must be mentioned which, though it had but little effect at the moment,
has been always considered as a blot on William's character, and added
point to the bitter attacks directed against him towards the close of
his reign. Melville had proved unequal to the task of governing
Scotland, and the management of the affairs of that country had passed
almost entirely into the hands of the Dalrymples, father and son, the
elder of whom was President of the Court of Session, having been lately
raised to the peerage by the title of Viscount Stair. The son, known as
the Master of Stair, was appointed Secretary for Scotland, resident in
London. To him now fell the duty of pacifying the Highlands, where the
civil war continued to smoulder. Unable to give the Highlanders any
effectual support, James had told them that they were at liberty to make
peace with the conqueror. It has been already mentioned that local
politics had more to do with the conduct of the Highlanders than any
question as to the reigning dynasty, and that their hatred directed
against the head of the Campbell clan arose largely from the condition
of dependence to him in which they found themselves, and which was due
in a great degree to unpaid arrears of rent. It was determined now to
adopt a plan which had been formerly suggested, and to expend some
£15,000 in relieving them from their difficulties. The distribution of
this money was unwisely intrusted to Breadalbane, himself a Campbell,
and too much interested in the encroachments of that house not to be
unpopular. He was profoundly and justly mistrusted by the Highlanders,
and the negotiations for the distribution of the money proceeded but
slowly, the chief leader of the opposition to the settlement being
Macdonald of Glencoe, one of that tribe which had suffered most from the
growth of the Campbells. Pressure was put upon the Highlanders to bring
the negotiation to a conclusion. A proclamation was issued, promising
pardon to all who, before the 31st of December 1691, should swear to
live peaceably under the existing Government. All who refused to take
this oath were to be regarded as public enemies. As the Government
appeared to be in earnest, the chiefs yielded, making it a sort of point
of honour to yield as slowly as possible. In this foolish contest of
honour Mac Ian of Glencoe was unfortunately the victor. Not till the
very day named did he appear at Fort William to take the oaths. When he
arrived there he found to his dismay that there was no magistrate to
receive them, and he was compelled forthwith to set out through the
winter snow to Inverary to find a magistrate. The journey was so
difficult that it was not till the 6th of January that he reached
Inverary. Under the circumstances, the sheriff there consented, though
after the prescribed date, to receive the oath, and sent it, with a
certificate stating the circumstances to Edinburgh. The slowness of
Macdonald had played into the hands of his enemies the Campbells.
Breadalbane and Argyle were at one in their determination to use their
advantage, and they found a ready assistant in the Master of Stair,
whose views, free from all local feeling, were of the sternest
description, and who thought the Highlanders should be treated as
uncivilized barbarians. He had been disappointed at the submission of
the clans, and rejoiced at the opportunity of making one example. By his
means the certificate granted by the sheriff appears to have been
suppressed, and an order was drawn up and laid before William, in which,
along with other instructions to the commander of the army in Scotland,
were these words with regard to the clan of Glencoe: "It will be proper,
for the vindication of public justice, to extirpate that set of
thieves." William signed the order, probably without carefully reading
it, almost certainly without understanding what Dalrymple meant by
extirpation. His scheme was one of the utmost barbarity. A detachment of
soldiers was sent into the glen as though on a friendly mission. They
were kindly received and hospitably kept for more than a week. Then, at
a fixed date, when other troops were to have stopped all the passes,
they suddenly fell upon their kindly hosts and cruelly murdered them.
The plan was but partially carried out. The passes had not been stopped,
and not more than thirty-eight of the Highlanders were actually killed.
But the villages were destroyed, the cattle driven off, and it is
unknown how many more perished as they fled in the dead of winter in
the wild mountains which surrounded their glen.
[Sidenote: Threatened invasion of England.]
It was just after this event, in March, that William went abroad to
resume the Continental war. As usual, his absence was the time of danger
for England. An invasion from France had long been planned, and was on
the point of taking place. Excited by the constant untruthful account of
his agents in England, encouraged by the artful and well-planned
treachery of Marlborough and William's other ministers, James had never
ceased to press upon Louis the wisdom of an assault upon England. His
urgent instances had always been met by the opposition of the war
minister Louvois. Conscious that his superiority lay in the organization
of large disciplined armies in the field, and led by the experience of
his life to look to the great operations of regular warfare on the Rhine
and in Italy as the real sources of greatness for France, that minister
had always set his face against little wars. He was moreover jealous of
the influence of Lauzun at the Court of St. Germains, and had repeatedly
pointed out what was very true, the falseness of the Jacobite accounts,
the weak character of James, the total untrustworthiness of his
resources, and the consequent necessity which would be laid upon France
of carrying out such an invasion, in fact, entirely unaided. He had
dwelt also upon the strong national feeling of the English, repeatedly
exhibited when an invasion was threatened, and the uncertainty, even
were the attempt successful, of the continued assistance and alliance of
a Prince so ignorant and selfish as James. Nevertheless, in this
instance James was right, not that all and more than all that Louvois
urged was not true, but that the separation of England from the
coalition, the command of the sea, and the blow which would be dealt to
William's influence, were worth any sacrifice which France might make.
Louvois' arguments, however, had hitherto prevailed; the assistance
given to James had been but slight. But Louvois' death (which took place
on the 16th of July 1691) opened brighter hopes to the exiled King.
Louis was at length persuaded; and a vast plan was made which, had it
been carried out as intended, might well have been successful. An army
was secretly collected during the winter on the coast of Normandy. Two
fleets were assembled at Brest and at Toulon, numbering together 80
ships of the line, and placed under the command of Tourville and
D'Estrées, to convoy this army to England. James, misled by his hopes
and by the double-dealing of Russell, believed, and made Louis believe,
that the English fleet was thoroughly disaffected. Secure in this
belief, it was without much anxiety that the invaders found the spring
far advanced, while still the weather prevented the junction of the
fleets.
[Sidenote: Battle of La Hogue. May 19.]
But meanwhile all secresy had been lost. The Queen in England, and
William in Holland, had put forth all their energy, and a combined Dutch
and English fleet of 90 ships was in the Channel under command of
Russell. At last one French squadron, that of Tourville, consisting of
44 ships, made its appearance. It was supposed that, weak as it was, it
was sufficient for all necessary purposes; it could probably beat the
Dutch contingent, and the English fleet was of no account, for neither
Russell nor his men were likely to fight. Relying on this false belief,
Louis issued peremptory orders to his admiral to cover the invasion, and
fight the enemy wherever he met them. But James's folly had already gone
far to thwart any hopes based upon the temper of the English. He had
issued a Declaration, the work of his counsellor Melfort, excepting from
all hope of pardon, not only a long list of gentlemen by name, but whole
classes of Englishmen, all judges, jurymen, and lawyers who had been
employed in any of the prosecutions of Jacobites, all magistrates who
did not instantly (regardless of where they might be) make common cause
with him upon his appearance, all spies and informers who had divulged
his secrets, even the insignificant fishermen of Sheerness who had
hindered him on his first attempt to escape from England. So ridiculous,
so ill-judged was the Declaration, that, far from suppressing it, the
English Council reprinted it, and distributed it largely, with a few
pungent criticisms of their own. Even Jacobites had to confess that at
least 500 men were excepted. It is easy to conceive the effect of such a
Declaration, when contrasted with William's noble Act of Grace of the
preceding year. What James's folly had thus half done the Queen's
sagacity completed. Urged on all sides to apprehend known Jacobites,
with the denunciations of a plot, perfectly fictitious indeed, but none
the less very plausible, the creation of a rascal of the name of Young,
just placed in her hands, and fully conscious of the intrigues of
Russell her admiral, she wrote a noble letter, expressing her trust and
reliance on the patriotism of her fleet, and sent it to Russell, with
orders to read it to the captains of his fleet. Russell, at heart a Whig
and a devoted lover of his profession, hesitated no longer. He would
fight, he said, though King James himself were in the hostile fleet. He
went from ship to ship, encouraging the crews, and when Tourville bore
down upon him there was no sign of faint-heartedness in the English
fleet. Overpowered by numbers, the French fleet fled, broke into
fragments, and was destroyed piecemeal. But twelve of the largest ships,
with Tourville himself, took refuge under the Forts of La Hogue, under
the eyes of James and Marshal Bellefonds, commander of the army. There,
as they lay in two divisions in shallow water, they were attacked on two
successive days by a flotilla of English boats, under Admiral Rooke; and
under the guns of the forts, which were supposed to render them quite
secure, they were taken and burnt, while James looked on and saw the
destruction of this his last hope.
[Sidenote: Second crisis of the war over.]
[Sidenote: Subsequent ill success of the fleet.]
This great victory over the French, the first which the nation had won
for many years, drove the people wild with delight. All the more heavy
was their disappointment at the feeble manner in which it was followed
up, and at the ill success of the war in the Netherlands in the latter
part of the year. An expedition against St. Malo failed through the
jealousy of its commanders. The broken fleet of Tourville, unable to
keep the sea, assumed a new form. French cruisers and privateers covered
the ocean, and hundreds of English merchantmen fell a prey to them. The
commercial world suffered more heavily from the individual enterprises
of men such as the privateer captains Jean Bart and Dugouay Trouin than
from the great united fleets of France, and almost regretted the victory
which had called to life such enemies.
[Sidenote: Fall of Namur. June 30.]
[Sidenote: Battle of Steinkirk. Aug. 4.]
The chief incidents of the war in the Netherlands--the fall of the great
fortress of Namur, and the battle of Steinkirk--were very characteristic
of the art of war at this period. It was a time of slow, methodical, and
scientific movement in the field, but of great advance in the art of
attacking and defending fortresses, which in the hands of Vauban and
Cohorn was so far perfected, that for more than a century no important
change was made in the system they advocated. Louis did not press his
advantage; after taking Namur his army was diminished by detachments
sent to other quarters, and William thought he saw an opportunity of
striking a heavy blow against his weakened opponent. A traitor in the
English army had habitually informed Marshal Luxemburg of every movement
of the allied troops. His correspondence was discovered, and with a
pistol at his breast he was forced to write false information which
William dictated. Having thus, as he hoped, misdirected the vigilance of
his enemy, the King determined upon a surprise. The unexpected
difficulties offered by the country prevented its success. Luxemburg
got his troops into order with extraordinary rapidity, and the English
division under Mackay soon found itself hotly engaged. It was successful
in its first efforts, but the household troops of Louis were sent
against it, and Count Solmes withheld the supports which should have
come to its assistance. The division was nearly destroyed, and the anger
of the English blazed up fiercely against the Dutch general, who, set
over the head of the English commanders, thus basely deserted their
troops.
[Sidenote: Discontented Parliament. Nov. 4.]
It was thus, with many causes of discontent, that, upon the return of
William to England, the Parliament assembled. Mismanagement had
neutralized the great victory of La Hogue; the discovery of Preston's
plot had not been followed by a single act of justice upon the
Jacobites, a sharp quarrel had broken out between the Queen and her
sister, which, as Marlborough's treachery was unknown, seemed merely
capricious and causeless; the war in the Netherlands had been a mere
disastrous repetition of the last year's campaign; William's chief
misfortune was commonly attributed to the mismanagement, or perhaps the
treachery of the Dutch general; the House of Lords had been alienated by
the apprehension of two of its members, who had been put to their
recognizances, and no further charge brought against them; the harvest
in England had failed, so that corn had doubled its natural price; and
the police had grown so lax that highwaymen in gangs of twenty and
thirty infested the country, and robbed almost within sight of London.
Both Lords and Commons consequently entered warmly upon the
consideration of the state of the nation. But the continued jealousy
which existed between the two Houses brought their inquiries to nothing.
As yet neither Ministry nor Opposition was sufficiently organized to
secure the advantages either of stable government or of thorough reform.
The administration was carried on as before with all the evils of a
Ministry divided against itself, in the presence of a factious and
disorganized Opposition.
[Sidenote: The Land Tax.]
[Sidenote: Origin of the National Debt. Jan. 20, 1693.]
Some important steps were however taken with regard to finance. There
was still a tolerably unanimous feeling in favour of the war, and money
had to be procured. In the arrangements for supplying the necessary
money, the financial talents of Charles Montague, a young and rising
member of the Whig party, first became conspicuous. Early known as a man
of letters, and the author in company with Prior of "The Town and
Country Mouse," he had been introduced to the King by his patron the
Earl of Dorset, and, after strengthening his position by a marriage with
the Dowager Countess of Manchester, had entered political life, and had
been appointed one of the Lords of the Treasury in 1691. The financial
measures recommended consisted of a reorganization of the Land Tax and
of the first establishment of Government loans. The extraordinary
expenses of Government had in early times been met by subsidies. These
subsidies were levied both on moveables and on land, but were chiefly
supported by an assessment on the land at the nominal rate of four
shillings in the pound. Land had increased greatly in value as the
demand for it increased, while gold and silver had fallen greatly in
value after the discovery of America. In the assessment for subsidies
neither of these circumstances was taken into consideration. The four
shilling land tax had come in reality to be less than twopence in the
pound. During the Commonwealth, and subsequently, a different method of
taxation had been followed. The sum to be raised had been first
determined, and each landowner had been called upon to pay a
proportional share. In 1692 the Land Tax was reintroduced and
reorganized. A new valuation was made, and upon this basis a tax was
annually laid upon the land varying from a minimum of one shilling in
time of peace to four shillings in times of emergency. Four shillings on
this new valuation produced about £2,000,000. This sum fell considerably
short of what was required. In addition, therefore, a loan, which is the
origin of the National Debt, was raised. Money was plentiful in the
country, and was so easily obtained, that bubble companies and
stock-jobbing had become rife. Montague determined to turn some of this
superfluous wealth to the use of the country, and to spread the payment
of the debt over several generations. The plan at first adopted in
raising these loans was not exactly the same as our present method of
perpetual funding. The lenders were life annuitants, and the interest of
the loan was secured on new duties on beer and other liquors. As each
annuitant died his annuity was divided among the survivors, till their
number was reduced to seven, who would at that time be naturally in
receipt of an enormous interest on their original loan. After that, on
the death of each of those seven, his annuity lapsed to Government. The
whole debt would therefore be extinguished at the death of the
longest-lived annuitant.
[Sidenote: Disastrous campaign. 1693.]
[Sidenote: Battle of Landen. July 19.]
The money thus collected was soon spent upon another disastrous
campaign. Louis, in spite of the exhausted condition of his country,
made extraordinary efforts in all directions. As far as the English only
were concerned, the two great events of the campaign were the battle of
Landen and the destruction of the Smyrna fleet. Louis, using his late
conquest, Namur, for his point of departure, had formed two armies, one
under Boufflers, the other under Luxemburg, and hoped to repeat the
triumph of former years by the capture of either Liège or Brussels. But
he found it was impossible to take either of those cities without
fighting a pitched battle with William. In spite of the earnest request
of his generals, he withdrew to Versailles, and removed the army of
Boufflers to the Rhine. Though thus weakened, Luxemburg, by a threatened
attack upon Liège, induced William to reduce his forces to save that
town, and then falling upon him at Landen, defeated him after a battle,
the stubbornest and bloodiest of the war. William's skill somewhat
neutralized the effect of his defeat, and Charleroi was the only new
acquisition of the French in the Low Countries.
[Sidenote: Loss of the Smyrna fleet. June.]
The loss of the Smyrna fleet made perhaps even greater impression upon
the English than the defeat of Landen. The fleet, in which was
accumulated more than a year's supply for the Eastern markets, and which
numbered 400 ships, was to be convoyed in safety from London through the
Straits of Gibraltar. After passing the Channel unopposed, the English
admirals, supposing that the danger was over, withdrew towards England
with their ships of war, and the trading fleet passed onward, guarded
only by Rooke with about twenty men of war. Off St. Vincent it fell in
with the whole combined navy of France, for the squadrons of Toulon and
Brest had joined, and were lying in wait for their rich prey off the
coast of Spain. The convoy was completely broken up, many vessels
destroyed, while the others fled for safety in all directions. The loss
of the English was estimated at many millions. The disaster would
certainly have been much worse had not two Dutch ships which formed part
of the convoy gallantly sacrificed themselves, and engaged no less than
eighteen of the enemy's fleet.
In other parts of Europe the armies of France were equally successful.
Catalonia had been invaded and Rosas taken. Catinat had defeated the
Duke of Savoy in the great battle of Marsiglia (Oct. 3). The Turks had
compelled the Germans to raise the siege of Belgrade. Yet, in spite of
these successes, France was so worn out, that hints of a desire for
peace began to reach the English King.
[Sidenote: William's difficulty with regard to his Parliament.]
[Sidenote: He forms a united Whig ministry.]
The possibility of being called upon to settle this great point, and the
necessity of taking speedy advantage of his enemy's weakness, brought
more clearly home to William the great difficulty which had beset his
reign. For the position which was necessary to enable him to engage
authoritatively in the affairs of Europe, for the money required for the
pay of his army, and for the subsidies by which alone the allies were
kept true to their engagements, he was dependent upon Parliament. For at
the Revolution the Parliament had taken upon itself the supreme
authority of the nation. Yet upon that Parliament he was unable to rely;
for the representative body, though conscious of its power, had not yet
learnt to use it advantageously. It was that worst of all forms of
supreme power, a large disorganized assembly. Well aware that, both as
head of a confederacy and as a general, freedom of action was necessary
for him, William had kept as far as possible the management of foreign
affairs in his own hands, and had sought to win the favour of all
parties by a judicious impartiality. In the main he had been well
supported in his foreign policy; but faction was so rife, the increasing
divergence of opinion so great, and the capricious character of the
Lower House so evident, that he could take no important step with
confidence. He could not answer for a year's continuance of the war
spirit, nor be certain that any steps he might take with regard to peace
would be acknowledged even by his own ministers. It became necessary, if
possible, to introduce some order and organization into this uncertain
body. It would be better to risk a formal opposition of a certain
number, and be sure of unanimity in his own administration, than to be
at the caprice of a popular assembly. William therefore listened to the
suggestions of Sunderland, and determined to place himself entirely in
the hands of the Whig party, that party to which he owed his elevation
to the throne, and which was pledged to the continuation of the war.
During the next two years a change in ministry was gradually carried
out, which ended by the establishment in 1696 of the first united
ministry in English history. It was led by the chiefs of the Whig party,
of which the leaders were Somers, Halifax, Russell and Wharton (known
afterwards as the Junto).
[Sidenote: Party struggles.]
Parliament during these years was occupied in financial arrangements to
meet the constant drain of the war, and in perpetual party struggles
which terminated in the complete triumph of the Whigs, and in the
substitution of the leaders of that party for their Tory rivals in all
the chief offices of the administration. The first trial of strength
between the parties arose upon the question of the naval administration
of the former year. The whole nation smarted under the disasters which
had followed on the great victory of La Hogue, which the Whigs had
attributed not only to the maladministration of the two Tory admirals to
whom the fleet had been intrusted, but also to treachery. It was
impossible, they argued, that Louis could have denuded the Channel of
his fleet, and allowed a junction of his admirals so far south as St.
Vincent, unless he had had good reason to believe that the rich prey he
desired would fall into his hands but weakly guarded. The Tories, who
were unable to deny the maladministration, were anxious to exclude the
word "treacherous" from the motion. The Whig party was however
triumphant, and by a considerable majority the word was retained. But
though the general assertion of treason was thus made, the Commons, as
was not unusual, shrunk from fixing the treason upon any particular
person, and each individual accused was acquitted by a small majority.
Enough had been done, however, to give the King a fair opportunity of
re-establishing Russell, the great enemy of Nottingham the Secretary, at
the head of the Admiralty, and thus taking one step towards his Whig
ministry. It was impossible for Nottingham to remain in office with
Russell; he was consequently removed from the Secretaryship, and a fresh
vacancy thus created, which, after some delay, caused by the
conscientious scruples of Shrewsbury, who felt keenly the fault he had
once committed in tampering with the Jacobites, was filled by that
nobleman, one of the Whig chiefs. At the close of the session,
therefore, William found himself with most of his chief officers
belonging to the Whig party. Trenchard and Shrewsbury were Secretaries.
Russell was the head of the Admiralty. Somers was Lord Keeper, and
Montague Chancellor of the Exchequer. The only two Tories of importance
left were Caermarthen, Lord President, and Godolphin, at the head of the
Treasury. But the character of the latter minister led him to devote
himself almost exclusively to his official business, of which he was
master. Caermarthen was therefore, in fact, the only important element
of discord in the administration.
[Sidenote: Establishment of the Bank of England.]
[Sidenote: The Triennial Act passed. Dec. 1694.]
Montague owed his elevation to the continued success of his financial
plans. A fresh loan, known as the Lottery Loan--because though the whole
rate of interest was low, in exceptional cases chosen by lottery it was
very high--was successfully negotiated, and more important than this,
the Bank of England was triumphantly established. Banking with private
goldsmiths had come into fashion within the last two reigns, when the
convenience of cheques in the place of ready-money payments had become
obvious, while the advantage to the banker who had the use of the ready
money was also plain. The fault of the system was its insecurity, which
had been proved by the not unfrequent bankruptcy of one or other of the
banking goldsmiths. A Scotchman of the name of Paterson had some years
previously suggested the plan of a national bank, by which the
Government should obtain some of the advantages of the banker, and the
public, while gaining the convenience of cheques, should have a better
security than private goldsmiths offered. This scheme Montague now
adopted. He borrowed rather upwards of a million, and formed the lenders
into a banking company, allowing them to treat the loan to Government as
part of their capital, the interest of which, secured upon taxes, gave
them the requisite supply of ready money. They were bound to pursue no
other business except banking, yet, even with this restriction, so
desirable did the plan seem, that it was at once triumphantly carried
through. As a contingent advantage to Government, it is to be observed
that the company, which included many of the chiefs of the moneyed
interest, were pledged, for their own preservation, to support the
present settlement of the throne. Their existence depended upon the
regular payment of the interest upon their loan, which it was scarcely
possible that the Jacobites, if successful, would pay. The importance of
this point became very obvious afterwards, when, in more than one
crisis, the credit of Government was saved by advances from the Bank.
One other important measure was carried by this Parliament, and that
also was in accordance with the principles of the Whigs. This was the
Triennial Act, limiting the duration of Parliament to three years. The
King, always jealous of his prerogative, had already once refused his
assent to this Bill; but now, having placed himself in Whig hands, he
withdrew his opposition, and the Bill was passed.
[Sidenote: Death of Queen Mary. Dec. 20.]