CHAPTER XV

ON THE REIGN OF WILLIAM III.

The Revolution is not to be considered as a mere effort of the nation

on a pressing emergency to rescue itself from the violence of a

particular monarch; much less as grounded upon the danger of the

Anglican church, its emoluments, and dignities, from the bigotry of a

hostile religion. It was rather the triumph of those principles which,

in the language of the present day, are denominated liberal or

constitutional, over those of absolute monarchy, or of monarchy not

effectually controlled by stated boundaries. It was the termination of

a contest between the regal power and that of parliament, which could

not have been brought to so favourable an issue by any other means.

But, while the chief renovation in the spirit of our government was

likely to spring from breaking the line of succession, while no

positive enactments would have sufficed to give security to freedom

with the legitimate race of Stuart on the throne, it would have been

most culpable, and even preposterous, to permit this occasion to pass

by, without asserting and defining those rights and liberties, which

the very indeterminate nature of the king's prerogative at common law,

as well as the unequivocal extension it had lately received, must

continually place in jeopardy. The House of Lords indeed, as I have

observed in the last chapter, would have conferred the Crown on

William and Mary, leaving the redress of grievances to future

arrangement; and some eminent lawyers in the Commons, Maynard and

Pollexfen, seem to have had apprehensions of keeping the nation too

long in a state of anarchy.[152] But the great majority of the Commons

wisely resolved to go at once to the root of the nation's grievances,

and show their new sovereign that he was raised to the throne for the

sake of those liberties, by violating which his predecessor had

forfeited it.

_Declaration of rights._--The declaration of rights presented to the

Prince of Orange by the Marquis of Halifax, as speaker of the Lords,

in the presence of both houses, on the 18th of February, consists of

three parts: a recital of the illegal and arbitrary acts committed by

the late king, and of their consequent vote of abdication; a

declaration, nearly following the words of the former part, that such

enumerated acts are illegal; and a resolution, that the throne shall

be filled by the Prince and Princess of Orange, according to the

limitations mentioned in the last chapter. Thus the declaration of

rights was indissolubly connected with the revolution-settlement, as

its motive and its condition.

The Lords and Commons in this instrument declare: That the pretended

power of suspending laws, and the execution of laws, by regal

authority without consent of parliament, is illegal; That the

pretended power of dispensing with laws by regal authority, as it hath

been assumed and exercised of late, is illegal; That the commission

for creating the late court of commissioners for ecclesiastical

causes, and all other commissions and courts of the like nature, are

illegal and pernicious; That levying of money for or to the use of the

Crown, by pretence of prerogative without grant of parliament, for

longer time or in any other manner than the same is or shall be

granted, is illegal; That it is the right of the subjects to petition

the king, and that all commitments or prosecutions for such petitions

are illegal; That the raising or keeping a standing army within the

kingdom in time of peace, unless it be with consent of parliament, is

illegal; That the subjects which are protestants may have arms for

their defence suitable to their condition, and as allowed by law; That

elections of members of parliament ought to be free; That the freedom

of speech or debates, or proceedings in parliament, ought not to be

impeached or questioned in any court or place out of parliament; That

excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed,

nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted; That juries ought to be

duly impanelled and returned, and that jurors which pass upon men in

trials of high treason ought to be freeholders; That all grants and

promises of fines and forfeitures of particular persons, before

conviction, are illegal and void; And that, for redress of all

grievances, and for the amending, strengthening, and preserving of the

laws, parliaments ought to be held frequently.[153]

_Bill of rights._--This declaration was, some months afterwards,

confirmed by a regular act of the legislature in the bill of rights,

which establishes at the same time the limitation of the Crown

according to the vote of both houses, and adds the important

provision; That all persons who shall hold communion with the church

of Rome, or shall marry a papist, shall be excluded, and for ever

incapable to possess, inherit, or enjoy the Crown and government of

this realm; and in all such cases, the people of these realms shall be

absolved from their allegiance, and the Crown shall descend to the

next heir. This was as near an approach to a generalisation of the

principle of resistance as could be admitted with any security for

public order.

The bill of rights contained only one clause extending rather beyond

the propositions laid down in the declaration. This relates to the

dispensing power, which the Lords had been unwilling absolutely to

condemn. They softened the general assertion of its illegality sent up

from the other house, by inserting the words "as it has been exercised

of late."[154] In the bill of rights therefore a clause was

introduced, that no dispensation by non obstante to any statute should

be allowed, except in such cases as should be specially provided for

by a bill to be passed during the present session. This reservation

went to satisfy the scruples of the Lords, who did not agree without

difficulty to the complete abolition of a prerogative, so long

recognised, and in many cases so convenient.[155] But the palpable

danger of permitting it to exist in its indefinite state, subject to

the interpretation of time-serving judges, prevailed with the Commons

over this consideration of conveniency; and though in the next

parliament the judges were ordered by the House of Lords to draw a

bill for the king's dispensing in such cases wherein they should find

it necessary, and for abrogating such laws as had been usually

dispensed with and were become useless, the subject seems to have

received no further attention.[156]

Except in this article of the dispensing prerogative, we cannot say,

on comparing the bill of rights with what is proved to be the law by

statutes, or generally esteemed to be such on the authority of our

best writers, that it took away any legal power of the Crown, or

enlarged the limits of popular and parliamentary privilege. The most

questionable proposition, though at the same time one of the most

important, was that which asserts the illegality of a standing army in

time of peace, unless with consent of parliament. It seems difficult

to perceive in what respect this infringed on any private man's right,

or by what clear reason (for no statute could be pretended) the king

was debarred from enlisting soldiers by voluntary contract for the

defence of his dominions, especially after an express law had declared

the sole power over the militia, without giving any definition of

that word, to reside in the Crown. This had never been expressly

maintained by Charles II.'s parliaments; though the general repugnance

of the nation to what was certainly an innovation might have provoked

a body of men, who did not always measure their words, to declare its

illegality.[157] It was however at least unconstitutional, by which,

as distinguished from illegal, I mean a novelty of much importance,

tending to endanger the established laws. And it is manifest that the

king could never inflict penalties by martial law, or generally by any

other course, on his troops, nor quarter them on the inhabitants, nor

cause them to interfere with the civil authorities; so that, even if

the proposition so absolutely expressed may be somewhat too wide, it

still should be considered as virtually correct.[158] But its distinct

assertion in the bill of rights put a most essential restraint on the

monarchy, and rendered it in effect for ever impossible to employ any

direct force or intimidation against the established laws and

liberties of the people.

_Discontent with the new government._--A revolution so thoroughly

remedial, and accomplished with so little cost of private suffering,

so little of angry punishment or oppression of the vanquished, ought

to have been hailed with unbounded thankfulness and satisfaction. The

nation's deliverer and chosen sovereign, in himself the most

magnanimous and heroic character of that age, might have expected no

return but admiration and gratitude. Yet this was very far from being

the case. In no period of time under the Stuarts were public

discontent and opposition of parliament more prominent than in the

reign of William III.; and that high-souled prince enjoyed far less of

his subject's affection than Charles II. No part of our history

perhaps is read upon the whole with less satisfaction than these

thirteen years, during which he sat upon his elective throne. It will

be sufficient for me to sketch generally the leading causes, and the

errors both of the prince and people, which hindered the blessings of

the revolution from being duly appreciated by its contemporaries.

The votes of the two houses, that James had abdicated, or in plainer

words forfeited, his royal authority, that the crown was vacant, that

one out of the regular line of succession should be raised to it, were

so untenable by any known law, so repugnant to the principles of the

established church, that a nation accustomed to think upon matters of

government only as lawyers and churchmen dictated, could not easily

reconcile them to its preconceived notions of duty. The first burst of

resentment against the late king was mitigated by his fall;

compassion, and even confidence, began to take place of it; his

adherents--some denying or extenuating the faults of his

administration, others more artfully representing them as capable of

redress by legal measures--having recovered from their consternation,

took advantage of the necessary delay before the meeting of the

convention, and of the time consumed in its debates, to publish

pamphlets and circulate rumours in his behalf.[159] Thus, at the

moment when William and Mary were proclaimed (though it may be

probable that a majority of the kingdom sustained the bold votes of

its representatives), there was yet a very powerful minority who

believed the constitution to be most violently shaken, if not

irretrievably destroyed, and the rightful sovereign to have been

excluded by usurpation. The clergy were moved by pride and shame, by

the just apprehension that their influence over the people would be

impaired, by jealousy or hatred of the nonconformists, to deprecate so

practical a confutation of the doctrines they had preached, especially

when an oath of allegiance to their new sovereign came to be imposed;

and they had no alternative but to resign their benefices, or wound

their reputation and consciences by submission upon some casuistical

pretext.[160] Eight bishops, including the primate and several of

those who had been foremost in the defence of the church during the

late reign, with about four hundred clergy, some of them highly

distinguished, chose the more honourable course of refusing the new

oaths; and thus began the schism of the non-jurors, more mischievous

in its commencement than its continuance, and not so dangerous to the

government of William III. and George I. as the false submission of

less sincere men.[161]

It seems undeniable that the strength of this Jacobite faction sprung

from the want of apparent necessity for the change of government.

Extreme oppression produces an impetuous tide of resistance, which

bears away the reasonings of the casuists. But the encroachments of

James II., being rather felt in prospect than much actual injury, left

men in a calmer temper, and disposed to weigh somewhat nicely the

nature of the proposed remedy. The revolution was, or at least seemed

to be, a case of political expediency; and expediency is always a

matter of uncertain argument. In many respects it was far better

conducted, more peaceably, more moderately, with less passion and

severity towards the guilty, with less mixture of democratic

turbulence, with less innovation on the regular laws, than if it had

been that extreme case of necessity which some are apt to require. But

it was obtained on this account with less unanimity and heartfelt

concurrence of the entire nation.

_Character and errors of William._--The demeanour of William, always

cold and sometimes harsh, his foreign origin (a sort of crime in

English eyes) and foreign favourites, the natural and almost laudable

prejudice against one who had risen by the misfortunes of a very near

relation, a desire of power not very judiciously displayed by him,

conspired to keep alive this disaffection; and the opposite party,

regardless of all the decencies of political lying, took care to

aggravate it by the vilest calumnies against one, who, though not

exempt from errors, must be accounted the greatest man of his own age.

It is certain that his government was in very considerable danger for

three or four years after the revolution, and even to the peace of

Ryswick. The change appeared so marvellous, and contrary to the bent

of men's expectation, that it could not be permanent. Hence he was

surrounded by the timid and the treacherous; by those who meant to

have merits to plead after a restoration, and those who meant at least

to be secure. A new and revolutionary government is seldom fairly

dealt with. Mankind, accustomed to forgive almost everything in favour

of legitimate prescriptive power, exact an ideal faultlessness from

that which claims allegiance on the score of its utility. The personal

failings of its rulers, the negligences of their administration, even

the inevitable privations and difficulties which the nature of human

affairs or the misconduct of their predecessors create, are imputed to

them with invidious minuteness. Those who deem their own merit

unrewarded, become always a numerous and implacable class of

adversaries; those whose schemes of public improvement have not been

followed, think nothing gained by the change, and return to a restless

censoriousness in which they have been accustomed to place delight.

With all these it was natural that William should have to contend; but

we cannot in justice impute all the unpopularity of his administration

to the disaffection of one party, or the fickleness and ingratitude of

another. It arose in no slight degree from errors of his own.

_Jealousy of the whigs._--The king had been raised to the throne by

the vigour and zeal of the whigs; but the opposite party were so

nearly upon an equality in both houses that it would have been

difficult to frame his government on an exclusive basis. It would also

have been highly impolitic, and, with respect to some few persons,

ungrateful, to put a slight upon those who had an undeniable majority

in the most powerful classes. William acted, therefore, on a wise and

liberal principle, in bestowing offices of trust on Lord Danby, so

meritorious in the revolution, and on Lord Nottingham, whose probity

was unimpeached; while he gave the whigs, as was due, a decided

preponderance in his council. Many of them, however, with that

indiscriminating acrimony which belongs to all factions, could not

endure the elevation of men who had complied with the court too long,

and seemed by their tardy opposition[162] to be rather the patriots of

the church than of civil liberty. They remembered that Danby had been

impeached as a corrupt and dangerous minister; that Halifax had been

involved, at least by holding a confidential office at the time, in

the last and worst part of Charles's reign. They saw Godolphin, who

had concurred in the commitment of the bishops, and every other

measure of the late king, still in the treasury; and, though they

could not reproach Nottingham with any misconduct, were shocked that

his conspicuous opposition to the new settlement should be rewarded

with the post of secretary of state. The mismanagement of affairs in

Ireland during 1689, which was very glaring, furnished specious

grounds for suspicion that the king was betrayed.[163] It is probable

that he was so, though not at that time by the chiefs of his ministry.

This was the beginning of that dissatisfaction with the government of

William, on the part of those who had the most zeal for his throne,

which eventually became far more harassing than the conspiracies of

his real enemies. Halifax gave way to the prejudices of the Commons,

and retired from power. These prejudices were no doubt unjust, as they

respected a man so sound in principle, though not uniform in conduct,

and who had withstood the arbitrary maxims of Charles and James in

that cabinet, of which he unfortunately continued too long a member.

But his fall is a warning to English statesmen, that they will be

deemed responsible to their country for measures which they

countenance by remaining in office, though they may resist them in

council.

_Bill of indemnity._--The same honest warmth which impelled the whigs

to murmur at the employment of men sullied by their compliance with

the court, made them unwilling to concur in the king's desire of a

total amnesty. They retained the bill of indemnity in the Commons; and

excepting some by name, and many more by general clauses, gave their

adversaries a pretext for alarming all those whose conduct had not

been irreproachable. Clemency is indeed for the most part the wisest,

as well as the most generous policy; yet it might seem dangerous to

pass over with unlimited forgiveness that servile obedience to

arbitrary power, especially in the judges, which, as it springs from a

base motive, is best controlled by the fear of punishment. But some of

the late king's instruments had fled with him, others were lost and

ruined; it was better to follow the precedent set at the restoration,

than to give them a chance of regaining public sympathy by a

prosecution out of the regular course of law.[164] In one instance,

the expulsion of Sir Robert Sawyer from the house, the majority

displayed a just resentment against one of the most devoted adherents

of the prerogative, so long as civil liberty alone was in danger.

Sawyer had been latterly very conspicuous in defence of the church;

and it was expedient to let the nation see that the days of Charles

II. were not entirely forgotten.[165] Nothing was concluded as to the

indemnity in this parliament; but in the next, William took the

matter into his own hands by sending down an act of grace.

_Bill for restoring corporations._--I scarcely venture, at this

distance from the scene, to pronounce an opinion as to the clause

introduced by the whigs into a bill for restoring corporations, which

excluded for the space of seven years all who had acted or even

concurred in surrendering charters from municipal offices of trust.

This was no doubt intended to maintain their own superiority by

keeping the church or tory faction out of corporations. It evidently

was not calculated to assuage the prevailing animosities. But, on the

other hand, the cowardly submissiveness of the others to the quo

warrantos seemed at least to deserve this censure; and the measure

could by no means be put on a level in point of rigour with the

corporation act of Charles II. As the dissenters, unquestioned friends

of the revolution, had been universally excluded by that statute, and

the tories had lately been strong enough to prevent their

re-admission, it was not unfair for the opposite party, or rather for

the government, to provide some security against men, who, in spite of

their oaths of allegiance, were not likely to have thoroughly abjured

their former principles. This clause, which modern historians

generally condemn as oppressive, had the strong support of Mr. Somers,

then solicitor-general. It was, however, lost through the court's

conjunction with the tories in the lower house, and the bill itself

fell to the ground in the upper; so that those who had come into

corporations by very ill means retained their power, to the great

disadvantage of the revolution party; as the next elections made

appear.[166]

But if the whigs behaved in these instances with too much of that

passion, which, though offensive and mischievous in its excess, is yet

almost inseparable from patriotism and incorrupt sentiments in so

numerous an assembly as the House of Commons, they amply redeemed

their glory by what cost them the new king's favour, their wise and

admirable settlement of the revenue.

_Settlement of the revenue._--The first parliament of Charles II. had

fixed on £1,200,000 as the ordinary revenue of the Crown, sufficient

in times of no peculiar exigency for the support of its dignity and

for the public defence. For this they provided various resources; the

hereditary excise on liquors granted in lieu of the king's feudal

rights, other excise and custom duties granted for his life, the

post-office, the crown lands, the tax called hearth money, or two

shillings for every house, and some of smaller consequence. These in

the beginning of that reign fell short of the estimate; but before its

termination, by the improvement of trade and stricter management of

the customs, they certainly exceeded that sum. For the revenue of

James from these sources, on an average of the four years of his

reign, amounted to £1,500,964; to which something more than £400,000

is to be added for the produce of duties imposed for eight years by

his parliament of 1685.[167]

William appears to have entertained no doubt that this great revenue,

as well as all the power and prerogative of the Crown, became vested

in himself as King of England, or at least ought to be instantly

settled by parliament according to the usual method.[168] There could

indeed be no pretence for disputing his right to the hereditary

excise, though this seems to have been questioned in debate; but the

Commons soon displayed a considerable reluctance to grant the

temporary revenue for the king's life. This had been done for several

centuries in the first parliament of every reign. But the accounts,

for which they called on this occasion, exhibited so considerable an

increase of the receipts on one hand, so alarming a disposition of the

expenditure on the other, that they deemed it expedient to restrain a

liberality, which was not only likely to go beyond their intention,

but to place them, at least in future times, too much within the power

of the Crown. Its average expenses appeared to have been £1,700,000.

Of this £610,000 was the charge of the late king's army, and £83,493

of the ordnance. Nearly £90,000 was set under the suspicious head of

secret service, imprested to Mr. Guy, secretary of the treasury.[169]

Thus it was evident that, far from sinking below the proper level, as

had been the general complaint of the court in the Stuart reigns, the

revenue was greatly and dangerously above it; and its excess might

either be consumed in unnecessary luxury, or diverted to the worse

purposes of despotism and corruption. They had indeed just declared a

standing army to be illegal. But there could be no such security for

the observance of this declaration as the want of means in the Crown

to maintain one. Their experience of the interminable contention about

supply, which had been fought with various success between the kings

of England and their parliaments for some hundred years, dictated a

course to which they wisely and steadily adhered, and to which,

perhaps above all other changes at this revolution, the augmented

authority of the House of Commons must be ascribed.

_Appropriation of supplies._--They began by voting that £1,200,000

should be the annual revenue of the Crown in time of peace; and that

one half of this should be appropriated to the maintenance of the

king's government and royal family, or what is now called the civil

list, the other to the public defence and contingent expenditure.[170]

The breaking out of an eight years' war rendered it impossible to

carry into effect these resolutions as to the peace establishment: but

they did not lose sight of their principle, that the king's regular

and domestic expenses should be determined by a fixed annual sum,

distinct from the other departments of public service. They speedily

improved upon their original scheme of a definite revenue, by taking a

more close and constant superintendence of these departments, the

navy, army, and ordnance. Estimates of the probable expenditure were

regularly laid before them, and the supply granted was strictly

appropriated to each particular service.

This great and fundamental principle, as it has long been justly

considered, that the money voted by parliament is appropriated, and

can only be applied, to certain specified heads of expenditure, was

introduced, as I have before mentioned, in the reign of Charles II.,

and generally, though not in every instance, adopted by his

parliament. The unworthy House of Commons that sat in 1685, not

content with a needless augmentation of the revenue, took credit with

the king for not having appropriated their supplies.[171] But from the

revolution it has been the invariable usage. The lords of the

treasury, by a clause annually repeated in the appropriation act of

every session, are forbidden, under severe penalties, to order by

their warrant any monies in the exchequer, so appropriated, from being

issued for any other service, and the officers of the exchequer to

obey any such warrant. This has given the House of Commons so

effectual a control over the executive power, or, more truly speaking,

has rendered it so much a participator in that power, that no

administration can possibly subsist without its concurrence; nor can

the session of parliament be intermitted for an entire year, without

leaving both the naval and military force of the kingdom unprovided

for. In time of war, or in circumstances that may induce war, it has

not been very uncommon to deviate a little from the rule of

appropriation, by a grant of considerable sums on a vote of credit,

which the Crown is thus enabled to apply at its discretion during the

recess of parliament; and we have had also too frequent experience,

that the charges of public service have not been brought within the

limits of the last year's appropriation. But the general principle has

not perhaps been often transgressed without sufficient reason; and a

House of Commons would be deeply responsible to the country, if

through supine confidence it should abandon that high privilege which

has made it the arbiter of court factions, and the regulator of

foreign connections. It is to this transference of the executive

government (for the phrase is hardly too strong) from the Crown to the

two houses of parliament, and especially the Commons, that we owe the

proud attitude which England has maintained since the revolution, so

extraordinarily dissimilar, in the eyes of Europe, to her condition,

under the Stuarts. The supplies meted out with niggardly caution by

former parliaments to sovereigns whom they could not trust, have

flowed with redundant profuseness, when they could judge of their

necessity and direct their application. Doubtless the demand has

always been fixed by the ministers of the Crown, and its influence has

retrieved in some degree the loss of authority; but it is still true

that no small portion of the executive power, according to the

established laws and customs of our government, has passed into the

hands of that body, which prescribes the application of the revenue,

as well as investigates at its pleasure every act of the

administration.[172]

_Dissatisfaction of the king._--The convention parliament continued

the revenue, as it already stood, until December 1690.[173] Their

successors complied so far with the king's expectation as to grant the

excise duties, besides those that were hereditary, for the lives of

William and Mary, and that of the survivor.[174] The customs they only

continued for four years. They provided extraordinary supplies for the

conduct of the war on a scale of armament, and consequently of

expenditure, unparalleled in the annals of England. But the

hesitation, and, as the king imagined, the distrust they had shown in

settling the ordinary revenue, sunk deep into his mind, and chiefly

alienated him from the whigs, who were stronger and more conspicuous

than their adversaries in the two sessions of 1689. If we believe

Burnet, he felt so indignantly what appeared a systematic endeavour to

reduce his power below the ancient standard of the monarchy, that he

was inclined to abandon the government, and leave the nation to

itself. He knew well, as he told the bishop, what was to be alleged

for the two forms of government, a monarchy and a commonwealth, and

would not determine which was preferable; but of all forms he thought

the worst was that of a monarchy without the necessary powers.[175]

The desire of rule in William III. was as magnanimous and

public-spirited as ambition can ever be in a human bosom. It was the

consciousness not only of having devoted himself to a great cause, the

security of Europe, and especially of Great Britain and Holland,

against unceasing aggression, but of resources in his own firmness and

sagacity which no other person possessed. A commanding force, a

copious revenue, a supreme authority in councils, were not sought, as

by the crowd of kings, for the enjoyment of selfish vanity and

covetousness, but as the only sure instruments of success in his high

calling, in the race of heroic enterprise which Providence had

appointed for the elect champion of civil and religious liberty. We

can hardly wonder that he should not quite render justice to the

motives of those who seemed to impede his strenuous energies; that he

should resent as ingratitude those precautions against abuse of power

by him, the recent deliverer of the nation, which it had never called

for against those who had sought to enslave it.

But reasonable as this apology may be, it was still an unhappy error

of William that he did not sufficiently weigh the circumstances which

had elevated him to the English throne, and the alteration they had

inevitably made in the relations between the Crown and the parliament.

Chosen upon the popular principle of general freedom and public good,

on the ruins of an ancient hereditary throne, he could expect to reign

on no other terms than as the chief of a commonwealth, with no other

authority than the sense of the nation and of parliament deemed

congenial to the new constitution. The debt of gratitude to him was

indeed immense, and not sufficiently remembered; but it was due for

having enabled the nation to regenerate itself, and to place barriers

against future assaults, to provide securities against future

misgovernment. No one could seriously assert that James II. was the

only sovereign of whom there had been cause to complain. In almost

every reign, on the contrary, which our history records, the innate

love of arbitrary power had produced more or less of oppression. The

revolution was chiefly beneficial, as it gave a stronger impulse to

the desire of political liberty, and rendered it more extensively

attainable. It was certainly not for the sake of replacing James by

William with equal powers of doing injury, that the purest and wisest

patriots engaged in that cause; but as the sole means of making a

royal government permanently compatible with freedom and justice. The

bill of rights had pretended to do nothing more than stigmatise some

recent proceedings: were the representatives of the nation to stop

short of other measures, because they seemed novel and restrictive of

the Crown's authority, when for the want of them the Crown's authority

had nearly freed itself from all restriction? Such was their true

motive for limiting the revenue, and such the ample justification of

those important statutes enacted in the course of this reign, which

the king, unfortunately for his reputation and peace of mind, too

jealously resisted.

_No republican party in existence._--It is by no means unusual to find

mention of a commonwealth or republican party, as if it existed in

some force at the time of the revolution, and throughout the reign of

William III.; nay some writers, such as Hume, Dalrymple, and

Somerville, have, by putting them in a sort of balance against the

Jacobites, as the extremes of the whig and tory factions, endeavoured

to persuade us that the one was as substantial and united a body as

the other. It may, however, be confidently asserted, that no

republican party had any existence; if by that word we are to

understand a set of men whose object was the abolition of our limited

monarchy. There might unquestionably be persons, especially among the

independent sect, who cherished the memory of what they called the

good old cause, and thought civil liberty irreconcilable with any form

of regal government. But these were too inconsiderable, and too far

removed from political influence, to deserve the appellation of a

party. I believe it would be difficult to name five individuals, to

whom even a speculative preference of a commonwealth may with

probability be ascribed. Were it otherwise, the numerous pamphlets of

this period would bear witness to their activity. Yet, with the

exception perhaps of one or two, and those rather equivocal, we should

search, I suspect, the collections of that time in vain for any

manifestations of a republican spirit. If indeed an ardent zeal to see

the prerogative effectually restrained, to vindicate that high

authority of the House of Commons over the executive administration

which it has in fact claimed and exercised, to purify the house itself

from corrupt influence, if a tendency to dwell upon the popular origin

of civil society, and the principles which Locke, above other writers,

had brought again into fashion, be called republican (as in a primary

but less usual sense of the word they may), no one can deny that this

spirit eminently characterised the age of William III. And schemes of

reformation emanating from this source were sometimes offered to the

world, trenching more perhaps on the established constitution than

either necessity demanded or prudence warranted. But these were

anonymous and of little influence; nor did they ever extend to the

absolute subversion of the throne.[176]

_William employs tories in ministry._--William, however, was very

early led to imagine, whether through the insinuations of Lord

Nottingham, as Burnet pretends, or the natural prejudice of kings

against those who do not comply with them, that there not only existed

a republican party, but that it numbered many supporters among the

principal whigs. He dissolved the convention-parliament; and gave his

confidence for some time to the opposite faction.[177] But, among

these, a real disaffection to his government prevailed so widely that

he could with difficulty select men sincerely attached to it. The

majority professed only to pay allegiance as to a sovereign _de

facto_, and violently opposed the bill of recognition in 1690, both on

account of the words rightful and lawful king which it applied to

William, and of its declaring the laws passed in the last parliament

to have been good and valid.[178] They had influence enough with the

king to defeat a bill proposed by the whigs, by which an oath of

abjuration of James's right was to be taken by all persons in

trust.[179] It is by no means certain that even those who abstained

from all connection with James after his loss of the throne, would

have made a strenuous resistance in case of his landing to recover

it.[180] But we know that a large proportion of the tories were

engaged in a confederacy to support him. Almost every peer, in fact,

of any consideration among that party, with the exception of Lord

Nottingham, is implicated by the secret documents which Macpherson and

Dalrymple have brought to light; especially Godolphin, Carmarthen, and

Marlborough, the second at that time prime minister of William (as he

might justly be called), the last with circumstances of extraordinary

and abandoned treachery towards his country as well as his

allegiance.[181] Two of the most distinguished whigs (and if the

imputation is not fully substantiated against others[182] by name, we

know generally that many were liable to it), forfeited a high name

among their contemporaries, in the eyes of a posterity which has known

them better; the Earl of Shrewsbury, from that strange feebleness of

soul which hung like a spell upon his nobler qualities, and Admiral

Russell, from insolent pride and sullenness of temper. Both these

were engaged in the vile intrigues of a faction they abhorred; but

Shrewsbury soon learned again to revere the sovereign he had

contributed to raise, and withdrew from the contamination of

Jacobitism. It does not appear that he betrayed that trust which

William is said with extraordinary magnanimity to have reposed on him,

after a full knowledge of his connection with the court of St.

Germain.[183] But Russell, though compelled to win the battle of La

Hogue against his will, took care to render his splendid victory as

little advantageous as possible. The credulity and almost wilful

blindness of faction is strongly manifested in the conduct of the

House of Commons as to the quarrel between this commander and the

board of admiralty. They chose to support one who was secretly a

traitor, because he bore the name of whig, tolerating his infamous

neglect of duty and contemptible excuses; in order to pull down an

honest, though not very able minister, who belonged to the

tories.[184] But they saw clearly that the king was betrayed, though

mistaken, in this instance, as to the persons; and were right in

concluding that the men who had effected the revolution were in

general most likely to maintain it; or, in the words of a committee of

the whole house, "That his majesty be humbly advised, for the

necessary support of his government, to employ in his councils and

management of his affairs such persons only whose principles oblige

them to stand by him and his right against the late King James, and

all other pretenders whatsoever."[185] It is plain from this and other

votes of the Commons, that the tories had lost that majority which

they seem to have held in the first session of this parliament.[186]

It is not, however, to be inferred from this extensive combination in

favour of the banished king, that his party embraced the majority of

the nation, or that he could have been restored with any general

testimonies of satisfaction. The friends of the revolution were still

by far the more powerful body. Even the secret emissaries of James

confess that the common people were strongly prejudiced against his

return. His own enumeration of peers attached to his cause cannot be

brought to more than thirty, exclusive of catholics;[187] and the real

Jacobites were, I believe, in a far less proportion among the Commons.

The hopes of that wretched victim of his own bigotry and violence

rested less on the loyalty of his former subjects, or on their

disaffection to his rival, than on the perfidious conspiracy of

English statesmen and admirals, of lord-lieutenants and governors of

towns, and on so numerous a French army as an ill-defended and

disunited kingdom would be incapable to resist. He was to return, not

as his brother, alone and unarmed, strong only in the consentient

voice of the nation, but amidst the bayonets of 30,000 French

auxiliaries. These were the pledges of just and constitutional rule,

whom our patriot Jacobites invoked against the despotism of William

III. It was from a king of the house of Stuart, from James II., from

one thus encircled by the soldiers of Louis XIV., that we were to

receive the guarantee of civil and religious liberty. Happily the

determined love of arbitrary power, burning unextinguished amidst

exile and disgrace, would not permit him to promise, in any distinct

manner, those securities which a large portion of his own adherents

required. The Jacobite faction was divided between compounders and

non-compounders; the one insisting on the necessity of holding forth a

promise of such new enactments upon the king's restoration as might

remove all jealousies as to the rights of the church and people; the

other, more agreeably to James's temper, rejecting every compromise

with what they called the republican party at the expense of his

ancient prerogative.[188] In a declaration which he issued from St.

Germain in 1692 there was so little acknowledgment of error, so few

promises of security, so many exceptions from the amnesty he offered,

that the wiser of his partisans in England were willing to insinuate

that it was not authentic.[189] This declaration, and the virulence of

Jacobite pamphlets in the same tone, must have done harm to his

cause.[190] He published another declaration next year at the earnest

request of those who had seceded to his side from that of the

revolution, in which he held forth more specific assurances of

consenting to a limitation of his prerogative.[191] But no reflecting

man could avoid perceiving that such promises wrung from his distress

were illusory and insincere, that in the exultation of triumphant

loyalty, even without the sword of the Gaul thrown into the scale of

despotism, those who dreamed of a conditional restoration and of fresh

guarantees for civil liberty, would find, like the presbyterians of

1660, that it became them rather to be anxious about their own pardon,

and to receive it as a signal boon of the king's clemency. The

knowledge thus obtained of James's incorrigible obstinacy seems

gradually to have convinced the disaffected that no hope for the

nation or for themselves could be drawn from his restoration.[192] His

connections with the treacherous counsellors of William grew weaker;

and even before the peace of Ryswick it was evident that the aged

bigot could never wield again the sceptre he had thrown away. The

scheme of assassinating our illustrious sovereign, which some of

James's desperate zealots had devised without his privity, as may

charitably and even reasonably be supposed,[193] gave a fatal blow to

the interests of that faction. It was instantly seen that the murmurs

of malecontent whigs had nothing in common with the disaffection of

Jacobites. The nation resounded with an indignant cry against the

atrocious conspiracy. An association abjuring the title of James, and

pledging the subscribers to revenge the king's death, after the model

of that in the reign of Elizabeth, was generally signed by both houses

of parliament, and throughout the kingdom.[194] The adherents of the

exiled family dwindled into so powerless a minority that they could

make no sort of opposition to the act of settlement, and did not

recover an efficient character as a party till towards the latter end

of the ensuing reign.

_Attainder of Sir John Fenwick._--Perhaps the indignation of

parliament against those who sought to bring back despotism through

civil war and the murder of an heroic sovereign, was carried too far

in the bill for attainting Sir John Fenwick of treason. Two witnesses,

required by our law in a charge of that nature, Porter and Goodman,

had deposed before the grand jury to Fenwick's share in the scheme of

invasion, though there is no reason to believe that he was privy to

the intended assassination of the king. His wife subsequently

prevailed on Goodman to quit the kingdom; and thus it became

impossible to obtain a conviction in the course of law. This was the

apology for a special act of the legislature, by which he suffered the

penalties of treason. It did not, like some other acts of attainder,

inflict a punishment beyond the offence, but supplied the deficiency

of legal evidence. It was sustained by the production of Goodman's

examination before the privy council, and by the evidence of two

grand-jurymen as to the deposition he had made on oath before them,

and on which they had found the bill of indictment. It was also shown

that he had been tampered with by Lady Mary Fenwick to leave the

kingdom. This was undoubtedly as good secondary evidence as can well

be imagined; and, though in criminal cases such evidence is not

admissible by courts of law, it was plausibly urged that the

legislature might prevent Fenwick from taking advantage of his own

underhand management, without transgressing the moral rules of

justice, or even setting the dangerous precedent of punishing treason

upon a single testimony. Yet, upon the whole, the importance of

adhering to the stubborn rules of law in matters of treason is so

weighty, and the difficulty of keeping such a body as the House of

Commons within any less precise limits so manifest, that we may well

concur with those who thought Sir John Fenwick much too inconsiderable

a person to warrant such an anomaly. The jealous sense of liberty

prevalent in William's reign produced a very strong opposition to this

bill of attainder; it passed in each house, especially in the Lords,

by a small majority.[195] Nor perhaps would it have been carried but

for Fenwick's imprudent disclosure, in order to save his life, of some

great statesmen's intrigues with the late king; a disclosure which he

dared not, or was not in a situation to confirm, but which rendered

him the victim of their fear and revenge. Russell, one of those

accused, brought into the Commons the bill of attainder; Marlborough

voted in favour of it, the only instance wherein he quitted the

tories; Godolphin and Bath, with more humanity, took the other side;

and Shrewsbury absented himself from the House of Lords.[196] It is

now well known that Fenwick's discoveries went not a step beyond the

truth. Their effect, however, was beneficial to the state; as by

displaying a strange want of secrecy in the court of St. Germains,

Fenwick never having had any direct communication with those he

accused, it caused Godolphin and Marlborough to break off their

dangerous course of perfidy.[197]

_Ill success of the war._--Amidst these scenes of dissension and

disaffection, and amidst the public losses and decline which

aggravated them, we have scarce any object to contemplate with

pleasure, but the magnanimous and unconquerable soul of William.

Mistaken in some parts of his domestic policy, unsuited by some

failings of his character for the English nation, it is still to his

superiority in virtue and energy over all her own natives in that age

that England is indebted for the preservation of her honour and

liberty; not at the crisis only of the revolution, but through the

difficult period that elapsed until the peace of Ryswick. A war of

nine years, generally unfortunate, unsatisfactory in its result,

carried on at a cost unknown to former times, amidst the decay of

trade, the exhaustion of resources, the decline, as there seems good

reason to believe, of population itself, was the festering wound that

turned a people's gratitude into factiousness and treachery. It was

easy to excite the national prejudices against campaigns in Flanders,

especially when so unsuccessful, and to inveigh against the neglect of

our maritime power. Yet, unless we could have been secure against

invasion, which Louis would infallibly have attempted, had not his

whole force been occupied by the grand alliance, and which, in the

feeble condition of our navy and commerce, at one time could not have

been impracticable, the defeats of Steenkirk and Landen might probably

have been sustained at home. The war of 1689, and the great

confederacy of Europe, which William alone could animate with any

steadiness and energy, were most evidently and undeniably the means of

preserving the independence of England. That danger, which has

sometimes been in our countrymen's mouths with little meaning, of

becoming a province to France, was then close and actual; for I hold

the restoration of the house of Stuart to be but another expression

for that ignominy and servitude.

_Expenses of the war._--The expense therefore of this war must not be

reckoned unnecessary; nor must we censure the government for that

small portion of our debt which it was compelled to entail on

posterity.[198] It is to the honour of William's administration, and

of his parliaments, not always clear-sighted, but honest and zealous

for the public weal, that they deviated so little from the

praiseworthy, though sometimes impracticable, policy of providing a

revenue commensurate with the annual expenditure. The supplies

annually raised during the war were about five millions, more than

double the revenue of James II. But a great decline took place in the

produce of the taxes by which that revenue was levied. In 1693, the

customs had dwindled to less than half their amount before the

revolution, the excise duties to little more than half.[199] This

rendered heavy impositions on land inevitable; a tax always obnoxious,

and keeping up disaffection in the most powerful class of the

community. The first land-tax was imposed in 1690, at the rate of

three shillings in the pound on the rental; and it continued ever

afterwards to be annually granted, at different rates, but commonly at

four shillings in the pound, till it was made perpetual in 1798. A tax

of twenty per cent. might well seem grievous; and the notorious

inequality of the assessment in different counties tended rather to

aggravate the burthen upon those whose contribution was the fairest.

Fresh schemes of finance were devised, and, on the whole, patiently

borne by a jaded people. The Bank of England rose under the auspices

of the whig party, and materially relieved the immediate exigencies of

the government, while it palliated the general distress, by

discounting bills and lending money at an easier rate of interest. Yet

its notes were depreciated twenty per cent. in exchange for silver;

and exchequer tallies at least twice as much, till they were funded at

an interest of eight per cent.[200] But, these resources generally

falling very short of calculation, and being anticipated at such an

exorbitant discount, a constantly increasing deficiency arose; and

public credit sunk so low, that about the year 1696 it was hardly

possible to pay the fleet and army from month to month, and a total

bankruptcy seemed near at hand. These distresses again were enhanced

by the depreciation of the circulating coin, and by the bold remedy of

a re-coinage, which made the immediate stagnation of commerce more

complete. The mere operation of exchanging the worn silver coin for

the new, which Mr. Montague had the courage to do without lowering the

standard, cost the government two millions and a half. Certainly the

vessel of our commonwealth has never been so close to shipwreck as in

this period; we have seen the storm raging in still greater terror

round our heads, but with far stouter planks and tougher cables to

confront and ride through it.

Those who accused William of neglecting the maritime force of England,

knew little what they said, or cared little about its truth.[201] A

soldier and a native of Holland, he naturally looked to the Spanish

Netherlands as the theatre on which the battle of France and Europe

was to be fought. It was by the possession of that country and its

chief fortresses that Louis aspired to hold Holland in vassalage, to

menace the coasts of England, and to keep the Empire under his

influence. And if, with the assistance of those brave regiments, who

learned, in the well-contested though unfortunate battles of that war,

the skill and discipline which made them conquerors in the next, it

was found that France was still an overmatch for the allies, what

would have been effected against her by the decrepitude of Spain, the

perverse pride of Austria, and the selfish disunion of Germany? The

commerce of France might, perhaps, have suffered more by an

exclusively maritime warfare; but we should have obtained this

advantage, which in itself is none, and would not have essentially

crippled her force, at the price of abandoning to her ambition the

quarry it had so long in pursuit. Meanwhile the naval annals of this

war added much to our renown; Russell, glorious in his own despite at

La Hogue, Rooke, and Shovel kept up the honour of the English flag.

After that great victory, the enemy never encountered us in battle;

and the wintering of the fleet at Cadiz in 1694, a measure determined

on by William's energetic mind, against the advice of his ministers,

and in spite of the fretful insolence of the admiral, gave us so

decided a pre-eminence both in the Atlantic and Mediterranean seas,

that it is hard to say what more could have been achieved by the most

exclusive attention to the navy.[202] It is true that, especially

during the first part of the war, vast losses were sustained through

the capture of merchant ships; but this is the inevitable lot of a

commercial country, and has occurred in every war, until the practice

of placing the traders under convoy of armed ships was introduced.

And, when we consider the treachery which pervaded this service, and

the great facility of secret intelligence which the enemy possessed,

we may be astonished that our failures and losses were not still more

decisive.

_Treaty of Ryswick._--The treaty of Ryswick was concluded on at least

as fair terms as almost perpetual ill fortune could warrant us to

expect. It compelled Louis XIV. to recognise the king's title, and

thus both humbled the court of St. Germains, and put an end for

several years to its intrigues. It extinguished, or rather the war

itself had extinguished, one of the bold hopes of the French court,

the scheme of procuring the election of the dauphin to the empire. It

gave at least a breathing time to Europe, so long as the feeble lamp

of Charles II.'s life should continue to glimmer, during which the

fate of his vast succession might possibly be regulated without injury

to the liberties of Europe.[203] But to those who looked with the

king's eyes on the prospects of the continent, this pacification could

appear nothing else than a preliminary armistice of vigilance and

preparation. He knew that the Spanish dominions, or at least as large

a portion of them as could be grasped by a powerful arm, had been for

more than thirty years the object of Louis XIV. The acquisitions of

that monarch at Aix-la-Chapelle and Nimeguen had been comparatively

trifling, and seem hardly enough to justify the dread that Europe felt

of his aggressions. But in contenting himself for the time with a few

strong towns, or a moderate district, he constantly kept in view the

weakness of the King of Spain's constitution. The queen's renunciation

of her right of succession was invalid in the jurisprudence of his

court. Sovereigns, according to the public law of France,

uncontrollable by the rights of others, were incapable of limiting

their own. They might do all things but guarantee the privileges of

their subjects or the independence of foreign states. By the Queen of

France's death, her claim upon the inheritance of Spain was devolved

upon the dauphin; so that ultimately, and virtually in the first

instance, the two great monarchies would be consolidated, and a single

will would direct a force much more than equal to all the rest of

Europe. If we admit that every little oscillation in the balance of

power has sometimes been too minutely regarded by English statesmen,

it would be absurd to contend, that such a subversion of it as the

union of France and Spain under one head did not most seriously

threaten both the independence of England and Holland.

_Jealousy of the Commons._--The House of Commons which sat at the

conclusion of the treaty of Ryswick, chiefly composed of whigs, and

having zealously co-operated in the prosecution of the late war, could

not be supposed lukewarm in the cause of liberty, or indifferent to

the aggrandisement of France. But the nation's exhausted state seemed

to demand an intermission of its burthens, and revived the natural and

laudable disposition to frugality which had characterised in all

former times an English parliament. The arrears of the war, joined to

loans made during its progress, left a debt of about seventeen

millions, which excited much inquietude, and evidently could not be

discharged but by steady retrenchment and uninterrupted peace. But,

besides this, a reluctance to see a standing army established

prevailed among the great majority both of whigs and tories. It was

unknown to their ancestors--this was enough for one party; it was

dangerous to liberty--this alarmed the other. Men of ability and

honest intention, but, like most speculative politicians of the

sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, rather too fond of seeking

analogies in ancient history, influenced the public opinion by their

writings, and carried too far the undeniable truth, that a large army

at the mere control of an ambitious prince may often overthrow the

liberties of a people.[204] It was not sufficiently remembered that

the bill of rights, the annual mutiny bill, the necessity of annual

votes of supply for the maintenance of a regular army, besides, what

was far more than all, the publicity of all acts of government, and

the strong spirit of liberty burning in the people, had materially

diminished a danger which it would not be safe entirely to contemn.

_Army reduced._--Such, however, was the influence of what may be

called the constitutional antipathy of the English in that age to a

regular army, that the Commons, in the first session after the peace,

voted that all troops raised since 1680 should be disbanded, reducing

the forces to about 7000 men, which they were with difficulty

prevailed upon to augment to 10,000.[205] They resolved at the same

time that, "in a just sense and acknowledgment of what great things

his majesty has done for these kingdoms, a sum not exceeding £700,000

be granted to his majesty during his life, for the support of the

civil list." So ample a gift from an impoverished nation is the

strongest testimony of their affection to the king.[206] But he was

justly disappointed by the former vote, which, in the hazardous

condition of Europe, prevented this country from wearing a countenance

of preparation, more likely to avert than to bring on a second

conflict. He permitted himself, however, to carry this resentment too

far, and lost sight of that subordination to the law which is the duty

of an English sovereign, when he evaded compliance with this

resolution of the Commons, and took on himself the unconstitutional

responsibility of leaving sealed orders, when he went to Holland, that

16,000 men should be kept up, without the knowledge of his ministers,

which they as unconstitutionally obeyed. In the next session a new

parliament having been elected, full of men strongly imbued with what

the courtiers styled commonwealth principles, or an extreme jealousy

of royal power,[207] it was found impossible to resist a diminution

of the army to 7000 troops.[208] These too were voted to be natives of

the British dominions; and the king incurred the severest

mortification of his reign, in the necessity of sending back his

regiments of Dutch guards and French refugees. The messages that

passed between him and the parliament bear witness how deeply he felt,

and how fruitlessly he deprecated, this act of unkindness and

ingratitude, so strikingly in contrast with the deference that

parliament has generally shown to the honours and prejudices of the

Crown in matters of far higher moment.[209] The foreign troops were

too numerous, and it would have been politic to conciliate the

nationality of the multitude by reducing their number; yet they had

claims which a grateful and generous people should not have forgotten:

they were, many of them, the chivalry of protestantism, the Huguenot

gentlemen who had lost all but their swords in a cause which we deemed

our own; they were the men who had terrified James from Whitehall, and

brought about a deliverance, which, to speak plainly, we had neither

sense nor courage to achieve for ourselves, or which at least we could

never have achieved without enduring the convulsive throes of anarchy.

_Irish forfeitures resumed._--There is, if not mere apology for the

conduct of the Commons, yet more to censure on the king's side, in

another scene of humiliation which he passed through, in the business

of the Irish forfeitures. These confiscations of the property of those

who had fought on the side of James, though, in a legal sense, at the

Crown's disposal, ought undoubtedly to have been applied to the public

service. It was the intention of parliament that two-thirds at least

of these estates should be sold for that purpose; and William had, in

answer to an address (Jan. 1690) promised to make no grant of them

till the matter should be considered in the ensuing session. Several

bills were brought in to carry the original resolutions into effect,

but, probably through the influence of government, they always fell to

the ground in one or other house of parliament. Meanwhile the king

granted away the whole of these forfeitures, about a million of acres,

with a culpable profuseness, to the enriching of his personal

favourites, such as the Earl of Portland and the Countess of

Orkney.[210] Yet as this had been done in the exercise of a lawful

prerogative, it is not easy to justify the act of resumption passed in

1699. The precedents for resumption of grants were obsolete, and from

bad times. It was agreed on all hands that the royal domain is not

inalienable; if this were a mischief, as could not perhaps be doubted,

it was one that the legislature had permitted with open eyes till

there was nothing left to be alienated. Acts therefore of this kind

shake the general stability of possession, and destroy that confidence

in which the practical sense of freedom consists, that the absolute

power of the legislature, which in strictness is as arbitrary in

England as in Persia, will be exercised in consistency with justice

and lenity. They are also accompanied for the most part, as appears to

have been the case in this instance of the Irish forfeitures, with

partiality and misrepresentation as well as violence, and seldom fail

to excite an odium far more than commensurate to the transient

popularity which attends them at the outset.[211]

But, even if the resumption of William's Irish grants could be

reckoned defensible, there can be no doubt that the mode adopted by

the Commons, of tacking, as it was called, the provisions for this

purpose to a money bill, so as to render it impossible for the Lords

even to modify them without depriving the king of his supply, tended

to subvert the constitution and annihilate the rights of a co-equal

house of parliament. This most reprehensible device, though not an

unnatural consequence of their pretended right to an exclusive concern

in money bills, had been employed in a former instance during this

reign.[212] They were again successful on this occasion; the Lords

receded from their amendments, and passed the bill at the king's

desire, who perceived that the fury of the Commons was tending to a

terrible convulsion.[213] But the precedent was infinitely dangerous

to their legislative power. If the Commons, after some more attempts

of the same nature, desisted from so unjust an encroachment, it must

be attributed to that which has been the great preservative of the

equilibrium in our government, the public voice of a reflecting

people, averse to manifest innovation, and soon offended by the

intemperance of factions.

_Parliamentary enquiries._--The essential change which the fall of the

old dynasty had wrought in our constitution displayed itself in such a

vigorous spirit of enquiry and interference of parliament with all the

course of government as, if not absolutely new, was more uncontested

and more effectual than before the revolution. The Commons indeed

under Charles II. had not wholly lost sight of the precedents which

the long parliament had established for them; but not without

continual resistance from the court, in which their right of

examination was by no means admitted. But the tories throughout the

reign of William evinced a departure from the ancient principles of

their faction in nothing more than in asserting to the fullest extent

the powers and privileges of the Commons; and, in the coalition they

formed with the malcontent whigs, if the men of liberty adopted the

nickname of the men of prerogative, the latter did not less take up

the maxims and feelings of the former. The bad success and suspected

management of public affairs co-operated with the strong spirit of

party to establish this important accession of authority to the House

of Commons. In June 1689, a special committee was appointed to enquire

into the miscarriages of the war in Ireland, especially as to the

delay in relieving Londonderry. A similar committee was appointed in

the Lords. The former reported severely against Colonel Lundy,

governor of that city; and the house addressed the king, that he might

be sent over to be tried for the treasons laid to his charge.[214] I

do not think there is any earlier precedent in the Journals for so

specific an enquiry into the conduct of a public officer, especially

one in military command. It marks therefore very distinctly the change

of spirit which I have so frequently mentioned. No courtier has ever

since ventured to deny this general right of enquiry, though it is the

constant practice to elude it. The right to enquire draws with it the

necessary means, the examination of witnesses, records, papers,

enforced by the strong arm of parliamentary privilege. In one respect

alone these powers have fallen rather short; the Commons do not

administer an oath; and having neglected to claim this authority in

the irregular times when they could make a privilege by a vote, they

would now perhaps find difficulty in obtaining it by consent of the

house of peers. They renewed this committee for enquiring into the

miscarriages of the war in the next session.[215] They went very fully

into the dispute between the board of admiralty and Admiral Russell,

after the battle of La Hogue;[216] and the year after investigated the

conduct of his successors, Killigrew and Delaval, in the command of

the Channel Fleet.[217] They went, in the winter of 1694, into a very

long examination of the admirals and the orders issued by the

admiralty during the preceding year; and then voted that the sending

the fleet to the Mediterranean, and the continuing it there this

winter, has been to the honour and interest of his majesty, and his

kingdoms.[218] But it is hardly worth while to enumerate later

instances of exercising a right which had become indisputable, and,

even before it rested on the basis of precedent, could not reasonably

be denied to those who might advise, remonstrate, and impeach.

It is not surprising that, after such important acquisitions of power,

the natural spirit of encroachment, or the desire to distress a

hostile government, should have led to endeavours, which by their

success would have drawn the executive administration more directly

into the hands of parliament. A proposition was made by some peers, in

December 1692, for a committee of both houses to consider of the

present state of the nation, and what advice should be given to the

king concerning it. This dangerous project was lost by 48 to 36,

several tories and dissatisfied whigs uniting in a protest against its

rejection.[219] The king had in his speech to parliament requested

their advice in the most general terms; and this slight expression,

though no more than is contained in the common writ of summons, was

tortured into a pretext for so extraordinary a proposal as that of a

committee of delegates, or council of state, which might soon have

grasped the entire administration. It was at least a remedy so little

according to precedent, or the analogy of our constitution, that some

very serious cause of dissatisfaction with the conduct of affairs

could be its only excuse.

Burnet has spoken with reprobation of another scheme engendered by the

same spirit of enquiry and control, that of a council of trade, to be

nominated by parliament, with powers for the effectual preservation of

the interests of the merchants. If the members of it were intended to

be immovable, or if the vacancies were to be filled by consent of

parliament, this would indeed have encroached on the prerogative in a

far more eminent degree than the famous India bill of 1783, because

its operation would have been more extensive and more at home. And,

even if they were only named in the first instance, as has been usual

in parliamentary commissioners of account or enquiry, it would still

be material to ask, what extent of power for the preservation of trade

was to be placed in their hands. The precise nature of the scheme is

not explained by Burnet. But it appears by the Journals that this

council was to receive information from merchants as to the necessity

of convoys, and send directions to the board of admiralty, subject to

the king's control, to receive complaints and represent the same to

the king, and in many other respects to exercise very important and

anomalous functions. They were not however to be members of the house.

But even with this restriction, it was too hazardous a departure from

the general maxims of the constitution.[220]

_Treaties of partition._--The general unpopularity of William's

administration, and more particularly the reduction of the forces,

afford an ample justification for the two treaties of partition which

the tory faction, with scandalous injustice and inconsistency, turned

to his reproach. No one could deny that the aggrandisement of France

by both of these treaties was of serious consequence. But, according

to English interests, the first object was to secure the Spanish

Netherlands from becoming provinces of that power; and next to

maintain the real independence of Spain and the Indies. Italy was but

the last in order; and though the possession of Naples and Sicily,

with the ports of Tuscany, as stipulated in the treaty of partition,

would have rendered France absolute mistress of that whole country and

of the Mediterranean sea, and essentially changed the balance of

Europe, it was yet more tolerable than the acquisition of the whole

monarchy in the name of a Bourbon prince, which the opening of the

succession without previous arrangement was likely to produce. They at

least who shrunk from the thought of another war, and studiously

depreciated the value of continental alliances, were the last who

ought to have exclaimed against a treaty which had been ratified as

the sole means of giving us something like security, without the cost

of fighting for it. Nothing therefore could be more unreasonable than

the clamour of a tory House of Commons in 1701 (for the malcontent

whigs were now so consolidated with the tories as in general to bear

their name) against the partition treaties; nothing more unfair than

the impeachment of the four lords, Portland, Orford, Somers, and

Halifax, on that account. But we must at the same time remark, that it

is more easy to vindicate the partition treaties themselves, than to

reconcile the conduct of the king and of some others with the

principles established in our constitution. William had taken these

important negotiations wholly into his own hands, not even

communicating them to any of his English ministers, except Lord

Jersey, until his resolution was finally settled. Lord Somers, as

chancellor, had put the great seal to blank powers, as a legal

authority to the negotiators; which evidently could not be valid,

unless on the dangerous principle that the seal is conclusive against

all exception.[221] He had also sealed the ratification of the treaty,

though not consulted upon it, and though he seems to have had

objections to some of the terms; and in both instances he set up the

king's command as a sufficient defence. The exclusion of all those

whom, whether called privy or cabinet counsellors, the nation holds

responsible for its safety, from this great negotiation, tended to

throw back the whole executive government into the single will of the

sovereign, and ought to have exasperated the House of Commons far more

than the actual treaties of partition, which may probably have been

the safest choice in a most perilous condition of Europe. The

impeachments however were in most respects so ill substantiated by

proof, that they have generally been reckoned a disgraceful instance

of party spirit.[222]

_Improvements in constitution under William._--The whigs, such of them

at least as continued to hold that name in honour, soon forgave the

mistakes and failings of their great deliverer; and indeed a high

regard for the memory of William III. may justly be reckoned one of

the tests by which genuine whiggism, as opposed both to tory and

republican principles, has always been recognised. By the opposite

party he was rancorously hated; and their malignant calumnies still

sully the stream of history.[223] Let us leave such as prefer Charles

I. to William III. in the enjoyment of prejudices which are not likely

to be overcome by argument. But it must ever be an honour to the

English Crown that it has been worn by so great a man. Compared with

him, the statesmen who surrounded his throne, the Sunderlands,

Godolphins, and Shrewsburys, even the Somerses and Montagues, sink

into insignificance. He was, in truth, too great, not for the times

wherein he was called to action, but for the peculiar condition of a

king of England after the revolution; and as he was the last sovereign

of this country, whose understanding and energy of character have been

very distinguished, so was he the last who has encountered the

resistance of his parliament, or stood apart and undisguised in the

maintenance of his own prerogative. His reign is no doubt one of the

most important in our constitutional history, both on account of its

general character, which I have slightly sketched, and of those

beneficial alterations in our law to which it gave rise. These now

call for our attention.

_Bill for triennial parliaments._--The enormous duration of seventeen

years, for which Charles II. protracted his second parliament, turned

the thoughts of all who desired improvements in the constitution

towards some limitation on a prerogative which had not hitherto been

thus abused. Not only the continuance of the same House of Commons

during such a period destroyed the connection between the people and

their representatives, and laid open the latter, without

responsibility, to the corruption which was hardly denied to prevail;

but the privilege of exemption from civil process made needy and

worthless men secure against their creditors, and desirous of a seat

in parliament as a complete safeguard to fraud and injustice. The term

of three years appeared sufficient to establish a control of the

electoral over the representative body, without recurring to the

ancient but inconvenient scheme of annual parliaments, which men

enamoured of a still more popular form of government than our own were

eager to recommend. A bill for this purpose was brought into the House

of Lords in December 1689, but lost by the prorogation.[224] It passed

both houses early in 1693, the whigs generally supporting, and the

tories opposing it; but on this, as on many other great questions of

this reign, the two parties were not so regularly arrayed against each

other as on points of a more personal nature.[225] To this bill the

king refused his assent: an exercise of prerogative which no ordinary

circumstances can reconcile either with prudence or with a

constitutional administration of government. But the Commons, as it

was easy to foresee, did not abandon so important a measure; a similar

bill received the royal assent in November 1694.[226] By the triennial

bill it was simply provided that every parliament should cease and

determine within three years from its meeting. The clause contained in

the act of Charles II. against the intermission of parliaments for

more than three years is repeated; but it was not thought necessary to

revive the somewhat violent and perhaps impracticable provisions by

which the act of 1641 had secured their meeting; it being evident that

even annual sessions might now be relied upon as indispensable to the

machine of government.

This annual assembly of parliament was rendered necessary, in the

first place, by the strict appropriation of the revenue according to

votes of supply. It was secured next, by passing the mutiny bill,

under which the army is held together, and subjected to military

discipline, for a short term, seldom or never exceeding twelve months.

These are the two effectual securities against military power; that no

pay can be issued to the troops without a previous authorisation by

the Commons in a committee of supply, and by both houses in an act of

appropriation; and that no officer or soldier can be punished for

disobedience, nor any court martial held, without the annual

re-enactment of the mutiny bill. Thus it is strictly true that, if the

king were not to summon parliament every year, his army would cease to

have a legal existence; and the refusal of either house to concur in

the mutiny bill would at once wrest the sword out of his grasp. By the

bill of rights, it is declared unlawful to keep any forces in time of

peace without consent of parliament. This consent, by an invariable

and wholesome usage, is given only from year to year; and its

necessity may be considered perhaps the most powerful of those causes

which have transferred so much even of the executive power into the

management of the two houses of parliament.

_Law of treason._--The reign of William is also distinguished by the

provisions introduced into our law for the security of the subject

against iniquitous condemnations on the charge of high treason, and

intended to perfect those of earlier times, which had proved

insufficient against the partiality of judges. But upon this occasion

it will be necessary to take up the history of our constitutional law

on this important head from the beginning.

In the earlier ages of our law, the crime of high treason appears to

have been of a vague and indefinite nature, determined only by such

arbitrary construction as the circumstances of each particular case

might suggest. It was held treason to kill the king's father or his

uncle; and Mortimer was attainted for accroaching, as it was called,

royal power; that is, for keeping the administration in his own

hands, though without violence towards the reigning prince. But no

people can enjoy a free constitution, unless an adequate security is

furnished by their laws against this discretion of judges in a matter

so closely connected with the mutual relation between the government

and its subjects. A petition was accordingly presented to Edward III.

by one of the best parliaments that ever sat, requesting that "whereas

the king's justices in different counties adjudge men indicted before

them to be traitors for divers matters not known by the Commons to be

treasonable, the king would, by his council, and the nobles and

learned men (les grands et sages) of the land, declare in parliament

what should be held for treason." The answer to this petition is in

the words of the existing statute, which, as it is by no means so

prolix as it is important, I shall place before the reader's eyes.

_Statute of Edward III._--"Whereas divers opinions have been before

this time in what case treason shall be said, and in what not; the

king, at the request of the Lords and Commons, hath made a declaration

in the manner as hereafter followeth; that is to say, when a man doth

compass or imagine the death of our lord the king, of my lady his

queen, or of their eldest son and heir: or if a man do violate the

king's companion or the king's eldest daughter unmarried, or the wife

of the king's eldest son and heir: or if a man do levy war against our

lord the king in his realm, or be adherent to the king's enemies in

his realm, giving to them aid and comfort in the realm or elsewhere,

and thereof be provably attainted of open deed by people of their

condition; and if a man counterfeit the king's great or privy seal, or

his money; and if a man bring false money into this realm, counterfeit

to the money of England, as the money called Lusheburg, or other like

to the said money of England, knowing the money to be false, to

merchandise or make payment in deceipt of our said lord the king and

of his people; and if a man slay the chancellor, treasurer, or the

king's justices of the one bench or the other, justices in eyre, or

justices of assize, and all other justices assigned to hear and

determine, being in their place doing their offices; and it is to be

understood, that in the cases above rehearsed, it ought to be judged

treason which extends to our lord the king and his royal majesty. And

of such treason the forfeiture of the escheats pertaineth to our lord

the king, as well as the lands and tenements holden of others as of

himself."[227]

_Its constructive interpretation._--It seems impossible not to observe

that the want of distinct arrangement natural to so unphilosophical an

age, and which renders many of our old statutes very confused, is

eminently displayed in this strange conjunction of offences; where to

counterfeit the king's seal, which might be for the sake of private

fraud, and even his coin, which must be so, is ranged along with all

that really endangers the established government, with conspiracy and

insurrection. But this is an objection of little magnitude, compared

with one that arises out of an omission in enumerating the modes

whereby treason could be committed. In most other offences, the

intention, however manifest, the contrivance, however deliberate, the

attempt, however casually rendered abortive, form so many degrees of

malignity, or at least of mischief, which the jurisprudence of most

countries, and none more than England, formerly, has been accustomed

to distinguish from the perpetrated action by awarding an inferior

punishment, or even none at all. Nor is this distinction merely

founded on a difference in the moral indignation with which we are

impelled to regard an inchoate and a consummate crime, but is

warranted by a principle of reason, since the penalties attached to

the completed offence spread their terror over all the machinations

preparatory to it; and he who fails in his stroke has had the

murderer's fate as much before his eyes as the more dexterous

assassin. But those who conspire against the constituted government

connect in their sanguine hope the assurance of impunity with the

execution of their crime, and would justly deride the mockery of an

accusation which could only be preferred against them when their

banners were unfurled, and their force arrayed. It is as reasonable,

therefore, as it is conformable to the usages of every country, to

place conspiracies against the sovereign power upon the footing of

actual rebellion, and to crush those by the penalties of treason, who,

were the law to wait for their opportunity, might silence or pervert

the law itself. Yet in this famous statute we find it only declared

treasonable to compass or imagine the king's death; while no project

of rebellion appears to fall within the letter of its enactments,

unless it ripen into a substantive act of levying war.