CHAPTER XIII.

WILLIAM AND MARY.

Proceedings in Parliament--Complaints against Admiral

Russell--Treason in the Navy--Legislation against the

Roman Catholics--The East India Company--Treasons

Bill--The Poll Tax--Changes in the Ministry--Marlborough

is deprived of his Offices--His Treachery--The Queen's

Quarrel with the Princess Anne--William goes Abroad--Fall

of Namur--Battle of Steinkirk--Results of the Campaign--The

Massacre of Glencoe--Proposed Invasion of England--James's

Declaration--Russell's Hesitation overcome by the Queen--Battle of

La Hogue--Gallant Conduct of Rooke--Young's Sham Plot--Founding of

Greenwich Hospital--Ill Success of the Fleet--Discontent of the

People--Complaints in the Lords and Commons--The Land Tax--Origin

of the National Debt--Liberty of the Press--The Continental

Campaign--Battle of Landen--Loss of the Smyrna Fleet--Attack

on the Navy--New Legislation--Banking Schemes of Chamberlayne

and Paterson--The Bank of England Established--Ministerial

Changes--Negotiations for Peace--Marlborough's Treason and the

Death of Talmash--Illness and Death of Queen Mary.

On the 19th of October William arrived from Holland, and on the 22nd he

opened Parliament. He congratulated it on the termination of the war

in Ireland, and on the progress of the English arms both on land and

sea. It was true that on the Continent there had been no very decisive

action, but the Allies had compelled the French to retreat before

them, and to confess their power by avoiding a general engagement

with them. At sea, though not so much had been effected in some

directions as might have been hoped, yet the French had been driven

from the open into their own ports, and an English fleet had convoyed

a large merchant fleet from the Mediterranean in safety. This was

very different to previous years, when their cruisers had made great

captures of our merchantmen. We had also sent a fleet up the Shannon,

which prevented them from aiding the insurgents in Ireland, and were

now in undisputed supremacy again on the ocean. Of course William had

to demand heavy supplies to maintain the fleet in this position, and to

pursue the war with vigour against Louis. All this the members of both

Houses listened to with apparent satisfaction, and voted him cordial

thanks.

On the 6th of November it was unanimously voted in the Commons that

the supplies asked for by the Crown should be granted; and first

they voted £1,575,898 for the service of the navy, including the

building of three new docks at Portsmouth--one dry and two wet ones.

On the 16th they resolved that the army, in compliance with William's

recommendation, should be raised to 46,924 men; and on the 4th of

January, 1692, they voted £2,100,000 for the maintenance of the army,

of which Ireland was to pay £165,000.

But though a large majority in both Houses supported warmly the

endeavour to curb the inordinate ambition of Louis XIV., these sums

were not passed by the Commons without searching inquiries into

the accounts and into the abuses which, notwithstanding William's

vigilance, abounded in all departments of Government. No doubt the

party in opposition, as is generally the case, did much of this work

of reform more to gratify their private resentment, and to make their

rivals' term of office anything but agreeable, than from genuine

patriotism; but, at the same time, there was plenty of ground for their

complaints. Serious charges were made against Admiral Russell for

his lukewarm conduct at sea, and his mismanagement of the Admiralty.

The fact was that Russell, as was strongly suspected, and as we now

know from documents since come to light, was no less a traitor than

Torrington, Dartmouth, and Marlborough. He was in active correspondence

with James, and ready, if some turn in affairs should serve to make it

advantageous, to go over to him with the fleet, or as much of it as

would follow him, and others of the admirals; for Delaval, Killigrew,

and other admirals and naval officers, were as deep in the treason.

There were loud complaints of the vileness of the commissariat still,

and it was declared that far more of our men fell by disease from bad

and adulterated food than in battle. The complaints against Russell,

who was called to the bar of the House, he threw upon the Admiralty,

and the Admiralty on the commissariat department. Russell complained

also of the ministry, and particularly of the Earl of Nottingham; and

thus, by this system of mutual recrimination, all parties contrived to

escape. The Commons, however, were not so to be silenced. They charged

on the officers of the army, on its commissariat, on the men in office,

and on the Government officials almost universally, the same monstrous

system of corruption, peculation, and negligence of every thing but

making money for themselves. They insisted on a rigorous examination of

all the accounts by their own members, and they voted that all salaries

and profits arising from any place or places under the Crown should not

amount to more than five hundred pounds for any one person, except in

the cases of the Speaker of the House of Commons, the Commissioners of

the Great Seal, the judges, ambassadors, and officers of the army and

navy.

[Illustration: GEORGE SAVILLE, MARQUIS OF HALIFAX.]

There were plenty of posts in which this restriction would have been

most salutary, for men in some of the most trivial and useless of

them were pocketing many thousands of pounds; but it was soon found

that the whole nation could not furnish sufficient people patriotic

enough to serve their country for five hundred pounds a year each; and,

therefore, in a few weeks a fresh resolution was taken, which negatived

this.

The business of the year 1691 closed by the passing of a Bill to

exclude all Catholics, in pursuance of the Treaty of Limerick, from

holding any office in Ireland, civil, military, or ecclesiastical, or

from practising in any profession, or sitting in the Irish Parliament,

before they had taken the Oath of Allegiance. The Commons attempted by

this Bill to make it necessary for a Catholic to take also the Oath

of Supremacy, and the Oath against Transubstantiation; but the Lords

showed that this was contrary to the first article of the Treaty of

Limerick, and this clause was struck out, and the Bill then passed.

When the agitation for Catholic emancipation commenced, loud complaints

were made that by this Bill the Treaty of Limerick had been violated.

But this was a mistake; the violation of it took place some years

afterwards by another Bill. The first article of the Treaty provided

that on a Catholic taking the Oath of Allegiance, he should be admitted

to all the privileges specified, according to the law in Charles II.'s

time; and this law, whether always enforced or not, empowered the Crown

to tender this Oath to all subjects.

The year 1692 was opened by Parliament bringing forward several

important Bills, which were, however, too much contested to be carried

this year. The first of these was a Bill for regulating the trade

of the East India Company, increasing the number of shareholders,

restricting the amount of stock in the hands of individuals, and

incorporating a new Company which had sprung up with the old one.

The East India Company had become a most flourishing concern. From

the Restoration to this time, only thirty-three years, its annual

imports had risen in value from eight thousand pounds to three hundred

thousand pounds. Its capital amounted only to three hundred and seventy

thousand pounds, but it yielded an annual profit of thirty per cent.,

besides having, up to 1676, doubled the value of the whole capital. The

Company, however, instead of increasing in shareholders, was rapidly

sinking into a monopoly of a few individuals. Amongst these Sir Josiah

Child, whom we lately quoted in our review of the commerce of the

period, stood chief, and was become, as it were, the king and despot of

the whole concern. Five members were said to possess or hold one-sixth

of all the votes, and amongst these Child had the predominant amount.

His income from the Company was stated at twenty thousand pounds a

year, and his word was law in it.

These enormous profits naturally called forth a rival company, and the

contest between them grew from year to year till it came to occupy

and divide the spirit of the whole mercantile world. The new Company

insisted on the right of trading also to many parts of India, the old

one stood on their charter as a charter of exclusion of all others. The

favour of Government was purchased by the old Company by well-applied

gifts of money to Government, and by sharing with Government the

profitable patronage. The question was now brought before Parliament,

and hotly debated; but the Bill was dropped for the present, and a

proposition to William to grant a charter to the new Company was

evaded, on the plea of requiring deep consideration.

The next important Bill was for regulating trials in cases of high

treason. It was time that great reforms should take place on this head.

During the Stuart times men had been most easily and conveniently

put out of the way, by counsel being refused them under charge of

high treason, and by refusal to allow them the perusal of the Bill of

Indictment previous to the trial. Juries were packed by sheriffs, and

State prisoners were thus murdered at will. The same gross injustice

extended to prisoners charged with other offences; but the great strain

towards injustice was in the case of those charged by the State with

treason, and against whom it employed the ablest lawyers of the realm.

By this machinery, all through the reigns of the Stuarts, as well as of

their predecessors, whole throngs of men, many of them of extraordinary

endowments and high rank, had been judicially destroyed. The proposed

Bill, therefore, provided that every person charged with high treason

should be allowed to have his own counsel, to have a copy of the

indictment delivered to him ten days before the trial, along with a

list of the freeholders from whom his jury were to be selected, that

he might have opportunity to challenge any of them. The Bill was most

desirable, but it was frustrated for the time by the Lords insisting on

an extension of their own privileges regarding such trials. Instead of

being tried by the court of the Lord High Steward--who could summon

twelve or more peers at his discretion if the Parliament was not

sitting--they demanded that, during the recess, as during the Session,

every peer should be summoned to attend any such trial. The Commons

somewhat unreasonably opposed this very proper reform, on the ground

that the peers had too many privileges already, and the Bill dropped

for the time.

Besides these the Commons sent up various other bills, which were

nearly all rejected by the Lords. There was a Bill for reducing the

rate of interest on money; a Bill investing in the king the forfeited

estates in both England and Ireland as a fund for the war; a Bill to

proportion the pay in the army to the real complement of men; for

there was a practice, in which Marlborough was especially engaged, of

returning regiments as complete which were far from being so, and of

pocketing the pay of the men wanting. There was a Bill to continue

the commissioners of public accounts, most unreasonably rejected by

the Lords, whilst they allowed to pass a Bill which has always been

regarded with hostility in England--a poll tax, levying on all persons,

except servants, children, and paupers, a shilling a quarter; on every

peer of Parliament, ten pounds a year; on every income of three hundred

pounds a year, ten shillings per annum; and on all gentlemen of three

hundred pounds a year income from real property, and on all clergymen

or teachers with incomes of eighty pounds, one pound each a year.

On the 29th of February William prorogued Parliament, and made active

preparations for his departure for the Continent. Before he took his

leave, however, he made various changes in his Cabinet and Ministry,

which showed that the Whigs were still losing ground with him, and the

Tories, or the "Trimmers," who veered, according to circumstances,

to one party or the other, acquiring favour. The Earl of Rochester,

younger brother of Lord Clarendon, one of Mary's uncles; Lord Ranelagh,

Lord Cornwallis, and Sir Edward Seymour, who had all along hitherto

opposed the king, were made members of the Privy Council, and the Earl

of Pembroke Privy Seal. Charles Montague was made a Commissioner of the

Treasury, and Sidney Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. But the circumstance

which occasioned the greatest sensation, and wonder, and mystery was

the sudden dismissal of Lord Marlborough from all his offices under

the king, both in the Court and the army. As Marlborough had been

manifestly rising in William's estimation from the successful display

of his military talents, this abrupt dismissal excited the keenest

curiosity of both Court and country, which William took no means to

gratify. But from what we now know of the causes of this striking

expression of William's displeasure, we can well understand that there

was more in it than William could, without implicating the Princess

Anne, make known.

We have seen that Marlborough all along, whilst courting the favour

of William, was endeavouring to recover that of James. He had been

one of the very first to abandon that monarch when trusted by him,

but he had written letters expressing the bitterest repentance and

remorse for that treason, whilst he was thus prepared, if necessary,

to perpetrate a new one. But Marlborough, as he had a genius capable

of the very highest achievements, had one also capable of the most

complicated treacheries in politics. It was not enough for him to be

serving William and vowing secretly to James that he was only watching

his opportunity to serve him, but he had a third and more alluring

treason. He and his wife had the ductile and yet obstinate princess

Anne completely in their hands. They lived with her at Whitehall, they

drew largely from her income, they selected her friends, they moulded

her likings and her antipathies; she was a complete puppet in their

keeping. From his lucrative station as keeper of Anne's purse, person,

and conscience, through his clever and unprincipled wife, Marlborough

watched intently the temper of the nation. He saw that there was an

intense jealousy of the Dutch, not only amongst the people on account

of trade and national rivalry, but in the Parliament and aristocracy,

on account of William's preference for his Dutch friends. Bentinck,

Ginkell, Overkirk, and Zulestein were the only men in whom he reposed

entire confidence. On them he heaped wealth, estates, and honours.

Ginkell was just now elevated to an earldom, and a large grant of

lands was contemplated for him in Ireland. On Portland rich grants had

been bestowed, and more were anticipated. William's continual absences

on the Continent, his cold reserve whilst in England, the large

expenditure of men and money for the prosecution of the Continental

war, though really for the liberties of Europe, were represented

by the discontented as a wholesale draft upon the country for the

aggrandisement of Holland.

These were the things Marlborough saw which gave vitality to the

intrigues of the Jacobites; and the only causes which prevented the

revulsion from becoming general in favour of James were his incurable

despotism, his imbecility as a monarch, and the certain return of

Popery in his train. But there was another person to whom none of

these objections applied--the Princess Anne--the person already in

his guidance or power. Anne was at once English and a Protestant. The

former fact gave her a mighty advantage over William--the latter over

James. Would it not, therefore, be possible to substitute Anne for

her father? To do this it was only necessary to inflame the prejudice

in Parliament and among the people against the Dutch influence, to

inoculate the army with the same feeling, already well-disposed to it

by jealousy of the Dutch troops, and to obviate the objections of those

who repelled the idea of bringing back James by turning their attention

on one nearer home. The absence of William on the Continent, and the

disaffection of most of the admirals, would afford an opportunity

of resisting his return to both army and navy. And with Anne queen,

Marlborough would become the pillar of her throne, commander of her

army, and dispenser of her patronage.

That this was no mere dream is clear enough now. It was, indeed, one of

the various rumours of the time. Evelyn says that it was one of these

that Marlborough "was endeavouring to breed division in the army, and

to make himself the more necessary by making an ill correspondence

betwixt the princess and the Court." But James himself as plainly

asserts the fact of this charge against Marlborough. "It was the plan,"

he says, "of my friends to recall me through the Parliament. My Lord

Churchill was to propose in Parliament to drive away all the foreigners

from the councils and the army of the kingdom. If the Prince of Orange

consented to this, he would have been in their hands. If he refused,

Parliament would have declared against him, and Lord Churchill was,

at the same time, to cause the army to declare for the Parliament,

the fleet the same, and then to recall me. Already this plan was

in agitation, and a large party was already gained over, when some

faithful but indiscreet subjects, thinking to serve me, and imagining

that Lord Churchill was not acting for me, but really for the Princess

of Denmark, discovered all to Bentinck, and thus destroyed the whole

scheme."

The proof that William was satisfied that Marlborough's grand plan

was real, was that he at once dismissed him from all his employments.

That Marlborough had long intrigued with James, William was quite

aware, but on that account he never troubled him; this, however, was

by far a more dangerous treachery, and he resented it accordingly.

The Marlboroughs, notwithstanding, continued at Whitehall with Anne,

and might probably never have been molested, had not the imperious

Lady Marlborough in her anger determined to set the king and queen at

defiance. She, therefore, had the assurance to accompany the princess

to the Drawing-Room at Kensington Palace a few evenings after, and the

next day brought an expostulatory letter from the queen to her sister,

informing her that after such an outrage Lady Marlborough must quit

Whitehall. Anne sent to entreat Mary to pass the matter over, declaring

that there was no misery that she would not suffer rather than be

deprived of Lady Marlborough. The only answer was an order from the

Lord Chamberlain, commanding her ladyship to quit the palace. Anne,

determined not to lose the society of her favourite, left Whitehall

with the Marlboroughs, and betook herself to Sion House, which was lent

to her by the Duke of Somerset, and soon after she removed to Berkeley

House, standing on the present site of Devonshire House, in Piccadilly,

which became her permanent residence. There all the Marlborough faction

assembled, and there Anne vented her indignation without restraint or

delicacy against William, calling him a "Dutch abortion," a "monster,"

a "Caliban." A fresh stimulus was given to the malice of that clique;

every means was used to excite hatred of the Government of William, and

to increase the partisans of James. With such a termagant spirit as

Lady Marlborough, and such a plotting spirit as that of her husband, a

strong feeling was excited against the queen, who was represented as

totally without heart, as having usurped the throne of her father, and

sought to strip her sister of her most valued friendships. Amidst such

an atmosphere of malice and detraction William was compelled to leave

the queen.

[Illustration: LADY MARLBOROUGH AND THE PRINCESS ANNE AT THE QUEEN'S

DRAWING-ROOM. (_See p._ 452.)]

He embarked for Holland on the 5th of March. He left the country amid

the rumours of false plots and real schemes of invasion. One Fuller,

under the tuition of the notorious Titus Oates, had been accusing

no less than fifty lords and gentlemen, including Halifax and some

of the king's own ministers, of having pledged themselves to bring

in James. However true it might be that many of these were at heart

really ready for such a change, it was clearly shown that Fuller's

story was got up merely to make money by it, and it was treated with

contempt. The rumour of an invasion was, as we shall find, more real.

Disbelieving it, or pressed by the necessity of giving a blow to

Louis in Flanders, William made a speedy journey to the Hague. There

the difficulties which he had to overcome were such as would have sunk

the courage of any less firm-hearted man. But though William managed

to just hold his stupid and selfish Allies together--too stupid and

selfish to perceive their own real interests--he found it impossible

to get them into the field. Whilst they were moving like tortoises,

each afraid to be before his neighbour, each taking leave to delay

because his neighbour delayed, Louis rushed into the arena with his

wonted alertness. On the 20th of May he was in his camp at Flanders. He

made a grand review of his troops in the neighbourhood of Mons. There

a hundred and twenty thousand men were drawn up in a line eight miles

long. Such a circumstance was well calculated to spread a deadening

report amongst the Allies of the crushing vastness of his army. He was

attended by a splendid retinue of nearly all the princes and rulers of

France; there was the Duke de Chartres, in his fifteenth year only; the

Dukes of Bourbon and Vendôme; the Prince of Conti; and whole troops of

young nobles following them as volunteers. Louis appeared in the midst

of them with all the splendour and luxury of an Eastern emperor.

From the imposing review Louis bore down directly on Namur. Namur stood

strongly at the confluence of the Meuse and the Sambre. It was strong

by nature on the sides next the rivers, and made so by art on the land

side. The Baron de Cohorn, an engineer who rivalled Vauban, was always

in William's army to advise and throw up fortifications. Cohorn had

made it one of the most considerable fortresses on the Continent, and

he now lay in the city with a garrison of nine thousand men, under

the Prince de Brabazon. All the other fortresses--Mons, Valenciennes,

Cambray, Antwerp, Ostend, Ypres, Lille, Tournay, Luxemburg, and others,

had yielded to the Grand Monarque; Namur alone had resisted every

attempt upon it. And now Louis invested it with his whole force. Louis

himself laid siege to the place with forty thousand men, and posted

Luxemburg with eighty thousand more on the road between Namur and

Brussels. Brabazon calculated on the army of William effecting the

relief of the place, and Louis resolved to make his approach impossible.

William, joined by the forces of Brandenburg and Liége, and with his

army swelled to a hundred thousand men, advanced to the Mehaigne,

within cannon-shot of Luxemburg's camp, but there he found himself

stopped. Luxemburg's army lay on the other bank of the river, and

was so strongly posted, and watched so vigilantly every movement of

William, that he saw no means of forcing a way towards the beleaguered

city. Whilst thus impeded by the river and the vast force of Luxemburg,

Nature came to complete the chafing king's mortifications. Heavy

rains set in on St. Medard's Day, the 8th of June, the French St.

Swithin. The rivers burst their banks, and the whole country lay under

water. If William had had the means to cross the river, the drenching

torrents and the muddy soil would have rendered all military operations

impossible. Louis with difficulty kept his men to their posts in the

siege. Still the assault was pushed on. Cohorn, the engineer, was

disabled by a severe wound whilst defending a fort on which he greatly

prided himself; and from that hour the defence languished. Brabazon was

a man of no spirit; Cohorn's fort was taken, and the town surrendered

on the 20th of June.

The exultation of Louis and the French on the fall of Namur was

unbounded. This triumph had been won in the very presence of William

and the Allies at the head of a hundred thousand men. He ordered medals

to be struck to commemorate this success, which his flatterers, and

amongst them Boileau himself, declared was more glorious than the

mastery of Troy by the Greeks. _Te Deum_ was sung in Paris; the French

nation was in ecstasies, and Louis returned to Versailles to enjoy the

incense of his elated courtiers and mistresses. But he did not return

without a sting to his triumph. The news of a signal defeat of his

fleet at La Hogue reached him even as he lay before Namur, and the

thunder of William's artillery at the great intelligence wounded his

vanity though it could not reach his army.

Louis having quitted the Netherlands, Luxemburg strongly garrisoned

Namur, despatched the Marquis of Boufflers to La Bassière, and

himself encamped at Soignies. William posted himself at Genappe, sent

detachments to Ghent and Liége, and determined to attack Luxemburg.

This general shifted his ground to a position between Steinkirk and

Enghien, and William then encamped at Lambeque. Here he discovered that

all his movements had been previously betrayed to Luxemburg by the

private secretary of the Elector of Bavaria, one Millevoix, a letter

of whose to the French general had been picked up by a peasant, and

brought to the camp. William seized on the circumstance to mislead

Luxemburg. The detected spy was compelled to write a letter to the

French general, informing him that the next day William was intending

to send out a foraging party, and, to prevent it from being surprised,

would draw out a large body of troops to protect it. The letter being

despatched to the French camp, William took immediate measures for the

engagement. His object was to surprise the camp of Luxemburg, and the

story of the foraging party was to prevent his alarm on the approach of

the troops. He sent his heavy baggage across the Seine, and by four in

the morning his troops were on the march towards Luxemburg's position.

The Duke of Würtemberg led the van with ten battalions of English,

Dutch, and Danish infantry, supported by a large body of horse and foot

under the command of General Mackay, and Count Solmes followed with the

reserve.

William's forces reached the outposts of Luxemburg's army about

two o'clock in the afternoon, and drove them in with a sudden and

unlooked-for onset. A regiment from the Bourbonnais was put to instant

flight, and William, who had been informed that he should have to march

through a country of hedges, ditches, and narrow lanes, but that,

on approaching Luxemburg's army, he would find it open plain, now

calculated that he had nothing to do but to dash into the surprised

camp and produce universal confusion. He had indeed had to pick his way

through hedges and ditches, but now, instead of the open plain, there

lay still a network of hedges and ditches between him and the enemy.

This caused so much delay, that the enemy soon became aware of the real

fact, that William was upon them with his whole army. There was an

instant hurrying to standards, and William found himself face to face

with a body sufficient to dispute the ground with him till the whole

was in order.

Luxemburg had been deceived by the forced letter of Millevoix. He

had relied on it as being as correct as usual; and, though scout

after scout brought intelligence of the English approaching, he

deemed it only the foraging party and their supporters, and sat

coolly at cards till it was nearly too late. Then he mounted his

horse, reconnoitred the enemy, threw forward the Swiss regiments and

the far-famed Household Troops of Louis, and encouraged his men to

fight with their usual bravery. The young princes put themselves at

the head of the Household Troops, and displayed an enthusiasm which

communicated itself to the whole line. They found as vigorous opponents

in the Duke of Würtemberg and the gallant and pious Mackay. The

conflict was maintained at the muzzles of the muskets, and Luxemburg

afterwards declared that he never saw so fierce a struggle. The Duke

of Würtemberg had already seized one of the enemy's batteries, and

penetrated within their entrenchments, but the immense weight of troops

that kept pouring on against them at length bore them back. Mackay

sent messenger after messenger to bid Solmes hasten up his reserve,

but, from cowardice or treachery, Solmes would not move. He said

coolly, "Let us see what sport these English bulldogs will make." At

length William sent an express order for him to move up; whereupon he

trotted his horse forward a little, but never advanced his infantry.

When, therefore, Mackay saw that his soldiers were being hewed down

by hundreds, and no succour came, he said, "God's will be done," and

fought on till he fell. The contest was not, however, decided till the

detachment of Boufflers appeared upon the field. Luxemburg sent off an

express to hasten him to his assistance; but Boufflers, unlike Solmes,

had not waited for that--he had heard the firing, and was already on

the way. Then William was compelled to order his troops to draw off;

and this retreat he managed with his accustomed skill. He was, however,

roused out of his usual stoicism by the infamous conduct of Solmes;

and the whole army declared that they would not have been repulsed but

for his base desertion of them. The French claimed the victory, though

William retired to his camp in good order, and both armies continued

to occupy their former position. The fame of William as a general in

the field was greatly injured. He was acknowledged to be admirable at

a retreat; but it was said that a first-rate general seldom practised

that portion of the art of war. But his enemies, by their very joy at

this rebuff, acknowledged their sense of his power.

After this nothing of consequence distinguished the campaign in the

Netherlands. On the 26th of September William left the army under

command of the Elector of Bavaria, and retired to his hunting seat at

Loo. The camp was broken up, and the infantry marched to Marienkirke,

and the horse to Caure. But hearing that Boufflers had invested

Charleroi and Luxemburg, he sent troops under the Elector of Bavaria to

raise the siege of those towns. Boufflers retired, and then the Elector

distributed his troops into winter quarters; and Luxemburg on his side

left the army under Boufflers, and went to Paris.

Besides this there had been an attempt on the part of England to

besiege Dunkirk. The Duke of Leinster was sent over with troops,

which were joined by others from William's camp; but they thought

the attempt too hazardous, and returned, having done nothing. William

quitted Holland, and on the 18th of October arrived in England. The

result of this expensive campaign, where such unexampled preparations

had been followed only by defeat and the loss of five thousand men,

excited deep dissatisfaction; and the abortive attempt to recover

Dunkirk increased it. The public complained that William had lain

inactive at Grammont whilst Louis took Namur, and that if he could not

cross the Scheldt in the face of the French army, he might have crossed

it higher up, and taken Louis in the flank; that he might, instead of

lying inert to witness his enemy's triumph, have boldly marched into

France and laid waste Louis's own territories, which would have quickly

drawn him away from Namur. Such, indeed, might have been the decisive

movements of a great military genius, but there is no reason to think

that William was such a genius. His most striking qualities were dogged

perseverance and insensibility to defeat.

During William's absence, a variety of circumstances had taken place

which threw a dark shade upon his fame, which threatened almost to

shake his throne, and which gratified the naval pride of the country.

The horrible event which had occurred in Scotland, still properly

styled the Massacre of Glencoe, had just become known to the English

as William left for the Continental campaign, and threw no little

odium upon him. The dissatisfaction which William felt at his Bill of

Toleration for Scotland having been refused by the Scottish Parliament,

induced him to remove Lord Melville, who had suffered the liberal views

of the king to be swamped by the Presbyterians, as William thought,

too easily. He therefore appointed Sir James Dalrymple, whom he had

created Viscount Stair, Lord President of the Court of Session; and his

son, Sir John--called then, according to the custom of Scotland, the

Master of Stair--as Lord Advocate, took the lead in the management of

Scottish affairs. One of the matters which came under his notice was

that of the settling of the Highlands; and it was resolved by William's

Cabinet, where Lord Stair and the Earl of Argyll were consulted as the

great authorities on Scottish measures, that twelve thousand pounds

should be distributed amongst the Highland chiefs, to secure their

goodwill. Unfortunately, the agent that was chosen for the distribution

of this money was one of the hated tribe of Campbell. It was the Earl

of Breadalbane, who had deadly feuds with some of the clans; and, as

they regarded him with aversion and suspicion, the most insurmountable

obstacles arose to any reasonable arrangement. Besides that every chief

wanted more money than Breadalbane thought he ought to have, the Earl

of Argyll contended that these chiefs owed him large sums, and that

their quotas should be paid over to him in liquidation of those debts.

To this the chiefs would not consent, and when the money was not paid

over, they loudly avowed their conviction that Breadalbane meant to

appropriate it to himself.

Amongst the chiefs, Macdonald of Glencoe was especially obnoxious

to Breadalbane. Glencoe is a peculiarly wild and gloomy glen in

Argyllshire. The English meaning of the word is "the glen of weeping,"

a name singularly appropriate from its being frequently enveloped in

dense mists and drizzling rains. It was too barren and rugged for

agriculture, and, accordingly, its little section of the clan Donald

were noted for their predatory habits, common, indeed, to all the

Highlanders, and deemed as actually honourable. They had committed

frequent raids on the lands of Breadalbane, and therefore, when the

old chief presented himself amongst the other chiefs at the castle

of Breadalbane, he was rudely insulted, and was called upon to make

reparation for his damages done to the Campbells. Macdonald--or, as he

was commonly styled, Mac Ian--was glad to get away in safety. Incensed

at his treatment, he exerted all his arts and influence amongst the

other chiefs to embarrass and frustrate the attempts of Breadalbane

towards a settlement.

Whilst these things were in agitation, the English Government issued a

proclamation, that every rebel who did not come in and take the oaths

to William and Mary before the 1st of January, 1692, should be held to

be a traitor, and treated accordingly. Notwithstanding considerable

delay, all the chiefs took care to come in before the appointed day

except Mac Ian. In his stubborn rage against Breadalbane he deferred

his submission to the last moment. On the 31st of December, however,

he presented himself at Fort William to take the oaths; but Colonel

Hill, the Governor, refused to administer the oaths, on the plea that

he was not a magistrate, and told Mac Ian that it was necessary that

he should go to Inverary and swear before the sheriff. The old chief

was confounded; this was the last day of grace, and it was impossible

to reach Inverary in the depth of winter in time. Hill, however, gave

him a letter to the sheriff expressing a hope that, as Mac Ian had

presented himself in time to take the oaths, though under an error as

to the authority, he would allow him to take them. Mac Ian did not

reach Inverary till the 6th of January, and the sheriff, after much

entreaty and many tears from the old chief, consented to administer the

oaths, and dispatch information of the circumstances to the Council in

Edinburgh.

[Illustration: GLENCOE: SCENE OF THE MASSACRE. (_From a Photograph by

G. W. Wilson and Co., Aberdeen._)]

The news did not reach Breadalbane and Argyll in Edinburgh, but in

London, whither they had gone to represent the state of these affairs;

and both they and the Master of Stair, who was there too, instead of

being glad that all the chiefs had come in, were exceedingly rejoiced

that Mac Ian had not submitted till after the prescribed time. They

agreed to suppress the fact that Mac Ian had come in, though after the

date, and only laid before William's Council the circumstance that

he had not come in at the expiry of the limited time. A proposal was

therefore made by them that this "nest of robbers," as they termed the

people of Glencoe, should be utterly routed out, without which, they

declared, there could be no peace in the Highlands. William therefore

signed a warrant laid before him for that purpose, putting his

signature both at top and bottom.

With this fatal instrument in their hands, these worthless men

instantly took measures to wreak their vengeance on this little horde

of people, and to root them completely out. An order was sent to

Governor Hill to dispatch a sufficient force to Glencoe to kill every

man, woman, and child in it. Whether Hill was deemed too humane or too

dignified for the office of wholesale butcher, does not appear; but

he was directed to send Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton on the errand.

Hamilton, however, to make all sure by studying the place, sent, on the

1st of February, a Captain Campbell--better known as Glenlyon, from

the place of his residence. Glenlyon took with him one hundred and

twenty men, part of a regiment of Campbells, and marched to Glencoe;

and then appeared the full diabolism of the scheme of Mr. Secretary

Stair and his associates, Argyll and Breadalbane. He was not to fall

on the Macdonalds and put them to the sword as open and proscribed

enemies, but to secure the completion of the barbarous design by a plan

of the most revolting treachery on record. He was to profess to come

as a friend, only to seek temporary quarters on his wintry march, and

especially to visit a niece of his married to one of the sons of Mac

Ian. He was to feign friendship, to live with the poor people some time

in familiarity till all suspicion was laid to rest, and then to murder

them in cold blood.

Accordingly, when this band of soldiers was seen approaching, a son of

the chief and some of the people went out to learn the cause of the

visit. The reply was, "All in friendship, and only to seek quarters."

The traitors were welcomed, and lodged amongst the different families.

Glenlyon and some of his men were accommodated by a man called

Inverriggen; Lindsay, the lieutenant, accepted the hospitality of old

Mac Ian; and a sergeant named Barbour was received by a leading man

called Auchintriater. For nearly a fortnight this air of friendship

was kept up. Glenlyon professed much attachment to his niece and

her husband. He and Lindsay played at cards with the chief and his

sons, and all went gaily, as far as whisky, and French brandy, and

blithe spirits on the part of the hosts, could make it so. But all

this time Glenlyon was studying how the more completely to secure the

destruction of every soul in the glen. He and his men noted carefully

every outlet, and the result of the observations was sent to Hamilton.

All being considered ready, Hamilton fixed the 13th of February for

the slaughter, and appointed to be there before five o'clock in the

morning, and to stop all the earths to which the "old fox and his

cubs," as he termed Mac Ian and his sons, could flee. That night, as

he was marching with four hundred men through the snows to do this

butcherly deed, Glenlyon was spending the evening with Mac Ian, and

engaged to dine the next day with "his murdered man."

But with all the Judas-like deceit with which he carried on his hellish

design, that evening two men were heard lamenting they had something

to do that they did not relish. A suspicion was awakened, and one of

the sons of Mac Ian went at midnight to Glenlyon's lodgings to see if

he could discover anything. In confirmation of his worst suspicions

he found him and his men all up and armed. Yet he suffered himself to

be persuaded by the villain that they were called to a sudden march

to chastise some of the Glengarry clan for marauding; and the young

man returned home and went to bed. Glenlyon had said, "Do you think I

would do anything against my own niece and her husband?"

At five in the morning, though Hamilton had not arrived, the

bloodthirsty Glenlyon commenced the massacre by murdering his host and

all his family. Lindsay did the same by his host, old Mac Ian and his

family; and Barbour shot down his host and family in the same manner.

Then the soldiers at every hut imitated their example, and speedily

there was a hewing and shooting down of victims flying from the huts to

the defiles for escape. Men, women, children, pleading most piteously,

were ruthlessly murdered. But, fortunately, the sound of the fire-arms

aroused the whole glen at once, and the rush of the affrighted people

was too simultaneous to allow of their being killed. The greater part

of them escaped in the darkness to the hills, for Hamilton had not

arrived to blockade the defiles. The sanguinary haste of Glenlyon had

saved the majority. The two sons of Mac Ian were amongst the number

who escaped. Above thirty people, however, were massacred, and an old

man of seventy, unable to fly, was brutally stabbed. But those who had

escaped the sword and musket only escaped to the snow-covered rocks to

perish, many of them of cold and famine, for the wretches set fire to

everything in the valley, and left it one black and hideous desert.

When the news of this terrible affair at length spread, the public

could scarcely believe that so demoniacal a deed could have been

done in a Christian country. The Jacobites did not fail to dilate

on its infamy with emphasis. The whole frightful particulars were

gleaned up industriously by the non-jurors from the soldiers of the

regiment, which happened the next summer to be quartered in England.

All the execration due to such a deed was liberally showered on the

courtiers, on the actors of the brutal butchery, and on the king who

had sanctioned it. Terror, if not conscience seized on the chief

movers in it. Breadalbane sent his steward to Glencoe, to induce the

miserable inhabitants who had returned to their burnt-up valley to sign

a paper asserting that they did not charge him with any participation

in the crime, promising in return to use his influence with the king

to obtain a full pardon and immunity from forfeiture for them all.

Glenlyon was shunned as a monster wherever he appeared; but Stair, so

far from showing any shame or remorse, seemed to glory in the deed. As

for William, there was a zealous attempt to make it appear that he did

not know of what had been done; and when his warrant was produced,

then that he was deceived as to the circumstances of the case.

Unfortunately for William's reputation there was a searching inquiry

into the facts of the affair, and when he did know these in all their

atrocity, he failed to punish the perpetrators. Stair was for the time

dismissed, but very soon restored to William's service; and after this

all attempts would be futile to absolve him from gross want of feeling

and of justice in the case. It is a black spot on his fame, and must

remain so. Burnet, who is always anxious to defend William, says that,

from the letters and documents produced which he himself read, so many

persons were concerned in the business that "the king's gentleness

prevailed to a fault," and so he did not proceed against them--a

singular kind of gentleness! At the very least, the blood-guiltiness of

Breadalbane, Stair, and Glenlyon, was so prominent, and they were so

few, that they ought to have been made examples of; and such a mark of

the sense of the atrocity of the crime would have wiped from William's

reputation the clinging stain.

Scarcely had William left England in the spring, when the country was

menaced by an invasion; and whilst he was contending with Luxemburg in

Flanders, the queen and her ministers had been as actively contending

with real and imaginary plots, and with the French fleet at La Hogue.

The Papists of Lancashire had for some time been particularly active in

encouraging in King James the idea that he would be welcomed again in

England by his subjects. One Lant, a carpenter, had been despatched to

St. Germains, and brought back assurances that his Majesty would, in

the course of the spring, certainly land in England. He also sent over

Colonel Parker, one of the parties engaged to assassinate William, to

concert the necessary measures with the Catholics and Jacobites for the

invasion. Parker assured them that James would embark at La Hogue with

thirty thousand men. Johnson, a priest, was said to be associated with

Parker to murder William before his departure if possible; but the king

had gone already when they arrived.

The great minister of Louis, Louvois, was dead. He had always opposed

these ideas of invasion of England as absurd and impracticable. His

removal enabled James to persuade Louis to attempt the enterprise. It

was determined to muster a fleet of eighty sail. The Count de Tourville

commanded five-and-forty of them, and under him the Count D'Estrées

thirty-five more. The most active preparations were making for the

completion of all things necessary for the equipment of this fleet,

and the army which it was to carry over. The ships under Tourville lay

at Brest, those of D'Estrées at Toulon; they were to meet at Ushant,

and take on board the army at La Hogue. James was in high spirits; he

was puffed up by the invitations which the Catholic emissaries had

brought him; he had, he believed, firmly won over the admirals of the

fleet, Russell, Carter, Delaval, and Killigrew. Whilst in this elation

of mind he sent over invitations to many Protestant ladies of quality

to attend the expected _accouchement_ of his queen. He said many base

aspersions had been cast on the birth of his son, and he desired now

to prevent a recurrence of such slanders; he therefore offered to all

the distinguished persons invited safe conducts both for going and

returning from the French monarch. No one accepted the invitation; and

a daughter was born to James about whom no one in England was very much

concerned.

But the preparations of James and Louis occasioned similar preparations

in England. The militia was called out; London was strongly guarded by

troops; the train-bands of the southern counties appeared in arms on

the coasts; the beacons were all vigilantly watched, and the fleet was

manned and equipped with all possible speed and strength.

The invitation of James to the birth of his daughter was speedily

followed by a proclamation to his subjects in England. James had always

done himself more harm by his Declarations than all the efforts of

his friends and allies could do him good; and this was precisely of

that character. He expressed no regret for any of his past actions or

measures; he betrayed no suspicion, even, that he might have governed

more wisely. On the contrary, he represented himself as having always

been right, good, and gracious, and his subjects wrong, captious,

and unreasonable. He had always meant and done well, but he had been

shamefully maligned. He now promised to maintain the Church indeed;

but people had had too recent a proof of how he had maintained it in

Ireland. He meant to pardon many of his enemies; but, at the same time,

added such a list of proscriptions as made it look more like a massacre

than an amnesty. Amongst those excepted from all pardon were the Duke

of Ormond, the Marquis of Winchester, the Earls of Sunderland, Danby,

and Nottingham, the Lords Delamere, Wiltshire, Colchester, Cornbury,

and Dunblane; the Bishop of St. Asaph; Drs. Tillotson and Burnet. He

excepted even the poor fishermen who at Faversham had mistaken him

for a Jesuit priest on his flight, and called him "hatchet-face." All

judges, magistrates, sheriffs, jurymen, gaolers, turnkeys, constables,

and every one who had acted under William in securing and condemning

any Jacobite; all justices and other authorities who should not

immediately on his landing abandon the Government and support him;

and all gaolers who should not at once set at liberty all prisoners

confined for any conspiracy in favour of James, or for any political

deed on that side, all were alike condemned. In short, such was the

Draconian rigour with which the Declaration was drawn that there was

hardly a man who was not a downright Jacobite who did not tremble at

the belief that it might include him.

The queen and her ministers no sooner read the Declaration than they

saw the whole effect of it. They had it printed and circulated all over

the kingdom, with a clever running commentary. Parliament was summoned

for the 24th of May, and a number of persons, charged with being

concerned in a plot for bringing in James, were arrested, and others

absconded. Amongst those seized were Marlborough and Lord Huntingdon,

who were sent to the Tower; Mr. Ridley, Mr. Knevitt, Mr. Hastings,

and Mr. Ferguson, were sent to Newgate; the Bishop of Rochester was

confined to his own house; the Lords Brudenel and Fanshawe, the Earls

of Dunmore and Middleton, and Sir Andrew Forrester, were next secured.

The Earls of Scarsdale, Lichfield, and Newborough, the Lords Griffin,

Forbes, Sir John Fenwick, Sir Theophilus Oglethorpe, and others,

escaped. The princess Anne expected arrest.

On the 11th of May, a week after Marlborough was sent to the Tower,

Russell sailed from the Downs in quest of the French fleet. He was at

the head of ninety-nine sail of the line, the greatest force which had

ever descended the English Channel. Off Beachy Head he had met Carter

and Delaval, who had been watching the French ports, and a fine fleet

of Dutchmen were also in conjunction with him. There were between

thirty and forty thousand sailors, Dutch and English, on board, and

he was supported by the Admirals Delaval, Ashley, Cloudesley Shovel,

Carter, and Rooke. Van Almonde was in command of the Dutch squadron,

with Callemberg and Vandergoes. James meanwhile was at La Hogue with

the army, anxiously awaiting the fleet of De Tourville to carry it

over. James confidently calculated on the disaffection of the English

admirals, Russell, Delaval, Carter, and others. He sent an emissary

to remind Russell of his promises, and to promise him and the other

admirals high rewards in return. But Lloyd, the emissary, had found

Russell wonderfully changed. The fatal Declaration had produced the

same effect on him as on others. He told the man that he was desirous

to serve James, but that he must first grant a general pardon; and

besides, if he met the French fleet, though James was aboard of it, he

would never allow himself to be beaten by the French.

In London the terror of this known disaffection had been great. The

queen and her ministers consulted deeply what should be done. Should

they send and arrest the traitors? The effect, they foresaw, would be

to scatter terror through the whole fleet. They adopted a far more

politic plan. On the 15th of May, as the combined fleet lay off St.

Helens, Russell called together the officers on board his own ship,

and informed them that he had a letter from the queen to read them.

In this she stated that she had heard rumours of disaffection amongst

the officers, but would not believe it. She knew they would fight as

became Englishmen for their country. The letter had an instant and

wondrous effect. They immediately signed unanimously a declaration that

they would live and die for the Crown, the Protestant religion, and

the freedom of England. On the 18th the fleet sailed for the coast of

France, and next day the fleet of Tourville was descried. Tourville

had only forty-five ships of the line, and he had orders, if he met

the English fleet, to engage. But Louis had since learned the junction

of the Dutch with the English, and despatched messengers to warn him,

but they were intercepted. Tourville, however, notwithstanding the

preponderance of the enemy, determined to engage. He had been upbraided

after the fight at Beachy Head as timid; his blood was roused, and,

besides, he confidently believed that three-fourths of the English

fleet were secretly for James, and would at the first brush come over

to him. As he lay off Barfleur on the morning of the 19th he saw the

long line of the enemy before him, and bore down upon them for battle.

At eleven o'clock the French admiral opened fire on part of the English

fleet, the rest not being able to get up from the wind being contrary.

The spirit with which the English received him at once dissipated

Tourville's hopes of defection amongst them. The conflict continued

with uncommon fury till one o'clock, when Russell was compelled to

allow his flag-ship, the _Rising Sun_, carrying a hundred and four

guns, to be towed out of the line from the damage she had received. But

the fight continued furiously till three o'clock, when a fog parted

the enemies. Soon after, however, a wind favourable to the English

sprang up, and, at the same time, dispersed the fog. Fresh ships of

the English came up, and the conflict continued to rage till eight in

the evening. During this time Carter, who had been one of the most

deeply pledged to James, but who had fought like a lion, fell mortally

wounded, but as he was carried down to his cabin, he cried to his

men to fight the ship as long as she could swim. Tourville, who was

now contending hopelessly against numbers, drew off, but was closely

pursued, and the most terrible carnage was made of the men on board his

great ship, the _Royal Sun_, the pride of the French navy. He fought,

however, stoutly so long as the light continued; and then the whole

French fleet made all sail for the French ports.

The next morning the English gave chase, and Russell's vessel was

retarded for some time by the falling of her topmast, but soon they

were once more in full pursuit. About twenty of the French ships

escaped through the perilous Race of Alderney, between that island

and the coast of Cotentin, where the English dared not pursue them;

and these vessels, by their desperate courage, escaped to St. Malo.

Tourville had shifted his flag to the _Ambitious_, and the _Royal Sun_,

battered and drenched in blood, made its way, and, with the _Admiral_

and the _Conquerant_, managed to reach Cherbourg, whither Delaval

pursued and burnt them, with several other vessels. Tourville himself

and the rest of the fleet escaped into the harbour of La Hogue, where

they drew themselves up in shallow water, close under the guns of the

Forts De Lisset and St. Vaast.

Here they flattered themselves that they were in safety. The army

destined to invade England lay close at hand, and James, his son the

Duke of Berwick, the Marshal Bellefond, and other great officers,

were in the forts. But Sir George Rooke, by the orders of Russell,

embarked his men in all the light frigates and open boats that could

be procured, and advanced boldly upon the French men-of-war as they

lay drawn up upon the beach. Regardless of the fire from the forts and

the ships, the English rushed to the attack with loud hurrahs, proud

to beard the French under the eyes of the very army of French and

renegade Irish which dared to dream of invading England. The daring

of the deed struck such a panic into the French sailors, that they

quickly abandoned the vessels which lay under Fort Lisset. The fort

and batteries seemed paralysed by the same event, and the English set

fire to the vessels. In vain Tourville manned his boats, and attempted

to drive back the English sailors; his mariners jumped to land again.

In vain the soldiers ashore hurried down and poured in a volley on the

British seamen; they successfully burnt all the six vessels lying under

Lisset, and returned to their ships without the loss of a man.

The next morning Rooke was again afloat with the tide, and leading his

fleet of boats and his brave sailors against the vessels lying under

the Fort St. Vaast. The fort did more execution than the other fort the

day before; but all was in vain. The British sailors climbed up the

vessels; the French fled precipitately out of them, and they were all

burnt to the water's edge, except a few smaller ones, which were towed

away to the English fleet. When James saw these surprising acts he is

said to have involuntarily exclaimed, "See my brave English sailors."

But guns of the exploding vessels going off killed some of the people

standing near him, and he then, coming to a more sober reflection,

said, "Heaven fights against me," and retired. There was an end of all

hope of ever invading England, and he hastened back to St. Germains in

deep dejection.

The news of this most brilliant and most important battle, which gave

such a blow to the power and _prestige_ of Louis, was received in

London with transports of delight. England was once more safe; France

was humbled; invasion at an end. Sixteen of the finest ships of France

had been destroyed, and on the part of England only one fire-ship. The

glory was England's, for, though the Dutch had fought well, it was the

English who had borne the brunt and done the miracles of bravery at La

Hogue. The tidings were borne to William's camp at Grammont, and set

all the cannon roaring the exultation into the ears of Luxemburg and

his army.

At home there was now time to inquire into the particulars of the plot

for which Marlborough and others had been detained. Luckily for them

there was found to have been a sham conspiracy got up by one Young, a

debauched clergyman, who had been imprisoned for bigamy and for many

other crimes. Like Oates and his compeers, and the more recent Fuller,

he hoped to make money, and, therefore, had accused Marlborough, Sprat

the Bishop of Rochester, and the rest, of being in it. On examination,

the plot was found to be a mere barefaced forgery, got up by Young and

another miscreant named Blackhead. They had written an engagement to

bring in King James, and seize William, and forged to it the names of

Marlborough, Cornbury, Sancroft the ex-Primate, and Sprat, Bishop of

Rochester. This document they had contrived to hide in a flower-pot at

the bishop's house at Bromley. The bishop was arrested, but denied all

knowledge of the plot, and then Blackhead confessed. Young, however,

feigned another plot, and endeavoured to inveigle into it a poor man

of the name of Holland, who also informed the Earl of Nottingham.

Young was imprisoned and pilloried, and ministers were glad to admit

the accused to bail. For Marlborough and others this false plot was a

genuine godsend. They were deep in real treason, and this sham treason

screened their reputations just at the moment when the power of James

was being annihilated, and that of William rising in fresh vigour.

But the Government was not satisfied with the success of the battle

of La Hogue. It was too decisive to be left, they thought, in barren

glory; it ought to be followed up by a more severe blow to France. Amid

the public rejoicings, Sidney, Portland, and Rochester went down to

Portsmouth to congratulate the fleet on its success. They distributed

twenty-seven thousand pounds amongst the seamen, and gold medals were

bestowed on the officers; and, to mark the sense of the king and queen

of this great achievement of the sailors, it was announced that the

wounded should be tended at the public charge in the hospitals of

St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew; and, still more, that the palace of

Greenwich, begun by Charles II., should be finished and appropriated

for ever as the home of superannuated sailors. Thus originated this

noble institution, this home for maimed and declining mariners.

But for this honour conferred on the fleet fresh exploits were demanded

of it--that it should sail to St. Malo, bombard the town, and destroy

the remainder of Tourville's fleet, which had taken shelter there.

Accordingly, Rooke was dispatched to take soundings on the dangerous

shores of Brittany, and Russell mustered his fleet, which, having

taken on board transports of fourteen thousand troops under young

Schomberg--now Duke of Leinster--accompanied by Ruvigny--now Earl of

Galway--and his Huguenots, and the Earl of Argyll, with his regiment,

part of which had committed the melancholy massacre of Glencoe, stood

out to sea. Off Portland, however, a council of war was called, and it

was contended, by a majority of both naval and military officers, that

it was too late in the season--it was only the 28th of July--to attempt

such an enterprise amid the dangerous rocks and under the guns of the

forts and batteries of St. Malo. The fleet, therefore, returned to

St. Helens, much to the astonishment and disgust of the whole nation.

High words arose between the Earl of Nottingham, First Lord of the

Admiralty, and Russell. The Minister accused the Admiral of cowardice

and breach of duty in thus tamely giving up the enterprise against

France.

Nottingham's hands were wonderfully strengthened by the deep discontent

of the merchants, who complained that they were almost ruined by the

so-much-vaunted victory of La Hogue; that before, we had a fleet in the

Mediterranean and another out in the Channel protecting the traders;

but that now the fleet had been concentrated to fight Tourville,

and then, instead of taking up proper positions to check the French

ships of war and privateers, had contemptibly returned to port; that

the French, embittered by the defeat of La Hogue, had now sent out

their men-of-war in every direction, and, finding our merchantmen

defenceless, had committed the most awful havoc amongst them. Fifty

vessels alone, belonging to London and Bristol, had been taken by them.

More than a hundred of our trading vessels had been carried into St.

Malo, which Russell, by destroying that port, could have prevented

or avenged; while Bart, of Dunkirk, had scoured the Baltic and the

northern coasts of Britain, and Trouin had actually ascended the

Shannon, and committed frightful mischief in Clare.

Amid such expressions of discontent King William returned from Holland

to England. He landed on the 18th of October. He had had little

success in his campaign; La Hogue was the only bright spot of the

year, and the scene which now met him on his return was lowering and

depressing. There had been an earthquake in Jamaica, which, in three

minutes, had converted Port Royal, the most flourishing city of the

West Indies, into a heap of ruins, burying one thousand five hundred of

the inhabitants, and extending the calamity to the merchants of London

and Bristol. The distress in England itself was general and severe. A

rainy season had ruined the harvest, and reduced the people to a state

of extreme misery. Bread riots were frequent, and the complaints of the

excessive burthen of taxation were loud and general. Burglaries and

highway robberies were of the most audacious kind. William, however,

was not a man to sit and brood over such things. He at once sent

out parties of cavalry into the districts where the robberies were

frequent, and, by bribing some of the thieves, got information of the

rest, whom his police hunted out industriously. Their chief captain,

one Whitney, was taken and hanged, and the highways and domestic

hearths were soon as secure as ever.

He called together Parliament on the 4th of November, where there was

every reason to expect no little faction and difficulties. Parliament

was not merely divided into Ministerialists and Opposition, it was

broken into sundry parties, all exasperated by one cause or another.

The Whigs were sore with their loss of office to a great extent; the

Lords were nettled at the Commons refusing their claims put forward in

the Lord High Steward's Court Bill, and were urged to contention by

Marlborough and the other lords who had been imprisoned, and who were

loud in denouncing the proceeding as a breach of their privileges.

There was a great jealousy of William's employment of so many Dutch in

preference to Englishmen, and the Commons were discontented with the

manner in which public business was conducted.

William was aware of the difficult part he had to play, and in his

opening speech he took care to put La Hogue in the foreground, and

to congratulate them on this glorious victory gained by Englishmen.

He confessed that the success of the campaign on land had been but

moderate, but he praised in the highest terms the valour of the British

soldiers. He expatiated on the power and the designs of France, told

them that the cause of Protestantism was the cause of England, that

Louis must be humbled, and that for that purpose there must be still

liberal supplies. He threw out a hint of carrying the war into France

itself, and assured them that his own aims were identical with theirs,

and that he would willingly sacrifice his life for the honour and

welfare of the nation. To conciliate both Houses, he condescended to

ask their advice and assistance in putting the national affairs into

the best possible condition--a piece of candour of which he speedily

found reason to repent. Both Houses voted him thanks for his gracious

speech, and, immediately seizing on his request for advice, began to

offer it in good earnest.

The Lords at once took up the case of Marlborough, Huntingdon, and

Scarsdale. They complained that in ungratefully persecuting Marlborough

the Court had gone the full length of treating the Princess of Denmark

with severity and indignity. Her guards had been taken away; when

she went to Bath, the magistrates had orders to omit the honours due

to royalty, and the Church to omit her name in the prayers; and

this simply because she had shown her attachment to the Countess of

Marlborough. Marlborough, thus supported by the Lords, who had their

own cause of pique about the Lord High Steward's Court Bill, and by the

disrespect shown to the Princess, was loud in his complaints of the

harshness with which he had been treated, and of being kept in prison

with his friends in defiance of Habeas Corpus. The Earl of Shrewsbury,

the Marquis of Halifax, the Earls of Mulgrave, Devonshire, Montague,

Bradford, Stamford, Monmouth, and Warrington, supported him from

various motives, many of them being Whigs; and the Jacobites fanned

the flame, hoping for a rupture. Lord Lucas, Constable of the Tower,

was ordered to produce the warrants of commitment, and the Clerk of

the King's Bench to lay before them the affidavit of Aaron Smith, the

Solicitor of the Treasury, on which they had been remanded; and Smith

was sharply cross-examined. The judges were ordered to attend, and the

Lords passed a resolution that the law had been violated in the case

of the noble prisoners. They then consulted on the best mode of fully

discharging them. The debate was so violent that the Ministers were

alarmed, and proposed to the King to adjourn Parliament till the 17th

of the month, and in the meanwhile to liberate the noblemen from their

bail. Accordingly, on the reassembling of the Lords, they were informed

that the King had discharged the recognisances of the accused nobles,

and the Lords sullenly dropped the question.

But though disappointed here, the Lords immediately fastened on the

king's request of advice. They moved that a committee of both Houses

should be appointed for preparing this advice. The motion, however,

was rejected by a majority of twelve. Nevertheless, they determined to

give the king advice themselves. They agreed to an Address, praying

his Majesty to appoint an Englishman commander of the forces, and that

English officers should take precedence of all in the confederate army,

except the officers of Crowned heads. This was meant to affect the

Dutch, who were only the subjects of a Stadtholder. They also desired

that the forces left in England should be all English, commanded by

an English general; that such officers as pressed men for the fleet

should be cashiered, and that no foreigner should sit at the Board of

Ordnance. All those matters, aimed at the king's favoured countrymen,

William received coldly, returning only short and dry answers.

The Lords next attacked Russell for his neglect to make the descent

intended on the coast of France. They ordered books and papers

concerning that matter to be laid before them. A committee was

appointed, and the substance of the charge was communicated to the

Commons as concerning a member of that House.

[Illustration: GREENWICH HOSPITAL.]

The Commons on their part took up the charge against Russell as a

charge against themselves. They informed the Lords that they found that

Russell had conducted himself at the head of the fleet with fidelity,

courage, and ability. Russell made his defence, and accused Nottingham

of being the cause of the non-descent. He declared that above twenty

days had elapsed between his writing to Nottingham and receiving an

answer; that therefore the expedition had become abortive from not

receiving timely and necessary information and orders. Nottingham's

friends in the Commons warmly took up his defence; the Lords demanded a

conference; the Commons refused it, and, amid this noise and animosity,

the important subject was left undecided.

The Commons then proceeded to give the King the advice and the

assistance which he had so unluckily asked. They demanded that books

and papers should be laid before them necessary to enable them to

inquire into the management of the Government offices; but they soon

came to a stand, for, inquiring into the abuses of the Admiralty, the

merits or demerits of Nottingham and Russell came again into question.

One or both of them had been guilty of gross mismanagement, but each

House defended its own member, and the only result was a motion in

the Commons, which, whilst it acquitted Russell, seemed to reflect on

Nottingham. The Lords resenting, made severe reprisals on the character

and conduct of Russell, and then the incident ended.

The Commons were more generally united in condemning the failure of

the battle of Steinkirk and the conduct of Solmes. Some officers in

the House, however, defended the behaviour of the Dutch officers on

that occasion, and especially of Overkirk in bringing the remains

of Mackay's troops out of the battle. But they said not a word in

vindication of Solmes, and William, to his disgrace, still continued

this insolent foreigner, who had wilfully sacrificed the lives of the

brave English soldiers, in his command.

[Illustration: BURNING OF BLOUNT'S PAMPHLET BY THE COMMON HANGMAN.

(_See p._ 466.)]

The Commons now went into the question of supplies. They were fully

prepared to sustain the king in his exertions to check the arms of

France, though they protested against a fact which they had discovered

by examinations of the treaty between the Allies, that the English paid

two-thirds of the expense of the war. After grumbling, however, they

voted fifty-four thousand men for the army, twenty thousand of them

to remain at home, and thirty-three thousand men for the navy. They

voted two millions for the army, and two millions for the navy, besides

seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds to supply the deficiency

of the quarterly poll. Still there was likely to be a deficiency.

Notwithstanding the large grants of the previous year, the expenditure

had far exceeded them; it was, therefore, proposed to resort to a land

tax--the first imposed since the Restoration, and the grand transfer

of taxation from the aristocracy to the nation at large. The Peers

made a violent opposition, not to the tax, but to their estates being

valued and assessed by any but commissioners of their own body. But

they finally gave way, and a land tax of four shillings in the pound

was carried. When Louis heard of these unusual supplies, he could not

restrain his amazement. "My little cousin, the Prince of Orange," he

said, "seems to be firm in the saddle; but no matter, the last louis

d'or must carry it."

Little did Louis know the condition of England when he said that. If

the last piece of gold was to carry it, the chance lay much on the

side of England. Whilst France was fast sinking in exhaustion from

his enormous wars and lavish luxury, whilst his people were sunk in

destitution, and trade and agriculture were languishing, England was

fast rising in wealth from commerce, colonies, and internal industry,

and was capable of maintaining the struggle for an indefinite period.

Yet it was at this moment that the National Debt assumed its

determinate shape. It had existed, indeed, since the fraud of Charles

I. on the London merchants by the shutting of the exchequer. It was now

said to be suggested by Burnet that there were heaps of money hidden

away in chests and behind wainscots for want of safe and convenient

public security, and that, by Government giving that security at a

fixed percentage, it might command any amount of money by incurring

only a slight increase of annual taxation for the interest. The idea

itself, however, was familiar to William, for the Dutch had long had a

debt of five million pounds, which was regarded by the people as the

very best security for their money. Accordingly, a Bill was passed on

the 3rd of January, 1693, for raising a million by loan, and another

million by annuities, which were to be paid by a new duty on beer and

other liquors; and thus, with a formal establishment of the National

Debt, closed the year 1692.

The opening of 1693 was distinguished by a warm debate on the liberty

of the press. The licensing, which was about to expire, was proposed

for renewal. The eloquent appeal of Milton, in his "Areopagitica,"

that all books which bore the names of the author or publisher should

be exempt from the power of the licensers, had hitherto produced no

effect; but now circumstances occurred which drew the subject into

notice, and raised many other voices in favour of such exemption. In

the Lords, Halifax, Mulgrave, and Shrewsbury warmly advocated the

principles of Milton; but though the Bill passed, it was only by a

slight majority, and with a protest against it, signed by eleven

peers; nor was it to pass for more than two years. The circumstance

which roused this strong feeling was, that Burnet had published a

pastoral letter to the clergy of his diocese, recommending them to

take the oaths to William and Mary, in which, amongst their claims to

the throne, he had unfortunately mentioned that of conquest. This had

escaped general attention till the Royal Licenser, Edmund Bohun, a high

Tory, who had taken the oaths on this very plea that the king and queen

had won the throne by conquest, fell into the trap of one Blount, whose

works he had refused to license. This man wrote an anonymous pamphlet

with the title, "King William and Queen Mary Conquerors." The unlucky

censor fell into the trap, and licensed it. Then the storm of Whig

indignation broke over his head. He was summoned before Parliament and

committed to custody. The book was ordered to be burnt by the hangman,

and the House unanimously passed a resolution praying his Majesty

to dismiss him from his office. The unfortunate licenser was then

discharged on his own petition, after having been reprimanded on his

knees by the Speaker. Burnet's pastoral letter was likewise ordered to

be burnt by the hangman, much to the bishop's shame and mortification.

But the liberty of the press was achieved. When the Two Years Act

maintaining the censorship expired, the Commons refused to renew it.

William prorogued Parliament on the 14th of March, and prepared to set

out for the Continental campaign.

William, on his part, had more than his usual difficulty in bringing

his Allies into the field. Indeed, they were far more occupied in

their petty feuds than thinking of presenting a sufficient front to

the great enemy who, if successful, would tread them all down in their

own territories as Buonaparte afterwards crushed their posterity. The

Courts of Baden, of Saxony, of Austria, and of the lesser Powers, were

all quarrelling amongst themselves. The Northern Powers were still

trying to weaken the Allies, and so form a third party; and on the

side of Italy, Savoy was menaced by numerous forces of France, and

ill-supported by Austria. The Prince of Hesse had neglected to furnish

his quota, and yet wanted a chief command. The Prince of Baden and the

Elector of Saxony were at strife for the command of the army of the

Rhine. When William had brought all these wretched and provoking Allies

into some degree of order, he mustered seventy thousand men in the

field, and Louis came against him with a hundred and twenty thousand.

Louis marched himself with his army with all the pomp and splendour

that he could assume. He brought all his Court with him, as if his

officers should be stimulated to the utmost by having to fight under

the very eyes of their king and the courtiers and ladies, Madame de

Maintenon amongst them. Louis's plan of action was precisely what it

had been in the two previous campaigns. As he had suddenly invested

Mons and Namur by overwhelming forces, before his enemy could approach,

he now proposed to surprise and take Brussels or Liége, and so carry

off the glory of the exploit both from the Allies and his own general,

Luxemburg. This was a cheap and easy way of securing fame without

danger; but this time William was too quick for him. Louis arrived at

the commencement of June at Namur, where his ladies held a brilliant

court. But William had taken up a strong position at Parke, near

Louvain, and thrown reinforcements into Maestricht, Huy, and Charleroi.

Louis perceived that he was checkmated, and his desire of acquiring

still more martial honours suddenly evaporated. Nothing but hard

fighting could make an impression on his stubborn antagonist, and

for that Louis had no fancy. He determined, therefore, to return to

Versailles with his ladies and his Court, and leave Luxemburg to fight

it out. The alarm at this proposal in the camp was intense. Luxemburg

represented to Louis that it would have the certain effect of damping

the spirits of the soldiers, and raise those of the enemy. He reminded

him that now he had nothing to do but to bear down upon the Allies with

all his powers, and sweep them away by mere momentum, and put an end

to the war. But all his entreaties were lost on the Grand Monarque,

who had rather steal a victory than win one. He not only persisted

in going, but he weakened the forces of Luxemburg by dispatching the

division of Boufflers, amounting to twenty thousand men, which he

had taken under his own especial command, under Boufflers and the

Dauphin, to join Marshal de Lorges, who had orders again to ravage the

Palatinate.

But, in reality, Luxemburg was better without the pompous and

voluptuous king. He had no one now to come between himself and his

real military genius, in which he infinitely excelled William; and he

immediately brought his skill into play. Before attacking the Allies

he resolved to divide them on the true Macchiavellian principle,

"divide et impera." He therefore made a feint of marching upon Liége.

Liége was one of the places that it was expected that the French

would aim at securing this campaign, and the inhabitants had very

cavalierly declined to take any measures for defending themselves,

saying it was the business of the Allies. William, therefore, put his

forces in motion to prevent this catastrophe. He had advanced as far

as Neer-Hespen; there, however, he heard that Luxemburg had obtained

possession of Huy, which had been defended by a body of troops from

Liége and Count Tilly, but which, though supported by another division

under the Duke of Würtemberg, had been compelled to return to Liége.

William now dispatched twenty thousand men to reinforce Liége, and

thus accomplish the very thing at which Luxemburg was aiming. The

moment he learnt that William had reduced his force by this detachment,

he marched from Huy on the 28th of July, and passed the Jaar near

its source with an army exceeding that of the Allies by thirty-five

thousand men. William, now aware of Luxemburg's design, committed one

of those blunders in strategy, which, except for his indomitable

tenacity of purpose, would long ago have ruined him. He could have put

the deep river Gerte between him and the enemy; it was just in the

rear. His generals strongly urged him to do this, where he might have

maintained his position till he had recalled his forces from Liége.

But he would not listen to them. He was afraid of having to retreat

before Luxemburg, and discouraging his men. He set about, therefore,

instantly to strengthen his then position. It was naturally strong;

on his right hand lay the village of Neer-Winden amongst a network of

hedges, and deep lanes, with a small stream winding through it; on his

right lay the village of Romsdorff, on a brook named the Landen, whence

the battle took its name. William ordered an entrenchment to be thrown

up from one village to the other, and mounted with a formidable rampart

of stakes. Batteries were raised along this breastwork, and the two

villages were made as strong as the time would allow.

The Allies commenced immediately a cannonade with a hundred pieces of

cannon on the ramparts, which did great execution; but the French soon

returned the compliment, and about eight o'clock made a furious attack

on the villages of Lare and Neer-Winden. These places were several

times lost and regained. In one of the assaults the Duke of Berwick

was taken prisoner. Perceiving himself surrounded by the English,

he plucked off his white cockade, and endeavoured to pass himself

off as an English officer. His English tongue might have served him,

but he had fallen under the eye of his uncle, Brigadier Churchill,

who received him affectionately, and conducted him to William, who

addressed him with courtesy, but never saw him again, as he was

immediately after the battle exchanged for the Duke of Ormond, who was

wounded and taken prisoner in the action. Meanwhile the battle was

raging fiercely all along the line. The French repeatedly rushed up to

the breastworks, and were as often driven back by the slaughtering fire

of the infantry. A fresh attack was made on Neer-Winden, supported by

the division under the Duke of Bourbon, but which was repulsed with

terrible carnage. Then Luxemburg called together his staff to consult,

and it was resolved to try one more assault on Neer-Winden with the

famous Household Troops, which had carried the day at Mons and Namur.

William met them at the head of several English regiments, which

charged the Household Troops with such impetuosity that, for the first

time, they were forced to give way. But whilst William was exerting

himself on the right, with a desperation and a risking of his person

which astonished everyone, the centre had become much weakened, and a

murderous fight was going on at Romsdorff, or Neer-Landen, on the left.

There the Prince of Conti renewed the flagging contest by bringing up

some of the finest regiments of the French infantry, whilst Villeroi

there encountered the Bavarian cavalry, under Count D'Arco. In this

_mêlée_ the Duke of Chartres narrowly escaped being taken. Whilst the

battle was thus obstinately disputed, the Marquis D'Harcourt brought up

two-and-twenty fresh squadrons from Huy, which falling on the English,

Dutch, and Hanoverians struggling against the united onslaught of

Luxemburg, Marsin, and Marshal de Joyeuse, bore them down by actual

numbers. The whole line gave way; and now was seen the folly of William

leaving the river in his rear instead of having it in front. The

confusion became terrible to escape over the bridge, and a frightful

carnage must have followed had not William, with the regiments of

Wyndham, Lumley, and Galway, borne the brunt of the pursuing host till

the rest of his army got over the bridge of Neer-Hespen. As it was,

the rout and disorder were dreadful; numbers flung themselves into the

river, but found it too deep, and were drowned. The Duke of Ormond was

here severely wounded. Here, too, Solmes, mortally wounded, was seized

by the enemy. The "English bulldogs" did not mourn his loss. If William

by his want of judgment had led his troops into this trap, he did his

best to get them out of it. He repeatedly dismounted to encourage his

men, inciting them by voice and example to stand up to the enemy. He

had two led horses shot close behind him; one bullet passed through

his hat, another through his sleeve, and a third carried away the knot

of his sash. At length he got his army over the bridge, and encamped

on the other bank of the river. The French did not attempt to pursue;

they were worn out with their violent exertion, and passed the night on

the field of battle amongst the heaps of slain and wounded. The next

morning presented the most appalling scene of butchery, unequalled by

any battle of that epoch, except that of Malplaquet. Twenty thousand

men are said to have perished in this bloody struggle, about an equal

number on each side. On the French side fell Count Montchevreuil and

the Duke D'Uzes, the premier peer of France. Luxemburg, exhausted with

this effort, remained fifteen days at Waren, reorganising his shattered

forces; and William employed the time in a similar manner, recalling

the troops from Liége and from other places; so that in a short time he

was again ready for action, his headquarters being Louvain.

The battle of Landen was the great event of the campaign of 1693.

When Luxemburg was rejoined by Boufflers from the Rhine, he invested

Charleroi, and that with so much adroitness that William was not able

to prevent him. Charleroi capitulated on the 11th of October, and

Louis ordered a _Te Deum_ and other rejoicings for this fresh triumph.

But though he professed to triumph, he had little cause to do so. He

had formerly overrun Holland, Flanders, or Franche-Comté in a single

campaign, and sometimes without a battle; now he had beaten the Allies

at Fleurus, Steinkirk, and Landen, and yet here they were as ready to

fight him as ever. His country was sinking into the very depths of

misery and destitution, the campaign had cost him ten thousand men,

and though he had taken sixty cannon, nine mortars, and a great number

of colours and standards, he could not advance twenty miles in the

direction of the United Provinces without running the risk of a similar

decimation of his troops. It was a humiliating position, after all.

After the surrender of Charleroi both armies went into winter quarters.

If the affairs of England had been unsuccessful by land, they had been

most disastrous by sea. Before leaving for Holland William ordered that

Killigrew and Delaval should, with their whole fleet, amounting to

nearly a hundred sail, get out to sea early, and blockade the French

fleets in their ports, so as to allow our merchantmen to pursue their

voyages with security. Our ports were crowded with trading vessels,

which had long been waiting to sail to the Mediterranean and other

seas with cargoes. About the middle of May the admirals united their

squadrons at St. Helens, and, being joined by a considerable number

of Dutch men-of-war, they took on board five regiments of soldiers,

intending to make a descent on Brest. No less than four hundred

merchantmen were ready to start, and on the 6th of June the united

fleet put out from St. Helens to convoy them so far as to be out of

danger of the French fleets, when Sir George Rooke was to take them

forward to the Mediterranean under guard of twenty sail. But the French

appear to have been perfectly informed of all the intentions of the

English Government from the traitors about the Court, and the English

to have been perfectly ignorant of the motions of the French. Instead

of Tourville allowing himself to be blockaded in Brest, and D'Estrées

in Toulon, they were already out and sailing down towards Gibraltar,

where they meant to lie in wait for the English.

[Illustration: LOUIS XIV.]

The united fleet of the Allies having, therefore, accompanied Rooke and

the merchantmen about two hundred miles beyond Ushant, returned. Rooke

did not think they were by any means certain of their enemies being

behind them, and earnestly entreated the admirals to go on farther, but

in vain. They not only turned back, but went home, without making the

slightest attempt to carry out the attack on Brest. When they reached

England it was well known that Tourville had recently quitted Brest,

and was pursuing his course south to join D'Estrées. The consternation

and indignation were beyond bounds. A swift vessel was despatched to

overtake and recall Rooke and the merchant vessels if possible. But it

is proverbial that a stern chase is a long chase. It was impossible to

come up with Rooke; he had reached Cape St. Vincent, and there learnt

that a French fleet was lying in the Bay of Lagos; but, imagining that

it was only a detached squadron, he went on, till on the 16th of June

he perceived before him the whole French fleet, amounting to eighty

vessels.

As to engaging such an unequal force, that would have been a wilful

sacrifice of himself and his charge. The Dutch Admiral Vandergoes

agreed with him that the best thing was for the merchant vessels to

run into the Spanish ports Faro, San Lucar, or Cadiz, as best served

them, others were too far out at sea; these he stood out to protect as

long as he could, and they made, some for Ireland, some for Corunna and

Lisbon. He himself then made all sail for Madeira, which he reached

in safety. Two of the Dutch ships, being overtaken by the French, ran

in shore, and thus drawing the French after them, helped the others

to get off. Captains Schrijver and Vander Poel fought stoutly as long

as they could, and then surrendered. The French commander Coetlegon

took seven of the Smyrna merchantmen, and sank four under the rocks

of Gibraltar. The loss to the merchants was fearful. The news of this

great calamity spread a gloom over the City of London, and many were

loud in attributing disloyalty to Killigrew and Delaval, probably not

without cause, for that they were in correspondence with St. Germains

is only too certain.

Sir George Rooke returned from Madeira to Cork, which he reached on the

3rd of August, his ships of war and the traders which had followed him

for safety numbering fifty vessels. Leaving the rest of his ships to

convoy the merchantmen to Kinsale, he returned to the fleet, which was

cruising in the Channel, and which now returned to St. Helens, where

they had already landed the soldiers. About the same time a squadron,

which had gone out to seize the island of Martinique, under Sir Francis

Wheeler, after coasting Newfoundland and Canada, returned totally

unsuccessful. The Dutch set sail for Holland on the 19th of September,

and thus terminated this inglorious naval campaign.

On the 7th of November Parliament met. William had a poor story of

his campaign to relate, but he attributed his defeat to the enormous

exertions which Louis had made, and on that plea demanded still greater

efforts from England. He asked that the army should be raised to a

hundred and ten thousand men, and the navy proportionably augmented.

He complained bitterly of the mismanagement of the fleet, and the

Commons immediately proceeded to inquire into the cause of it. The

Whigs made a vehement charge of treachery and neglect against Delaval

and Killigrew; the Tories, to defend them, threw the blame on the

Admiralty. Lord Falkland, who was Chief Commissioner, was proved by

Rainsford, the Receiver of the Navy, to have embezzled a large sum,

and it was moved that he be committed to the Tower. This, however, was

overruled, but he was reprimanded in his place. The Lords then took up

the same examination, and endeavoured to turn the blame from the Earl

of Nottingham to Sir John Trenchard, the Whig secretary. Nottingham

declared that early in June he received a list of the French fleet

from Paris, and the time of their sailing, and handed it to Trenchard,

whose duty it was to send the orders to the admirals. But Trenchard

was in his turn screened by the Whigs. The matter was again taken

up by the Commons, and Lord Falkland was declared guilty of a high

misdemeanour and committed to the Tower, whence, however, in two days

he was released on his own petition. Robert Harley--destined to make a

great figure in the succeeding reign--Foley, and Harcourt, all of whom

from being Whigs had become Tories, presented to the House a statement

of the receipts and disbursements of the revenue, which displayed the

grossest mismanagement. But the farther the inquiry went, the more

flagrant became the discoveries of the corruption of both Ministers

and members of Parliament, through bounties, grants, places, pensions,

and secret-service money; so that it was clear that Parliament was so

managed that Ministers could baffle any Bill, quash any grievance,

and prepare any fictitious statement of account. The result was that

William was compelled to dismiss Nottingham, and to place Russell at

the head of the Admiralty. The seals which Nottingham resigned were

offered to Shrewsbury, but were not at once accepted.

Having expressed their feelings on the mismanagement and treachery

of the past year, the Commons proceeded to vote the supplies for the

next, and in this they showed no want of confidence in the king. They

did not, indeed, vote him his hundred and ten thousand troops, but

they voted eighty-three thousand one hundred and twenty-one, but not

till they had called for the treaties existing between William and

his Allies, and the quota which every one was to furnish. To defray

the charge, they voted five millions and a half, in nearly equal

proportions between the army and the navy, including four hundred

thousand pounds to pay the arrears of the Session; and this they

ordered to be raised by a land tax of four shillings in the pound,

and a further excise on beer, a duty on salt, and a lottery. This was

a profusion which would have made the country stand aghast under the

abhorrent rule of James, and the force was nearly double that with

which Cromwell had made himself the dread of Europe.

[Illustration: THE FOUNDING OF THE BANK OF ENGLAND, 1694.

FROM THE ORIGINAL DESIGN BY GEORGE HARCOURT FOR THE WALL PANEL IN THE

ROYAL EXCHANGE.]

These matters being settled, the Commons considered the popular

questions of the Bill for Regulating the Trials for High Treason, the

Triennial Bill, and the Place Bill. None of these Bills were made law.

The Triennial Bill and the Bill for Regulating the Trials for High

Treason were lost; the Place Bill was carried, but William refused

to ratify it, under the idea that it was intended to abridge his

prerogative. The excitement in the Commons was intense. It was resolved

to address his Majesty, and such an address was drawn up and presented

by the whole House. William received them very graciously, but conceded

nothing, and Harley declared, on returning to the House, that the

king's answer was no answer at all. Menaces of showing their power on

the next occasion by stopping the supplies were thrown out, and it

was proposed to go up to his Majesty again to demand a more explicit

answer; but the Whigs represented the danger of thus encouraging the

hopes of the Jacobites by the prospect of a breach between King and

Parliament, and the matter dropped.

The question of the charter of the East India Company was again warmly

debated. The feud between the old and the new Company had grown so

violent that the old Company, fearing Government might be induced to

grant a charter to the new Company, had put forth all its powers of

bribery, and had succeeded. But the former had somehow neglected the

payment of the tax on joint-stock companies, by which, according to

the terms of the Act, their charter was forfeited. The new Company

eagerly seized on this circumstance to prevent a renewal of the

charter; but the old Company put nearly one hundred thousand pounds at

the disposal of Sir Thomas Cook, one of their members, and also member

of Parliament, and by a skilful distribution of this sum amongst the

king's Ministers, Caermarthen and Seymour coming in for a large share,

they succeeded in getting their charter renewed.

The new Company and the merchants of London were exasperated at this

proceeding. They published an account of the whole transaction; they

represented that the old Company was guilty of the grossest oppression

and the most scandalous acts of violence and injustice in India and

its seas; they asserted that two of their own ships had exported

in one year more cloths than the old Company had exported in three

years; and they offered to send more the next year of both cloths and

other merchandise than the Company had sent in five; but the bribes

prevailed, and the old Company obtained its charter--not very definite

in its terms, however, as regarded its monopoly, and subject to such

alterations and restrictions within a given time as the king should

see fit. At this juncture the old Company were imprudent enough to

obtain an order from the Admiralty to restrain a valuable ship called

the _Redbridge_, lying in the Thames, from sailing. Her papers were

made out for Alicante, but it was well known that she was bound for

the Indies. The owners appealed to Parliament, and Parliament declared

the detention of the vessel illegal, and, moreover, that all subjects

of England had a right to trade to the Indies, unless prohibited by

Act of Parliament. Encouraged by this decision, the new Company prayed

the Commons to grant them a direct sanction to trade thither, and the

old Company, on their part, prayed for a Parliamentary sanction to

their charter; but no decision in either case was come to, and for some

years scenes of strange contention continued to be enacted between the

rival Companies and free traders in the seas and ports of those distant

regions.

The last Act of this Parliamentary session proved the most important of

all; it was the establishment of the Bank of England. Banking, now so

universal, was but of very recent introduction to England. The Lombard

Jews had a bank in Italy as early as 808; Venice had its bank in 1157;

Geneva in 1345; Barcelona in 1401. In Genoa, Stockholm, Amsterdam,

Hamburg, and Rotterdam there had long been banks, but in England men

had continued, till within a very short time previous to this period,

to hoard and pay out their own money from their own strong boxes. The

goldsmiths of Lombard Street had of late become bankers, and people

began to pay by orders on them, and travellers to take orders from

them on foreign banks. It was now beginning to be strongly agitated

to establish joint-stock banks, and there were various speculative

heads at work with plans for them. One Hugh Chamberlayne and his

coadjutor, John Briscoe, published a scheme of a land bank, by which

gentlemen were to give security for their notes on their land; on the

principle that land was as real and substantial property as gold. But

the extravagant and unsound views as to the actual value of land which

they promulgated ruined their credit. Because an estate was worth

twenty thousand pounds at twenty years' purchase, they argued that it

was worth that every twenty years, and, therefore, could be immediately

convertible at the same rate for any number of years--as if they could

put a hundred years' purchase in the first twenty, and raise the

hundred years' value, or one hundred thousand pounds, on it at once.

There was, however, a more sober and shrewd projector, William

Paterson, a calculating Scotsman, who in 1691 had laid before

Government a plan for a national bank on sound and feasible principles.

His scheme had received little attention, but now, though a million

of money was raised by the lottery, another million was needed, and

Paterson secured the attention of Charles Montague, a rising statesman,

to his scheme. Paterson represented that the Government might easily

relieve itself of the difficulty of raising this money, and of all

future similar difficulties, by establishing a national bank, at the

same time that it conferred the most important advantages on the public

at large. He had already firmly impressed Michael Godfrey, an eminent

London merchant, and the brother of the unfortunate Sir Edmundsbury

Godfrey, with the immense merits of his scheme. They now submitted

these merits, and the particularly attractive one to a young politician

of raising himself by a happy mode of serving the Government, and

acquiring immediate distinction for practical sagacity. Montague was a

young man of high family, but a younger brother's younger son--poor,

clever, accomplished, and intensely ambitious. At Cambridge he had

distinguished himself as a wit and a versifier; but he was now in the

Commons, and had made a rapid reputation as an orator and statesman

by his management of the Bill for Regulating the Trials for High

Treason. This man--vain, ostentatious, not too nice in his means of

climbing, but with talents equal to the most daring enterprise, and

who afterwards became better known as the Earl of Halifax--saw the

substantial character of Paterson's scheme, and took it up. Whilst he

worked the affair in Parliament, Godfrey was to prepare the City for it.

Montague submitted the scheme to the Committee of Ways and Means,

and as they were at their wits' end to raise the required million,

they caught at it eagerly. The proposed plan was to grant a charter

to a company of capitalists, under the name of the Governor and

Company of the Bank of England. This company was to have authority

to issue promissory notes, discount bills of Exchange, and to deal

in bullion and foreign securities. Their first act was to be to lend

the Government twelve hundred thousand pounds, at eight per cent.,

and to receive, as means of repayment, the proceeds of a new duty on

tonnage, whence the bank at first received the name of the Tonnage

Bank. The Bill for establishing this bank was introduced ostensibly to

Parliament as a Bill for imposing this new duty on tonnage; the charter

of the proposed bank being granted in consideration of its making an

immediate advance on the tonnage duty. In the Commons it underwent many

sallies of wit and sarcasm, as one of the thousand speculations of the

time; but in the City, where its real character was at once perceived

by the Lombard Street money-dealers, it was instantly assailed by

a perfect storm of execration. It was declared to be a scheme for

enabling the Government to raise money at any moment and to any extent,

independently of Parliament, and thus to accomplish all that the

Charleses and Jameses had ever aimed at. To silence this suspicion,

Montague introduced a clause making it illegal, and amounting to

forfeiture of its charter, for the bank to lend any money to Government

without the consent of the Parliament. This, however, did not lay the

tempest. It was now denounced as a Republican institution borrowed

from Holland and Genoa, and meant to undermine the monarchy; it was a

great fact, the objectors urged, that banks and kings had never existed

together.

Notwithstanding all opposition, however, the Bill passed the Commons;

and though it met with fresh and determined opposition in the Lords,

where it was declared to be a scheme of the usurers to enrich

themselves at the expense of the aristocracy, on Caermarthen coolly

asking them, if they threw out this Bill, how they meant to pay the

Channel fleet, they passed it; and such was its success in the City,

that in less than ten days the whole sum required by Government was

subscribed. Such was the origin of that wonderful institution, the

Bank of England. One other measure of importance was carried by this

Parliament, namely, the Triennial Act, limiting Parliament to three

years.

Immediately that the Bank of England Bill had received the royal

assent, William prorogued Parliament, and rewarded Montague for his

introduction of the scheme of the bank, by making him Chancellor of

the Exchequer. Shrewsbury was now induced to accept the Seals. William

having shown him that he was aware of his being tampered with by the

agents of James, demanded his acceptance of them as a pledge of his

fidelity. To secure him effectually--for William knew well that nothing

but interest would secure Whigs--he conferred on him the vacant Garter

and a dukedom. Seymour was dismissed, and his place as a Lord of the

Treasury was given to John Smith, a zealous Whig, so that excepting

Caermarthen, Lord President, and Godolphin, First Lord of the Treasury,

the Cabinet was purely Whig. The old plan of mixed Ministries was being

rapidly abandoned.

William had closed the session of Parliament on the 25th of April,

1694, and in a few days he was sailing for Rotterdam. Before going,

however, he had ventured to refuse offers of peace from Louis. This

ambitious monarch, by his enormous efforts to vanquish the Allies, had

greatly exhausted his kingdom. Scarcely ever had France, in the worst

times of her history, been reduced so low, and a succession of bad

seasons and consequent famine had completed the misery of his people.

He therefore employed the King of Denmark to make advances for a peace.

He offered to surrender all pretensions to the Netherlands, and to

agree to the Duke of Bavaria succeeding to Flanders on the death of the

King of Spain; but he made no offer of acknowledging William and Mary

as rightful sovereigns of England. Many thought that William ought, on

such conditions, to have made peace, and thus saved the money and men

annually consumed in Flanders. But Parliament and the English people

both knew Louis far too well to suppose that the moment that he had

recruited his finances he would not break through all his engagements

and renew the war with redoubled energy. His people were now reduced in

many places to feed on nettles, and his enemies deemed it the surest

policy to press him whilst in his extremity.

[Illustration: COSTUMES OF THE TIME OF WILLIAM AND MARY.]

Finding that he did not succeed in obtaining peace, Louis resolved to

act on the defensive in the coming campaign in every quarter except in

Catalonia, where his whole fleet could co-operate with the Count de

Noailles, the commander of his land forces. William, who had received

intelligence of this plan of the campaign, before his departure,

ordered the British fleet under Russell to prevent the union of the

French squadrons from Brest and Toulon. Russell was then to proceed

to the Mediterranean to drive the French from the coast of Catalonia,

and co-operate with the Spaniards on land. Meanwhile, the Earl of

Berkeley, with another detachment of the fleet, was to take on board a

strong force under the command of General Talmash, and bombard Brest

in the absence of Tourville. All this was ably planned, but the whole

scheme was defeated by the treachery of his courtiers: by Godolphin,

his own First Lord of the Treasury, and by Marlborough, against whom

the most damning evidence exists. Macpherson and Dalrymple, in the

State papers discovered by them at Versailles, have shown that the

whole of William's plans on this occasion were communicated to James by

Godolphin, Marlborough, and Colonel Sackville, and have given us the

strongest reasons for believing that the preparations of the fleet were

purposely delayed by Caermarthen, the new Duke of Leeds, Shrewsbury,

Godolphin, and others, letters for that purpose being discovered

addressed to them by James through the Countess of Shrewsbury.

But of all the infamous persons thus plotting against the sovereign

they had sworn to serve, and from whom they had many of them just

received the highest honours that the Government could bestow, none

equalled in infamy the detestable Marlborough. This man, who was

professing allegiance at the same time to both William and James,

and who would have betrayed either of them for his own purposes, was

indefatigable in hunting out the king's secrets, and dispatching

them with all haste, enforcing the disgrace of his own country and

the massacre of his own countrymen with all his eloquence--the sole

object being his own aggrandisement. Talmash was the only general who

could be compared with him in military talent. Talmash betrayed and

disgraced, Marlborough, who was suspected and rejected by William for

his treason, felt sure he himself must be employed. Accordingly, he

importuned Russell for a knowledge of the destination of the fleet; but

Russell, who probably by this time had found it his interest to be true

to his sovereign, refused to enlighten him. But Marlborough was not to

be thus defeated in his traitorous designs. He was on most intimate

terms with Godolphin, and most likely obtained the real facts from him.

Godolphin, indeed, had already warned the French through James of the

intended blow, and Marlborough followed up the intelligence by a letter

dated the 2nd of May, in which he informed James that twelve regiments

of infantry and two regiments of marines were about to embark under

command of Talmash, in order to destroy Brest.

This diabolical treason had its full effect. Tourville had already

sailed. He left Brest on the 25th of April, and was at this moment in

the Straits of Gibraltar, which he passed on the 4th of May. Brest was

defenceless; but Louis, thus apprised of his danger, instantly sent

the great engineer of the age, Vauban, to put the port into the best

possible state of defence, and dispatched after him a powerful body of

troops. The weather favoured the traitors and the French. The English

fleet was detained by contrary winds; it did not quit St. Helens till

the 29th of May. On the 5th of June the fleet was off Cape Finisterre,

where a council of war was held, and the next day Russell sailed for

the Mediterranean with the greater part of the fleet. Lord Berkeley

with the remainder, having on board General Talmash and his six

thousand troops, turned his prows towards Brest. But by this time the

town was in full occupation by a great body of soldiers, and Vauban had

planted batteries commanding the port in every direction, in addition

to eight large rafts in the harbour well supplied with mortars. In

fact, there were no less than ninety mortars and three hundred cannons;

all the passages under the castle were made bomb-proof, and there

were at least five thousand infantry and a regiment of dragoons in

the place. The English had no friendly traitors amongst the French

to act the Marlborough and apprise them of all these preparations;

and they rushed blindly on the destruction which their own perfidious

countrymen had organised for them. The greater part of the unhappy

men were slaughtered, and Talmash was shot through the thigh, and

borne off to the ships. Talmash died in a few days, exclaiming that he

had been betrayed by his own countrymen. He was so, more absolutely

than he or even most of his contemporaries were aware of. The object

of Marlborough was accomplished more completely than he could have

anticipated. His rival was not disgraced, but destroyed--taken out of

his way; and the hypocritical monster went to Whitehall to condole with

the queen over this national dishonour and calamity, and to offer what

he truly called "his own unworthy sword." When the offer was forwarded

to William in Holland, he bluntly rejected it; but Marlborough

ultimately achieved his end, and we ought never to forget, when we

remember Ramillies, Blenheim, and Malplaquet, that amongst the acts by

which he rose to a dukedom was the massacre of Camaret Bay.

On the 9th of November William landed at Margate, where the queen met

him, and their journey to the capital was like an ovation. On the 12th

the king met his Parliament, and congratulated it on having decidedly

given a check to the arms of the French. This was true, though it had

not been done by any battle during the campaign. Russell by relieving

Barcelona, which had been blockaded by two French fleets, had effaced

the defeat of Camaret Bay, and in the Netherlands, if there had been

no battle, there had been no repulse, as in every former campaign.

He had now no Mons, no Fleurus, no Namur, no Landen to deplore; on

the contrary, he had driven the French to their own frontiers without

the loss of a man. But he still deemed it necessary to continue their

exertions, and completely to reduce the French arrogance, and he called

for supplies as liberal as in the preceding year. The Customs Act was

about to expire, and he desired its renewal.

The Commons adjourned for a week, and before they met again Archbishop

Tillotson was taken suddenly ill whilst performing service in the

chapel at Whitehall, and died on the 22nd of November. With the

exception of the most violent Jacobites, who could not forgive him

taking the primacy whilst Sancroft was living, the archbishop was

universally and justly beloved and venerated. In the City especially,

where he had preached at St. Lawrence in the Jewry for nearly thirty

years, and where, as we have seen, his friend Firmin took care to have

his pulpit supplied with the most distinguished preachers during his

absence at Canterbury, he was enthusiastically admired as a preacher

and beloved as a man. The king and queen were greatly attached to him,

and William pronounced him, at his death, the best friend he ever had,

and the best man he ever knew.

Tillotson was succeeded by Dr. Tenison, Bishop of Lincoln. Mary was

very earnest for Stillingfleet; but even Stillingfleet was too High

Church for William. Could he, however, have foreseen that it was the

last request that the queen would ever make, he would, no doubt, have

complied with it. In a few weeks Mary herself was seized with illness.

She had been worn down by the anxieties of governing amid the feuds

of parties and the plottings of traitors during the King's absence,

and had now not strength to combat with a strong disease. The disease

was, moreover, the most fatal which then attacked the human frame--the

small-pox. No means had yet been discovered to arrest its ravages,

and in her case the physicians were for a time divided in opinion as

to its real character. One thought it measles, one scarlet fever,

another spotted fever, a fourth erysipelas. The famous Radcliffe at

once pronounced it small-pox. It was soon perceived that it would

prove fatal, and Dr. Tenison was selected to break the intelligence to

her. She received the solemn announcement with great fortitude and

composure. She instantly issued orders that no person, not even the

ladies of her bedchamber, should approach her if they had not already

had the complaint. She shut herself up for several hours in her closet,

during which she was busy burning papers and arranging others. Her

sister Anne, on being apprised of her danger, sent a message, offering

to come and see her; but she thanked her, and replied that she thought

she had better not. But Mary sent her a friendly message, expressing

her forgiveness of whatever she might have thought unkindness in Anne.

In everything else the very enemies of Mary were compelled to praise

her. She was tall, handsome, and dignified in person, yet of the most

mild and amiable manners; strong in her judgment, quick in perceiving

the right, anxious to do it, warm in her attachment to her friends,

and most lenient towards her enemies. To her husband she was devotedly

attached; had the most profound confidence in his abilities, and was

more happy in regarding herself as his faithful wife than as joint

sovereign of the realm. William, on his part, had not avoided giving

her the mortification of seeing a mistress in his Court in the person

of Mrs. Villiers, yet she had borne it with a quiet dignity which did

her much credit; and now William showed that, cold as he was outwardly,

he was passionately attached to her. His grief was so excessive

that, when he knew that he must lose her, he fainted many times in

succession, and his own life even began to be despaired of. He would

not quit her bedside for a moment day or night till he was borne away

in a sinking state a short time before she expired. After her death he

shut himself up for some weeks, and scarcely saw any one, and attended

to no business, till it was feared that he would lose his reason.

During his illness he had called Burnet into his closet, and, bursting

into a passion of tears, he said, "he had been the happiest, and now he

was going to be the most miserable of men; that during the whole course

of their marriage he had never known a single fault in her. There was a

worth in her that no one knew beside himself."

Mary died on the 28th of December in the utmost peace after taking

the Sacrament, and William, deprived of his unselfish wife's support,

was left to carry on his great work alone. But apart from the loss of

popularity entailed by the death of so able and beloved a consort, it

cannot be said that William's position was altered by the death of his

wife; so completely was he the master-spirit.