Military Operations in the Netherlands--Commercial Crisis in
England--Financial Crisis--Efforts to restore the Currency--Distress of
the People; their Temper and Conduct--Negotiations with France; the
Duke of Savoy deserts the Coalition--Search for Jacobite Conspirators
in England; Sir John Fenwick--Capture of Fenwick--Fenwick's
Confession--Return of William to England--Meeting of Parliament;
State of the Country; Speech of William at the Commencement of
the Session--Resolutions of the House of Commons--Return of
Prosperity--Effect of the Proceedings of the House of Commons on
Foreign Governments--Restoration of the Finances--Effects of Fenwick's
Confession--Resignation of Godolphin--Feeling of the Whigs
about Fenwick--William examines Fenwick--Disappearance of
Goodman--Parliamentary Proceedings touching Fenwick's Confession--Bill
for attainting Fenwick--Debates of the Commons on the Bill of
Attainder--The Bill of Attainder carried up to the Lords--Artifices of
Monmouth--Debates of the Lords on the Bill of Attainder--Proceedings
against Monmouth--Position and Feelings of Shrewsbury--The Bill of
Attainder passed; Attempts to save Fenwick--Fenwick's Execution;
Bill for the Regulating of Elections--Bill for the Regulation of
the Press--Bill abolishing the Privileges of Whitefriars and the
Savoy--Close of the Session; Promotions and Appointments--State of
Ireland--State of Scotland--A Session of Parliament at Edinburgh;
Act for the Settling of Schools--Case of Thomas Aikenhead--Military
Operations in the Netherlands--Terms of Peace offered by France--Conduct
of Spain; Conduct of the Emperor--Congress of Ryswick--William opens a
distinct Negotiation--Meetings of Portland and Boufflers--Terms of Peace
between France and England settled--Difficulties caused by Spain and the
Emperor--Attempts of James to prevent a general Pacification--The Treaty
of Ryswick signed; Anxiety in England--News of the Peace arrives in
England--Dismay of the Jacobites--General Rejoicing--The King's Entry
into London--The Thanksgiving Day
ON the seventh of May 1696, William landed in Holland. [692] Thence he
proceeded to Flanders, and took the command of the allied forces, which
were collected in the neighbourhood of Ghent. Villeroy and Boufflers
were already in the field. All Europe waited impatiently for great news
from the Netherlands, but waited in vain. No aggressive movement was
made. The object of the generals on both sides was to keep their troops
from dying of hunger; and it was an object by no means easily attained.
The treasuries both of France and England were empty. Lewis had,
during the winter, created with great difficulty and expense a gigantic
magazine at Givet on the frontier of his kingdom. The buildings were
commodious and of vast extent. The quantity of provender laid up in
them for horses was immense. The number of rations for men was commonly
estimated at from three to four millions. But early in the spring
Athlone and Cohorn had, by a bold and dexterous move, surprised Givet,
and had utterly destroyed both storehouses and stores. [693] France,
already fainting from exhaustion, was in no condition to repair such a
loss. Sieges such as those of Mons and Namur were operations too costly
for her means. The business of her army now was, not to conquer, but to
subsist.
The army of William was reduced to straits not less painful. The
material wealth of England, indeed, had not been very seriously impaired
by the drain which the war had caused; but she was suffering severely
from the defective state of that instrument by which her material wealth
was distributed.
Saturday, the second of May, had been fixed by Parliament as the last
day on which the clipped crowns, halfcrowns and shillings were to be
received by tale in payment of taxes. [694] The Exchequer was besieged
from dawn till midnight by an immense multitude. It was necessary to
call in the guards for the purpose of keeping order. On the following
Monday began a cruel agony of a few months, which was destined to be
succeeded by many years of almost unbroken prosperity. [695]
Most of the old silver had vanished. The new silver had scarcely made
its appearance. About four millions sterling, in ingots and hammered
coin, were lying in the vaults of the Exchequer; and the milled money as
yet came forth very slowly from the Mint. [696] Alarmists predicted that
the wealthiest and most enlightened kingdom in Europe would be reduced
to the state of those barbarous societies in which a mat is bought with
a hatchet, and a pair of mocassins with a piece of venison.
There were, indeed, some hammered pieces which had escaped mutilation;
and sixpences not clipped within the innermost ring were still current.
This old money and the new money together made up a scanty stock of
silver, which, with the help of gold, was to carry the nation through
the summer. [697] The manufacturers generally contrived, though with
extreme difficulty, to pay their workmen in coin. [698] The upper
classes seem to have lived to a great extent on credit. Even an opulent
man seldom had the means of discharging the weekly bills of his baker
and butcher. [699] A promissory note, however, subscribed by such a man,
was readily taken in the district where his means and character were
well known. The notes of the wealthy moneychangers of Lombard Street
circulated widely. [700] The paper of the Bank of England did much
service, and would have done more, but for the unhappy error into which
the Parliament had recently been led by Harley and Foley. The confidence
which the public had felt in that powerful and opulent Company had been
shaken by the Act which established the Land Bank. It might well be
doubted whether there would be room for the two rival institutions; and
of the two, the younger seemed to be the favourite of the government and
of the legislature. The stock of the Bank of England had gone rapidly
down from a hundred and ten to eighty-three. Meanwhile the goldsmiths,
who had from the first been hostile to that great corporation, were
plotting against it. They collected its paper from every quarter; and on
the fourth of May, when the Exchequer had just swallowed up most of the
old money, and when scarcely any of the new money had been issued, they
flocked to Grocers' Hall, and insisted on immediate payment. A single
goldsmith demanded thirty thousand pounds. The Directors, in this
extremity, acted wisely and firmly. They refused to cash the notes which
had been thus maliciously presented, and left the holders to seek a
remedy in Westminster Hall. Other creditors, who came in good faith to
ask for their due, were paid. The conspirators affected to triumph over
the powerful body, which they hated and dreaded. The bank which had
recently begun to exist under such splendid auspices, which had seemed
destined to make a revolution in commerce and in finance, which had been
the boast of London and the envy of Amsterdam, was already insolvent,
ruined, dishonoured. Wretched pasquinades were published, the Trial
of the Land Bank for murdering the Bank of England, the last Will and
Testament of the Bank of England, the Epitaph of the Bank of England,
the Inquest on the Bank of England. But, in spite of all this clamour
and all this wit, the correspondents of the States General reported,
that the Bank of England had not really suffered in the public esteem,
and that the conduct of the goldsmiths was generally condemned. [701]
The Directors soon found it impossible to procure silver enough to meet
every claim which was made on them in good faith. They then bethought
them of a new expedient. They made a call of twenty per cent. on the
proprietors, and thus raised a sum which enabled them to give every
applicant fifteen per cent. in milled money on what was due to him. They
returned him his note, after making a minute upon it that part had
been paid. [702] A few notes thus marked are still preserved among the
archives of the Bank, as memorials of that terrible year. The paper
of the Corporation continued to circulate, but the value fluctuated
violently from day to day, and indeed from hour to hour; for the public
mind was in so excitable a state that the most absurd lie which a
stockjobber could invent sufficed to send the price up or down. At one
time the discount was only six per cent., at another time twenty-four
per cent. A tenpound note, which had been taken in the morning as worth
more than nine pounds, was often worth less than eight pounds before
night. [703]
Another, and, at that conjuncture, a more effectual substitute for
a metallic currency, owed its existence to the ingenuity of Charles
Montague. He had succeeded in engrafting on Harley's Land Bank Bill a
clause which empowered the government to issue negotiable paper bearing
interest at the rate of threepence a day on a hundred pounds. In the
midst of the general distress and confusion appeared the first Exchequer
Bills, drawn for various amounts from a hundred pounds down to five
pounds. These instruments were rapidly distributed over the kingdom by
the post, and were every where welcome. The Jacobites talked violently
against them in every coffeehouse, and wrote much detestable verse
against them, but to little purpose. The success of the plan was such,
that the ministers at one time resolved to issue twentyshilling bills,
and even fifteenshilling bills, for the payment of the troops. But it
does not appear that this resolution was carried into effect. [704]
It is difficult to imagine how, without the Exchequer Bills, the
government of the country could have been carried on during that year.
Every source of revenue had been affected by the state of the currency;
and one source, on which the Parliament had confidently reckoned for the
means of defraying more than half the charge of the war, had yielded not
a single farthing.
The sum expected from the Land Bank was near two million six hundred
thousand pounds. Of this sum one half was to be subscribed, and one
quarter paid up by the first of August. The King, just before his
departure, had signed a warrant appointing certain commissioners, among
whom Harley and Foley were the most eminent, to receive the names of the
contributors. [705] A great meeting of persons interested in the scheme
was held in the Hall of the Middle Temple. One office was opened at
Exeter Change, another at Mercers' Hall. Forty agents went down into the
country, and announced to the landed gentry of every shire the approach
of the golden age of high rents and low interest. The Council of
Regency, in order to set an example to the nation, put down the King's
name for five thousand pounds; and the newspapers assured the world that
the subscription would speedily be filled. [706] But when three weeks
had passed away, it was found that only fifteen hundred pounds had been
added to the five thousand contributed by the King. Many wondered at
this; yet there was little cause for wonder. The sum which the friends
of the project had undertaken to raise was a sum which only the enemies
of the project could furnish. The country gentlemen wished well to
Harley's scheme; but they wished well to it because they wanted to
borrow money on easy terms; and, wanting to borrow money, they of course
were not able to lend it. The moneyed class alone could supply what
was necessary to the existence of the Land Bank; and the Land Bank was
avowedly intended to diminish the profits, to destroy the political
influence and to lower the social position of the moneyed class. As the
usurers did not choose to take on themselves the expense of putting down
usury, the whole plan failed in a manner which, if the aspect of public
affairs had been less alarming, would have been exquisitely ludicrous.
The day drew near. The neatly ruled pages of the subscription book at
Mercers' Hall were still blank. The Commissioners stood aghast. In
their distress they applied to the government for indulgence. Many great
capitalists, they said, were desirous to subscribe, but stood aloof
because the terms were too hard. There ought to be some relaxation.
Would the Council of Regency consent to an abatement of three hundred
thousand pounds? The finances were in such a state, and the letters in
which the King represented his wants were so urgent, that the Council
of Regency hesitated. The Commissioners were asked whether they would
engage to raise the whole sum, with this abatement. Their answer was
unsatisfactory. They did not venture to say that they could command
more than eight hundred thousand pounds. The negotiation was, therefore,
broken off. The first of August came; and the whole amount contributed
by the whole nation to the magnificent undertaking from which so much
had been expected was two thousand one hundred pounds. [707]
Just at this conjuncture Portland arrived from the Continent. He had
been sent by William with charge to obtain money, at whatever cost
and from whatever quarter. The King had strained his private credit
in Holland to procure bread for his army. But all was insufficient. He
wrote to his Ministers that, unless they could send him a speedy supply,
his troops would either rise in mutiny or desert by thousands. He knew,
he said, that it would be hazardous to call Parliament together during
his absence. But, if no other resource could be devised, that hazard
must be run. [708] The Council of Regency, in extreme embarrassment,
began to wish that the terms, hard as they were, which had been offered
by the Commissioners at Mercers' Hall had been accepted. The negotiation
was renewed. Shrewsbury, Godolphin and Portland, as agents for the
King, had several conferences with Harley and Foley, who had recently
pretended that eight hundred thousand pounds were ready to be subscribed
to the Land Bank. The Ministers gave assurances, that, if, at this
conjuncture, even half that sum were advanced, those who had done this
service to the State should, in the next session, be incorporated as a
National Land Bank. Harley and Foley at first promised, with an air of
confidence, to raise what was required. But they soon went back from
their word; they showed a great inclination to be punctilious and
quarrelsome about trifles; at length the eight hundred thousand pounds
dwindled to forty thousand; and even the forty thousand could be had
only on hard conditions. [709] So ended the great delusion of the Land
Bank. The commission expired; and the offices were closed.
And now the Council of Regency, almost in despair, had recourse to the
Bank of England. Two hundred thousand pounds was the very smallest sum
which would suffice to meet the King's most pressing wants. Would the
Bank of England advance that sum? The capitalists who lead the chief
sway in that corporation were in bad humour, and not without reason. But
fair words, earnest entreaties and large promises were not spared; all
the influence of Montague, which was justly great, was exerted; the
Directors promised to do their best; but they apprehended that it would
be impossible for them to raise the money without making a second call
of twenty per cent. on their constituents. It was necessary that the
question should be submitted to a General Court; in such a court more
than six hundred persons were entitled to vote; and the result might
well be doubted. The proprietors were summoned to meet on the fifteenth
of August at Grocers' Hall. During the painful interval of suspense,
Shrewsbury wrote to his master in language more tragic than is often
found in official letters. "If this should not succeed, God knows what
can be done. Any thing must be tried and ventured rather than lie down
and die." [710] On the fifteenth of August, a great epoch in the history
of the Bank, the General Court was held. In the chair sate Sir John
Houblon, the Governor, who was also Lord Mayor of London, and, what
would in our time be thought strange, a Commissioner of the Admiralty.
Sir John, in a speech, every word of which had been written and had been
carefully considered by the Directors, explained the case, and implored
the assembly to stand by King William. There was at first a little
murmuring. "If our notes would do," it was said, "we should be most
willing to assist His Majesty; but two hundred thousand pounds in hard
money at a time like this." The Governor announced explicitly that
nothing but gold or silver would supply the necessities of the army in
Flanders. At length the question was put to the vote; and every hand in
the Hall was held up for sending the money. The letters from the Dutch
Embassy informed the States General that the events of that day had
bound the Bank and the government together in close alliance, and that
several of the ministers had, immediately after the meeting, purchased
stock merely in order to give a pledge of their attachment to the body
which had rendered so great a service to the State. [711]
Meanwhile strenuous exertions were making to hasten the recoinage. Since
the Restoration the Mint had, like every other public establishment in
the kingdom, been a nest of idlers and jobbers. The important office of
Warden, worth between six and seven hundred a year, had become a mere
sinecure, and had been filled by a succession of fine gentlemen,
who were well known at the hazard table of Whitehall, but who never
condescended to come near the Tower. This office had just become vacant,
and Montague had obtained it for Newton. [712] The ability, the industry
and the strict uprightness of the great philosopher speedily produced
a complete revolution throughout the department which was under his
direction. [713] He devoted himself to his task with an activity which
left him no time to spare for those pursuits in which he had surpassed
Archimedes and Galileo. Till the great work was completely done, he
resisted firmly, and almost angrily, every attempt that was made by men
of science, here or on the Continent, to draw him away from his official
duties. [714] The old officers of the Mint had thought it a great feat
to coin silver to the amount of fifteen thousand pounds in a week.
When Montague talked of thirty or forty thousand, these men of form
and precedent pronounced the thing impracticable. But the energy of
the young Chancellor of the Exchequer and of his friend the Warden
accomplished far greater wonders. Soon nineteen mills were going at once
in the Tower. As fast as men could be trained to the work in London,
bands of them were sent off to other parts of the kingdom. Mints
were established at Bristol, York, Exeter, Norwich and Chester. This
arrangement was in the highest degree popular. The machinery and the
workmen were welcomed to the new stations with the ringing of bells and
the firing of guns. The weekly issue increased to sixty thousand pounds,
to eighty thousand, to a hundred thousand, and at length to a hundred
and twenty thousand. [715] Yet even this issue, though great, not only
beyond precedent, but beyond hope, was scanty when compared with the
demands of the nation. Nor did all the newly stamped silver pass into
circulation; for during the summer and autumn those politicians who were
for raising the denomination of the coin were active and clamorous;
and it was generally expected that, as soon as the Parliament should
reassemble, the standard would be lowered. Of course no person who
thought it probable that he should, at a day not far distant, be able
to pay a debt of a pound with three crown pieces instead of four, was
willing to part with a crown piece, till that day arrived. Most of the
milled pieces were therefore hoarded. [716] May, June and July passed
away without any perceptible increase in the quantity of good money. It
was not till August that the keenest observer could discern the first
faint signs of returning prosperity. [717]
The distress of the common people was severe, and was aggravated by the
follies of magistrates and by the arts of malecontents. A squire who was
one of the quorum would sometimes think it his duty to administer to his
neighbours, at this trying conjuncture, what seemed to him to be equity;
and as no two of these rural praetors had exactly the same notion of
what was equitable, their edicts added confusion to confusion. In one
parish people were, in outrageous violation of the law, threatened with
the stocks, if they refused to take clipped shillings by tale. In the
next parish it was dangerous to pay such shillings except by weight.
[718] The enemies of the government, at the same time, laboured
indefatigably in their vocation. They harangued in every place of public
resort, from the Chocolate House in Saint James's Street to the sanded
kitchen of the alehouse on the village green. In verse and prose they
incited the suffering multitude to rise up in arms. Of the tracts
which they published at this time, the most remarkable was written by
a deprived priest named Grascombe, of whose ferocity and scurrility the
most respectable nonjurors had long been ashamed. He now did his best
to persuade the rabble to tear in pieces those members of Parliament
who had voted for the restoration of the currency. [719] It would be too
much to say that the malignant industry of this man and of men like him
produced no effect on a population which was doubtless severely tried.
There were riots in several parts of the country, but riots which were
suppressed with little difficulty, and, as far as can be discovered,
without the shedding of a drop of blood. [720] In one place a crowd of
poor ignorant creatures, excited by some knavish agitator, besieged the
house of a Whig member of Parliament, and clamorously insisted on having
their short money changed. The gentleman consented, and desired to know
how much they had brought. After some delay they were able to produce a
single clipped halfcrown. [721] Such tumults as this were at a distance
exaggerated into rebellions and massacres. At Paris it was gravely
asserted in print that, in an English town which was not named, a
soldier and a butcher had quarrelled about a piece of money, that the
soldier had killed the butcher, that the butcher's man had snatched up
a cleaver and killed the soldier, that a great fight had followed, and
that fifty dead bodies had been left on the ground. [722] The truth
was, that the behaviour of the great body of the people was beyond
all praise. The judges when, in September, they returned from their
circuits, reported that the temper of the nation was excellent. [723]
There was a patience, a reasonableness, a good nature, a good faith,
which nobody had anticipated. Every body felt that nothing but mutual
help and mutual forbearance could prevent the dissolution of society. A
hard creditor, who sternly demanded payment to the day in milled money,
was pointed at in the streets, and was beset by his own creditors with
demands which soon brought him to reason. Much uneasiness had been felt
about the troops. It was scarcely possible to pay them regularly; if
they were not paid regularly, it might well be apprehended that they
would supply their wants by rapine; and such rapine it was certain that
the nation, altogether unaccustomed to military exaction and oppression,
would not tamely endure. But, strange to say, there was, through this
trying year, a better understanding than had ever been known between
the soldiers and the rest of the community. The gentry, the farmers,
the shopkeepers supplied the redcoats with necessaries in a manner
so friendly and liberal that there was no brawling and no marauding.
"Severely as these difficulties have been felt," L'Hermitage writes,
"they have produced one happy effect; they have shown how good the
spirit of the country is. No person, however favourable his opinion
of the English may have been, could have expected that a time of such
suffering would have been a time of such tranquillity." [724]
Men who loved to trace, in the strangely complicated maze of human
affairs, the marks of more than human wisdom, were of opinion that, but
for the interference of a gracious Providence, the plan so elaborately
devised by great statesmen and great philosophers would have failed
completely and ignominiously. Often, since the Revolution, the English
had been sullen and querulous, unreasonably jealous of the Dutch, and
disposed to put the worst construction on every act of the King. Had
the fourth of May found our ancestors in such a mood, it can scarcely be
doubted that sharp distress, irritating minds already irritable, would
have caused an outbreak which must have shaken and might have subverted
the throne of William. Happily, at the moment at which the loyalty of
the nation was put to the most severe test, the King was more popular
than he had ever been since the day on which the Crown was tendered to
him in the Banqueting House. The plot which had been laid against his
life had excited general disgust and horror. His reserved manners, his
foreign attachments were forgotten. He had become an object of personal
interest and of personal affection to his people. They were every where
coming in crowds to sign the instrument which bound them to defend and
to avenge him. They were every where carrying about in their hats the
badges of their loyalty to him. They could hardly be restrained from
inflicting summary punishment on the few who still dared openly to
question his title. Jacobite was now a synonyme for cutthroat. Noted
Jacobite laymen had just planned a foul murder. Noted Jacobite priests
had, in the face of day, and in the administration of a solemn ordinance
of religion, indicated their approbation of that murder. Many honest and
pious men, who thought that their allegiance was still due to James, had
indignantly relinquished all connection with zealots who seemed to think
that a righteous end justified the most unrighteous means. Such was
the state of public feeling during the summer and autumn of 1696; and
therefore it was that hardships which, in any of the seven preceding
years, would certainly have produced a rebellion, and might perhaps
have produced a counterrevolution, did not produce a single tumult too
serious to be suppressed by the constable's staff.
Nevertheless, the effect of the commercial and financial crisis in
England was felt through all the fleets and armies of the coalition. The
great source of subsidies was dry. No important military operation could
any where be attempted. Meanwhile overtures tending to peace had been
made, and a negotiation had been opened. Callieres, one of the ablest
of the many able envoys in the service of France, had been sent to
the Netherlands, and had held many conferences with Dykvelt. Those
conferences might perhaps have come to a speedy and satisfactory close,
had not France, at this time, won a great diplomatic victory in another
quarter. Lewis had, during seven years, been scheming and labouring in
vain to break the great array of potentates whom the dread of his might
and of his ambition had brought together and kept together. But, during
seven years, all his arts had been baffled by the skill of William; and,
when the eighth campaign opened, the confederacy had not been weakened
by a single desertion. Soon however it began to be suspected that the
Duke of Savoy was secretly treating with the enemy. He solemnly assured
Galway, who represented England at the Court of Turin, that there
was not the slightest ground for such suspicions, and sent to William
letters filled with professions of zeal for the common cause, and with
earnest entreaties for more money. This dissimulation continued till a
French army, commanded by Catinat, appeared in Piedmont. Then the Duke
threw off his disguise, concluded peace with France, joined his troops
to those of Catinat, marched into the Milanese, and informed the allies
whom he had just abandoned that, unless they wished to have him for an
enemy, they must declare Italy neutral ground. The Courts of Vienna
and Madrid, in great dismay, submitted to the terms which he dictated.
William expostulated and protested in vain. His influence was no longer
what it had been. The general opinion of Europe was, that the riches
and the credit of England were completely exhausted; and both her
confederates and her enemies imagined that they might safely treat her
with indignity. Spain, true to her invariable maxim that every thing
ought to be done for her and nothing by her, had the effrontery to
reproach the Prince to whom she owed it that she had not lost the
Netherlands and Catalonia, because he had not sent troops and ships
to defend her possessions in Italy. The Imperial ministers formed and
executed resolutions gravely affecting the interests of the coalition
without consulting him who had been the author and the soul of the
coalition. [725] Lewis had, after the failure of the Assassination Plot,
made up his mind to the disagreeable necessity of recognising William,
and had authorised Callieres to make a declaration to that effect. But
the defection of Savoy, the neutrality of Italy, the disunion among the
allies, and, above all, the distresses of England, exaggerated as they
were in all the letters which the Jacobites of Saint Germains received
from the Jacobites of London, produced a change. The tone of Callieres
became high and arrogant; he went back from his word, and refused to
give any pledge that his master would acknowledge the Prince of Orange
as King of Great Britain. The joy was great among the nonjurors. They
had always, they said, been certain that the Great Monarch would not be
so unmindful of his own glory and of the common interest of Sovereigns
as to abandon the cause of his unfortunate guests, and to call an
usurper his brother. They knew from the best authority that His Most
Christian Majesty had lately, at Fontainebleau, given satisfactory
assurances on this subject to King James. Indeed, there is reason
to believe that the project of an invasion of our island was again
seriously discussed at Versailles. [726] Catinat's army was now at
liberty. France, relieved from all apprehension on the side of Savoy,
might spare twenty thousand men for a descent on England; and, if the
misery and discontent here were such as was generally reported, the
nation might be disposed to receive foreign deliverers with open arms.
So gloomy was the prospect which lay before William, when, in the
autumn of 1696, he quitted his camp in the Netherlands for England. His
servants here meanwhile were looking forward to his arrival with very
strong and very various emotions. The whole political world had
been thrown into confusion by a cause which did not at first appear
commensurate to such an effect.
During his absence, the search for the Jacobites who had been concerned
in the plots of the preceding winter had not been intermitted; and of
these Jacobites none was in greater peril than Sir John Fenwick. His
birth, his connections, the high situations which he had filled, the
indefatigable activity with which he had, during several years, laboured
to subvert the government, and the personal insolence with which he had
treated the deceased Queen, marked him out as a man fit to be made an
example. He succeeded, however, in concealing himself from the officers
of justice till the first heat of pursuit was over. In his hiding place
he thought of an ingenious device which might, as he conceived, save him
from the fate of his friends Charnock and Parkyns. Two witnesses were
necessary to convict him. It appeared from what had passed on the trials
of his accomplices, that there were only two witnesses who could prove
his guilt, Porter and Goodman. His life was safe if either of these men
could be persuaded to abscond.
Fenwick was not the only person who had strong reason to wish that
Porter or Goodman, or both, might be induced to leave England. Aylesbury
had been arrested, and committed to the Tower; and he well knew that, if
these men appeared against him, his head would be in serious danger. His
friends and Fenwick's raised what was thought a sufficient sum; and two
Irishmen, or, in the phrase of the newspapers of that day, bogtrotters,
a barber named Clancy, and a disbanded captain named Donelagh, undertook
the work of corruption.
The first attempt was made on Porter. Clancy contrived to fall in with
him at a tavern, threw out significant hints, and, finding that those
hints were favourably received, opened a regular negotiation. The terms
offered were alluring; three hundred guineas down, three hundred more as
soon as the witness should be beyond sea, a handsome annuity for life,
a free pardon from King James, and a secure retreat in France. Porter
seemed inclined, and perhaps was really inclined, to consent. He said
that he still was what he had been, that he was at heart attached to
the good cause, but that he had been tried beyond his strength. Life was
sweet. It was easy for men who had never been in danger to say that none
but a villain would save himself by hanging his associates; but a few
hours in Newgate, with the near prospect of a journey on a sledge
to Tyburn, would teach such boasters to be more charitable. After
repeatedly conferring with Clancy, Porter was introduced to Fenwick's
wife, Lady Mary, a sister of the Earl of Carlisle. Every thing was soon
settled. Donelagh made the arrangements for the flight. A boat was in
waiting. The letters which were to secure to the fugitive the protection
of King James were prepared by Fenwick. The hour and place were fixed at
which Porter was to receive the first instalment of the promised reward.
But his heart misgave him. He had, in truth, gone such lengths that it
would have been madness in him to turn back. He had sent Charnock, King,
Keyes, Friend, Parkyns, Rookwood, Cranburne, to the gallows. It was
impossible that such a Judas could ever be really forgiven. In France,
among the friends and comrades of those whom he had destroyed, his life
would not be worth one day's purchase. No pardon under the Great Seal
would avert the stroke of the avenger of blood. Nay, who could say that
the bribe now offered was not a bait intended to lure the victim to the
place where a terrible doom awaited him? Porter resolved to be true
to that government under which alone he could be safe; he carried
to Whitehall information of the whole intrigue; and he received full
instructions from the ministers. On the eve of the day fixed for his
departure he had a farewell meeting with Clancy at a tavern. Three
hundred guineas were counted out on the table. Porter pocketed them,
and gave a signal. Instantly several messengers from the office of the
Secretary of State rushed into the room, and produced a warrant.
The unlucky barber was carried off to prison, tried for his offence,
convicted and pilloried. [727]
This mishap made Fenwick's situation more perilous than ever. At the
next sessions for the City of London a bill of indictment against him,
for high treason, was laid before the grand jury. Porter and Goodman
appeared as witnesses for the Crown; and the bill was found. Fenwick
now thought that it was high time to steal away to the Continent.
Arrangements were made for his passage. He quitted his hiding place, and
repaired to Romney Marsh. There he hoped to find shelter till the vessel
which was to convey him across the Channel should arrive. For, though
Hunt's establishment had been broken up, there were still in that dreary
region smugglers who carried on more than one lawless trade. It chanced
that two of these men had just been arrested on a charge of harbouring
traitors. The messenger who had taken them into custody was returning to
London with them, when, on the high road, he met Fenwick face to face.
Unfortunately for Fenwick, no face in England was better known than his.
"It is Sir John," said the officer to the prisoners: "Stand by me, my
good fellows, and, I warrant you, you will have your pardons, and a
bag of guineas besides." The offer was too tempting to be refused; but
Fenwick was better mounted than his assailants; he dashed through them,
pistol in hand, and was soon out of sight. They pursued him; the hue and
cry was raised; the bells of all the parish churches of the Marsh rang
out the alarm; the whole country was up; every path was guarded; every
thicket was beaten; every hut was searched; and at length the fugitive
was found in bed. Just then a bark, of very suspicious appearance, came
in sight; she soon approached the shore, and showed English colours; but
to the practised eyes of the Kentish fishermen she looked much like
a French privateer. It was not difficult to guess her errand. After
waiting a short time in vain for her passenger, she stood out to sea.
[728]
Fenwick, unluckily for himself, was able so far to elude the vigilance
of those who had charge of him as to scrawl with a lead pencil a short
letter to his wife. Every line contained evidence of his guilt. All, he
wrote, was over; he was a dead man, unless, indeed, his friends could,
by dint of solicitation, obtain a pardon for him. Perhaps the united
entreaties of all the Howards might succeed. He would go abroad; he
would solemnly promise never again to set foot on English ground, and
never to draw sword against the government. Or would it be possible
to bribe a juryman or two to starve out the rest? "That," he wrote, "or
nothing can save me." This billet was intercepted in its way to the
post, and sent up to Whitehall. Fenwick was soon carried to London and
brought before the Lords Justices. At first he held high language and
bade defiance to his accusers. He was told that he had not always been
so confident; and his letter to his wife was laid before him. He had not
till then been aware that it had fallen into hands for which it was not
intended. His distress and confusion became great. He felt that, if
he were instantly sent before a jury, a conviction was inevitable.
One chance remained. If he could delay his trial for a short time, the
judges would leave town for their circuits; a few weeks would be gained;
and in the course of a few weeks something might be done.
He addressed himself particularly to the Lord Steward, Devonshire, with
whom he had formerly had some connection of a friendly kind. The unhappy
man declared that he threw himself entirely on the royal mercy,
and offered to disclose all that he knew touching the plots of the
Jacobites. That he knew much nobody could doubt. Devonshire advised his
colleagues to postpone the trial till the pleasure of William could be
known. This advice was taken. The King was informed of what had
passed; and he soon sent an answer directing Devonshire to receive the
prisoner's confession in writing, and to send it over to the Netherlands
with all speed. [729]
Fenwick had now to consider what he should confess. Had he, according to
his promise, revealed all that he knew, there can be no doubt that his
evidence would have seriously affected many Jacobite noblemen, gentlemen
and clergymen. But, though he was very unwilling to die, attachment to
his party was in his mind a stronger sentiment than the fear of death.
The thought occurred to him that he might construct a story, which might
possibly be considered as sufficient to earn his pardon, which would at
least put off his trial some months, yet which would not injure a
single sincere adherent of the banished dynasty, nay, which would cause
distress and embarrassment to the enemies of that dynasty, and which
would fill the Court, the Council, and the Parliament of William with
fears and animosities. He would divulge nothing that could affect those
true Jacobites who had repeatedly awaited, with pistols loaded and
horses saddled, the landing of the rightful King accompanied by a French
army. But if there were false Jacobites who had mocked their banished
Sovereign year after year with professions of attachment and promises
of service, and yet had, at every great crisis, found some excuse for
disappointing him, and who were at that moment among the chief supports
of the usurper's throne, why should they be spared? That there were
such false Jacobites, high in political office and in military command,
Fenwick had good reason to believe. He could indeed say nothing against
them to which a Court of Justice would have listened; for none of them
had ever entrusted him with any message or letter for France; and all
that he knew about their treachery he had learned at second hand
and third hand. But of their guilt he had no doubt. One of them was
Marlborough. He had, after betraying James to William, promised to make
reparation by betraying William to James, and had, at last, after much
shuffling, again betrayed James and made peace with William. Godolphin
had practised similar deception. He had long been sending fair words to
Saint Germains; in return for those fair words he had received a
pardon; and, with this pardon in his secret drawer, he had continued to
administer the finances of the existing government. To ruin such a man
would be a just punishment for his baseness, and a great service to King
James. Still more desirable was it to blast the fame and to destroy the
influence of Russell and Shrewsbury. Both were distinguished members
of that party which had, under different names, been, during three
generations, implacably hostile to the Kings of the House of Stuart.
Both had taken a great part in the Revolution. The names of both were
subscribed to the instrument which had invited the Prince of Orange
to England. One of them was now his Minister for Maritime Affairs; the
other his Principal Secretary of State; but neither had been constantly
faithful to him. Both had, soon after his accession, bitterly resented
his wise and magnanimous impartiality, which, to their minds, disordered
by party spirit, seemed to be unjust and ungrateful partiality for the
Tory faction; and both had, in their spleen, listened to agents from
Saint Germains. Russell had vowed by all that was most sacred that he
would himself bring back his exiled Sovereign. But the vow was broken as
soon as it had been uttered; and he to whom the royal family had looked
as to a second Monk had crushed the hopes of that family at La Hogue.
Shrewsbury had not gone such lengths. Yet he too, while out of humour
with William, had tampered with the agents of James. With the power and
reputation of these two great men was closely connected the power and
reputation of the whole Whig party. That party, after some quarrels,
which were in truth quarrels of lovers, was now cordially reconciled to
William, and bound to him by the strongest ties. If those ties could be
dissolved, if he could be induced to regard with distrust and aversion
the only set of men which was on principle and with enthusiasm devoted
to his interests, his enemies would indeed have reason to rejoice.
With such views as these Fenwick delivered to Devonshire a paper so
cunningly composed that it would probably have brought some severe
calamity on the Prince to whom it was addressed, had not that Prince
been a man of singularly clear judgment and singularly lofty spirit. The
paper contained scarcely any thing respecting those Jacobite plots in
which the writer had been himself concerned, and of which he intimately
knew all the details. It contained nothing which could be of the
smallest prejudice to any person who was really hostile to the existing
order of things. The whole narrative was made up of stories, too true
for the most part, yet resting on no better authority than hearsay,
about the intrigues of some eminent warriors and statesmen, who,
whatever their former conduct might have been, were now at least hearty
in support of William. Godolphin, Fenwick averred, had accepted a seat
at the Board of Treasury, with the sanction and for the benefit of King
James. Marlborough had promised to carry over the army, Russell to
carry over the fleet. Shrewsbury, while out of office, had plotted with
Middleton against the government and King. Indeed the Whigs were now the
favourites at Saint Germains. Many old friends of hereditary right
were moved to jealousy by the preference which James gave to the new
converts. Nay, he had been heard to express his confident hope that the
monarchy would be set up again by the very hands which had pulled it
down.
Such was Fenwick's confession. Devonshire received it and sent it by
express to the Netherlands, without intimating to any of his fellow
councillors what it contained. The accused ministers afterwards
complained bitterly of this proceeding. Devonshire defended himself
by saying that he had been specially deputed by the King to take the
prisoner's information, and was bound, as a true servant of the Crown,
to transmit that information to His Majesty and to His Majesty alone.
The messenger sent by Devonshire found William at Loo. The King read the
confession, and saw at once with what objects it had been drawn up. It
contained little more than what he had long known, and had long, with
politic and generous dissimulation, affected not to know. If he spared,
employed and promoted men who had been false to him, it was not because
he was their dupe. His observation was quick and just; his intelligence
was good; and he had, during some years, had in his hands proofs of much
that Fenwick had only gathered from wandering reports. It has seemed
strange to many that a Prince of high spirit and acrimonious temper
should have treated servants, who had so deeply wronged him, with a
kindness hardly to be expected from the meekest of human beings. But
William was emphatically a statesman. Ill humour, the natural and
pardonable effect of much bodily and much mental suffering, might
sometimes impel him to give a tart answer. But never did he on any
important occasion indulge his angry passions at the expense of the
great interests of which he was the guardian. For the sake of those
interests, proud and imperious as he was by nature, he submitted
patiently to galling restraints, bore cruel indignities and
disappointments with the outward show of serenity, and not only forgave,
but often pretended not to see, offences which might well have moved him
to bitter resentment. He knew that he must work with such tools as
he had. If he was to govern England he must employ the public men of
England; and in his age, the public men of England, with much of a
peculiar kind of ability, were, as a class, lowminded and immoral. There
were doubtless exceptions. Such was Nottingham among the Tories, and
Somers among the Whigs. But the majority, both of the Tory and of the
Whig ministers of William, were men whose characters had taken the ply
in the days of the Antipuritan reaction. They had been formed in
two evil schools, in the most unprincipled of courts, and the most
unprincipled of oppositions, a court which took its character from
Charles, an opposition headed by Shaftesbury. From men so trained
it would have been unreasonable to expect disinterested and stedfast
fidelity to any cause. But though they could not be trusted, they might
be used and they might be useful. No reliance could be placed on their
principles but much reliance might be placed on their hopes and on their
fears; and of the two Kings who laid claim to the English crown, the
King from whom there was most to hope and most to fear was the King
in possession. If therefore William had little reason to esteem these
politicians his hearty friends, he had still less reason to number them
among his hearty foes. Their conduct towards him, reprehensible as it
was, might be called upright when compared with their conduct towards
James. To the reigning Sovereign they had given valuable service; to the
banished Sovereign little more than promises and professions. Shrewsbury
might, in a moment of resentment or of weakness, have trafficked with
Jacobite agents; but his general conduct had proved that he was as far
as ever from being a Jacobite. Godolphin had been lavish of fair words
to the dynasty which was out; but he had thriftily and skilfully managed
the revenues of the dynasty which was in. Russell had sworn that he
would desert with the English fleet; but he had burned the French fleet.
Even Marlborough's known treasons,--for his share in the disaster of
Brest and the death of Talmash was unsuspected--, had not done so much
harm as his exertions at Walcourt, at Cork and at Kinsale had done
good. William had therefore wisely resolved to shut his eyes to perfidy,
which, however disgraceful it might be, had not injured him, and still
to avail himself, with proper precautions, of the eminent talents which
some of his unfaithful counsellors possessed, Having determined on this
course, and having long followed it with happy effect, he could not but
be annoyed and provoked by Fenwick's confession. Sir John, it was plain,
thought himself a Machiavel. If his trick succeeded, the Princess, whom
it was most important to keep in good humour, would be alienated from
the government by the disgrace of Marlborough. The whole Whig party,
the firmest support of the throne, would be alienated by the disgrace of
Russell and Shrewsbury. In the meantime not one of those plotters whom
Fenwick knew to have been deeply concerned in plans of insurrection,
invasion, assassination, would be molested. This cunning schemer should
find that he had not to do with a novice. William, instead of turning
his accused servants out of their places, sent the confession to
Shrewsbury, and desired that it might be laid before the Lords Justices.
"I am astonished," the King wrote, "at the fellow's effrontery. You know
me too well to think that such stories as his can make any impression
on me. Observe this honest man's sincerity. He has nothing to say
except against my friends. Not a word about the plans of his brother
Jacobites." The King concluded by directing the Lords justices to send
Fenwick before a jury with all speed. [730]
The effect produced by William's letter was remarkable. Every one of the
accused persons behaved himself in a manner singularly characteristic.
Marlborough, the most culpable of all, preserved a serenity, mild,
majestic and slightly contemptuous. Russell, scarcely less criminal
than Marlborough, went into a towering passion, and breathed nothing but
vengeance against the villanous informer. Godolphin, uneasy, but wary,
reserved and selfpossessed, prepared himself to stand on the defensive.
But Shrewsbury, who of all the four was the least to blame, was utterly
overwhelmed. He wrote in extreme distress to William, acknowledged with
warm expressions of gratitude the King's rare generosity, and protested
that Fenwick had malignantly exaggerated and distorted mere trifles into
enormous crimes. "My Lord Middleton,"--such was the substance of the
letter,--"was certainly in communication with me about the time of
the battle of La Hogue. We are relations; we frequently met; we supped
together just before he returned to France; I promised to take care of
his interests here; he in return offered to do me good offices there;
but I told him that I had offended too deeply to be forgiven, and that
I would not stoop to ask forgiveness." This, Shrewsbury averred, was the
whole extent of his offence. [731] It is but too fully proved that this
confession was by no means ingenuous; nor is it likely that William
was deceived. But he was determined to spare the repentant traitor the
humiliation of owning a fault and accepting a pardon. "I can see," the
King wrote, "no crime at all in what you have acknowledged. Be assured
that these calumnies have made no unfavourable impression on me. Nay,
you shall find that they have strengthened my confidence in you." [732]
A man hardened in depravity would have been perfectly contented with an
acquittal so complete, announced in language so gracious. But Shrewsbury
was quite unnerved by a tenderness which he was conscious that he had
not merited. He shrank from the thought of meeting the master whom he
had wronged, and by whom he had been forgiven, and of sustaining the
gaze of the peers, among whom his birth and his abilities had gained for
him a station of which he felt that he was unworthy. The campaign in
the Netherlands was over. The session of Parliament was approaching.
The King was expected with the first fair wind. Shrewsbury left town and
retired to the Wolds of Gloucestershire. In that district, then one of
the wildest in the south of the island, he had a small country seat,
surrounded by pleasant gardens and fish-ponds. William had, in his
progress a year before, visited this dwelling, which lay far from the
nearest high road and from the nearest market town, and had been much
struck by the silence and loneliness of the retreat in which he found
the most graceful and splendid of English courtiers.
At one in the morning of the sixth of October, the King landed at
Margate. Late in the evening he reached Kensington. The following
morning a brilliant crowd of ministers and nobles pressed to kiss his
hand; but he missed one face which ought to have been there, and asked
where the Duke of Shrewsbury was, and when he was expected in town. The
next day came a letter from the Duke, averring that he had just had a
bad fall in hunting. His side had been bruised; his lungs had suffered;
he had spit blood, and could not venture to travel. [733] That he had
fallen and hurt himself was true; but even those who felt most kindly
towards him suspected, and not without strong reason, that he made the
most of his convenient misfortune, and, that if he had not shrunk from
appearing in public, he would have performed the journey with little
difficulty. His correspondents told him that, if he was really as ill
as he thought himself, he would do well to consult the physicians and
surgeons of the capital. Somers, especially, implored him in the most
earnest manner to come up to London. Every hour's delay was mischievous.
His Grace must conquer his sensibility. He had only to face calumny
courageously, and it would vanish. [734] The King, in a few kind lines,
expressed his sorrow for the accident. "You are much wanted here," he
wrote: "I am impatient to embrace you, and to assure you that my esteem
for you is undiminished." [735] Shrewsbury answered that he had resolved
to resign the seals. [736] Somers adjured him not to commit so fatal an
error. If at that moment His Grace should quit office, what could the
world think, except that he was condemned by his own conscience? He
would, in fact, plead guilty; he would put a stain on his own honour,
and on the honour of all who lay under the same accusation. It would no
longer be possible to treat Fenwick's story as a romance. "Forgive me,"
Somers wrote, "for speaking after this free manner; for I do own I can
scarce be temperate in this matter." [737] A few hours later William
himself wrote to the same effect. "I have so much regard for you, that,
if I could, I would positively interdict you from doing what must
bring such grave suspicions on you. At any time, I should consider your
resignation as a misfortune to myself but I protest to you that, at this
time, it is on your account more than on mine that I wish you to remain
in my service." [738] Sunderland, Portland, Russell and Wharton joined
their entreaties to their master's; and Shrewsbury consented to remain
Secretary in name. But nothing could induce him to face the Parliament
which was about to meet. A litter was sent down to him from London, but
to no purpose. He set out, but declared that he found it impossible to
proceed, and took refuge again in his lonely mansion among the hills.
[739]
While these things were passing, the members of both Houses were from
every part of the kingdom going up to Westminster. To the opening of the
session, not only England, but all Europe, looked forward with intense
anxiety. Public credit had been deeply injured by the failure of
the Land Bank. The restoration of the currency was not yet half
accomplished. The scarcity of money was still distressing. Much of the
milled silver was buried in private repositories as fast as it came
forth from the Mint. Those politicians who were bent on raising the
denomination of the coin had found too ready audience from a population
suffering under severe pressure; and, at one time, the general voice of
the nation had seemed to be on their side. [740] Of course every person
who thought it likely that the standard would be lowered, hoarded as
much money as he could hoard; and thus the cry for little shillings
aggravated the pressure from which it had sprung. [741] Both the allies
and the enemies of England imagined that her resources were spent,
that her spirit was broken, that the Commons, so often querulous and
parsimonious even in tranquil and prosperous times, would now positively
refuse to bear any additional burden, and would, with an importunity not
to be withstood, insist on having peace at any price.
But all these prognostications were confounded by the firmness and
ability of the Whig leaders, and by the steadiness of the Whig majority.
On the twentieth of October the Houses met. William addressed to them
a speech remarkable even among all the remarkable speeches in which
his own high thoughts and purposes were expressed in the dignified and
judicious language of Somers. There was, the King said, great reason
for congratulation. It was true that the funds voted in the preceding
session for the support of the war had failed, and that the recoinage
had produced great distress. Yet the enemy had obtained no advantage
abroad; the State had been torn by no convulsion at home; the loyalty
shown by the army and by the nation under severe trials had disappointed
all the hopes of those who wished evil to England. Overtures tending to
peace had been made. What might be the result of those overtures,
was uncertain; but this was certain, that there could be no safe or
honourable peace for a nation which was not prepared to wage vigorous
war. "I am sure we shall all agree in opinion that the only way of
treating with France is with our swords in our hands."
The Commons returned to their chamber; and Foley read the speech from
the chair. A debate followed which resounded through all Christendom.
That was the proudest day of Montague's life, and one of the proudest
days in the history of the English Parliament. In 1798, Burke held up
the proceedings of that day as an example to the statesmen whose hearts
had failed them in the conflict with the gigantic power of the French
republic. In 1822, Huskisson held up the proceedings of that day as an
example to a legislature which, under the pressure of severe distress,
was tempted to alter the standard of value and to break faith with
the public creditor. Before the House rose the young Chancellor of the
Exchequer, whose ascendency, since the ludicrous failure of the Tory
scheme of finance, was undisputed, proposed and carried three memorable
resolutions. The first, which passed with only one muttered No, declared
that the Commons would support the King against all foreign and domestic
enemies, and would enable him to prosecute the war with vigour. The
second, which passed, not without opposition, but without a division,
declared that the standard of money should not be altered in fineness,
weight or denomination. The third, against which not a single opponent
of the government dared to raise his voice, pledged the House to make
good all the deficiencies of all parliamentary fund's established since
the King's accession. The task of framing an answer to the royal speech
was entrusted to a Committee exclusively composed of Whigs. Montague
was chairman; and the eloquent and animated address which he drew up may
still be read in the journals with interest and pride. [742]
Within a fortnight two millions and a half were granted for the military
expenditure of the approaching year, and nearly as much for the maritime
expenditure. Provision was made without any dispute for forty thousand
seamen. About the amount of the land force there was a division. The
King asked for eighty-seven thousand soldiers; and the Tories thought
that number too large. The vote was carried by two hundred and
twenty-three to sixty-seven.
The malecontents flattered themselves, during a short time, that
the vigorous resolutions of the Commons would be nothing more than
resolutions, that it would be found impossible to restore public credit,
to obtain advances from capitalists, or to wring taxes out of the
distressed population, and that therefore the forty thousand seamen and
the eighty-seven thousand soldiers would exist only on paper. Howe,
who had been more cowed than was usual with him on the first day of the
session, attempted, a week later, to make a stand against the Ministry.
"The King," he said, "must have been misinformed; or His Majesty never
would have felicitated Parliament on the tranquil state of the country.
I come from Gloucestershire. I know that part of the kingdom well. The
people are all living on alms, or ruined by paying alms. The soldier
helps himself, sword in hand, to what he wants. There have been serious
riots already; and still more serious riots are to be apprehended."
The disapprobation of the House was strongly expressed. Several
members declared that in their counties every thing was quiet. If
Gloucestershire were in a more disturbed state than the rest of England,
might not the cause be that Gloucestershire was cursed with a more
malignant and unprincipled agitator than all the rest of England could
show? Some Gloucestershire gentlemen took issue with Howe on the facts.
There was no such distress, they said, no such discontent, no such
rioting as he had described. In that county, as in every other county,
the great body of the population was fully determined to support the
King in waging a vigorous war till he could make an honourable peace.
[743]
In fact the tide had already turned. From the moment at which the
Commons notified their fixed determination not to raise the denomination
of the coin, the milled money began to come forth from a thousand strong
boxes and private drawers. There was still pressure; but that pressure
was less and less felt day by day. The nation, though still suffering,
was joyful and grateful. Its feelings resembled those of a man who,
having been long tortured by a malady which has embittered his life, has
at last made up his mind to submit to the surgeon's knife, who has gone
through a cruel operation with safety, and who, though still smarting
from the steel, sees before him many years of health and enjoyment, and
thanks God that the worst is over. Within four days after the meeting of
Parliament there was a perceptible improvement in trade. The discount
on bank notes had diminished by one third. The price of those wooden
tallies, which, according to an usage handed to us from a rude age,
were given as receipts for sums paid into the Exchequer, had risen. The
exchanges, which had during many months been greatly against England,
had begun to turn. [744] Soon the effect of the magnanimous firmness of
the House of Commons was felt at every Court in Europe. So high indeed
was the spirit of that assembly that the King had some difficulty in
preventing the Whigs from moving and carrying a resolution that an
address should be presented to him, requesting him to enter into no
negotiation with France, till she should have acknowledged him as King
of England. [745] Such an address was unnecessary. The votes of the
Parliament had already forced on Lewis the conviction that there was no
chance of a counterrevolution. There was as little chance that he would
be able to effect that compromise of which he had, in the course of
the negotiations, thrown out hints. It was not to be hoped that either
William or the English nation would ever consent to make the settlement
of the English crown a matter of bargain with France. And even had
William and the English nation been disposed to purchase peace by such a
sacrifice of dignity, there would have been insuperable difficulties in
another quarter. James could not endure to hear of the expedient which
Lewis had suggested. "I can bear," the exile said to his benefactor, "I
can bear with Christian patience to be robbed by the Prince of Orange;
but I never will consent to be robbed by my own son." Lewis never again
mentioned the subject. Callieres received orders to make the concession
on which the peace of the civilised world depended. He and Dykvelt came
together at the Hague before Baron Lilienroth, the representative of
the King of Sweden, whose mediation the belligerent powers had accepted.
Dykvelt informed Lilienroth that the Most Christian King had engaged,
whenever the Treaty of Peace should be signed, to recognise the Prince
of Orange as King of Great Britain, and added, with a very intelligible
allusion to the compromise proposed by France, that the recognition
would be without restriction, condition or reserve. Callieres then
declared that he confirmed, in the name of his master, what Dykvelt had
said. [746] A letter from Prior, containing the good news, was delivered
to James Vernon, the Under Secretary of State, in the House of Commons.
The tidings ran along the benches--such is Vernon's expression--like
fire in a field of stubble. A load was taken away from every heart;
and all was joy and triumph. [747] The Whig members might indeed well
congratulate each other. For it was to the wisdom and resolution which
they had shown, in a moment of extreme danger and distress, that their
country was indebted for the near prospect of an honourable peace.
Meanwhile public credit, which had, in the autumn, sunk to the lowest
point, was fast reviving. Ordinary financiers stood aghast when they
learned that more than five millions were required to make good the
deficiencies of past years. But Montague was not an ordinary financier.
A bold and simple plan proposed by him, and popularly called the General
Mortgage, restored confidence. New taxes were imposed; old taxes
were augmented or continued; and thus a consolidated fund was formed
sufficient to meet every just claim on the State. The Bank of England
was at the same time enlarged by a new subscription; and the regulations
for the payment of the subscription were framed in such a manner as to
raise the value both of the notes of the corporation and of the public
securities.
Meanwhile the mints were pouring forth the new silver faster than ever.
The distress which began on the fourth of May 1696, which was almost
insupportable during the five succeeding months, and which became
lighter from the day on which the Commons declared their immutable
resolution to maintain the old standard, ceased to be painfully felt in
March 1697. Some months were still to elapse before credit completely
recovered from the most tremendous shock that it has ever sustained. But
already the deep and solid foundation had been laid on which was to rise
the most gigantic fabric of commercial prosperity that the world had
ever seen. The great body of the Whigs attributed the restoration of the
health of the State to the genius and firmness of their leader Montague.
His enemies were forced to confess, sulkily and sneeringly, that every
one of his schemes had succeeded, the first Bank subscription, the
second Bank subscription, the Recoinage, the General Mortgage, the
Exchequer Bills. But some Tories muttered that he deserved no more
praise than a prodigal who stakes his whole estate at hazard, and has
a run of good luck. England had indeed passed safely through a terrible
crisis, and was the stronger for having passed through it. But she had
been in imminent danger of perishing; and the minister who had exposed
her to that danger deserved, not to be praised, but to be hanged. Others
admitted that the plans which were popularly attributed to Montague were
excellent, but denied that those plans were Montague's. The voice of
detraction, however, was for a time drowned by the loud applauses of
the Parliament and the City. The authority which the Chancellor of
the Exchequer exercised in the House of Commons was unprecedented and
unrivalled. In the Cabinet his influence was daily increasing. He had no
longer a superior at the Board of Treasury. In consequence of Fenwick's
confession, the last Tory who held a great and efficient office in the
State had been removed, and there was at length a purely Whig Ministry.
It had been impossible to prevent reports about that confession from
getting abroad. The prisoner, indeed, had found means of communicating
with his friends, and had doubtless given them to understand that he
had said nothing against them, and much against the creatures of the
usurper. William wished the matter to be left to the ordinary tribunals,
and was most unwilling that it should be debated elsewhere. But his
counsellors, better acquainted than himself with the temper of large
and divided assemblies, were of opinion that a parliamentary discussion,
though perhaps undesirable, was inevitable. It was in the power of a
single member of either House to force on such a discussion; and in both
Houses there were members who, some from a sense of duty, some from mere
love of mischief, were determined to know whether the prisoner had,
as it was rumoured, brought grave charges against some of the most
distinguished men in the kingdom. If there must be an inquiry, it was
surely desirable that the accused statesmen should be the first to
demand it. There was, however, one great difficulty. The Whigs, who
formed the majority of the Lower House, were ready to vote, as one man,
for the entire absolution of Russell and Shrewsbury, and had no wish to
put a stigma on Marlborough, who was not in place, and therefore excited
little jealousy. But a strong body of honest gentlemen, as Wharton
called them, could not, by any management, be induced to join in a
resolution acquitting Godolphin. To them Godolphin was an eyesore. All
the other Tories who, in the earlier years of William's reign, had
borne a chief part in the direction of affairs, had, one by one, been
dismissed. Nottingham, Trevor, Leeds, were no longer in power. Pembroke
could hardly be called a Tory, and had never been really in power. But
Godolphin still retained his post at Whitehall; and to the men of the
Revolution it seemed intolerable that one who had sate at the Council
Board of Charles and James, and who had voted for a Regency, should be
the principal minister of finance. Those who felt thus had learned with
malicious delight that the First Lord of the Treasury was named in
the confession about which all the world was talking; and they were
determined not to let slip so good an opportunity of ejecting him from
office. On the other hand, every body who had seen Fenwick's paper, and
who had not, in the drunkenness of factious animosity, lost all sense
of reason and justice, must have felt that it was impossible to make
a distinction between two parts of that paper, and to treat all that
related to Shrewsbury and Russell as false, and all that related to
Godolphin as true. This was acknowledged even by Wharton, who of all
public men was the least troubled by scruples or by shame. [748] If
Godolphin had stedfastly refused to quit his place, the Whig leaders
would have been in a most embarrassing position. But a politician of no
common dexterity undertook to extricate them from their difficulties.
In the art of reading and managing the minds of men Sunderland had no
equal; and he was, as he had been during several years, desirous to
see all the great posts in the kingdom filled by Whigs. By his skilful
management Godolphin was induced to go into the royal closet, and to
request permission to retire from office; and William granted that
permission with a readiness by which Godolphin was much more surprised
than pleased. [749]
One of the methods employed by the Whig junto, for the purpose of
instituting and maintaining through all the ranks of the Whig party a
discipline never before known, was the frequent holding of meetings of
members of the House of Commons. Some of those meetings were numerous;
others were select. The larger were held at the Rose, a tavern
frequently mentioned in the political pasquinades of that time; [750]
the smaller at Russell's in Covent Garden, or at Somers's in Lincoln's
Inn Fields.
On the day on which Godolphin resigned his great office two select
meetings were called. In the morning the place of assembly was Russell's
house. In the afternoon there was a fuller muster at the Lord Keeper's.
Fenwick's confession, which, till that time, had probably been known
only by rumour to most of those who were present, was read. The
indignation of the hearers was strongly excited, particularly by one
passage, of which the sense seemed to be that not only Russell, not only
Shrewsbury, but the great body of the Whig party was, and had long
been, at heart Jacobite. "The fellow insinuates," it was said, "that the
Assassination Plot itself was a Whig scheme." The general opinion was
that such a charge could not be lightly passed over. There must be a
solemn debate and decision in Parliament. The best course would be that
the King should himself see and examine the prisoner, and that Russell
should then request the royal permission to bring the subject before the
House of Commons. As Fenwick did not pretend that he had any authority
for the stories which he had told except mere hearsay, there could be no
difficulty in carrying a resolution branding him as a slanderer, and an
address to the throne requesting that he might be forthwith brought to
trial for high treason. [751]
The opinion of the meeting was conveyed to William by his ministers;
and he consented, though not without reluctance, to see the prisoner.
Fenwick was brought into the royal closet at Kensington. A few of
the great officers of state and the Crown lawyers were present. "Your
papers, Sir John," said the King, "are altogether unsatisfactory.
Instead of giving me an account of the plots formed by you and your
accomplices, plots of which all the details must be exactly known to
you, you tell me stories, without authority, without date, without
place, about noblemen and gentlemen with whom you do not pretend to
have had any intercourse. In short your confession appears to be a
contrivance intended to screen those who are really engaged in designs
against me, and to make me suspect and discard those in whom I have good
reason to place confidence. If you look for any favour from me, give me,
this moment and on this spot, a full and straightforward account of
what you know of your own knowledge." Fenwick said that he was taken
by surprise, and asked for time. "No, Sir," said the King. "For what
purpose can you want time? You may indeed want time if you mean to draw
up another paper like this. But what I require is a plain narrative of
what you have yourself done and seen; and such a narrative you can give,
if you will, without pen and ink." Then Fenwick positively refused to
say any thing. "Be it so," said William. "I will neither hear you nor
hear from you any more." [752] Fenwick was carried back to his prison.
He had at this audience shown a boldness and determination which
surprised those who had observed his demeanour. He had, ever since he
had been in confinement, appeared to be anxious and dejected; yet now,
at the very crisis of his fate, he had braved the displeasure of
the Prince whose clemency he had, a short time before, submissively
implored. In a very few hours the mystery was explained. Just before
he had been summoned to Kensington, he had received from his wife
intelligence that his life was in no danger, that there was only
one witness against him, that she and her friends had succeeded in
corrupting Goodman. [753]
Goodman had been allowed a liberty which was afterwards, with some
reason, made matter of charge against the government. For his testimony
was most important; his character was notoriously bad; the attempts
which had been made to seduce Porter proved that, if money could save
Fenwick's life, money would not be spared; and Goodman had not, like
Porter, been instrumental in sending Jacobites to the gallows, and
therefore was not, like Porter, bound to the cause of William by an
indissoluble tie. The families of the imprisoned conspirators employed
the agency of a cunning and daring adventurer named O'Brien. This
man knew Goodman well. Indeed they had belonged to the same gang of
highwaymen. They met at the Dog in Drury Lane, a tavern which was
frequented by lawless and desperate men. O'Brien was accompanied by
another Jacobite of determined character. A simple choice was offered to
Goodman, to abscond and to be rewarded with an annuity of five hundred
a year, or to have his throat cut on the spot. He consented, half from
cupidity, half from fear. O'Brien was not a man to be tricked as Clancy
had been. He never parted company with Goodman from the moment when the
bargain was struck till they were at Saint Germains. [754]
On the afternoon of the day on which Fenwick was examined by the King at
Kensington it began to be noised abroad that Goodman was missing. He had
been many hours absent from his house. He had not been seen at his usual
haunts. At first a suspicion arose that he had been murdered by
the Jacobites; and this suspicion was strengthened by a singular
circumstance. Just after his disappearance, a human head was found
severed from the body to which it belonged, and so frightfully mangled
that no feature could be recognised. The multitude, possessed by the
notion that there was no crime which an Irish Papist might not be found
to commit, was inclined to believe that the fate of Godfrey had befallen
another victim. On inquiry however it seemed certain that Goodman had
designedly withdrawn himself. A proclamation appeared promising a reward
of a thousand pounds to any person who should stop the runaway; but it
was too late. [755]
This event exasperated the Whigs beyond measure. No jury could now find
Fenwick guilty of high treason. Was he then to escape? Was a long series
of offences against the State to go unpunished merely because to those
offences had now been added the offence of bribing a witness to suppress
his evidence and to desert his bail? Was there no extraordinary method
by which justice might strike a criminal who, solely because he was
worse than other criminals, was beyond the reach of the ordinary law?
Such a method there was, a method authorised by numerous precedents, a
method used both by Papists and by Protestants during the troubles of
the sixteenth century, a method used both by Roundheads and by Cavaliers
during the troubles of the seventeenth century, a method which scarcely
any leader of the Tory party could condemn without condemning himself, a
method of which Fenwick could not decently complain, since he had, a few
years before, been eager to employ it against the unfortunate Monmouth.
To that method the party which was now supreme in the State determined
to have recourse.
Soon after the Commons had met, on the morning of the sixth of November,
Russell rose in his place and requested to be heard. The task which he
had undertaken required courage not of the most respectable kind; but to
him no kind of courage was wanting. Sir John Fenwick, he said, had sent
to the King a paper in which grave accusations were brought against some
of His Majesty's servants; and His Majesty had, at the request of his
accused servants, graciously given orders that this paper should be
laid before the House. The confession was produced and read. The Admiral
then, with spirit and dignity worthy of a better man, demanded justice
for himself and Shrewsbury. "If we are innocent, clear us. If we are
guilty, punish us as we deserve. I put myself on you as on my country,
and am ready to stand or fall by your verdict."
It was immediately ordered that Fenwick should be brought to the
bar with all speed. Cutts, who sate in the House as member for
Cambridgeshire, was directed to provide a sufficient escort, and was
especially enjoined to take care that the prisoner should have no
opportunity of making or receiving any communication, oral or written,
on the road from Newgate to Westminster. The House then adjourned till
the afternoon.
At five o'clock, then a late hour, the mace was again put on the table;
candles were lighted; and the House and lobby were carefully cleared of
strangers. Fenwick was in attendance under a strong guard. He was called
in, and exhorted from the chair to make a full and ingenuous confession.
He hesitated and evaded. "I cannot say any thing without the King's
permission. His Majesty may be displeased if what ought to be known only
to him should be divulged to others." He was told that his apprehensions
were groundless. The King well knew that it was the right and the duty
of his faithful Commons to inquire into whatever concerned the safety of
his person and of his government. "I may be tried in a few days," said
the prisoner. "I ought not to be asked to say any thing which may rise
up in judgment against me." "You have nothing to fear," replied the
Speaker, "if you will only make a full and free discovery. No man
ever had reason to repent of having dealt candidly with the Commons of
England." Then Fenwick begged for delay. He was not a ready orator; his
memory was bad; he must have time to prepare himself. He was told, as he
had been told a few days before in the royal closet, that, prepared or
unprepared, he could not but remember the principal plots in which he
had been engaged, and the names of his chief accomplices. If he
would honestly relate what it was quite impossible that he could have
forgotten, the House would make all fair allowances, and would grant him
time to recollect subordinate details. Thrice he was removed from the
bar; and thrice he was brought back. He was solemnly informed that the
opportunity then given him of earning the favour of the Commons would
probably be the last. He persisted in his refusal, and was sent back to
Newgate.
It was then moved that his confession was false and scandalous.
Coningsby proposed to add that it was a contrivance to create jealousies
between the King and good subjects for the purpose of screening real
traitors. A few implacable and unmanageable Whigs, whose hatred of
Godolphin had not been mitigated by his resignation, hinted their doubts
whether the whole paper ought to be condemned. But after a debate
in which Montague particularly distinguished himself the motion was
carried. One or two voices cried "No;" but nobody ventured to demand a
division.
Thus far all had gone smoothly; but in a few minutes the storm broke
forth. The terrible words, Bill of Attainder, were pronounced; and all
the fiercest passions of both the great factions were instantly roused.
The Tories had been taken by surprise, and many of them had left the
house. Those who remained were loud in declaring that they never would
consent to such a violation of the first principles of justice. The
spirit of the Whigs was not less ardent, and their ranks were unbroken.
The motion for leave to bring in a bill attainting Sir John Fenwick
was carried very late at night by one hundred and seventy-nine votes to
sixty-one; but it was plain that the struggle would be long and hard.
[756]
In truth party spirit had seldom been more strongly excited. On both
sides there was doubtless much honest zeal; and on both sides an
observant eye might have detected fear, hatred, and cupidity disguised
under specious pretences of justice and public good. The baleful heat
of faction rapidly warmed into life poisonous creeping things which had
long been lying torpid, discarded spies and convicted false witnesses,
the leavings of the scourge, the branding iron and the shears. Even
Fuller hoped that he might again find dupes to listen to him. The world
had forgotten him since his pillorying. He now had the effrontery to
write to the Speaker, begging to be heard at the bar and promising much
important information about Fenwick and others. On the ninth of November
the Speaker informed the House that he had received this communication;
but the House very properly refused even to suffer the letter of so
notorious a villain to be read.
On the same day the Bill of Attainder, having been prepared by the
Attorney and Solicitor General, was brought in and read a first time.
The House was full and the debate sharp. John Manley, member for
Bossiney, one of those stanch Tories who, in the preceding session,
had long refused to sign the Association, accused the majority, in no
measured terms, of fawning on the Court and betraying the liberties of
the people. His words were taken down; and, though he tried to explain
them away, he was sent to the Tower. Seymour spoke strongly against
the bill, and quoted the speech which Caesar made in the Roman Senate
against the motion that the accomplices of Catiline should be put to
death in an irregular manner. A Whig orator keenly remarked that the
worthy Baron had forgotten that Caesar was grievously suspected of
having been himself concerned in Catiline's plot. [757] In this stage
a hundred and ninety-six members voted for the bill, a hundred and
four against it. A copy was sent to Fenwick, in order that he might
be prepared to defend himself. He begged to be heard by counsel; his
request was granted; and the thirteenth was fixed for the hearing.
Never within the memory of the oldest member had there been such a stir
round the House as on the morning of the thirteenth. The approaches
were with some difficulty cleared; and no strangers, except peers, were
suffered to come within the doors. Of peers the throng was so great that
their presence had a perceptible influence on the debate. Even Seymour,
who, having formerly been Speaker, ought to have been peculiarly mindful
of the dignity of the Commons, so strangely forgot himself as once to
say "My Lords." Fenwick, having been formally given up by the Sheriffs
of London to the Serjeant at Arms, was put to the bar, attended by two
barristers who were generally employed by Jacobite culprits, Sir
Thomas Powis and Sir Bartholomew Shower. Counsel appointed by the House
appeared in support of the bill.
The examination of the witnesses and the arguments of the advocates
occupied three days. Porter was called in and interrogated. It was
established, not indeed by legal proof, but by such moral proof as
determines the conduct of men in the affairs of common life, that
Goodman's absence was to be attributed to a scheme planned and executed
by Fenwick's friends with Fenwick's privity. Secondary evidence of what
Goodman, if he had been present, would have been able to prove,
was, after a warm debate, admitted. His confession, made on oath and
subscribed by his hand, was put in. Some of the grand jurymen who had
found the bill against Sir John gave an account of what Goodman had
sworn before them; and their testimony was confirmed by some of the
petty jurymen who had convicted another conspirator. No evidence was
produced in behalf of the prisoner. After counsel for him and against
him had been heard, he was sent back to his cell. [758] Then the real
struggle began. It was long and violent. The House repeatedly sate from
daybreak till near midnight. Once the Speaker was in the chair fifteen
hours without intermission. Strangers were freely admitted; for it was
felt that, since the House chose to take on itself the functions of a
court of justice, it ought, like a court of justice, to sit with
open doors. [759] The substance of the debates has consequently been
preserved in a report, meagre, indeed, when compared with the reports
of our time, but for that age unusually full. Every man of note in the
House took part in the discussion. The bill was opposed by Finch with
that fluent and sonorous rhetoric which had gained him the name of
Silvertongue, and by Howe with all the sharpness both of his wit and of
his temper, by Seymour with characteristic energy, and by Harley with
characteristic solemnity. On the other side Montague displayed
the powers of a consummate debater, and was zealously supported by
Littleton. Conspicuous in the front ranks of the hostile parties were
two distinguished lawyers, Simon Harcourt and William Cowper.
Both were gentlemen of honourable descent; both were distinguished
by their fine persons and graceful manners; both were renowned for
eloquence; and both loved learning and learned men. It may be added that
both had early in life been noted for prodigality and love of pleasure.
Dissipation had made them poor; poverty had made them industrious; and
though they were still, as age is reckoned at the Inns of Court, very
young men, Harcourt only thirty-six, Cowper only thirty-two, they
already had the first practice at the bar. They were destined to rise
still higher, to be the bearers of the great seal of the realm, and
the founders of patrician houses. In politics they were diametrically
opposed to each other. Harcourt had seen the Revolution with disgust,
had not chosen to sit in the Convention, had with difficulty reconciled
his conscience to the oaths, and had tardily and unwillingly signed the
Association. Cowper had been in arms for the Prince of Orange and a free
Parliament, and had, in the short and tumultuary campaign which preceded
the flight of James, distinguished himself by intelligence and courage.
Since Somers had been removed to the Woolsack, the law officers of the
Crown had not made a very distinguished figure in the Lower House, or
indeed any where else; and their deficiencies had been more than once
supplied by Cowper. His skill had, at the trial of Parkyns, recovered
the verdict which the mismanagement of the Solicitor General had, for a
moment, put in jeopardy. He had been chosen member for Hertford at
the general election of 1695, and had scarcely taken his seat when he
attained a high place among parliamentary speakers. Chesterfield many
years later, in one of his letters to his son, described Cowper as an
orator who never spoke without applause, but who reasoned feebly, and
who owed the influence which he long exercised over great assemblies to
the singular charm of his style, his voice and his action. Chesterfield
was, beyond all doubt, intellectually qualified to form a correct
judgment on such a subject. But it must be remembered that the object of
his letters was to exalt good taste and politeness in opposition to much
higher qualities. He therefore constantly and systematically attributed
the success of the most eminent persons of his age to their superiority,
not in solid abilities and acquirements, but in superficial graces of
diction and manner. He represented even Marlborough as a man of very
ordinary capacity, who, solely because he was extremely well bred and
well spoken, had risen from poverty and obscurity to the height of power
and glory. It may confidently be pronounced that both to Marlborough and
to Cowper Chesterfield was unjust. The general who saved the Empire and
conquered the Low Countries was assuredly something more than a fine
gentleman; and the judge who presided during nine years in the Court of
Chancery with the approbation of all parties must have been something
more than a fine declaimer.
Whoever attentively and impartially studies the report of the debates
will be of opinion that, on many points which were discussed at great
length and with great animation, the Whigs had a decided superiority in
argument, but that on the main question the Tories were in the right.
It was true that the crime of high treason was brought home to Fenwick
by proofs which could leave no doubt on the mind of any man of common
sense, and would have been brought home to him according to the strict
rules of law, if he had not, by committing another crime, eluded the
justice of the ordinary tribunals. It was true that he had, in the very
act of professing repentance and imploring mercy, added a new offence
to his former offences, that, while pretending to make a perfectly
ingenuous confession, he had, with cunning malice, concealed every thing
which it was for the interest of the government that he should divulge,
and proclaimed every thing which it was for the interest of the
government to bury in silence. It was a great evil that he should be
beyond the reach of punishment; it was plain that he could be reached
only by a bill of pains and penalties; and it could not be denied,
either that many such bills had passed, or that no such bill had ever
passed in a clearer case of guilt or after a fairer hearing.
All these propositions the Whigs seem to have fully established.
They had also a decided advantage in the dispute about the rule which
requires two witnesses in cases of high treason. The truth is that the
rule is absurd. It is impossible to understand why the evidence which
would be sufficient to prove that a man has fired at one of his fellow
subjects should not be sufficient to prove that he has fired at his
Sovereign. It can by no means be laid down as a general maxim that
the assertion of two witnesses is more convincing to the mind than the
assertion of one witness. The story told by one witness may be in itself
probable. The story told by two witnesses may be extravagant. The
story told by one witness may be uncontradicted. The story told by two
witnesses may be contradicted by four witnesses. The story told by one
witness may be corroborated by a crowd of circumstances. The story told
by two witnesses may have no such corroboration. The one witness may be
Tillotson or Ken. The two witnesses may be Oates and Bedloe.
The chiefs of the Tory party, however, vehemently maintained that
the law which required two witnesses was of universal and eternal
obligation, part of the law of nature, part of the law of God. Seymour
quoted the book of Numbers and the book of Deuteronomy to prove that
no man ought to be condemned to death by the mouth of a single witness.
"Caiaphas and his Sanhedrim," said Harley, "were ready enough to set up
the plea of expediency for a violation of justice; they said,--and we
have heard such things said,--'We must slay this man, or the Romans
will come and take away our place and nation.' Yet even Caiaphas and his
Sanhedrim, in that foulest act of judicial murder, did not venture to
set aside the sacred law which required two witnesses." "Even Jezebel,"
said another orator, "did not dare to take Naboth's vineyard from him
till she had suborned two men of Belial to swear falsely." "If the
testimony of one grave elder had been sufficient," it was asked, "what
would have become of the virtuous Susannah?" This last allusion called
forth a cry of "Apocrypha, Apocrypha," from the ranks of the Low
Churchmen. [760]
Over these arguments, which in truth can scarcely have imposed on those
who condescended to use them, Montague obtained a complete and easy
victory. "An eternal law! Where was this eternal law before the reign of
Edward the Sixth? Where is it now, except in statutes which relate only
to one very small class of offences. If these texts from the Pentateuch
and these precedents from the practice of the Sanhedrim prove any thing,
they prove the whole criminal jurisprudence of the realm to be a mass of
injustice and impiety. One witness is sufficient to convict a murderer,
a burglar, a highwayman, an incendiary, a ravisher. Nay, there are cases
of high treason in which only one witness is required. One witness can
send to Tyburn a gang of clippers and comers. Are you, then, prepared to
say that the whole law of evidence, according to which men have during
ages been tried in this country for offences against life and property,
is vicious and ought to be remodelled? If you shrink from saying this,
you must admit that we are now proposing to dispense, not with a divine
ordinance of universal and perpetual obligation, but simply with an
English rule of procedure, which applies to not more than two or three
crimes, which has not been in force a hundred and fifty years, which
derives all its authority from an Act of Parliament, and which may
therefore be by another, Act abrogated or suspended without offence to
God or men."
It was much less easy to answer the chiefs of the opposition when they
set forth the danger of breaking down the partition which separates the
functions of the legislator from those of the judge. "This man," it was
said, "may be a bad Englishman; and yet his cause may be the cause of
all good Englishmen. Only last year we passed an Act to regulate the
procedure of the ordinary courts in cases of treason. We passed that
Act because we thought that, in those courts, the life of a subject
obnoxious to the government was not then sufficiently secured. Yet the
life of a subject obnoxious to the government was then far more secure
than it will be if this House takes on itself to be the supreme criminal
judicature in political cases." Warm eulogies were pronounced on the
ancient national mode of trial by twelve good men and true; and indeed
the advantages of that mode of trial in political cases are obvious. The
prisoner is allowed to challenge any number of jurors with cause, and a
considerable number without cause. The twelve, from the moment at which
they are invested with their short magistracy, till the moment when they
lay it down, are kept separate from the rest of the community. Every
precaution is taken to prevent any agent of power from soliciting or
corrupting them. Every one of them must hear every word of the evidence
and every argument used on either side. The case is then summed up by a
judge who knows that, if he is guilty of partiality, he may be called to
account by the great inquest of the nation. In the trial of Fenwick at
the bar of the House of Commons all these securities were wanting. Some
hundreds of gentlemen, every one of whom had much more than half made
up his mind before the case was opened, performed the functions both of
judge and jury. They were not restrained, as a judge is restrained, by
the sense of responsibility; for who was to punish a Parliament? They
were not selected, as a jury is selected, in a manner which enables the
culprit to exclude his personal and political enemies. The arbiters of
his fate came in and went out as they chose. They heard a fragment here
and there of what was said against him, and a fragment here and there of
what was said in his favour. During the progress of the bill they were
exposed to every species of influence. One member was threatened by the
electors of his borough with the loss of his seat; another might obtain
a frigate for his brother from Russell; the vote of a third might be
secured by the caresses and Burgundy of Wharton. In the debates
arts were practised and passions excited which are unknown to well
constituted tribunals, but from which no great popular assembly divided
into parties ever was or ever will be free. The rhetoric of one orator
called forth loud cries of "Hear him." Another was coughed and scraped
down. A third spoke against time in order that his friends who were
supping might come in to divide. [761] If the life of the most worthless
man could be sported with thus, was the life of the most virtuous man
secure?
The opponents of the bill did not, indeed, venture to say that there
could be no public danger sufficient to justify an Act of Attainder.
They admitted that there might be cases in which the general rule must
bend to an overpowering necessity. But was this such a case? Even if it
were granted, for the sake of argument, that Strafford and Monmouth were
justly attainted, was Fenwick, like Strafford, a great minister who had
long ruled England north of Trent, and all Ireland, with absolute power,
who was high in the royal favour, and whose capacity, eloquence and
resolution made him an object of dread even in his fall? Or was Fenwick,
like Monmouth, a pretender to the Crown and the idol of the common
people? Were all the finest youths of three counties crowding to enlist
under his banners? What was he but a subordinate plotter? He had indeed
once had good employments; but he had long lost them. He had once had
a good estate; but he had wasted it. Eminent abilities and weight of
character he had never had. He was, no doubt, connected by marriage
with a very noble family; but that family did not share his political
prejudices. What importance, then, had he, except that importance which
his persecutors were most unwisely giving him by breaking through all
the fences which guard the lives of Englishmen in order to destroy him?
Even if he were set at liberty, what could he do but haunt Jacobite
coffeehouses, squeeze oranges, and drink the health of King James and
the Prince of Wales? If, however, the government, supported by the Lords
and the Commons, by the fleet and the army, by a militia one hundred and
sixty thousand strong, and by the half million of men who had signed the
Association, did really apprehend danger from this poor ruined baronet,
the benefit of the Habeas Corpus Act might be withheld from him. He
might be kept within four walls as long as there was the least chance of
his doing mischief. It could hardly be contended that he was an enemy so
terrible that the State could be safe only when he was in the grave.
It was acknowledged that precedents might be found for this bill, or
even for a bill far more objectionable. But it was said that whoever
reviewed our history would be disposed to regard such precedents rather
as warnings than as examples. It had many times happened that an Act of
Attainder, passed in a fit of servility or animosity, had, when fortune
had changed, or when passion had cooled, been repealed and solemnly
stigmatized as unjust. Thus, in old times, the Act which was passed
against Roger Mortimer, in the paroxysm of a resentment not unprovoked,
had been, at a calmer moment, rescinded on the ground that, however
guilty he might have been, he had not had fair play for his life. Thus,
within the memory of the existing generation, the law which attainted
Strafford had been annulled, without one dissentient voice. Nor, it
was added, ought it to be left unnoticed that, whether by virtue of the
ordinary law of cause and effect, or by the extraordinary judgment of
God, persons who had been eager to pass bills of pains and penalties,
had repeatedly perished by such bills. No man had ever made a more
unscrupulous use of the legislative power for the destruction of his
enemies than Thomas Cromwell; and it was by an unscrupulous use of the
legislative power that he was himself destroyed. If it were true that
the unhappy gentleman whose fate was now trembling in the balance had
himself formerly borne a part in a proceeding similar to that which was
now instituted against him, was not this a fact which ought to suggest
very serious reflections? Those who tauntingly reminded Fenwick that he
had supported the bill which attainted Monmouth might perhaps themselves
be tauntingly reminded, in some dark and terrible hour, that they had
supported the bill which had attainted Fenwick. "Let us remember what
vicissitudes we have seen. Let us, from so many signal examples of the
inconstancy of fortune, learn moderation in prosperity. How little
we thought, when we saw this man a favourite courtier at Whitehall, a
general surrounded with military pomp at Hounslow, that we should live
to see him standing at our bar, and awaiting his doom from our lips! And
how far is it from certain that we may not one day, in the bitterness of
our souls, vainly invoke the protection of those mild laws which we now
treat so lightly! God forbid that we should ever again be subject to
tyranny! But God forbid, above all, that our tyrants should ever be able
to plead, in justification of the worst that they can inflict upon us,
precedents furnished by ourselves!"
These topics, skilfully handled, produced a great effect on many
moderate Whigs. Montague did his best to rally his followers. We
still possess the rude outline of what must have been a most effective
peroration. "Gentlemen warn us"--this, or very nearly this, seems to
have been what he said--"not to furnish King James with a precedent
which, if ever he should be restored, he may use against ourselves. Do
they really believe that, if that evil day shall ever come, this just
and necessary law will be the pattern which he will imitate? No, Sir,
his model will be, not our bill of attainder, but his own; not our bill,
which, on full proof, and after a most fair hearing, inflicts deserved
retribution on a single guilty head; but his own bill, which, without
a defence, without an investigation, without an accusation, doomed near
three thousand people, whose only crimes were their English blood and
their Protestant faith, the men to the gallows and the women to the
stake. That is the precedent which he has set, and which he will follow.
In order that he never may be able to follow it, in order that the fear
of a righteous punishment may restrain those enemies of our country who
wish to see him ruling in London as he ruled at Dublin, I give my vote
for this bill."
In spite of all the eloquence and influence of the ministry, the
minority grew stronger and stronger as the debates proceeded. The
question that leave should be given to bring in the bill had been
carried by nearly three to one. On the question that the bill should be
committed, the Ayes were a hundred and eighty-six, the Noes a hundred
and twenty-eight. On the question that the bill should pass, the Ayes
were a hundred and eighty-nine, the Noes a hundred and fifty-six.
On the twenty-sixth of November the bill was carried up to the Lords.
Before it arrived, the Lords had made preparations to receive it. Every
peer who was absent from town had been summoned up: every peer who
disobeyed the summons and was unable to give a satisfactory explanation
of his disobedience was taken into custody by Black Rod. On the day
fixed for the first reading, the crowd on the benches was unprecedented.
The whole number of temporal Lords, exclusive of minors, Roman Catholics
and nonjurors, was about a hundred and forty. Of these a hundred and
five were in their places. Many thought that the Bishops ought to have
been permitted, if not required, to withdraw; for, by an ancient canon,
those who ministered at the altars of God were forbidden to take any
part in the infliction of capital punishment. On the trial of a peer
impeached of high treason, the prelates always retire, and leave the
culprit to be absolved or condemned by laymen. And surely, if it be
unseemly that a divine should doom his fellow creatures to death as a
judge, it must be still more unseemly that he should doom them to death
as a legislator. In the latter case, as in the former, he contracts
that stain of blood which the Church regards with horror; and it will
scarcely be denied that there are some grave objections to the shedding
of blood by Act of Attainder which do not apply to the shedding of blood
in the ordinary course of justice. In fact, when the bill for taking
away the life of Strafford was under consideration, all the spiritual
peers withdrew. Now, however, the example of Cranmer, who had voted
for some of the most infamous acts of attainder that ever passed, was
thought more worthy of imitation; and there was a great muster of lawn
sleeves. It was very properly resolved that, on this occasion, the
privilege of voting by proxy should be suspended, that the House should
be called over at the beginning and at the end of every sitting, and
that every member who did not answer to his name should be taken into
custody. [762]
Meanwhile the unquiet brain of Monmouth was teeming with strange
designs. He had now reached a time of life at which youth could no
longer be pleaded as an excuse for his faults; but he was more wayward
and eccentric than ever. Both in his intellectual and in his moral
character there was an abundance of those fine qualities which may be
called luxuries, and a lamentable deficiency of those solid qualities
which are of the first necessity. He had brilliant wit and ready
invention without common sense, and chivalrous generosity and delicacy
without common honesty. He was capable of rising to the part of the
Black Prince; and yet he was capable of sinking to the part of Fuller.
His political life was blemished by some most dishonourable actions;
yet he was not under the influence of those motives to which most of the
dishonourable actions of politicians are to be ascribed. He valued
power little and money less. Of fear he was utterly insensible. If he
sometimes stooped to be a villain,--for no milder word will come up to
the truth,--it was merely to amuse himself and to astonish other people.
In civil as in military affairs, he loved ambuscades, surprises, night
attacks. He now imagined that he had a glorious opportunity of making
a sensation, of producing a great commotion; and the temptation was
irresistible to a spirit so restless as his.
He knew, or at least strongly suspected, that the stories which Fenwick
had told on hearsay, and which King, Lords and Commons, Whigs and
Tories, had agreed to treat as calumnies, were, in the main, true. Was
it impossible to prove that they were true, to cross the wise policy of
William, to bring disgrace at once on some of the most eminent men
of both parties, to throw the whole political world into inextricable
confusion?
Nothing could be done without the help of the prisoner; and with the
prisoner it was impossible to communicate directly. It was necessary to
employ the intervention of more than one female agent. The Duchess of
Norfolk was a Mordaunt, and Monmouth's first cousin. Her gallantries
were notorious; and her husband had, some years before, tried to induce
his brother nobles to pass a bill for dissolving his marriage; but the
attempt had been defeated, in consequence partly of the zeal with
which Monmouth had fought the battle of his kinswoman. The lady, though
separated from her lord, lived in a style suitable to her rank, and
associated with many women of fashion, among others, with Lady Mary
Fenwick, and with a relation of Lady Mary, named Elizabeth Lawson. By
the instrumentality of the Duchess, Monmouth conveyed to the prisoner
several papers containing suggestions framed with much art. Let Sir
John,--such was the substance of these suggestions,--boldly affirm that
his confession is true, that he has brought accusations, on hearsay
indeed, but not on common hearsay, that he has derived his knowledge of
the facts which he has asserted from the highest quarters; and let him
point out a mode in which his veracity may be easily brought to the
test. Let him pray that the Earls of Portland and Romney, who are well
known to enjoy the royal confidence, may be called upon to declare
whether they are not in possession of information agreeing with what he
has related. Let him pray that the King may be requested to lay before
Parliament the evidence which caused the sudden disgrace of Lord
Marlborough, and any letters which may have been intercepted while
passing between Saint Germains and Lord Godolphin. "Unless," said
Monmouth to his female agents, "Sir John is under a fate, unless he
is out of his mind, he will take my counsel. If he does, his life and
honour are safe. If he does not, he is a dead man." Then this strange
intriguer, with his usual license of speech, reviled William for what
was in truth one of William's best titles to glory. "He is the worst
of men. He has acted basely. He pretends not to believe these charges
against Shrewsbury, Russell, Marlborough, Godolphin. And yet he
knows,"--and Monmouth confirmed the assertion by a tremendous oath,--"he
knows that every word of the charges is true."