely inferior in authority to Cyprian or Augustin, showed,

by powerful arguments, both theological and political, that the scruple

which tormented James was precisely of that sort against which a

much wiser King had given a caution in the words, "Be not righteous

overmuch." [431] The authority of the French divines was supported by

the authority of the French government. The language held at Versailles

was so strong that James began to be alarmed. What if Lewis should take

serious offence, should think his hospitality ungratefully requited,

should conclude a peace with the usurpers, and should request his

unfortunate guests to seek another asylum? It was necessary to submit.

On the seventeenth of April 1693 the Declaration was signed and sealed.

The concluding sentence was a prayer. "We come to vindicate our own

right and to establish the liberties of our people; and may God give

us success in the prosecution of the one as we sincerely intend the

confirmation of the other!" [432] The prayer was heard. The success of

James was strictly proportioned to his sincerity. What his sincerity

was we know on the best evidence. Scarcely had he called on heaven to

witness the truth of his professions, when he directed Melfort to send a

copy of the Declaration to Rome with such explanations as might satisfy

the Pope. Melfort's letter ends thus: "After all, the object of this

Declaration is only to get us back to England. We shall fight the battle

of the Catholics with much greater advantage at Whitehall than at Saint

Germains." [433]

Meanwhile the document from which so much was expected had been

despatched to London. There it was printed at a secret press in the

house of a Quaker; for there was among the Quakers a party, small

in number, but zealous and active, which had imbibed the politics of

William Penn. [434] To circulate such a work was a service of some

danger; but agents were found. Several persons were taken up while

distributing copies in the streets of the city. A hundred packets were

stopped in one day at the Post Office on their way to the fleet. But,

after a short time, the government wisely gave up the endeavour to

suppress what could not be suppressed, and published the Declaration at

full length, accompanied by a severe commentary. [435]

The commentary, however, was hardly needed. The Declaration altogether

failed to produce the effect which Middleton had anticipated. The truth

is that his advice had not been asked till it mattered not what advice

he gave. If James had put forth such a manifesto in January 1689, the

throne would probably not have been declared vacant. If he had put forth

such a manifesto when he was on the coast of Normandy at the head of an

army, he would have conciliated a large part of the nation, and he might

possibly have been joined by a large part of the fleet. But both in 1689

and in 1692 he had held the language of an implacable tyrant; and it

was now too late to affect tenderness of heart and reverence for the

constitution of the realm. The contrast between the new Declaration and

the preceding Declaration excited, not without reason, general suspicion

and contempt. What confidence could be placed in the word of a Prince

so unstable, of a Prince who veered from extreme to extreme? In 1692

nothing would satisfy him but the heads and quarters of hundreds of poor

ploughmen and boatmen who had, several years before, taken some rustic

liberties with him at which his grandfather Henry the Fourth would have

had a hearty laugh. In 1693 the foulest and most ungrateful treasons

were to be covered with oblivion. Caermarthen expressed the general

sentiment. "I do not," he said, "understand all this. Last April I was

to be hanged. This April I am to have a free pardon. I cannot imagine

what I have done during the past year to deserve such goodness."

The general opinion was that a snare was hidden under this unwonted

clemency, this unwonted respect for law. The Declaration, it was said,

was excellent; and so was the Coronation oath. Every body knew how King

James had observed his Coronation oath; and every body might guess how

he would observe his Declaration. While grave men reasoned thus,

the Whig jesters were not sparing of their pasquinades. Some of the

Noncompounders, meantime, uttered indignant murmurs. The King was in bad

hands, in the hands of men who hated monarchy. His mercy was cruelty of

the worst sort. The general pardon which he had granted to his enemies

was in truth a general proscription of his friends. Hitherto the judges

appointed by the usurper had been under a restraint, imperfect indeed,

yet not absolutely nugatory. They had known that a day of reckoning

might come, and had therefore in general dealt tenderly with the

persecuted adherents of the rightful King. That restraint His Majesty

had now taken away. He had told Holt and Treby that, till he should land

in England, they might hang royalists without the smallest fear of being

called to account. [436]

But by no class of people was the Declaration read with so much disgust

and indignation as by the native aristocracy of Ireland. This then was

the reward of their loyalty. This was the faith of kings. When England

had cast James out, when Scotland had rejected him, the Irish had still

been true to him; and he had, in return, solemnly given his sanction to

a law which restored to them an immense domain of which they had been

despoiled. Nothing that had happened since that time had diminished

their claim to his favour. They had defended his cause to the last; they

had fought for him long after he had deserted them; many of them, when

unable to contend longer against superior force, had followed him into

banishment; and now it appeared that he was desirous to make peace with

his deadliest enemies at the expense of his most faithful friends. There

was much discontent in the Irish regiments which were dispersed through

the Netherlands and along the frontiers of Germany and Italy. Even the

Whigs allowed that, for once, the O's and Macs were in the right, and

asked triumphantly whether a prince who had broken his word to his

devoted servants could be expected to keep it to his foes? [437]

While the Declaration was the subject of general conversation in

England, military operations recommenced on the Continent. The

preparations of France had been such as amazed even those who estimated

most highly her resources and the abilities of her rulers. Both her

agriculture and her commerce were suffering. The vineyards of Burgundy,

the interminable cornfields of the Beauce, had failed to yield their

increase; the looms of Lyons were silent; and the merchant ships were

rotting in the harbour of Marseilles. Yet the monarchy presented to its

numerous enemies a front more haughty and more menacing than ever. Lewis

had determined not to make any advance towards a reconciliation with the

new government of England till the whole strength of his realm had been

put forth in one more effort. A mighty effort in truth it was, but too

exhausting to be repeated. He made an immense display of force at once

on the Pyrenees and on the Alps, on the Rhine and on the Meuse, in the

Atlantic and in the Mediterranean. That nothing might be wanting which

could excite the martial ardour of a nation eminently highspirited, he

instituted, a few days before he left his palace for the camp, a new

military order of knighthood, and placed it under the protection of his

own sainted ancestor and patron. The new cross of Saint Lewis shone on

the breasts of the gentlemen who had been conspicuous in the trenches

before Mons and Namur, and on the fields of Fleurus and Steinkirk; and

the sight raised a generous emulation among those who had still to win

an honourable fame in arms. [438]

In the week in which this celebrated order began to exist Middleton

visited Versailles. A letter in which he gave his friends in England

an account of his visit has come down to us. [439] He was presented to

Lewis, was most kindly received, and was overpowered by gratitude and

admiration. Of all the wonders of the Court,--so Middleton wrote,--its

master was the greatest. The splendour of the great King's personal

merit threw even the splendour of his fortunes into the shade. The

language which His Most Christian Majesty held about English politics

was, on the whole, highly satisfactory. Yet in one thing this

accomplished prince and his able and experienced ministers were

strangely mistaken. They were all possessed with the absurd notion

that the Prince of Orange was a great man. No pains had been spared

to undeceive them; but they were under an incurable delusion. They saw

through a magnifying glass of such power that the leech appeared to them

a leviathan. It ought to have occurred to Middleton that possibly the

delusion might be in his own vision and not in theirs. Lewis and the

counsellors who surrounded him were far indeed from loving William. But

they did not hate him with that mad hatred which raged in the breasts of

his English enemies. Middleton was one of the wisest and most moderate

of the Jacobites. Yet even Middleton's judgment was so much darkened

by malice that, on this subject, he talked nonsense unworthy of his

capacity. He, like the rest of his party, could see in the usurper

nothing but what was odious and contemptible, the heart of a fiend, the

understanding and manners of a stupid, brutal, Dutch boor, who generally

observed a sulky silence, and, when forced to speak, gave short testy

answers in bad English. The French statesmen, on the other hand, judged

of William's faculties from an intimate knowledge of the way in which he

had, during twenty years, conducted affairs of the greatest moment

and of the greatest difficulty. He had, ever since 1673, been playing

against themselves a most complicated game of mixed chance and skill

for an immense stake; they were proud, and with reason, of their own

dexterity at that game; yet they were conscious that in him they had

found more than their match. At the commencement of the long contest

every advantage had been on their side. They had at their absolute

command all the resources of the greatest kingdom in Europe; and he was

merely the servant of a commonwealth, of which the whole territory was

inferior in extent to Normandy or Guienne. A succession of generals

and diplomatists of eminent ability had been opposed to him. A powerful

faction in his native country had pertinaciously crossed his designs.

He had undergone defeats in the field and defeats in the senate; but his

wisdom and firmness had turned defeats into victories. Notwithstanding

all that could be done to keep him down, his influence and fame had been

almost constantly rising and spreading. The most important and arduous

enterprise in the history of modern Europe had been planned and

conducted to a prosperous termination by him alone. The most extensive

coalition that the world had seen for ages had been formed by him, and

would be instantly dissolved if his superintending care were withdrawn.

He had gained two kingdoms by statecraft, and a third by conquest; and

he was still maintaining himself in the possession of all three in spite

of both foreign and domestic foes. That these things had been effected

by a poor creature, a man of the most ordinary capacity, was an

assertion which might easily find credence among the nonjuring parsons

who congregated at Sam's Coffee-house, but which moved the laughter of

the veteran politicians of Versailles.

While Middleton was in vain trying to convince the French that

William was a greatly overrated man, William, who did full justice to

Middleton's merit, felt much uneasiness at learning that the Court of

Saint Germains had called in the help of so able a counsellor. [440]

But this was only one of a thousand causes of anxiety which during that

spring pressed on the King's mind. He was preparing for the opening of

the campaign, imploring his allies to be early in the field, rousing the

sluggish, haggling with the greedy, making up quarrels, adjusting points

of precedence. He had to prevail on the Cabinet of Vienna to send timely

succours into Piedmont. He had to keep a vigilant eye on those Northern

potentates who were trying to form a third party in Europe. He had to

act as tutor to the Elector of Bavaria in the Netherlands. He had to

provide for the defence of Liege, a matter which the authorities of

Liege coolly declared to be not at all their business, but the business

of England and Holland. He had to prevent the House of Brunswick

Wolfenbuttel from going to blows with the House of Brunswick Lunenburg;

he had to accommodate a dispute between the Prince of Baden and the

Elector of Saxony, each of whom wished to be at the head of an army on

the Rhine; and he had to manage the Landgrave of Hesse, who omitted to

furnish his own contingent, and yet wanted to command the contingents

furnished by other princes. [441]

And now the time for action had arrived. On the eighteenth of May Lewis

left Versailles; early in June he was under the walls of Namur. The

Princesses, who had accompanied him, held their court within the

fortress. He took under his immediate command the army of Boufflers,

which was encamped at Gembloux. Little more than a mile off lay the army

of Luxemburg. The force collected in that neighbourhood under the French

lilies did not amount to less than a hundred and twenty thousand men.

Lewis had flattered himself that he should be able to repeat in 1693 the

stratagem by which Mons had been taken in 1691 and Namur in 1692; and

he had determined that either Liege or Brussels should be his prey.

But William had this year been able to assemble in good time a force,

inferior indeed to that which was opposed to him, but still formidable.

With this force he took his post near Louvain, on the road between the

two threatened cities, and watched every movement of the enemy.

Lewis was disappointed. He found that it would not be possible for him

to gratify his vanity so safely and so easily as in the two preceding

years, to sit down before a great town, to enter the gates in triumph,

and to receive the keys, without exposing himself to any risk greater

than that of a staghunt at Fontainebleau. Before he could lay siege

either to Liege or to Brussels he must fight and win a battle. The

chances were indeed greatly in his favour; for his army was more

numerous, better officered and better disciplined than that of the

allies. Luxemburg strongly advised him to march against William. The

aristocracy of France anticipated with intrepid gaiety a bloody but a

glorious day, followed by a large distribution of the crosses of the new

order. William himself was perfectly aware of his danger, and prepared

to meet it with calm but mournful fortitude. [442] Just at this

conjuncture Lewis announced his intention to return instantly to

Versailles, and to send the Dauphin and Boufflers, with part of the army

which was assembled near Namur, to join Marshal Lorges who commanded in

the Palatinate. Luxemburg was thunderstruck. He expostulated boldly and

earnestly. Never, he said, was such an opportunity thrown away. If His

Majesty would march against the Prince of Orange, victory was almost

certain. Could any advantage which it was possible to obtain on the

Rhine be set against the advantage of a victory gained in the heart

of Brabant over the principal army and the principal captain of the

coalition? The Marshal reasoned; he implored; he went on his knees; but

in vain; and he quitted the royal presence in the deepest dejection.

Lewis left the camp a week after he had joined it, and never afterwards

made war in person.

The astonishment was great throughout his army. All the awe which he

inspired could not prevent his old generals from grumbling and looking

sullen, his young nobles from venting their spleen, sometimes in curses

and sometimes in sarcasms, and even his common soldiers from holding

irreverent language round their watchfires. His enemies rejoiced with

vindictive and insulting joy. Was it not strange, they asked, that this

great prince should have gone in state to the theatre of war, and then

in a week have gone in the same state back again? Was it necessary

that all that vast retinue, princesses, dames of honour and tirewomen,

equerries and gentlemen of the bedchamber, cooks, confectioners and

musicians, long trains of waggons, droves of led horses and sumpter

mules, piles of plate, bales of tapestry, should travel four hundred

miles merely in order that the Most Christian King might look at his

soldiers and then return? The ignominious truth was too evident to be

concealed. He had gone to the Netherlands in the hope that he might

again be able to snatch some military glory without any hazard to his

person, and had hastened back rather than expose himself to the chances

of a pitched field. [443] This was not the first time that His Most

Christian Majesty had shown the same kind of prudence. Seventeen years

before he had been opposed under the wails of Bouchain to the same

antagonist. William, with the ardour of a very young commander, had most

imprudently offered battle. The opinion of the ablest generals was that,

if Lewis had seized the opportunity, the war might have been ended in a

day. The French army had eagerly asked to be led to the onset. The King

had called his lieutenants round him and had collected their opinions.

Some courtly officers to whom a hint of his wishes had been dexterously

conveyed had, blushing and stammering with shame, voted against

fighting. It was to no purpose that bold and honest men, who prized his

honour more than his life, had proved to him that, on all principles of

the military art, he ought to accept the challenge rashly given by the

enemy. His Majesty had gravely expressed his sorrow that he could not,

consistently with his public duty, obey the impetuous movement of his

blood, had turned his rein, and had galloped back to his quarters. [444]

Was it not frightful to think what rivers of the best blood of France,

of Spain, of Germany and of England, had flowed, and were destined still

to flow, for the gratification of a man who wanted the vulgar courage

which was found in the meanest of the hundreds of thousands whom he had

sacrificed to his vainglorious ambition?

Though the French army in the Netherlands had been weakened by the

departure of the forces commanded by the Dauphin and Boufflers, and

though the allied army was daily strengthened by the arrival of fresh

troops, Luxemburg still had a superiority of force; and that superiority

he increased by an adroit stratagem. He marched towards Liege, and made

as if he were about to form the siege of that city. William was uneasy,

and the more uneasy because he knew that there was a French party among

the inhabitants. He quitted his position near Louvain, advanced to

Nether Hespen, and encamped there with the river Gette in his rear. On

his march he learned that Huy had opened its gates to the French. The

news increased his anxiety about Liege, and determined him to send

thither a force sufficient to overawe malecontents within the city, and

to repel any attack from without. [445] This was exactly what Luxemburg

had expected and desired. His feint had served its purpose. He turned

his back on the fortress which had hitherto seemed to be his object, and

hastened towards the Gette. William, who had detached more than twenty

thousand men, and who had but fifty thousand left in his camp, was

alarmed by learning from his scouts, on the eighteenth of July, that the

French General, with near eighty thousand, was close at hand.

It was still in the King's power, by a hasty retreat, to put the narrow,

but deep, waters of the Gette, which had lately been swollen by rains,

between his army and the enemy. But the site which he occupied was

strong; and it could easily be made still stronger. He set all his

troops to work. Ditches were dug, mounds thrown up, palisades fixed in

the earth. In a few hours the ground wore a new aspect; and the King

trusted that he should be able to repel the attack even of a force

greatly outnumbering his own. Nor was it without much appearance of

reason that he felt this confidence. When the morning of the nineteenth

of July broke, the bravest men of Lewis's army looked gravely and

anxiously on the fortress which had suddenly sprung up to arrest their

progress. The allies were protected by a breastwork. Here and there

along the entrenchments were formed little redoubts and half moons. A

hundred pieces of cannon were disposed along the ramparts. On the left

flank, the village of Romsdorff rose close to the little stream of

Landen, from which the English have named the disastrous day. On the

right was the village of Neerwinden. Both villages were, after the

fashion of the Low Countries, surrounded by moats and fences; and,

within these enclosures, the little plots of ground occupied by

different families were separated by mud walls five feet in height and

a foot in thickness. All these barricades William had repaired and

strengthened. Saint Simon, who, after the battle, surveyed the ground,

could hardly, he tells us, believe that defences so extensive and so

formidable could have been created with such rapidity.

Luxemburg, however, was determined to try whether even this position

could be maintained against the superior numbers and the impetuous

valour of his soldiers. Soon after sunrise the roar of cannon began

to be heard. William's batteries did much execution before the French

artillery could be so placed as to return the fire. It was eight o'clock

before the close fighting began. The village of Neerwinden was regarded

by both commanders as the point on which every thing depended. There an

attack was made by the French left wing commanded by Montchevreuil, a

veteran officer of high reputation, and by Berwick, who, though young,

was fast rising to a high place among the captains of his time. Berwick

led the onset, and forced his way into the village, but was soon driven

out again with a terrible carnage. His followers fled or perished; he,

while trying to rally them, and cursing them for not doing their duty

better, was surrounded by foes. He concealed his white cockade, and

hoped to be able, by the help of his native tongue, to pass himself off

as an officer of the English army. But his face was recognised by one

of his mother's brothers, George Churchill, who held on that day the

command of a brigade. A hurried embrace was exchanged between the

kinsmen; and the uncle conducted the nephew to William, who, as long as

every thing seemed to be going well, remained in the rear. The meeting

of the King and the captive, united by such close domestic ties, and

divided by such inexpiable injuries, was a strange sight. Both behaved

as became them. William uncovered, and addressed to his prisoner a few

words of courteous greeting. Berwick's only reply was a solemn bow. The

King put on his hat; the Duke put on his hat; and the cousins parted for

ever.

By this time the French, who had been driven in confusion out of

Neerwinden, had been reinforced by a division under the command of the

Duke of Bourbon, and came gallantly back to the attack. William, well

aware of the importance of this post, gave orders that troops should

move thither from other parts of his line. This second conflict was long

and bloody. The assailants again forced an entrance into the village.

They were again driven out with immense slaughter, and showed little

inclination to return to the charge.

Meanwhile the battle had been raging all along the entrenchments of

the allied army. Again and again Luxemburg brought up his troops within

pistolshot of the breastwork; but he could bring them no nearer. Again

and again they recoiled from the heavy fire which was poured on their

front and on their flanks. It seemed that all was over. Luxemburg

retired to a spot which was out of gunshot, and summoned a few of his

chief officers to a consultation. They talked together during some time;

and their animated gestures were observed with deep interest by all who

were within sight.

At length Luxemburg formed his decision. A last attempt must be made to

carry Neerwinden; and the invincible household troops, the conquerors of

Steinkirk, must lead the way.

The household troops came on in a manner worthy of their long and

terrible renown. A third time Neerwinden was taken. A third time William

tried to retake it. At the head of some English regiments he charged the

guards of Lewis with such fury that, for the first time in the memory of

the oldest warrior, that far famed band gave way. [446] It was only by

the strenuous exertions of Luxemburg, of the Duke of Chartres, and of

the Duke of Bourbon, that the broken ranks were rallied. But by this

time the centre and left of the allied army had been so much thinned

for the purpose of supporting the conflict at Neerwinden that the

entrenchments could no longer be defended on other points. A little

after four in the afternoon the whole line gave way. All was havoc and

confusion. Solmes had received a mortal wound, and fell, still alive,

into the hands of the enemy. The English soldiers, to whom his name was

hateful, accused him of having in his sufferings shown pusillanimity

unworthy of a soldier. The Duke of Ormond was struck down in the press;

and in another moment he would have been a corpse, had not a rich

diamond on his finger caught the eye of one of the French guards,

who justly thought that the owner of such a jewel would be a valuable

prisoner. The Duke's life was saved; and he was speedily exchanged for

Berwick. Ruvigny, animated by the true refugee hatred of the country

which had cast him out, was taken fighting in the thickest of the

battle. Those into whose hands he had fallen knew him well, and knew

that, if they carried him to their camp, his head would pay for that

treason to which persecution had driven him. With admirable generosity

they pretended not to recognise him, and suffered him to make his escape

in the tumult.

It was only on such occasions as this that the whole greatness of

William's character appeared. Amidst the rout and uproar, while arms and

standards were flung away, while multitudes of fugitives were choking up

the bridges and fords of the Gette or perishing in its waters, the King,

having directed Talmash to superintend the retreat, put himself at the

head of a few brave regiments, and by desperate efforts arrested the

progress of the enemy. His risk was greater than that which others ran.

For he could not be persuaded either to encumber his feeble frame with

a cuirass, or to hide the ensigns of the garter. He thought his star a

good rallying point for his own troops, and only smiled when he was told

that it was a good mark for the enemy. Many fell on his right hand and

on his left. Two led horses, which in the field always closely followed

his person, were struck dead by cannon shots. One musket ball passed

through the curls of his wig, another through his coat; a third

bruised his side and tore his blue riband to tatters. Many years later

greyhaired old pensioners who crept about the arcades and alleys of

Chelsea Hospital used to relate how he charged at the head of Galway's

horse, how he dismounted four times to put heart into the infantry, how

he rallied one corps which seemed to be shrinking; "That is not the way

to fight, gentlemen. You must stand close up to them. Thus, gentlemen,

thus." "You might have seen him," an eyewitness wrote, only four days

after the battle, "with his sword in his hand, throwing himself upon the

enemy. It is certain that one time, among the rest, he was seen at the

head of two English regiments, and that he fought seven with these two

in sight of the whole army, driving them before him above a quarter of

an hour. Thanks be to God that preserved him." The enemy pressed on him

so close that it was with difficulty that he at length made his way over

the Gette. A small body of brave men, who shared his peril to the last,

could hardly keep off the pursuers as he crossed the bridge. [447]

Never, perhaps, was the change which the progress of civilisation has

produced in the art of war more strikingly illustrated than on that day.

Ajax beating down the Trojan leader with a rock which two ordinary men

could scarcely lift, Horatius defending the bridge against an army,

Richard the Lionhearted spurring along the whole Saracen line without

finding an enemy to stand his assault, Robert Bruce crushing with one

blow the helmet and head of Sir Henry Bohun in sight of the whole array

of England and Scotland, such are the heroes of a dark age. In such an

age bodily vigour is the most indispensable qualification of a warrior.

At Landen two poor sickly beings, who, in a rude state of society, would

have been regarded as too puny to bear any part in combats, were the

souls of two great armies. In some heathen countries they would have

been exposed while infants. In Christendom they would, six hundred years

earlier, have been sent to some quiet cloister. But their lot had fallen

on a time when men had discovered that the strength of the muscles is

far inferior in value to the strength of the mind. It is probable that,

among the hundred and twenty thousand soldiers who were marshalled round

Neerwinden under all the standards of Western Europe, the two feeblest

in body were the hunchbacked dwarf who urged forward the fiery onset

of France, and the asthmatic skeleton who covered the slow retreat of

England.

The French were victorious; but they had bought their victory dear. More

than ten thousand of the best troops of Lewis had fallen. Neerwinden was

a spectacle at which the oldest soldiers stood aghast. The streets were

piled breast high with corpses. Among the slain were some great lords

and some renowned warriors. Montchevreuil was there, and the mutilated

trunk of the Duke of Uzes, first in order of precedence among the

whole aristocracy of France. Thence too Sarsfield was borne desperately

wounded to a pallet from which he never rose again. The Court of Saint

Germains had conferred on him the empty title of Earl of Lucan;

but history knows him by the name which is still dear to the most

unfortunate of nations. The region, renowned in history as the battle

field, during many ages, of the most warlike nations of Europe, has

seen only two more terrible days, the day of Malplaquet and the day of

Waterloo. During many months the ground was strewn with skulls and bones

of men and horses, and with fragments of hats and shoes, saddles and

holsters. The next summer the soil, fertilised by twenty thousand

corpses, broke forth into millions of poppies. The traveller who, on the

road from Saint Tron to Tirlemont, saw that vast sheet of rich scarlet

spreading from Landen to Neerwinden, could hardly help fancying that the

figurative prediction of the Hebrew prophet was literally accomplished,

that the earth was disclosing her blood, and refusing to cover the

slain. [448]

There was no pursuit, though the sun was still high in the heaven when

William crossed the Gette. The conquerors were so much exhausted by

marching and fighting that they could scarcely move; and the horses were

in even worse condition than the men. Their general thought it necessary

to allow some time for rest and refreshment. The French nobles unloaded

their sumpter horses, supped gaily, and pledged one another in champagne

amidst the heaps of dead; and, when night fell, whole brigades gladly

lay down to sleep in their ranks on the field of battle. The inactivity

of Luxemburg did not escape censure. None could deny that he had in the

action shown great skill and energy. But some complained that he wanted

patience and perseverance. Others whispered that he had no wish to bring

to an end a war which made him necessary to a Court where he had never,

in time of peace, found favour or even justice. [449] Lewis, who on this

occasion was perhaps not altogether free from some emotions of jealousy,

contrived, it was reported, to mingle with the praise which he bestowed

on his lieutenant blame which, though delicately expressed, was

perfectly intelligible. "In the battle," he said, "the Duke of Luxemburg

behaved like Conde; and since the battle the Prince of Orange has

behaved like Turenne."

In truth the ability and vigour with which William repaired his terrible

defeat might well excite admiration. "In one respect," said the Admiral

Coligni, "I may claim superiority over Alexander, over Scipio, over

Caesar. They won great battles, it is true. I have lost four great

battles; and yet I show to the enemy a more formidable front than ever."

The blood of Coligni ran in the veins of William; and with the blood had

descended the unconquerable spirit which could derive from failure as

much glory as happier commanders owed to success. The defeat of Landen

was indeed a heavy blow. The King had a few days of cruel anxiety.

If Luxemburg pushed on, all was lost. Louvain must fall, and Mechlin,

Nieuport, and Ostend. The Batavian frontier would be in danger. The cry

for peace throughout Holland might be such as neither States General nor

Stadtholder would be able to resist. [450] But there was delay; and a

very short delay was enough for William. From the field of battle he

made his way through the multitude of fugitives to the neighbourhood of

Louvain, and there began to collect his scattered forces. His character

is not lowered by the anxiety which, at that moment, the most disastrous

of his life, he felt for the two persons who were dearest to him. As

soon as he was safe, he wrote to assure his wife of his safety. [451] In

the confusion of the flight he had lost sight of Portland, who was then

in very feeble health, and had therefore run more than the ordinary

risks of war. A short note which the King sent to his friend a few hours

later is still extant. [452] "Though I hope to see you this evening, I

cannot help writing to tell you how rejoiced I am that you got off so

well. God grant that your health may soon be quite restored. These are

great trials, which he has been pleased to send me in quick succession.

I must try to submit to his pleasure without murmuring, and to deserve

his anger less."

His forces rallied fast. Large bodies of troops which he had, perhaps

imprudently, detached from his army while he supposed that Liege was the

object of the enemy, rejoined him by forced marches. Three weeks after

his defeat he held a review a few miles from Brussels. The number of men

under arms was greater than on the morning of the bloody day of Landen;

their appearance was soldierlike; and their spirit seemed unbroken.

William now wrote to Heinsius that the worst was over. "The crisis," he

said, "has been a terrible one. Thank God that it has ended thus." He

did not, however, think it prudent to try at that time the event of

another pitched field. He therefore suffered the French to besiege and

take Charleroy; and this was the only advantage which they derived

from the most sanguinary battle fought in Europe during the seventeenth

century.

The melancholy tidings of the defeat of Landen found England agitated by

tidings not less melancholy from a different quarter. During many

months the trade with the Mediterranean Sea had been almost entirely

interrupted by the war. There was no chance that a merchantman from

London or from Amsterdam would, if unprotected, reach the Pillars of

Hercules without being boarded by a French privateer; and the protection

of armed vessels was not easily to be obtained. During the year 1691,

great fleets, richly laden for Spanish, Italian and Turkish markets, had

been gathering in the Thames and the Texel. In February 1693, near

four hundred ships were ready to start. The value of the cargoes was

estimated at several millions sterling. Those galleons which had long

been the wonder and envy of the world had never conveyed so precious

a freight from the West Indies to Seville. The English government

undertook, in concert with the Dutch government, to escort the vessels

which were laden with this great mass of wealth. The French government

was bent on intercepting them.

The plan of the allies was that seventy ships of the line and about

thirty frigates and brigantines should assemble in the Channel under

the command of Killegrew and Delaval, the two new Lords of the English

Admiralty, and should convoy the Smyrna fleet, as it was popularly

called, beyond the limits within which any danger could be apprehended

from the Brest squadron. The greater part of the armament might then

return to guard the Channel, while Rooke, with twenty sail, might

accompany the trading vessels and might protect them against the

squadron which lay at Toulon. The plan of the French government was that

the Brest squadron under Tourville and the Toulon squadron under Estrees

should meet in the neighbourhood of the Straits of Gibraltar, and should

there lie in wait for the booty.

Which plan was the better conceived may be doubted. Which was the better

executed is a question which admits of no doubt. The whole French navy,

whether in the Atlantic or in the Mediterranean, was moved by one will.

The navy of England and the navy of the United Provinces were subject to

different authorities; and, both in England and in the United Provinces,

the power was divided and subdivided to such an extent that no single

person was pressed by a heavy responsibility. The spring came. The

merchants loudly complained that they had already lost more by delay

than they could hope to gain by the most successful voyage; and still

the ships of war were not half manned or half provisioned. The Amsterdam

squadron did not arrive on our coast till late in April; the Zealand

squadron not till the middle of May. [453] It was June before the

immense fleet, near five hundred sail, lost sight of the cliffs of

England.

Tourville was already on the sea, and was steering southward. But

Killegrew and Delaval were so negligent or so unfortunate that they had

no intelligence of his movements. They at first took it for granted that

he was still lying in the port of Brest. Then they heard a rumour that

some shipping had been seen to the northward; and they supposed that

he was taking advantage of their absence to threaten the coast of

Devonshire. It never seems to have occurred to them as possible that he

might have effected a junction with the Toulon squadron, and might be

impatiently waiting for his prey in the neighbourhood of Gibraltar. They

therefore, on the sixth of June, having convoyed the Smyrna fleet about

two hundred miles beyond Ushant, announced their intention to part

company with Rooke. Rooke expostulated, but to no purpose. It was

necessary for him to submit, and to proceed with his twenty men of

war to the Mediterranean, while his superiors, with the rest of the

armament, returned to the Channel.

It was by this time known in England that Tourville had stolen out of

Brest, and was hastening to join Estrees. The return of Killegrew

and Delaval therefore excited great alarm. A swift sailing vessel was

instantly despatched to warn Rooke of his danger; but the warning never

reached him. He ran before a fair wind to Cape Saint Vincent; and there

he learned that some French ships were lying in the neighbouring Bay of

Lagos. The first information which he received led him to believe that

they were few in number; and so dexterously did they conceal their

strength that, till they were within half an hour's sail, he had no

suspicion that he was opposed to the whole maritime strength of a great

kingdom. To contend against fourfold odds would have been madness. It

was much that he was able to save his squadron from titter destruction.

He exerted all his skill. Two or three Dutch men of war, which were in

the rear, courageously sacrificed themselves to save the fleet. With

the rest of the armament, and with about sixty merchant ships, Rooke got

safe to Madeira and thence to Cork. But more than three hundred of

the vessels which he had convoyed were scattered over the ocean. Some

escaped to Ireland; some to Corunna; some to Lisbon; some to Cadiz; some

were captured, and more destroyed. A few, which had taken shelter under

the rock of Gibraltar, and were pursued thither by the enemy, were sunk

when it was found that they could not be defended. Others perished in

the same manner under the batteries of Malaga. The gain to the French

seems not to have been great; but the loss to England and Holland was

immense. [454]

Never within the memory of man had there been in the City a day of more

gloom and agitation than that on which the news of the encounter in the

Bay of Lagos arrived. Many merchants, an eyewitness said, went away from

the Royal Exchange, as pale as if they had received sentence of death.

A deputation from the merchants who had been sufferers by this great

disaster went up to the Queen with an address representing their

grievances. They were admitted to the Council Chamber, where she was

seated at the head of the Board. She directed Somers to reply to them

in her name; and he addressed to them a speech well calculated to soothe

their irritation. Her Majesty, he said, felt for them from her heart;

and she had already appointed a Committee of the Privy Council to

inquire into the cause of the late misfortune, and to consider of the

best means of preventing similar misfortunes in time to come. [455] This

answer gave so much satisfaction that the Lord Mayor soon came to the

palace to thank the Queen for her goodness, to assure her that, through

all vicissitudes, London would be true to her and her consort, and to

inform her that, severely as the late calamity had been felt by many

great commercial houses, the Common Council had unanimously resolved to

advance whatever might be necessary for the support of the government.

[456]

The ill humour which the public calamities naturally produced was

inflamed by every factious artifice. Never had the Jacobite pamphleteers

been so savagely scurrilous as during this unfortunate summer. The

police was consequently more active than ever in seeking for the dens

from which so much treason proceeded. With great difficulty and after

long search the most important of all the unlicensed presses was

discovered. This press belonged to a Jacobite named William Anderton,

whose intrepidity and fanaticism marked him out as fit to be employed

on services from which prudent men and scrupulous men shrink. During two

years he had been watched by the agents of the government; but where

he exercised his craft was an impenetrable mystery. At length he was

tracked to a house near Saint James's Street, where he was known by a

feigned name, and where he passed for a working jeweller. A messenger

of the press went thither with several assistants, and found Anderton's

wife and mother posted as sentinels at the door. The women knew the

messenger, rushed on him, tore his hair, and cried out "Thieves"

and "Murder." The alarm was thus given to Anderton. He concealed the

instruments of his calling, came forth with an assured air, and bade

defiance to the messenger, the Censor, the Secretary, and Little

Hooknose himself. After a struggle he was secured. His room was

searched; and at first sight no evidence of his guilt appeared. But

behind the bed was soon found a door which opened into a dark closet.

The closet contained a press, types and heaps of newly printed papers.

One of these papers, entitled Remarks on the Present Confederacy and the

Late Revolution, is perhaps the most frantic of all the Jacobite libels.

In this tract the Prince of Orange is gravely accused of having ordered

fifty of his wounded English soldiers to be burned alive. The governing

principle of his whole conduct, it is said, is not vainglory, or

ambition, or avarice, but a deadly hatred of Englishmen and a desire

to make them miserable. The nation is vehemently adjured, on peril of

incurring the severest judgments, to rise up and free itself from this

plague, this curse, this tyrant, whose depravity makes it difficult to

believe that he can have been procreated by a human pair. Many copies

were also found of another paper, somewhat less ferocious but perhaps

more dangerous, entitled A French Conquest neither desirable nor

practicable. In this tract also the people are exhorted to rise in

insurrection. They are assured that a great part of the army is with

them. The forces of the Prince of Orange will melt away; he will be glad

to make his escape; and a charitable hope is sneeringly expressed that

it may not be necessary to do him any harm beyond sending him back to

Loo, where he may live surrounded by luxuries for which the English have

paid dear.

The government, provoked and alarmed by the virulence of the Jacobite

pamphleteers, determined to make Anderton an example. He was indicted

for high treason, and brought to the bar of the Old Bailey. Treby,

now Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and Powell, who had honourably

distinguished himself on the day of the trial of the bishops, were on

the Bench. It is unfortunate that no detailed report of the evidence has

come down to us, and that we are forced to content ourselves with such

fragments of information as can be collected from the contradictory

narratives of writers evidently partial, intemperate and dishonest. The

indictment, however, is extant; and the overt acts which it imputes to

the prisoner undoubtedly amount to high treason. [457] To exhort the

subjects of the realm to rise up and depose the King by force, and to

add to that exhortation the expression, evidently ironical, of a hope

that it may not be necessary to inflict on him any evil worse than

banishment, is surely an offence which the least courtly lawyer will

admit to be within the scope of the statute of Edward the Third. On this

point indeed there seems to have been no dispute, either at the trial or

subsequently.

The prisoner denied that he had printed the libels. On this point it

seems reasonable that, since the evidence has not come down to us,

we should give credit to the judges and the jury who heard what the

witnesses had to say.

One argument with which Anderton had been furnished by his advisers,

and which, in the Jacobite pasquinades of that time, is represented as

unanswerable, was that, as the art of printing had been unknown in the

reign of Edward the Third, printing could not be an overt act of treason

under a statute of that reign. The judges treated this argument very

lightly; and they were surely justified in so treating it. For it is

an argument which would lead to the conclusion that it could not be an

overt act of treason to behead a King with a guillotine or to shoot him

with a Minie rifle.

It was also urged in Anderton's favour,--and this was undoubtedly an

argument well entitled to consideration,--that a distinction ought to

be made between the author of a treasonable paper and the man who merely

printed it. The former could not pretend that he had not understood the

meaning of the words which he had himself selected. But to the latter

those words might convey no idea whatever. The metaphors, the allusions,

the sarcasms, might be far beyond his comprehension; and, while his

hands were busy among the types, his thoughts might be wandering to

things altogether unconnected with the manuscript which was before him.

It is undoubtedly true that it may be no crime to print what it would be

a great crime to write. But this is evidently a matter concerning

which no general rule can be laid down. Whether Anderton had, as a mere

mechanic, contributed to spread a work the tendency of which he did

not suspect, or had knowingly lent his help to raise a rebellion, was

a question for the jury; and the jury might reasonably infer from his

change of his name, from the secret manner in which he worked, from the

strict watch kept by his wife and mother, and from the fury with which,

even in the grasp of the messengers, he railed at the government,

that he was not the unconscious tool, but the intelligent and zealous

accomplice of traitors. The twelve, after passing a considerable time

in deliberation, informed the Court that one of them entertained doubts.

Those doubts were removed by the arguments of Treby and Powell; and a

verdict of Guilty was found.

The fate of the prisoner remained during sometime in suspense. The

Ministers hoped that he might be induced to save his own neck at the

expense of the necks of the pamphleteers who had employed him. But his

natural courage was kept up by spiritual stimulants which the nonjuring

divines well understood how to administer. He suffered death with

fortitude, and continued to revile the government to the last. The

Jacobites clamoured loudly against the cruelty of the judges who had

tried him and of the Queen who had left him for execution, and, not very

consistently, represented him at once as a poor ignorant artisan who was

not aware of the nature and tendency of the act for which he suffered,

and as a martyr who had heroically laid down his life for the banished

King and the persecuted Church. [458]

The Ministers were much mistaken if they flattered themselves that the

fate of Anderton would deter others from imitating his example. His

execution produced several pamphlets scarcely less virulent than those

for which he had suffered. Collier, in what he called Remarks on the

London Gazette, exulted with cruel joy over the carnage of Landen, and

the vast destruction of English property on the coast of Spain. [459]

Other writers did their best to raise riots among the labouring people.

For the doctrine of the Jacobites was that disorder, in whatever place

or in whatever way it might begin, was likely to end in a Restoration.

A phrase which, without a commentary, may seem to be mere nonsense,

but which was really full of meaning, was often in their mouths at

this time, and was indeed a password by which the members of the party

recognised each other: "Box it about; it will come to my father." The

hidden sense of this gibberish was, "Throw the country into confusion;

it will be necessary at last to have recourse to King James." [460]

Trade was not prosperous; and many industrious men were out of work.

Accordingly songs addressed to the distressed classes were composed by

the malecontent street poets. Numerous copies of a ballad exhorting the

weavers to rise against the government were discovered in the house of

that Quaker who had printed James's Declaration. [461] Every art was

used for the purpose of exciting discontent in a much more formidable

body of men, the sailors; and unhappily the vices of the naval

administration furnished the enemies of the State with but too good a

choice of inflammatory topics. Some seamen deserted; some mutinied; then

came executions; and then came more ballads and broadsides representing

those executions as barbarous murders. Reports that the government

had determined to defraud its defenders of their hard earned pay were

circulated with so much effect that a great crowd of women from Wapping

and Rotherhithe besieged Whitehall, clamouring for what was due to their

husbands. Mary had the good sense and good nature to order four of

those importunate petitioners to be admitted into the room where she was

holding a Council. She heard their complaints, and herself assured them

that the rumour which had alarmed them was unfounded. [462] By this

time Saint Bartholomew's day drew near; and the great annual fair, the

delight of idle apprentices and the horror of Puritanical Aldermen,

was opened in Smithfield with the usual display of dwarfs, giants, and

dancing dogs, the man that ate fire, and the elephant that loaded and

fired a musket. But of all the shows none proved so attractive as a

dramatic performance which, in conception, though doubtless not in

execution, seems to have borne much resemblance to those immortal

masterpieces of humour in which Aristophanes held up Cleon and Lamachus

to derision. Two strollers personated Killegrew and Delaval. The

Admirals were represented as flying with their whole fleet before a few

French privateers, and taking shelter under the grins of the Tower.

The office of Chorus was performed by a Jackpudding who expressed very

freely his opinion of the naval administration. Immense crowds flocked

to see this strange farce. The applauses were loud; the receipts were

great; and the mountebanks, who had at first ventured to attack only the

unlucky and unpopular Board of Admiralty, now, emboldened by impunity

and success, and probably prompted and rewarded by persons of much

higher station than their own, began to cast reflections on other

departments of the government. This attempt to revive the license of the

Attic Stage was soon brought to a close by the appearance of a strong

body of constables who carried off the actors to prison. [463] Meanwhile

the streets of London were every night strewn with seditious handbills.

At all the taverns the zealots of hereditary right were limping about

with glasses of wine and punch at their lips. This fashion had just come

in; and the uninitiated wondered much that so great a number of jolly

gentlemen should have suddenly become lame. But, those who were in the

secret knew that the word Limp was a consecrated word, that every one

of the four letters which composed it was the initial of an august name,

and that the loyal subject who limped while he drank was taking off his

bumper to Lewis, James, Mary, and the Prince. [464]

It was not only in the capital that the Jacobites, at this time, made a

great display of their wit. They mustered strong at Bath, where the Lord

President Caermarthen was trying to recruit his feeble health. Every

evening they met, as they phrased it, to serenade the Marquess. In other

words they assembled under the sick man's window, and there sang doggrel

lampoons on him. [465]

It is remarkable that the Lord President, at the very time at which

he was insulted as a Williamite at Bath, was considered as a stanch

Jacobite at Saint Germains. How he came to be so considered is a

most perplexing question. Some writers are of opinion that he, like

Shrewsbury, Russell, Godolphin and Marlborough, entered into engagements

with one king while eating the bread of the other. But this opinion

does not rest on sufficient proofs. About the treasons of Shrewsbury,

of Russell, of Godolphin and of Marlborough, we have a great mass of

evidence, derived from various sources, and extending over several

years. But all the information which we possess about Caermarthen's

dealings with James is contained in a single short paper written by

Melfort on the sixteenth of October 1693. From that paper it is quite

clear that some intelligence had reached the banished King and his

Ministers which led them to regard Caermarthen as a friend. But there is

no proof that they ever so regarded him, either before that day or after

that day. [466] On the whole, the most probable explanation of this

mystery seems to be that Caermarthen had been sounded by some Jacobite

emissary much less artful than himself, and had, for the purpose of

getting at the bottom of the new scheme of policy devised by Middleton,

pretended to be well disposed to the cause of the banished King, that an

exaggerated account of what had passed had been sent to Saint Germains,

and that there had been much rejoicing there at a conversion which soon

proved to have been feigned. It seems strange that such a conversion

should even for a moment have been thought sincere. It was plainly

Caermarthen's interest to stand by the sovereigns in possession. He

was their chief minister. He could not hope to be the chief minister of

James. It can indeed hardly be supposed that the political conduct of a

cunning old man, insatiably ambitious and covetous, was much influenced

by personal partiality. But, if there were any person to whom

Caermarthen was partial, that person was undoubtedly Mary. That he had

seriously engaged in a plot to depose her, at the risk of his head if he

failed, and with the certainty of losing immense power and wealth if he

succeeded, was a story too absurd for any credulity but the credulity of

exiles.

Caermarthen had indeed at that moment peculiarly strong reasons for

being satisfied with the place which he held in the counsels of William

and Mary. There is but too strong reason to believe that he was then

accumulating unlawful gain with a rapidity unexampled even in his

experience.

The contest between the two East India Companies was, during the autumn

of 1693, fiercer than ever. The House of Commons, finding the Old

Company obstinately averse to all compromise, had, a little before the

close of the late session, requested the King to give the three years'

warning prescribed by the Charter. Child and his fellows now began to

be seriously alarmed. They expected every day to receive the dreaded

notice. Nay, they were not sure that their exclusive privilege might not

be taken away without any notice at all; for they found that they had,

by inadvertently omitting to pay the tax lately imposed on their stock

at the precise time fixed by law, forfeited their Charter; and, though

it would, in ordinary circumstances, have been thought cruel in the

government to take advantage of such a slip, the public was not inclined

to allow the Old Company any thing more than the strict letter of the

bond. Every thing was lost if the Charter were not renewed before the

meeting of Parliament. There can be little doubt that the proceedings

of the corporation were still really directed by Child. But he had, it

should seem, perceived that his unpopularity had injuriously affected

the interests which were under his care, and therefore did not obtrude

himself on the public notice. His place was ostensibly filled by his

near kinsman Sir Thomas Cook, one of the greatest merchants of London,

and Member of Parliament for the borough of Colchester. The Directors

placed at Cook's absolute disposal all the immense wealth which lay in

their treasury; and in a short time near a hundred thousand pounds were

expended in corruption on a gigantic scale. In what proportions this

enormous sum was distributed among the great men at Whitehall, and how

much of it was embezzled by intermediate agents, is still a mystery. We

know with certainty however that thousands went to Seymour and thousands

to Caermarthen.

The effect of these bribes was that the Attorney General received orders

to draw up a charter regranting the old privileges to the old Company.

No minister, however, could, after what had passed in Parliament,

venture to advise the Crown to renew the monopoly without conditions.

The Directors were sensible that they had no choice, and reluctantly

consented to accept the new Charter on terms substantially the same with

those which the House of Commons had sanctioned.

It is probable that, two years earlier, such a compromise would have

quieted the feud which distracted the City. But a long conflict, in

which satire and calumny had not been spared, had heated the minds of

men. The cry of Dowgate against Leadenhall Street was louder than ever.

Caveats were entered; petitions were signed; and in those petitions a

doctrine which had hitherto been studiously kept in the background

was boldly affirmed. While it was doubtful on which side the royal

prerogative would be used, that prerogative had not been questioned.

But as soon as it appeared that the Old Company was likely to obtain a

regrant of the monopoly under the Great Seal, the New Company began to

assert with vehemence that no monopoly could be created except by Act

of Parliament. The Privy Council, over which Caermarthen presided, after

hearing the matter fully argued by counsel on both sides, decided in

favour of the Old Company, and ordered the Charter to be sealed. [467]

The autumn was by this time far advanced, and the armies in the

Netherlands had gone into quarters for the winter. On the last day of

October William landed in England. The Parliament was about to meet; and

he had every reason to expect a session even more stormy than the last.

The people were discontented, and not without cause. The year had been

every where disastrous to the allies, not only on the sea and in the Low

Countries, but also in Servia, in Spain, in Italy, and in Germany. The

Turks had compelled the generals of the Empire to raise the siege of

Belgrade. A newly created Marshal of France, the Duke of Noailles, had

invaded Catalonia and taken the fortress of Rosas. Another newly created

Marshal, the skilful and valiant Catinat, had descended from the Alps

on Piedmont, and had, at Marsiglia, gained a complete victory over the

forces of the Duke of Savoy. This battle is memorable as the first of

a long series of battles in which the Irish troops retrieved the honour

lost by misfortunes and misconduct in domestic war. Some of the exiles

of Limerick showed, on that day, under the standard of France, a valour

which distinguished them among many thousands of brave men. It is

remarkable that on the same day a battalion of the persecuted and

expatriated Huguenots stood firm amidst the general disorder round the

standard of Savoy, and fell fighting desperately to the last.

The Duke of Lorges had marched into the Palatinate, already twice

devastated, and had found that Turenne and Duras had left him something

to destroy. Heidelberg, just beginning to rise again from its ruins,

was again sacked, the peaceable citizens butchered, their wives and

daughters foully outraged. The very choirs of the churches were stained

with blood; the pyxes and crucifixes were torn from the altars; the

tombs of the ancient Electors were broken open; the corpses, stripped

of their cerecloths and ornaments, were dragged about the streets. The

skull of the father of the Duchess of Orleans was beaten to fragments

by the soldiers of a prince among the ladies of whose splendid Court she

held the foremost place.

And yet a discerning eye might have perceived that, unfortunate as the

confederates seemed to have been, the advantage had really been on their

side. The contest was quite as much a financial as a military contest.

The French King had, some months before, said that the last piece of

gold would carry the day; and he now began painfully to feel the truth

of the saying. England was undoubtedly hard pressed by public burdens;

but still she stood up erect. France meanwhile was fast sinking. Her

recent efforts had been too much for her strength, and had left her

spent and unnerved. Never had her rulers shown more ingenuity in

devising taxes or more severity in exacting them; but by no ingenuity,

by no severity, was it possible to raise the sums necessary for another

such campaign as that of 1693. In England the harvest had been abundant.

In France the corn and the wine had again failed. The people, as usual,

railed at the government. The government, with shameful ignorance or

more shameful dishonesty, tried to direct the public indignation

against the dealers in grain. Decrees appeared which seemed to have been

elaborately framed for the purpose of turning dearth into famine. The

nation was assured that there was no reason for uneasiness, that there

was more than a sufficient supply of food, and that the scarcity had

been produced by the villanous arts of misers, who locked up their

stores in the hope of making enormous gains. Commissioners were

appointed to inspect the granaries, and were empowered to send to

market all the corn that was not necessary for the consumption of the

proprietors. Such interference of course increased the suffering which

it was meant to relieve. But in the midst of the general distress there

was an artificial plenty in one favoured spot. The most arbitrary

prince must always stand in some awe of an immense mass of human beings

collected in the neighbourhood of his own palace. Apprehensions similar

to those which had induced the Caesars to extort from Africa and Egypt

the means of pampering the rabble of Rome induced Lewis to aggravate the

misery of twenty provinces for the purpose of keeping one huge city in

good humour. He ordered bread to be distributed in all the parishes of

the capital at less than half the market price. The English Jacobites

were stupid enough to extol the wisdom and humanity of this arrangement.

The harvest, they said, had been good in England and bad in France; and

yet the loaf was cheaper at Paris than in London; and the explanation

was simple. The French had a sovereign whose heart was French, and

who watched over his people with the solicitude of a father, while the

English were cursed with a Dutch tyrant, who sent their corn to Holland.

The truth was that a week of such fatherly government as that of Lewis

would have raised all England in arms from Northumberland to Cornwall.

That there might be abundance at Paris, the people of Normandy and Anjou

were stuffing themselves with nettles. That there might be tranquillity

at Paris, the peasantry were fighting with the bargemen and the troops

all along the Loire and the Seine. Multitudes fled from those rural

districts where bread cost five sous a pound to the happy place where

bread was to be had for two sous a pound. It was necessary to drive the

famished crowds back by force from the barriers, and to denounce the

most terrible punishments against all who should not go home and starve

quietly. [468]

Lewis was sensible that the strength of France had been overstrained by

the exertions of the last campaign. Even if her harvest and her vintage

had been abundant, she would not have been able to do in 1694 what she

had done in 1693; and it was utterly impossible that, in a season of

extreme distress, she should again send into the field armies superior

in number on every point to the armies of the coalition. New conquests

were not to be expected. It would be much if the harassed and exhausted

land, beset on all sides by enemies, should be able to sustain a

defensive war without any disaster. So able a politician as the French

King could not but feel that it would be for his advantage to treat with

the allies while they were still awed by the remembrance of the gigantic

efforts which his kingdom had just made, and before the collapse which

had followed those efforts should become visible.