CHAPTER XIV.

REIGN OF WILLIAM III. (_continued_).

Rising Hopes of the Jacobites--Expulsion of Trevor for

Venality--Examination of the Books of the East India

Company--Impeachment of Leeds--The Glencoe Inquiry--The Darien

Scheme--Marlborough's Reconciliation with William--Campaign of

1695--Surrender of Namur--William's Triumphant Return--General

Election and Victory of the Whigs--New Parliament--Re-establishment

of the Currency--Treasons Bill passed--A Double Jacobite

Plot--Barclay's Preparations--Failure of Berwick's Insurrection

Scheme--William Avoids the Snare--Warnings and Arrests--Sensation

in the House of Commons--Trial and Execution of the

Conspirators--The Association Bill becomes Law--Land Bank

Established--Commercial Crisis--Failure of the Land Bank--The

Bank of England supplies William with Money--Arrest of Sir John

Fenwick--His Confession--William ignores it--Good Temper of the

Commons--They take up Fenwick's Confession--His Silence--A Bill of

Attainder passes both Houses--Execution of Fenwick--Ministerial

Changes--Louis desires Peace--Opposition of the Allies--French

Successes--Terms of Peace--Treaty of Ryswick--Enthusiasm in England.

The death of Queen Mary raised marvellously the hopes of the Jacobites

and the Court of St. Germains. Though the Jacobites had charged Mary

with ascending the throne contrary to the order of succession, they

now asserted that William had no right thereto, and that Mary's claim,

however weak, had been his only colourable plea for his usurpation.

Mary it was whose amiability and courtesy had reconciled the public

to the government of her husband. His gloomy and morose character and

manners, and his attachment to nothing but Holland and Dutchmen, they

said, had thoroughly disgusted the whole nation, and would now speedily

bring his reign to an end. He spent a great part of the year on the

Continent; Mary had managed affairs admirably in his absence, but who

was to manage them now? They must soon go into confusion, and the

people be glad to bring back their old monarch.

And truly the wholesale corruption of his Parliament and ministers

served to give some force to their anticipations. Hardly ever was

there a time when dishonesty and peculation, hideous as they have

been in some periods of our Government were more gross, general, and

unblushing than amongst the boasted Whigs who had brought about the

Revolution. From the highest to the lowest they were insatiably greedy,

unprincipled, and unpatriotic--if want of patriotism is evidenced by

abusing the institutions and betraying the honour of the nation. One

of the best of them died in April, 1695--George Saville, Marquis of

Halifax. He bore the name of "the Trimmer," but rather because parties

had changed than that he himself had changed. He had discouraged

extreme measures, especially such as were bloody and vindictive. He

had endeavoured to save the heads of both Stafford and Russell; he had

opposed the virulence of the Whigs in the days of the Popish plot, and

of the Tories in that of the Rye House Plot. But even he had not kept

himself free from intriguing with St. Germains. Compared, however, with

the unclean beasts that he left behind, he was a saint.

The tide of inquiry was now, however, flowing fast, and higher

delinquents were reached by it every day. In 1695 there was a charge

made against Sir John Trevor, Speaker of the House of Commons, for

receiving a bribe of one thousand guineas to ensure the passing of the

City Orphans Bill. This was a Bill to enable the Corporation of London

to make a sort of funded debt of the money of the orphans of freemen

which had been left in their charge, and which they had spent. To carry

this Bill, and cover their criminality, bribes had been given, not only

to Trevor, but to Hungerford, Chairman of the Grand Committee, and many

others. Trevor--who had been one of Judge Jeffreys' creatures--was

ejected from the Chair of the House, where he had long made a trade

of selling his influence to the amount of at least six thousand

pounds per annum, besides his salary of four thousand pounds. For his

insolence and greed he had become universally hated, and there was

great rejoicing over his exposure and expulsion from the House. Paul

Foley, the Chairman of the Committee of Inquiry, was elected Speaker

of the House in his stead; Hungerford was also expelled; Seymour came

into question. His overbearing manners had created him plenty of

enemies; and on his remarking on the irregular conduct of a member,

the indignant individual replied that it was "certainly wrong to talk

during a discussion, but it was far worse to take money for getting a

Bill passed." The hint thrown out was quickly seized, and on examining

the books of the East India Company, to which enormous bribery also

was traced, it was found that Seymour had received a bribe of ten

thousand pounds, but under the artful cover of selling him two hundred

tons of saltpetre for much less than its value. It was, moreover, sold

ostensibly to a man named Colston, but really to Seymour, so that

the House could not expel him, but a public mark was stamped on his

character.

[Illustration: WILLIAM PATERSON. (_Facsimile of the only known

Engraving._)]

But the examination of the books of the East India Company laid bare a

series of bribes of Ministers and Parliament men, which made all the

rest dwindle into insignificance. In previous years there were found

items in the books of one thousand two hundred and eighty-four pounds

and two thousand and ninety-six pounds; but in the past year, during

the great contest with the new Company, Sir Thomas Cook, who had been

empowered to bribe at his discretion, had expended on Ministers and

Members no less a sum than one hundred and sixty-seven thousand pounds.

Wharton, himself a most profligate man, pursued these inquiries on

the part of the Commons with untiring avidity. In order to damp this

inquiry, the guilty parties caused it to be whispered about that it

was best not to press the matter too far, as a large part of the money

might have been given to the King through Portland. But nothing could

stop the inquest, and it turned out that large sums had been offered to

the King but had been refused, and that fifty thousand pounds offered

to Portland had also been refused. Nottingham, too, had refused ten

thousand pounds, but others had not been so scrupulous. Cook declined

at first to disclose the names of those who had received the money,

but he was threatened with a Bill to compel him on terms which, had he

persisted, would have ruined him. He then offered to disclose all on

condition that a clause in the Bill should indemnify him against the

consequences of his disclosures. This was done, and Sir Basil Firebrace

was named as receiving a sum of forty thousand pounds. When pressed

to explain what had become of this money, the worthy knight fell into

great confusion and loss of memory; but he was obliged to account for

the cash, and then it came out that he had, through a Mr. Bates, paid

five thousand five hundred guineas to Caermarthen, now Duke of Leeds.

The duke denied having had the money, and then Bates said he had left

it with one Robarts, a foreign servant of the duke's, to count it out

for him, and this with the duke's permission. Robarts, however, was so

bad at counting coin, that he had taken half a year to do it in, and

only brought it back on the very morning that the Committee of Inquiry

was formed.

The duke did not deny that he had got all the money that he could

through Bates from the Company for others; but this, according to the

morals of that age, was considered quite pardonable. To take a bribe

himself was criminal if found out, to assist others in selling their

votes was venial. The Commons impeached the duke, but then his servant

Robarts was missing, and as Leeds insisted on his presence as evidence

for him, the impeachment remained uncarried out. In fact, William, who,

though suffering perpetually from the gross corruption all around him,

was always the first to screen great offenders, now hastened Parliament

to a conclusion.

In the following week the Scottish Parliament commenced its session

after an interval of two years. The Duke of Hamilton was dead, and

John Hay, Marquis of Tweeddale, was appointed Lord High Commissioner,

a man in years, and of fair character. The question which immediately

seized the attention of the Estates was the massacre of Glencoe. That

sanguinary affair had now come to the public knowledge in all its

perfidy and barbarity, and there was a vehement demand for inquiry and

for justice on the perpetrators. The facts which had reached the queen

long ago regarding this dark transaction had greatly shocked her, and

she had been earnest for a searching investigation; but William, who

must now have been aware that the matter would not bear the light very

well, had not been too desirous to urge it on. The Jacobites, however,

never ceased to declaim on the fearful theme; and the Presbyterians,

who hated the Master of Stair, who under James had been one of their

worst persecutors, and was a man without any real religion, were not

the less importunate for its unveiling. Seeing that the Parliament

would now have it dragged to the light, William made haste to make the

movement his own. He signed a Commission appointing Tweeddale its head,

and sent it down with all haste to Edinburgh. The Parliament expressed

great thanks to the king for this act of justice, but it deceived

nobody, for it was felt at once that no Commission would have issued

but for the public outcry, and it was now meant to take it out of the

earnest hands of the Estates, and defeat it as far as possible; and

this turned out to be the case. The report of the Commission was long

in appearing, and had not the Estates been very firm, it might have

been longer, and have been effectually emasculated, for the Lord High

Commissioner was on the point of sending it to William, who was now in

the Netherlands, and deeply immersed in the affairs of the campaign.

The Estates insisted on its immediate production, and Tweeddale was

compelled to obey. It then appeared that several of the Macdonalds

had been admitted to give their evidence on the atrocities committed

in their glen: and the conclusion was come to that it was a barbarous

murder. The king's warrant, however, was declared to have authorised

no such butchery, and the main blame was thrown on the Master of Stair

and the Earl of Breadalbane. Undoubtedly Sir John Dalrymple, the

Master of Stair, had urged on by his letter the massacre of the clan

with unflinching cruelty; but William contented himself with merely

dismissing him from his office.

To put the Scots Parliament into good humour, William promised them

through the Marquis of Tweeddale, that if they would pass an Act

establishing a colony in Africa, America, or any other part of the

world where it was open to the English rightfully to plant a colony, he

would grant them a charter with as full powers as he had done to the

subjects of his other dominions. This was, no doubt, in consequence of

a scheme agitated by Paterson, the originator of the Bank of England,

for founding a colony on the Isthmus of Darien, for trading between

the Atlantic and Pacific--forming, in fact, a link of commerce between

China and India, as well as the Spanish States on the Pacific coasts

and Europe. The Act, supposed to be drawn by Paterson himself, was

passed, and preparations begun for carrying the scheme into effect,

but the expedition did not sail till 1698. Parliament granted some

indulgence to the Episcopalians, by which seventy of their clergy

retained their livings, and voted a hundred and twenty thousand pounds

for the services of the State.

At the moment that William was about to set out for the Continent, a

plot for his assassination was discovered, but the conspirators were

not brought to trial till the following year.

William embarked on the 12th of May for Holland. Before going he

had appointed as Lords Justices to carry on the government in his

absence--Archbishop Tenison; Somers, Keeper of the Great Seal;

Pembroke, Keeper of the Privy Seal; Devonshire, the Lord Steward;

Dorset, the Lord Chamberlain; Shrewsbury, the Secretary of State; and

Godolphin, First Lord of the Treasury. There had also been a formal

reconciliation between him and the Princess Anne. Marlborough and his

wife were now all anxiety for this reconciliation. The queen being

gone, and William, from his infirmities, not being expected to reach

a long life, Marlborough saw Anne at once brought many degrees nearer

the throne. Instead of James ever returning, the crafty Marlborough

felt sure that, even if William did not succeed in retaining his

popularity, any change would seat, not James, but Anne on the throne.

It was his interest, therefore, to promote by all means Anne's chance

of succession, because, once on the throne, he felt that he should be

the ruling power. Anne was, therefore, induced by him and his countess

to write a conciliatory letter to William, proposing to wait on him

and endeavour to console him in his distress. This had not been done

without some difficulty and delay, but, when once effected, William

received the princess very cordially; gave her the greater part of the

late queen's jewels, restored all her honours, her name was once more

united in the prayers for the royal family, and the foreign ambassadors

presented themselves at her house. In one thing, however, Marlborough

was disappointed. William did not appoint Anne regent during his

absence, as he had hoped, because he knew that that would be simply

making Marlborough viceroy. The King still retained his dislike to

the Marlboroughs, and though he permitted them to reside again under

the same roof with the princess, he refused for some time to admit

Marlborough to kiss his hand in the circle at Kensington, and offered

him no renewal of his offices and command.

William entered on the campaign of 1695 under unusual advantages.

Louis of France had reduced his country to such distress that he

was now obliged to stand on the defensive. The people were loud in

their complaints all over France of the merciless exactions for the

continuance of the war. They were actually perishing of famine.

Barbessieux, the minister, was not able to devise resources like the

able Louvois, who was gone; and now Louis had lost by death the great

Marshal Luxemburg, who had won for him almost all his martial renown.

The forces in Flanders, deprived of their heroic and experienced head,

were badly supplied with provisions, badly recruited, and to make all

worse, Louis, as he had chosen his prime minister, now selected his

general--not from the men of real military talent, but from a courtier

and man of pleasure--Villeroi. He was a tall, handsome man, much

admired by the ladies, and a reckless gambler, but totally unfit to

cope with William in the field. Boufflers was still at the head of a

division of the army, but under Villeroi.

Louis was apprehensive that the Allies would make a push at Dunkirk.

He therefore ordered a new line to be drawn between the Lys and the

Scheldt, and every means to be taken to cover Dunkirk, Ypres, Tournai,

and Namur. William arrived in the camp of the Allies on the 5th of

July, and immediately marched against Villeroi, who retired behind

his lines between Ypres and Menin. He, however, detached ten thousand

men to support Boufflers, who had advanced as far as Pont d'Espières.

William then sent forward the Elector of Bavaria to confront Boufflers,

who also retired behind his lines, and the Elector passed the Scheldt,

and posted himself at Kirk. William, having thus driven the French to

the frontiers of Flanders, then despatched the Baron von Heyden from

the camp of the Elector of Bavaria, along with Ginkell, to invest

Namur. At the same time, leaving Vaudemont to confront the army of

Villeroi on the border of Flanders, William suddenly marched also

for Namur, the Brandenburgers having orders to advance from another

quarter. William's hope was, by this ably concerted plan, completely

to invest Namur before any fresh troops could be poured into it; but

Boufflers, perceiving his design, managed to throw himself into the

city with seven regiments of dragoons, by which the garrison was raised

to fifteen thousand men. Immediately on the heels of Boufflers arrived

William and the Elector, and encamped on both sides of the Sambre and

Meuse, thus investing the whole place.

They began to throw up their entrenchments on the 6th of July, under

the direction of the celebrated engineer, Cohorn. The city had always

been strong; it had been of late years made much stronger by Cohorn,

and since then the French had added to its defences. Its castle was

deemed impregnable; the town was full of provisions and of brave

soldiers, and it was regarded as a somewhat rash act in William to

attempt so formidable a fortress, with the chance of being taken in the

rear by Villeroi at the head of eighty thousand men. The moment that

Villeroi saw the object of William he began to put himself in motion

to attack Vaudemont, and, having beaten him, to, advance on Namur.

Vaudemont, however, began to fortify his camp, and Villeroi's vanguard

appearing at Dentreghem, he entrenched himself on both sides. Villeroi

made sure, nevertheless, of a complete victory over him, having such a

superiority of force, and he sent word to Louis that he would speedily

hear of a victory. But Vaudemont, perceiving another body of French

advancing from the Scheldt so as to enclose him, very adroitly drew

back, and made a retreat, much admired by military judges, to Ghent.

This he was able to effect through the cowardice of Louis's natural

son, the Duke of Maine. Villeroi accordingly advanced unopposed and

brutally bombarded Brussels.

[Illustration: FIVE-GUINEA PIECE OF WILLIAM.]

William was all this time--except for a few days when he was anxiously

observing the French proceedings before Brussels--prosecuting the

siege of Namur with a determined ardour which cost a terrible amount

of human lives. The trenches had been first opened on the 11th of

July, and the batteries on both sides commenced a furious fire. This

continued for a week, and on the 18th a storming party, headed by Lord

Cutts, consisting of five battalions of English, Scots, and Dutch,

attacked the works on the right of the counterscarp, supported by six

English battalions under General Fitzpatrick, whilst nine thousand

pioneers advanced on the left under General Salisch. Twelve hundred of

the Allies fell in this bloody action, whilst William, looking on in

exultation, thought not of their destruction, but of the bulldog valour

of the British soldiers, exclaiming to the Elector of Bavaria, "See my

brave English! See my brave English!" They drove in the enemy, though

at a terrible sacrifice.

On the 30th of July the Elector of Bavaria attacked Vauban's line

that surrounded the defences of the castle, and broke through it,

and reached even Cohorn's celebrated fort, under the eyes of Cohorn

himself, but could not effect a lodgment in it. On the 2nd of August

another party of grenadiers, headed by the dare-devil Lord Cutts,

attacked and lodged themselves on the second counterscarp. The

governor, Count Guiscard, now engaged to give up the town, time being

allowed for the garrison to retire into the citadel. This being done,

and the Allies having engaged to give up the one thousand five hundred

wounded men left below, on the 13th the bombardment of the fort

commenced with renewed fury. Both sides fought with the fanaticism of

courage, and committed great havoc on each other. Boufflers at length

attempted to cut his way through the besiegers in a headlong sally, but

was repulsed, and shut up again.

[Illustration: HALF-CROWN OF WILLIAM.]

At this crisis Villeroi's army had reached Fleurus, and fired ninety

pieces of cannon to apprise the besieged of their vicinity. William

immediately left the conduct of the siege to the Elector of Bavaria,

and drew out a strong force to confront Villeroi, who was reinforced by

a large body of troops from Germany. This was a most anxious moment to

the people of both England and France. The armies of the two nations

were drawn out against each other, and covered the plains of the Sambre

and the Meuse. Boufflers was urging Villeroi to strike a decisive

stroke for his deliverance and the rescue of Namur, and William had

Boufflers in the rear if he was beaten by Villeroi.

[Illustration: SURRENDER OF BOUFFLERS. (_See p._ 481.)]

At Versailles Louis was imploring heaven for victory, with all his

Court on their knees, confessing and receiving the Eucharist; and

in London the Jacobites, frantic with confident expectation that

now William would be annihilated, filled the town with all sorts of

horrible rumours and alarms. But after having faced each other for

three days, Villeroi saw that the position and numbers of the Allies

were too formidable, and he quietly decamped along the river Mehaigne

to Boneffe. As Boufflers was now left without hope of succour, the

Allies informed him of the retreat of Villeroi and summoned him to

surrender without occasioning more slaughter. But there was a tradition

in the French army that no marshal of France had ever capitulated, and

he stood out until the English, at the cost of two thousand men, had

effected a lodgment in the place.

Boufflers now demanded forty-eight hours to bury his dead, which was

granted him; and, in truth, he had need of it, for his trenches were

choked with the fallen, and his force was already reduced to about

one-third its original strength. When he entered the town, the garrison

mustered fifteen thousand men; now it was only about five thousand.

When the dead were buried, Boufflers offered to surrender in ten days

if he were not relieved before; but the Allies would not listen to

anything but an immediate surrender, and he complied, on condition

that the garrison should be allowed to march out with the honours

of war, but leaving the artillery and stores to the conquerors. The

Allies announced the surrender to Villeroi by the discharge of their

artillery, and by a running fire of all their musketry three times

repeated. He knew the meaning of it, and retreated towards Mons.

Accordingly, on the 26th of August, Boufflers marched forth with drums

beating and flags flying, William, the Elector of Bavaria, and all

the officers being assembled to witness this gratifying spectacle.

Boufflers lowered his sword in token of submission to the Elector of

Bavaria, and the troops marched on. Before Boufflers, however, passed

out of the trenches, Dykvelt informed him that he was the prisoner of

the King of England. Boufflers was highly enraged at what he regarded

as an act of gross perfidy; but he was informed that he was detained

in consequence of his sovereign having broken the cartel, and refused

to deliver up the captured garrisons of Dixmude and Deynze, and that

he was held as a hostage for the faithful discharge of the articles

agreed upon. There was no denying the perfidy of his king, which

had caused this incident, and Boufflers sent an express to inform

Louis, who immediately returned a promise that the garrisons should

be sent back, and Boufflers was forthwith released. On his return to

Fontainebleau, he was received by Louis as if he were a conqueror, and

created a duke, with a grant of money to enable him to support his new

rank. The capture of Namur was the great event of the campaign, and

spread exultation throughout all the countries of the Allies. It seemed

to wipe out the successive defeats of Mons, Fleurus, Landen, and the

former loss of Namur; it showed the Allies at length victorious, and

Louis discomfited and on the wane.

William arrived in London from Holland on the 20th of October. He

was received with acclamations, illuminations, and ringing of bells.

His progress through London and to Kensington was like that of a

conqueror. As if he were destined to take no rest, that very day the

Council was assembled, and it was concluded to dissolve Parliament.

William, however, had been enjoying relaxation at Loo, and no doubt

this question of the dissolution of Parliament had been discussed

and arranged prior to his arrival. It was deemed wiser to take the

nation at this moment when it was in a good humour, than to defer

the dissolution till the 25th of next March, when, by the Triennial

Act, Parliament must expire, and the public mind might be different.

Another motive was said to operate with William--the impeachment of

Leeds. William was always very reluctant to bring great delinquents to

justice; but in the case of Leeds there were causes for this reluctance

which we must respect. It was to Leeds, when he was yet Lord Danby,

that William owed his match with Mary, and Mary had ever had the

greatest regard for Leeds, who, on his part, had served her assiduously

during the king's absences. A new Parliament would not be likely to

take up again his impeachment, and, accordingly, the old one was

dissolved, and the new one called for the 22nd of November.

This announcement threw into full activity the newly acquired liberty

of the press. Since the Revolution, despite the restrictions of the

censorship, the press had been extremely busy, and when it was

obliged to work in secret, it had been all the more venomous. The

Jacobites had employed it to spread sedition and lies, but it now

came forward in favour of the king and the Constitution. There were

tracts on the election, and besides the old news-letters, there were

regular newspapers which advocated their own views, but with a decency

and moderation which surprised all parties. Amongst the pamphlets

was one--the last literary effort of Halifax--called, "Some Cautions

Offered to those who are to Choose Members," which gave some good

advice, especially not to choose lawyers, because they were in the

habit of pleading on both sides, and were sure to look after their own

advancement more than that of the country; nor officers in the army,

who, the writer thought, were out of place in Parliament, attempting

to do what no man ever can do--serve two masters. He also warned them

against pensioners and dependents on the Crown, who do not make good

representatives of the people; and against those who, for reasons best

known to themselves, had opposed the Triennial Bill. Finally, he bade

them seek honest Englishmen, but warned them that they were not very

easy to find. The constituencies followed his advice, and the Whig

party were victorious. Some of the members of the late Parliament

most opposed to Government were not returned--as Sir John Knight, for

Bristol, who had been so furious against William's favourite Dutchmen,

and Seymour, for Exeter. Neither could John Hampden, who had saved

his neck in the Rye House Plot by the loss of character, and had

since shown as much insolence in Parliament as he did meanness then,

get returned, and in his mortification he committed suicide--to such

degeneracy had fallen the grandson of the illustrious patriot.

When Parliament met on the 22nd, they chose Paul Foley as Speaker of

the Commons. The king, in his speech, again demanded large supplies for

the continuance of the war, and informed them that the funds granted

last Session had fallen far short of the expenses. This was by no

means agreeable news, and William well knew that there was a large

party in the country which complained loudly of this system of foreign

warfare, which, like a bottomless gulf, swallowed up all the resources

of the country. But he took care to flatter the national vanity by

praising the valour of the English soldiers, and by expressing his

confidence that England would never consent to the French king making

himself master of Europe, and that nothing but the power and bravery

of England could prevent it. He complained that his Civil List was

fixed so low that he could not live upon it; and, passing from his own

affairs, he recommended to their consideration the deplorable state of

the coinage.

When the address came to be considered, some strong speeches were

delivered against the enormous demands made by the king for this

continual war. Musgrave and Howe represented the nation as bleeding to

death under this Dutch vampyrism; but William had touched the right

chord in the national character, and an address of thanks and zealously

promised support was carried. The Commons likewise voted again above

five millions for the services of the year.

The first business which occupied the attention of the Commons was

the state of the currency. The old silver coin had become so clipped

and sweated that, on an average, it now possessed little more than

half its proper weight. The consequence was, all transactions in the

country were in a state of confusion, and the most oppressive frauds

were practised, especially on the poor. They were paid in this nominal

coin, but, when they offered it for the purchase of the articles of

life, the vendors refused to receive it at more than its intrinsic

worth, by which means the price of everything was nearly doubled. The

old hammered money was easily imitated, and whilst the clippers went on

diminishing the weight of the coin, the forgers were as busy producing

spurious imitations of it. The most terrible examples were made of such

coiners, till juries refused to send such numbers of them to be hanged.

All money-dealers received the coin only at its value by weight, but

paid it out by tale, and thus made enormous fortunes. The house of

Duncombe, Earls of Feversham, is said to have thus raised itself from

insignificance to a coronet.

The House of Lords, therefore, took up the subject of recoinage,

and invited the Commons to unite with them in it; but the Commons,

considering it a matter more properly belonging to them, went into a

committee of the whole House on the subject. The debate continued for

several days. There was a strong party opposed to recoinage, on the

ground that, if the silver coin were called in, there would be no money

to pay the soldiers abroad, nor for merchants to take up their bills

of exchange with; that the consequence would be universal stagnation

and misery. But at this rate the old coin must have stayed out so long

that literally there would none of it be left. It was resolved to have

a new coinage; but Lowndes, the Secretary of the Treasury, proposed

that the standard should be lowered--in fact, that a nominal instead

of a real value should be impressed upon it; that ninepence should be

called a shilling--as if thereby any greater value could be given to

it. This mode of raising the price of everything by lowering the value

of the coinage, which would now be laughed at by the merest tyro in

political economy, had then its partisans; but John Locke exploded

the whole delusion in a little tract written at the desire of Somers,

which showed all the inconveniences and injustice which would flow

from a lowered standard. There were, however, other difficulties to

be met, and these were, whether the Government or the public should

bear the loss of the clipped coin, and by what means it could best be

called in. If the Government bore the loss, and ordered all persons to

bring in their clipped coin and receive full-weighted coin instead,

that would be a direct premium on clipping, and all the coin would be

clipped before it was paid in. Somers proposed as a remedy to proclaim

that all the hammered coins should henceforth be taken by Government

only by weight; but that, after having been weighed within three days,

every one should take it back with a note authorising him to receive

the difference between the deficiency of weight and the full weight at

a future time. By this means Government would have suffered the loss.

Locke, on the contrary, proposed that Government should receive all

clipped coin up to a day to be announced, at full value; after that day

only at its value by weight; and something of this kind was carried

by Montague after a debate in the House. It was ordered that, after a

certain day, no clipped money should pass except in payment of taxes,

or as loans to Government. After another fixed day, no clipped money

should pass in any payment whatsoever; and that, on a third day, all

persons should bring in all their clipped money to be recoined, making

just what it would, and after that time clipped money should not be a

legal tender at any value, or be received at the Mint.

By this plan the holders of clipped money suffered part of the loss

where they could not be in time; but the public eventually bore the

greatest part of it, for a Bill was brought in to indemnify Government

for its share of the loss, by a duty on glass windows, which was

calculated to raise twelve hundred thousand pounds. This was the origin

of that window-tax which under William Pitt's Government grew to such a

nuisance.

In order to meet the demand for milled and unclipped coin to be given

in exchange for the clipped coin to be brought in, premiums were

offered of five per cent. on good milled money, and of threepence per

pound on all plate that should be brought in to be melted into the new

coins. The 4th of May, 1696, was fixed as the last day for receiving

the clipped money in payment of taxes; and early in February furnaces

were at work melting down the old coin into ingots, which were sent to

the Tower in readiness, and the coining began. Ten of these furnaces

were erected in a garden behind the Treasury; yet, in spite of every

endeavour to prevent inconvenience, the Jacobites managed to excite

great alarm in the minds of the people. There was a widespread panic

that there would be grave personal losses and wrongs, and that all

receipts of money would be stopped, and that there would be general

distress. The malcontents attacked Montague and the other ministers

in the House; the merchants demanded indemnification for the rise

which guineas had taken, namely, from twenty shillings and sixpence to

thirty shillings, in consequence of the scarcity of the silver coinage;

for a guinea now, instead of purchasing twenty shillings' worth of

their goods, would purchase one-third more; so that their stocks were

reduced one-third in value till the silver coinage was again plentiful.

Parliament, to remove this cause of complaint, inserted a clause in

the Bill, offering a premium on plate, fixing the price of a guinea at

two-and-twenty shillings. Still, however, people imagined that guineas

would be scarce, and so gold would rise, and hoarded them up, which

made them scarce. But Government worked manfully at the recoining.

Mints were set up at York, Bristol, Exeter, and Chester as well as in

London, and in less than twelve months the coinage was produced with

such success that the English currency, which had been the worst, was

now the best in Europe.

The Bill for regulating the trials for high treason was again brought

in, and, being still steadily refused by the Lords unless with their

clause for granting them the privilege of trying any of their order

by the whole House of Peers instead of by the Court of the Lord High

Steward, the Commons now gave way, allowed the clause, and the Bill

passed. It was ordered to come into force on the 25th of March next,

1696.

The year 1696 opened with a great Jacobite plot. James had tried the

effect of declarations proposing to protect the liberties of the

subject and the rights of the Established Church, and nobody believed

him, and with good reason. Seeing, therefore, that empty pretences

availed nothing, he thought seriously of invasion, and of something

worse--of preparing his way by the assassination of William. During the

winter of 1695-6 Louis fell into his schemes. In 1694 two emissaries,

Crosley and Parker, had been sent over from St. Germains to London to

excite the Jacobites to insurrection; but they had been discovered and

imprisoned. Parker contrived to escape out of the Tower, but Crosley

was examined; but, nothing being positively proved against him, he

was liberated on bail. It was now resolved to send over fresh and

more important agents--one of these no less a person than the Duke of

Berwick, James's son, and Sir George Barclay, a Scottish refugee.

The fact was that there were two parts of the scheme. As in the

conspiracy of Grey and Raleigh in the time of James I., there was "the

main plot" and "the bye plot," so there was here a general scheme for

an invasion, and a particular scheme for the assassination of the king.

This assassination was to come off first, and an army and transports

were to be ready on the French coast, to take advantage of the

consternation occasioned by the murder. The management of the general

plot was confided to Berwick, and of the murder plot to Barclay.

Berwick must be supposed to have been well aware of the assassination

scheme from the first, for both James and Louis were, and the whole

movements of the army and navy were dependent on it. But if Berwick did

not know of it at first, he was made acquainted with it in London, as

we shall see; but it was the policy of both Louis, James, and Berwick,

to avoid all appearance of a knowledge which would have covered them

with infamy;--this was to fall on the lesser tools of their diabolical

scheme, and they were to reap the benefit of it.

A mode of communication between the Court of St. Germains and the

Jacobites in England had long been established through a man named

Hunt, who was a noted smuggler. This man had a house about half a mile

from the Sussex coast, on Romney Marsh. The whole country round was a

boggy and dreary waste, and therefore, having scarcely an inhabitant,

was admirably adapted to the smuggling in of French goods and French

plots. There Barclay landed in January and proceeded to London. He

was followed in a few days by the Duke of Berwick, and very soon by

about twenty coadjutors, some of whom were troopers of James's guard,

amongst them one named Cassels, another brigadier Ambrose Rookwood, one

of a family which had been in almost every plot since the Gunpowder

Plot, and a Major John Bernardi, a man of Italian origin.

[Illustration: CONSPIRATORS LANDING AT ROMNEY MARSH. (_See p._ 484.)]

James saw and instructed many of these men himself before they left St.

Germains, and furnished them with funds. He had given Barclay eight

hundred pounds to pay expenses and engage assistants, which Barclay

complained of as a miserable and insufficient sum. These men were now

informed that they must put themselves under the orders of Barclay,

and they would easily discover him at evening walking in the piazza

of Covent Garden, and might recognise him by his white handkerchief

hanging from his pocket. Meanwhile, Barclay had begun to open

communication with the most determined Jacobites. The first of these

were Charnock--who had originally been a fellow of Magdalen College,

Oxford, but had apostatised, become a violent papistical agitator, and

finally an officer in James's army--and Sir William Parkyns, a lawyer

and officer of the Court of Chancery, for whilst plotting against the

king, he had sworn fidelity to him, and was receiving his pay. These

men most gladly united with Barclay, for they had been engaged in the

very same design for some time. They assured him that there was no

chance of effecting an invasion without preceding it by dispatching

William. But to do this they wanted first an authority from James, and

to be assured that it would be followed up. Hereupon Barclay showed

them his commission from James.

As Barclay's myrmidons arrived from France his hopes grew high; he

called them his Janissaries, and said he trusted they would win a Star

and Garter for him. He wanted forty for his purposes, and these men

made up at once half the number. Fresh desperadoes rapidly joined the

band, until it was evident that the number of conspirators was getting

far too numerous, and far too indiscriminate in character for safety.

It was necessary to use haste, and Barclay tells us he was constantly

studying how and where best to accomplish their object. He set two of

his gang to haunt the neighbourhood of the Palace, and to learn what

they could of the king's movements. They went to Kensington and to

every place which William frequented, to find out the most suitable

spot and opportunity.

At last the conspirators fixed on Turnham Green as the best for their

detestable purpose. They learned that when William returned from

hunting he crossed the Thames there by the ferry-boat, not getting out

of his carriage, and that he did not wait for his Guards, but drove on

from the water side till they overtook him. It was a low, swampy place,

hidden amongst bushes at the western end of the Green. The conspirators

were now thirty-five, while the King had rarely more than twenty-five

Guards with him. The day fixed was Saturday, the 15th of February,

for it was on Saturdays that William made these hunting excursions.

As soon as they knew that the king had started, the conspirators were

to follow in different bodies, and from different directions, so as

to avoid observation. They were to remain at small public-houses near

the crossing-place, and as soon as their scouts gave them notice of

the king's party approaching the Surrey side of the river, they were

to put themselves in bylanes, to be ready to intercept him. They were

to be divided into four sets, one headed by Porter, one by Charnock, a

third by Rookwood, and the fourth by Barclay himself. Two parties were

simultaneously to rush upon the coach as it passed a cross road, one

from each side; Rookwood was to come from his hiding-place in the rear,

and Barclay to appear in front, and to him the death of the King was

assigned. Horses and arms were purchased by Barclay for the occasion,

and the horses were kept in different stables, so as to excite no

suspicion.

All was now in readiness. The Duke of Berwick had remained in London

till matters were in this position. He had been equally busy in

endeavouring to induce the Jacobite leaders to rise in arms. He told

them that his father, with ten thousand soldiers, was lying at Calais

ready to cross when this movement was made, but that the King of

France would not consent to the army crossing till the English had

given proof of their being in earnest to receive King James in arms.

Nor could they think this unreasonable; he had twice sent expeditions

to co-operate with them, once in 1690, when De Tourville landed in

Devonshire, and again in 1692, when his fleet had come up to the very

shore in expectation of being joined by the English fleet, but, on the

contrary, had been attacked by that fleet, and the losses at La Hogue

suffered in consequence. They could not expect Louis to venture his

ships and troops again till he saw a real demonstration for James in

England; then his army would cross at once. But these representations

were all lost on the Jacobites; they continued to say, "Only let James

land with an army, and we shall be ready to join him." Berwick returned

to France, and hastened to inform James, whom he met on the way to

Calais to join the invading army, that there was no chance of a rising

in England till a French army landed, but that he had a confident hope

that the conspirators would succeed in dispatching William, and then

would be the time to cross over. James went on to Calais to the army

which Boufflers was called from Flanders to command, and Berwick went

on to Versailles to communicate to Louis the state of affairs, and all

parties waited for the falling of the blow in England.

Such was now the position of these two monarchs and the Duke of

Berwick, whom the Jacobite writers have so confidently endeavoured

to clear of the crime of participating in this base scheme of

assassination. True, Berwick, whilst in England, would have nothing

to do with the conspiracy itself, because, he declared, it was--not

criminal, no, that was not his objection--but it was too dangerous, and

would probably cause all engaged in it to be hanged. On the safe side

of the water, therefore, whilst the humbler ruffians were risking their

necks for them, these three arch assassins waited for the signal that

the deed was done--a fire which was to be lit on one of the Kentish

hills.

Meanwhile the conspiracy was suffering, as might have been expected,

from the admission of too many colleagues. As the time approached,

Fisher, who had boasted that he would himself kill one of the king's

coach-horses, went and informed Portland that there was a design of

taking the king's life. Portland at first paid little attention to this

information, but it was soon confirmed in a manner which left him no

alternative but to apprise the king of it. On the evening of the 14th a

Mr. Pendergrass, a Catholic gentleman of Hampshire, waited on Portland,

and assured him that if the king went on the morrow to hunt he was

certain to be assassinated. Pendergrass said the king was the enemy of

his religion, but that his religion would not permit him to see such

a thing done without giving him a warning, and he entreated Portland

to induce the king not to go out on any account. When pressed to name

his accomplices, he declined, saying they were his friends, and one

of them his benefactor; he would not betray them. The fact was, that

Porter had sent for Pendergrass up from the country to take part in the

assassination; but, though he was under great obligations to Porter, he

refused. He would have been ready to unite in an invasion, but not in a

murder.

The king was with difficulty prevented by Portland from going, but he

did stay, and when it was announced to the conspirators that the king

had given up hunting for that day, they were a good deal startled; but,

as the weather was assigned as the cause, they imagined they were still

unbetrayed, and waited for the next Saturday; one of them, Chambers,

a great ruffian, who had been severely wounded at the battle of the

Boyne, and had a savage malice against William, vowing to have his life

yet or lose his own.

Between this day and the next Saturday, however, De la Rue had grown

afraid, and went and gave a warning similar to Pendergrass's. On the

Friday Pendergrass was sent for to the king's closet, where William

was alone with Portland and Lord Cutts, who had fought so bravely at

Namur. William was very courteous to Pendergrass, and thanked him for

his information, complimented him as a man of honour, but desired him

to name the conspirators. Pendergrass persisted in his refusal, except

he had the king's assurance that his information should not cause the

destruction of these men, but only be used to prevent the commission

of the crime. This assurance being solemnly given, he named them. It

does not, however, appear that this solemn assurance was kept, for

undoubtedly Pendergrass's information was used for the arrest of the

conspirators, and though he himself was not brought openly forward

in court against them, they were condemned and executed through that

means, so that not using his evidence openly was a mere quibble; and

even this was laid aside as soon as, at Pendergrass's demand, they had

engaged to use Porter's evidence on condition of his safety.

Ignorant of the mine ready charged under their feet, the conspirators

anxiously awaited Saturday, the 22nd. This time all outwardly bade

fair for success; the usual preparations were made at the palace for

the hunting. There had been during the week no sign of any agitation

or bustle, nor word dropped which could give the slightest suspicion

that their design was known. The Guards were sent off to go round

by Kingston Bridge to Richmond, as there was then no bridge nearer.

The king's coach came out to take him away, and the conspirators were

breakfasting at Porter's lodgings when word was hurriedly brought

to them that the coach had been sent back to the stables, and the

Guards had come galloping back, saying that a discovery of something

terrible had been made. If the men had not been infatuated by their

zeal for the assassination, as is very general in such cases, they

would now have made the best of their way into some place of security.

The return of the Guards in such hurry, and with such rash words, was

not very skilful on the part of the Government if they meant to take

the conspirators; and, as the arrests were delayed till night, there

was ample time for them to have all got off. But they still flattered

themselves that, though some whisper of the design had reached the

Palace, the actual conspirators were unknown, and they were only the

more bent on seizing some instant mode of accomplishing their object.

That night the king's officers were upon them, and Charnock, Rookwood,

and Bernardi were taken in their beds. The next day seventeen more

were arrested, and three of the Blues also. Barclay had had more

cunning than the rest; he had absconded and got safe to France. The

Lord Mayor was sent for to Whitehall, and desired to put the City

into a perfect state of readiness for action. A council was held; it

was agreed to send for some regiments from Flanders in consequence of

the preparations at Calais; the Earl of Dorset was sent down to his

lieutenancy of Sussex; Sidney, Lord Romney, Warden of the Cinque Ports,

was also despatched for the guard of the coast of Kent; and Russell

hastened to assume the command of the fleet. On Monday, the 24th, the

king went to the House of Lords, sent for the Commons, and announced

to the assembled Parliament the discovery of the plot, and the arrest

of a number of the traitors. The sensation was intense. The two Houses

united in an address of congratulation for the king's safety, with

which they went in a body to Kensington, and the same day the Commons

passed two Bills, one suspending the Habeas Corpus, and the other

declaring that Parliament should not be dissolved by the king's death

in case any such conspiracy should succeed. Sir Rowland Gwyn moved

that the House should enrol itself as an Association for the defence

of the king and country. The idea was instantly seized by Montague,

who saw how immensely it would strengthen the Whigs, and the deed

was immediately drawn, and ordered to be ready for signature the next

morning. In this the House bound itself to defend the king with their

own lives against James and his adherents, and to avenge him on his

murderers in case of such an assassination, and to maintain the order

of succession as fixed by the Bill of Rights.

The next morning the members hurried in to sign the form of

Association; and, as some were not present, it was ordered that all

who had not signed it within sixteen days should be called upon to

do so or formally to refuse. They resolved that any one who declared

the Association illegal should be held to be a promoter of the wicked

designs of James, and an enemy to the laws and liberties of the

country. They prayed the king to banish by proclamation all Papists to

a distance of ten miles from the cities of London and Westminster, and

to order the judges to put the laws in force throughout the country

against Roman Catholics and non-jurors.

The forms of the Association and the address of the two Houses were

immediately printed and published, along with a proclamation offering

one thousand pounds reward for the discovery and apprehension of each

of the conspirators, and one thousand pounds, with a free pardon,

to each of the accomplices who should deliver himself up and reveal

what he knew. One after another the miscreants were dragged from

their hiding-places, or gave themselves up as king's evidence for the

thousand pounds and free pardon.

On the 11th of March, Charnock and two others were placed at the bar

of the Old Bailey before Lord Chief Justice Holt and other judges. The

prisoners demanded that their trials should be postponed till after the

25th of the month, when the new Act for trials for treason came into

force, and which allowed counsel to the accused; but the counsel for

the Crown would not consent to it--a circumstance which does no honour

to William and his ministers, for from them the order to proceed must

now have been given. All the accused denied that James knew of or had

done anything to sanction the attempt to assassinate the king; but

this assertion neither agrees with the depositions made by the other

conspirators admitted as evidence, nor with the facts of the case; and,

indeed, Charnock left a paper, still in the Bodleian Library of Oxford,

in which he declares that the attempt would not have been justifiable

had it not been sanctioned by James; that his Majesty's commission did

fully justify it, and that it was just as proper to attempt to kill

the Prince of Orange at the head of his Guards, serving as they did the

king whose throne he had usurped, and who was at war with him, as if

he had been at the head of twenty thousand men. They had their king's

commission for it, and their king being at declared war, it was quite

legitimate to attack and kill William wherever they could meet with

him. Despite this high assumption, Charnock, after conviction, offered,

if they would pardon him, to reveal the whole particulars of the plot,

and the names of every one concerned in it; but there was evidence

enough; his offer was not accepted, and the three were executed at

Tyburn on the 24th.

The Association into which the Commons had entered for the defence

of the king had not yet been made law, but a Bill was now brought in

for that purpose. Out of the five hundred and thirteen members of the

Commons, four hundred had signed it; but on its reaching the Lords

exception was made by the Tories to the words "rightful and lawful

sovereign" as applied to William. Even Nottingham, who had so long and

faithfully served William, declared that he could not accept them;

that William was king _de facto_ he admitted, but not king by rightful

succession. He was supported by Rochester, Normanby, and others; but on

the Duke of Leeds proposing that the words "rightful and lawful" should

be altered to "having right by law," and no other person having such

right, singularly enough the Tories acquiesced in the change, though

it would not be easy for minds in general to perceive a distinction

between being a rightful and lawful sovereign and a sovereign who had

a full and, indeed, exclusive right by law. The Commons retained their

own form and the Lords theirs. The Bill of the Commons was passed on

the 4th of April. It provided that all such persons as refused the

oaths to his Majesty should be liable to the forfeitures and penalties

of Papist recusants; that all who questioned William's being "a lawful

and rightful sovereign" should be subject to heavy penalties; that no

person refusing to sign this Association should be capable of holding

any office, civil or military, of sitting in Parliament, or being

admitted into the service of the Prince or Princess of Denmark. All

magistrates, of course, were included in the requirements, and some who

refused to sign were dismissed. The Lords were to use their own form,

and with this understanding it passed their House without delay. The

bishops drew up a form for themselves, and, according to Burnet, not

above a hundred clergymen all over England refused to sign. The people

everywhere signed the bond with almost universal enthusiasm, even in

the most Papist districts, as Lancashire and Cheshire.

[Illustration: BISHOP BURNET.]

Before this remarkable session closed, a Bill was brought in to check

the corruption of elections. It had now become common for moneyed men

to go down to country boroughs and buy their way into Parliament by

liberal distribution of their gold. It was, therefore, proposed to

introduce a property qualification for members of Parliament; that a

member for a county should be required to possess five hundred pounds

a year in land, and a member for a town three hundred pounds a year in

land. It was even proposed to adopt the ballot, but that was rejected.

The Bill itself was carried through both Houses, but William declined

to ratify it. The towns abounded with Whigs, and had stood stoutly by

him, and it appeared to be a sweeping infringement on their privileges

to debar them from electing men in whom they had confidence because

they were not landed proprietors, though they might otherwise be

wealthy as well as duly qualified for such duties.

He ratified, however, another Bill intended for the benefit of the

landed gentry. This was for the establishment of Hugh Chamberlayne's

Land Bank. Unsound and delusive as the principles of this scheme

were, it had the great attraction to the landowners of offering them

extensive accommodation and a fancied accession of wealth, and to

William the further advance of a large sum for his wars. The Bank of

England had only furnished him with one million at eight per cent.;

this Land Bank was to lend him two millions and a half at seven per

cent. It was ratified by William, and the Parliament was prorogued the

same day, April the 27th.

At home the confusion and distress were indescribable, and lasted all

the year. In the spring and till autumn it was a complete national

agony. The last day for the payment of the clipped coin into the

Treasury was the 4th of May. As that day approached there was a violent

rush to the Exchequer to pay in the old coin and get new. But there

was very little new ready, and all old coin that was not clipped was

compelled to be allowed to remain out some time longer. Notwithstanding

this, the deficiency of circulating medium was so great that even men

of large estate had to give promissory notes for paying old debts, and

take credit for procuring the necessaries of life. The notes of the

new Bank of England and of the Lombard Street money-changers gave also

considerable relief; but the whole amount of notes and coin did not

suffice to carry on the business of the nation. Numbers of work-people

of all kinds were turned off because their employers had not money to

pay them with. The shopkeepers could not afford to give credit to every

one, and, as their trade stagnated in consequence, they were compelled

to sacrifice their commodities to raise the necessary sums to satisfy

their own creditors. There was a heavy demand on the poor rates, and

the magistrates had orders to have sufficient force in readiness to

keep down rioting. This distress was aggravated by those who had new

milled money, hoarding it up lest they should get no more of it, or in

expectation that its scarcity would raise its value enormously, and

that they could pay their debts to a great advantage, or purchase what

they wanted at still greater advantage.

The Jacobites were delighted with this state of things, and did all

they could to inflame the people against the Government, which they

said had thus needlessly plunged the nation in such extreme suffering.

There were numbers of exciting tracts issued for this purpose, and

especially by a depraved priest named Grascombe, who urged the people

to kill the members of Parliament who had advocated the calling in

of the silver coin. To make the calamity perfect, the Land Bank had

proved as complete a bubble as Montague and other men of discernment

had declared it would. The landed gentry wanted to borrow from it, not

to invest in it; its shares remained untaken; and it found, when the

Government demanded the two million six hundred thousand pounds which

it had pledged itself to advance, that its coffers were empty; and it

ceased to exist, or rather to pretend to have any life.

The bursting of the Land Bank bubble was severely trying to the new

Bank of England. The failure of the one alarmed the public as to the

stability of the other, and the Jacobites and the Lombard Street rival

money-lenders lent their cordial aid to increase the panic. The Lombard

Street bankers made a vigorous run upon the bank. They collected all

its paper that they could lay hands on, and demanded instant payment

in hard cash. Immediately after the 4th of May, when the Government

had taken in the bulk of the money, and had issued out very little,

they made a dead set against the bank. One goldsmith alone presented

thirty thousand pounds in notes. The bank resolved to refuse the

payment of the notes thus obviously presented in order to ruin it, and

then the Lombard Street bankers exultingly announced everywhere that

the boasted new institution was insolvent. But the bank, leaving the

Lombard Street goldsmiths to seek a remedy at law, continued to give

cash for all notes presented by the fair creditors, and the public

steadily supported them in this system, and condemned the selfish

money-dealers. Montague also contrived to relieve the tightness to a

considerable extent by availing himself of a clause in the Act of the

Land Bank, empowering Government to issue a new species of promissory

notes, bearing interest on security of the annual taxes. These bills,

called now and henceforward Exchequer Bills, were issued from a hundred

pounds to five pounds, and were everywhere received with avidity. They

also urged on the mints in the production of the new coinage, and to

facilitate this they made Sir Isaac Newton Master of the Mint, who

exerted himself in his important office with extraordinary zeal and

patriotism.

In August, William sent Portland over from Flanders, where the campaign

was almost wholly barren of events, to bring him money for the

subsistence of his troops by some means. The failure of the Land Bank

made his demand appear hopeless; but the Government applied to the Bank

of England, and, notwithstanding it's own embarrassments, it advanced

to the Government two hundred thousand pounds on the 15th of August,

and that in hard cash, for it was plainly told that its paper was of

no use in Flanders. Yet to such extremities was the bank reduced that

at the same time it was obliged to pay its demands by three-fourths

the value of its notes in cash, marking that amount as paid on the

notes, and returning them into circulation reduced to one-fourth of

their original value. As the bank, however, so bravely supported the

Government, the Government determined as firmly to support the bank;

and the public confidence, which had never entirely failed it, from

this moment grew stronger and stronger. As the year drew towards a

close, the rapidly increasing issue of the new coin began to reduce

the intensity of the distress, and the forbearance of creditors of all

kinds enabled the nation to bear up wonderfully, much to the chagrin of

its enemies both at home and abroad, where the most ridiculous stories

of English poverty and ruin were circulated.

But, except the trouble arising from the coinage, the great event

during William's absence had been the capture of Sir John Fenwick, and

his examination, with the view of tracing the further ramifications of

the conspiracy in which he had been engaged. Fenwick, if not engaged in

the assassination scheme, was charged by Porter and the other king's

evidence with being fully privy to it, and deep in the plot for the

invasion. He was a man of high birth, high connections, being married

to a sister of the Earl of Carlisle, had held high office in the state,

and was a most indefatigable and zealous traitor. During the king's

absence, and when the Jacobites were in great spirits, hoping to drive

out William, he had shown the most marked and unmanly disrespect to

the queen. It was not, therefore, likely that he would escape the just

punishment of his treason if he were caught. For a long time he managed

to conceal himself, and during his concealment he and his friends were

hard at work to remove the only witnesses that he dreaded. These were

Porter and a person named Goodman. The Earl of Aylesbury, who was

also in the Tower on a similar charge, was equally anxious to have

these two men out of the way, and the friends of both plotters united

to get rid of them by bribery. For this purpose, besides the active

personal exertions of Lady Fenwick, they employed two Irishmen of their

party--one Clancey, a barber, and Donelagh, a disbanded captain.

Clancey met Porter at a tavern, and offered him three hundred guineas

down, three hundred more as soon as he landed in France, and an

annuity of one hundred pounds a year. Porter was greatly tempted by

the offer, and at length consented to accept it. A day was fixed for

the payment of the first three hundred guineas at the tavern, but, on

reflection in the interval, he did not like the prospect of having to

face at St. Germains the king whose agents he had betrayed to death,

and the friends and associates of those agents. He saw that nothing

could obtain their forgiveness, or prevent them from taking mortal

revenge on him. He therefore posted to the Secretary of State, and

revealed the whole affair. The necessary measures were taken, and

Porter attended punctually at the meeting with Clancey. He received

the three hundred guineas, and then, giving a concerted signal, the

officers of Government rushed in and secured Clancey, who was tried for

subornation, convicted, and set in the pillory.

This discovery, through the double treachery of Porter, alarmed

Fenwick for his personal safety. He no longer deemed himself secure

in the kingdom, for he had taken such part in the attempt to win over

Porter--writing a letter for him to take with him to St. Germains

to secure his good reception there--that it was too obvious that he

was not far off. Porter was indemnified for his loss of the promised

annuity by a much better one from William's government--no less

than two hundred and fifty pounds a year--and would undoubtedly,

if possible, hunt out Fenwick. Sir John, therefore, made prompt

arrangements for his own escape to France. There was no time to be

lost; he was indicted at the next sessions in the City for treason.

Porter and Goodman gave evidence before the grand jury, who returned

a true bill. Sir John managed to escape to near Romney Marsh, where a

vessel was to take him off, but, unfortunately, on the way he met an

officer, who had been apprehending two smugglers. The man knew him, and

offered the smugglers a pardon and reward to assist in seizing him. Sir

John fled, and they pursued; and he is said to have been taken in the

end near Slyfield Mill, between Stoke Dabernon and Bookham, in Surrey.

Sir John had contrived, after being taken, to write a letter to his

wife, by one Webber who was with him, in which he declared that all

was now over unless she could get her relatives, the Howards, to

intercede for him. They might promise for him that he would spend his

life abroad, and would pledge himself never to draw a sword against the

present government. If that could not be done, the only chance left was

to bribe a juryman to starve out the jury.

This letter was intercepted, and when Sir John was brought before the

Lords Justices at Whitehall, and he appeared very high, and denied the

charges against him indignantly, it was laid before him to his sudden

terror and confusion. He saw how completely he had committed himself by

his confession, and he turned pale, and seemed half inclined to admit

his guilt. In the silence of his prison he revolved another scheme, and

on the 10th of August, two months after his apprehension, he presented

a memorial to the Duke of Devonshire, offering to disclose to the king

all that he knew of the plots, with every one concerned in them, and

throwing himself on the mercy of the king. Having so fully betrayed his

own guilt, this seemed the only chance of obtaining a lenient judgment.

Devonshire sent over the memorial to William in Holland, and was

desired by him to receive Fenwick's confession.

[Illustration: OLD MERCERS' HALL, WHERE THE BANK OF ENGLAND WAS FIRST

ESTABLISHED.]

This was in due time written down and delivered, and, had it been a

real revelation of the plots and their agents, would have probably

obtained considerable indulgence for him. But it disclosed nothing

that was not already well known to William. Passing over all the other

parties who were secretly engaged in labouring for the overthrow of

William's government and the restoration of James--persons whose names

and doings would have been of the utmost value to the Government--he

merely accused Marlborough, Russell, Godolphin, and Shrewsbury. The

intrigues of all these were far more familiar to William and his

intimate friends than they were to Fenwick. William and Devonshire

were disappointed. The whole thing had the air of a ruse to hide the

still undiscovered delinquents, and make a merit of a stale and useless

piece of information. Devonshire, on forwarding the list, observed

that, whatever these noblemen had been, they were, to all appearance,

very firm to the king now. William, on reading Fenwick's paper, was

incensed. "I am astonished," he wrote to Shrewsbury, "at the fellow's

effrontery. Observe this honest man's sincerity: he has nothing to say,

except against my friends. Not a word about the plans of his brother

Jacobites." He ordered the prisoner to be brought to trial without

delay.

Fenwick, in fact, had only insured his own doom. He probably thought

William was not aware of the double-dealing of his own ministers,

and that he should be able to throw a bombshell into the Whig camp,

while he screened his own fellow-seditionists; but he found he had

to deal with a man much more sagacious than himself. William ordered

the confession of Sir John to be laid before the Lords Justices, and

himself acquainted some of the accused of what it contained, and

expressed his contempt of it. Marlborough and Russell, if they had not

before made up their minds to avoid any further tampering with St.

Germains, seem from this moment to have done so. It was clear their

secret was not only well known to William, but, pretty generally, to

the agents of James. Marlborough, however, took it calmly; Russell made

a great pretence of innocence, and demanded inquiry. Shrewsbury alone

seemed dismayed and overcome by it. He wrote to William, admitting that

Lord Middleton, James's secretary, had been over several times, and

had visited him, but this he attributed to their nearness of kinship.

He said--"One night at supper, when he was pretty well in drink, he

told me he intended to go beyond seas, and asked me if I could command

him no service. I then told him, by the course he was taking, it would

never be in his power to do himself or his friends service; and if the

time should come that he expected, I looked upon myself as an offender

not to be forgiven." Shrewsbury added that perhaps these accusations

"might render him incapable of serving William"--meaning that he might

not think him fit to retain the Seals under such a suspicion by the

public, but that, if he could not answer for the generality of the

world, yet the noble and frank manner in which his Majesty had used him

on that occasion would ever be acknowledged by him with all gratitude.

[Illustration: LADY FENWICK INTERCEDING FOR HER HUSBAND. (_See p._

496.)]

Fenwick, perceiving the fatal blunder that he had made, sent in a

second confession; but this appeared rather to absolve James and his

adherents from any knowledge of the baser plan of assassination, and

from having sanctioned the scheme of seizing William's person, than

to throw any new light on the real workers in the treason. Things

were in this position when William returned on the 6th of October. The

courtiers at once flocked to Kensington to pay their respects to his

majesty, and amongst them the noblemen who had been so deeply accused

by Fenwick, with the single exception of Shrewsbury. William received

them all most graciously, and asked where Shrewsbury was. He was

informed that he was ill, and the next day the duke himself wrote to

say that he had had a fall from his horse, had received considerable

injury, and was incapable of travelling. But the king and the other

ministers well knew that the real cause was his extreme sensitiveness,

which made him ashamed to face his sovereign after the discovery of his

delinquency; and both they and William wrote to urge his appearance at

Court as soon as possible. William said--"You are much wanted here. I

am impatient to embrace you, and to assure you that my esteem for you

is undiminished." Somers wrote to him that unless he appeared in his

place at Court it would convince the public that he felt the justice of

Fenwick's charge.

But Shrewsbury, whose mind so readily preyed on itself, could not bring

himself to face the king, and sent to request leave to resign the

Seals. With a magnanimity wonderfully different to that of Henry VIII.,

who would have had all these nobles' heads off in a few days, William

would not hear of his resignation, telling the duke that it would bring

the worst suspicions on him; and, more on Shrewsbury's account than his

own, he insisted on his keeping the Seals. At length he consented, but

still dared not go to town, but remained in the seclusion of his home

amongst the wilds of Gloucestershire.

On the 20th of October William opened the session of Parliament with

a speech in which he reviewed the troubles and difficulties of the

past year. He admitted the distress which the endeavours to restore

the coinage to a healthy state had occasioned; the pressure caused by

the limited coinage being yet only partly relieved. He avowed that

the liberal funds voted in the last session had fallen far short of

the public needs, and that the Civil List could not be maintained

without further aid; but, on the other hand, he contended that they

had many causes of congratulation. Abroad the enemy had obtained no

advantage, and at home the fortitude and temper with which the nation

had struggled through the hardships attending the recoinage--increased

as these had been by the fears or selfishness of those who had hoarded

their money--were admirable. A little time must bear them through this,

and he had to inform them that he had received overtures of peace from

France. He should be prepared to accept proper terms, but the way to

obtain them was to treat sword in hand. He therefore recommended them

to be at once liberal and prompt in voting the supplies. He recommended

to their sympathy the French Protestants, who were in a most miserable

condition, and he trusted to their taking efficient measures for the

maintenance of the public credit.

The Commons, on retiring to their House, at the instance of Montague,

the Chancellor of the Exchequer, passed three resolutions, which

demonstrated the confidence of the country in the Government, and

constituted in themselves the most absolute defeat of all the grumblers

and malcontents possible. Montague had advocated the Bank of England;

that had succeeded. He had denounced the scheme of the Land Bank;

that had proved, as he declared it to be, a delusion, and had brought

ruin on its projectors. He had carried the plans of Government for

the restoration of the coinage stoutly through the most unexampled

crises. When the paper of the Bank of England was fluctuating in value,

the enemies of Government casting suspicion on it, so that it would

occasionally sink one-fourth of its value in the course of a single

day; when both the Allies and the enemies of England fancied that her

credit was gone and her resources exhausted, Montague knew better,

and by his spirit and eloquence kept the machine of Government going,

and now he reached a point of unquestionable triumph. The credit of

the country was no longer falling, but rising; the coinage was fast

assuming a position which it had never enjoyed for ages, and the

confidence of Parliament displayed itself in its votes. The resolutions

which confounded the adversaries of William's Government, and which

have often been referred to as motives for encouragement in periods

of Governmental distress, were these:--First, that the Commons would

support the king against all foreign and domestic enemies; secondly,

that the standard of gold and silver should not be altered; thirdly,

that they would make good all Parliamentary funds established since

the king's succession. An address was passed on the basis of these

resolutions, which was followed by another from the Lords, and the

Commons proceeded in the same spirit to vote six millions for the

current expenses of the year.

The great topic of the remainder of the session was the inquiry into

the guilt of Sir John Fenwick. In denouncing the noblemen named in his

confession, he had made them and their adherents his mortal enemies.

The Whigs were deeply incensed through the accusation of Russell and

Shrewsbury, and the Whigs were now more influential than ever. Instead

of damaging them and embarrassing William, Fenwick had fatally damaged

himself. As for Godolphin, who was the only Tory in the Ministry, they

contrived to get him to offer his resignation, which, unlike that of

Shrewsbury, was accepted, so that the Whigs had now a ministry wholly

of their party. Russell was loud in his demands of vengeance, and

William, at the suggestion of the Whigs, sent for Fenwick, and insisted

that he should supply further information as to the real conspirators,

whom he had evidently purposely screened. Fenwick declined, and William

gave him to understand that he had nothing more to expect from him.

The stubbornness of Fenwick soon received an explanation. His wife had

managed to corrupt Goodman, the second witness against him. An annuity

of five hundred pounds had been offered him to abscond, accompanied by

the menace of assassination if he refused. He consented to flee, and

was accompanied by an agent, named O'Brien, to St. Germains. Fenwick

now believed himself safe, as no man could be condemned on a charge of

high treason upon the evidence of one witness. But the vengeance of his

enemies was not thus to be defeated. Sir John might have recollected

how often the end in such cases had been secured by a Bill of

Attainder. Fenwick himself had been a zealous advocate for such a Bill

against Monmouth. When it became known that Goodman was spirited away,

the exasperation of the Commons was extreme. On the 6th of November

Russell vehemently demanded of the House that it should examine

and decide whether the accused parties were guilty or not. Before

proceeding to extremities the Commons, however, called Sir John before

them, and offered to intercede with the king on his behalf if he made

a full and immediate confession. But he would not consent to become

the informer against his own party, and was remanded. It was then

resolved, by a hundred and seventy-nine votes to sixty-one that a Bill

of Attainder should be brought in. The two parties put forth all their

strength, and the Bill was not carried till the 26th. For twenty days

the eloquence and influence of the House were in violent agitation.

The Tories were seen contending for the liberty of the subject, which

they had so often overridden by such bills, and the Whigs as vehemently

pressed on the measure as they had formerly denounced similar ones when

directed against those of their own party.

During the debates the depositions of Goodman made before the Grand

Jury, fully implicating Sir John in the conspiracy, were laid before

the House in support of the evidence of Porter. Goodman's absence

was proved, to the satisfaction of the House, to be owing to the

inducements and exertions of Fenwick's friends; and two of the grand

jurymen were examined, and detailed the evidence received by them

from Goodman on his examination, fully agreeing with that sent in in

writing. Some petty jurymen, also, who had decided the case of another

conspirator, confirmed this evidence. The Commons had proof enough

of his guilt, though it might want the legal formality of two direct

witnesses.

In the Lords the Earl of Monmouth made an adroit movement in favour

of Sir John. He defended him warmly, at the same time that he sent to

him in prison, through the Duchess of Norfolk, his cousin, a scheme

for defeating his enemies. He advised him to maintain the truth of

his confession, to declare that he derived his information from high

quarters, and to beg the king to demand of the Earls of Portland and

Romney whether the information in their possession against the noblemen

implicated did not correspond with his own; the king, moreover, should

be urged to lay before Parliament the evidence on which he had suddenly

dismissed Marlborough, and any letters intercepted on their way from

St. Germains to these parties. This would have been a thunderbolt to

the Government, and Monmouth awaited in exultation its effect. But Sir

John disappointed him. He feared to exasperate further the king and his

judges the Lords, to whom the accused belonged, and did not take the

hint. Monmouth, incensed, then turned against him himself. Marlborough

exerted himself with all his power to condemn him, even getting the

Prince of Denmark to go and vote against him. The bishops remained,

and voted, eight of them, against the passing of the Bill. Burnet and

Tenison, however, both spoke and voted for it, with little regard

to the practice that the prelates should take no part in advocating

measures of blood. The Lords Godolphin and Bath, though both amongst

those accused by Fenwick, voted in his favour, and Shrewsbury absented

himself from the debate. The Duke of Devonshire, too, to whom he had

carried his confession, voted against the Bill. Sir John offered to

make a full disclosure on condition of receiving a full pardon, but

this was not accorded him, and he refused further confession on any

other terms. At length, on the 27th of December, the Bill was carried,

but only by a majority of seven--sixty-eight votes to sixty-one.

Forty-one lords, including eight bishops, entered a protest on the

journal against the decision.

Unfortunately for Monmouth, the friends of Sir John were so incensed

at his turning round against him, that the Earl of Carlisle, Lady

Fenwick's brother, produced to the House the papers which he had sent

to Sir John in prison, and stated the censures on the king with which

he had accompanied them. A tempest suddenly burst over his head, of

indescribable fury. The Whigs were exasperated at his endeavouring to

sacrifice Russell and Shrewsbury to save Fenwick, and the Tories at

his endeavouring to sacrifice Marlborough and Godolphin, and at his

treacherously deserting Sir John for not following his advice. He was

committed to the Tower, deprived of all his places, and his name erased

from the list of privy councillors.

Parliament having passed this Act, adjourned for the Christmas

holidays, and every exertion was made to obtain a pardon for Sir John.

His wife threw herself at the feet of William, but he only replied

that he must consult his ministers before he could give an answer.

On the 11th of January, 1697, he put his signature to the Bill. When

Parliament met again she presented a petition to the House of Lords,

praying them to intercede with the king to commute the sentence to

perpetual banishment, but without success. On the 28th of January

Fenwick was conducted to execution on Tower Hill. On the scaffold he

delivered to the sheriff a sealed paper, in which he complained of the

irregularity of the proceeding against him, denied any participation in

the plan of assassination, but confessed his attachment to James, and

his belief in the right of the Prince of Wales after him.

After an abortive attempt to pass a Bill establishing a property

qualification for the Commons, another to put the press again under the

licensing system, and another to abolish those dens of protected crime,

the Savoy and Whitefriars, Parliament was prorogued on the 16th of

April.

Whilst this desperate conflict had been going on between Whig and Tory

in England, in Scotland a most useful measure had passed the Scottish

Parliament, namely, an Act establishing a school and schoolmaster in

every parish, and to this admirable Act it is that Scotland owes the

superior intelligence of its working classes. At the same time the

rigid bigotry of the clergy perpetrated one of the most revolting acts

in history. A youth of eighteen, named Thomas Aikenhead, had picked up

some of the sceptical notions of Hobbes and Tindal, and was arrested,

tried, and hanged for blasphemy between Leith and Edinburgh. It was

in vain that he expressed the utmost repentance for his errors, the

ministers were impatient for his death, and he died accordingly, to the

disgrace of the Presbyterian Church and the whole country.

William embarked for Holland on the 26th of April, having before his

departure made several promotions. To the disgust of many, Sunderland

was appointed one of the Lords Justices and Lord Chamberlain. The

Protestants wondered that a man who had apostatised when there was

a Popish king, should find such favour with a Presbyterian one; and

the honourable-minded that a man who had stooped to so many dirty

acts and arts should be thus exalted by a prince of sober morals.

But William's only excuse was that his ministers were so bad that

there was little to choose in their principles, and that he employed

them not for their virtues but their abilities. Russell was rewarded

for running down Fenwick with the title of Earl of Orford; the Lord

Keeper Somers was elevated to the full dignity of Lord Chancellor, and

created Baron Somers of Evesham. Montague was made First Lord of the

Treasury, in place of Godolphin; Lord Wharton, in addition to his post

of Comptroller of the Household, was appointed Chief Justice in Eyre,

south of the Trent; and his brother, Godwin Wharton, became a Lord of

the Admiralty.

The campaign in Flanders was commenced by the French with an activity

apparently intended to impress upon the Allies their ample ability to

carry on the war, although, in fact, never had France more need of

peace. Its finances were exhausted, its people were miserable; but far

more than the sufferings of his subjects to Louis were the ambitious

projects which he was now particularly cherishing. John Sobieski,

the brave deliverer of Vienna from the Turks, the King of Poland,

was dead, and Louis was anxious to place the Prince of Conti on the

throne of that kingdom. He had, however, a still more weighty motive

for peace. The King of Spain, the sickly and imbecile Charles II.,

was fast hastening to the tomb. He was childless; no provision was

made by the Spanish Government for filling the throne, and Louis of

France was watching for his death. Louis himself was married to the

elder sister of the Spanish king, and the Dauphin was thus next in

succession, but the marriage had been attended by a renunciation of

rights. The question was one of great intricacy; and we will postpone

for the present a discussion of the rights of the Dauphin and the

rival claimants--the Archduke Charles and the Electoral Prince. But if

the throne of Spain fell vacant during the alliance, the Allies, and

William amongst them, would support the Emperor's claims. Accordingly,

it was to the interest of the Emperor to prolong the war, and to the

interest of Louis to end it.

[Illustration: LORD SOMERS. (_After the Portrait by Sir Godfrey

Kneller._)]

Spain and Germany, therefore, were averse from peace. William and

Louis were the only parties, each for his own purposes, really anxious

for it. Louis, early in the spring, had made overtures to Dykvelt

through Cailleres, which were really surprising. They were no less

than to relinquish all the conquests made by him during the war, to

restore Lorraine to its duke, Luxemburg to Spain, Strasburg to the

Empire, and to acknowledge William's title to the crown of England

without condition or reserve. Such terms the Allies never could have

expected. They were a renunciation by the ambitious Louis of all that

he had been fighting for during so many years--of all that he had

drained his kingdom of its life and wealth to accomplish. That he

contemplated maintaining the peace any longer than till he had secured

Spain and Poland is not to be supposed. If he obtained peace now, these

objects would become more feasible, and he knew that William, his

most formidable enemy, would have disbanded his army, and would have

to create a new one and a new alliance before he could take the field

again to oppose him.

These undoubtedly were Louis's notions, and it was plausibly urged by

Spain and Austria that it was better now to press him as he was sinking

till he was perfectly prostrate, and then bind him effectually. But,

on the other hand, William felt that England and Holland had to bear

the brunt of the war; that it was all very well for Spain and Germany

to cry "Keep on," but the fact was, they did little or nothing towards

keeping on. The Germans had no union, and, therefore, no strength.

They sent excuses instead of their contingents and instead of money to

pay their share of the cost of the war. When they did rise, they were

nearly always behind their time and divided in their counsels. As for

Spain, it literally did nothing to defend its own territories. The

whole of Flanders would have been lost but for William and his Dutch

and English troops. Catalonia would have been lost but for Russell and

his fleet. Moreover, without consulting the Allies, Spain had joined in

a treaty with Savoy and France to save its Milanese territory, and to

the extreme prejudice of the Allies, it had, by releasing the French

armies from Italy, increased the force in Flanders. William was greatly

incensed by the endeavours of these Powers to continue the war; and

Louis, as the best spur to their backwardness, determined to seize

Brussels, and conduct himself as if bent on active aggression.

Catinat, relieved from his command in Savoy, had now joined Villeroi

and Boufflers in Flanders, and these generals determined to surprise

Brussels. They first advanced on the little town of Ath, and William,

who was but just recovering from an attack of illness, uniting his

forces with those of the Elector of Bavaria, endeavoured to prevent

them. He was, however, too late; but he marched hastily towards

Brussels to defend it against Villeroi and Boufflers. He passed over

the very ground on which the battle of Waterloo was long afterwards

fought, and posted himself on the height whence Villeroi had bombarded

the city two years before. Neither side, however, was anxious to engage

and incur all the miseries of a great battle, with the prospect of a

near peace. They therefore entrenched themselves and continued to lie

there for the rest of the summer, awaiting the course of events. Louis,

however, assailed the King of Spain in another quarter--Catalonia.

There Vendôme attacked the viceroy and defeated him, and invested

Barcelona, which, though bravely defended by the Prince of

Hesse-Darmstadt, was obliged to capitulate. At the same time came the

news of another blow. Louis had sent out a squadron under Admiral

Pointes to attack the Spanish settlements in the West Indies, and he

had sacked and plundered the town of Carthagena, and carried home an

immense treasure. These disasters made Spain as eager for peace as she

had before been averse, and the Emperor of Germany was obliged to cease

talking of returning to the position of the Treaty of Westphalia--a

state of things totally out of the power of the Allies to restore.

The Plenipotentiaries of the different Powers now at last were

ordered to meet; the only question was, Where? The Emperor proposed

Aix-la-Chapelle or Frankfort, but Louis objected to any German town,

but was willing that the place should be the Hague. It was at length

settled to be the Hague. The Ambassadors of the Allies were to occupy

the Hague itself; and the French, Delft, about five miles distant.

Midway between these towns lies the village of Ryswick, and close to

it a palace belonging then to William, called Neubourg House. There it

was determined that the Plenipotentiaries should meet for business. The

palace was admirably adapted, by its different entrances and alleys,

for the approach of the different bodies of diplomatists without

any confusion, and there was a fine, large, central hall for their

deliberations. There appeared for England the Earl of Pembroke, the

Viscount Villiers, Sir Joseph Williamson, and Matthew Prior, the poet,

as their secretary. For the Emperor, the gruff Kaunitz, the celebrated

Imperial Minister, was at the head of the German referees. For France

came Harlay, Crecy, and Cailleres. Don Quiros was the Minister of

Spain, and there were whole throngs of the representatives of the

lesser Powers. The Minister of Sweden, Count Lilienroth, was appointed

mediator, and, after various arrangements regarding precedence, on

the 9th of May the Plenipotentiaries met; but, it seemed, only to

entangle themselves in a multitude of absurd difficulties regarding

their respective ranks and titles. The Ambassadors of Spain and of

the Emperor were the most ridiculous in their punctilios. Then came

the news of the death of the King of Sweden (Charles XI.), and the

waiting of the mediator for a renewal of his powers, and for putting

himself into mourning, and it was the middle of June before any real

business had been done. William grew out of patience, and determined

to take a shorter cut to the object in view. He empowered Portland

to arrange with Boufflers, with whom he had become acquainted at the

time of the latter's arrest at Namur, the preliminaries of a peace

between France, England, and Holland. Portland and Boufflers met at

a country house near Hal, about ten miles from Brussels on the road

to Mons, and within sight of the hostile armies. The questions to be

settled between these two plain and straightforward negotiators were

these:--William demanded that Louis should bind himself not to assist

James, directly or indirectly, in any attempt on the throne of England,

and that James should no longer be permitted to reside in France. These

demands being sent by express to Paris, Louis at once agreed to the

first requisition, that he should engage never to assist James in any

attempt on England; but as to the second, he replied that he could not,

from honour and hospitality, banish James from France, but he would

undertake to induce him to remove to Avignon, if he did not voluntarily

prefer going to Italy. William accepted this modified acquiescence.

On the other hand, Louis demanded from William that he should give

an amnesty to all the Jacobites, and should allow Mary of Modena her

jointure of fifty thousand pounds a year.

William peremptorily refused to grant the amnesty--that was an

interference with the prerogative of his crown which he could permit

to no foreign Power. The jointure he was willing to pay, on condition

that the money should not be employed in designs against his crown or

life, and that James, his queen, and Court, should remove to Avignon

and continue to reside there. Neither the residence of the exiled

family nor the matter of the jointure was to be mentioned in the

treaty, but William authorised his Plenipotentiaries at the Congress

to say that Mary of Modena should have everything which on examination

should be found to be lawfully her due. This, indeed, may be considered

an ambiguous phrase, for Mary, as well as James, being deposed, all

her legal rights connected with the Crown had lapsed. William was

afterwards much blamed for the non-payment of this jointure; but those

who charged him with breach of faith knew very well that the jointure

was only conditionally offered, and that the conditions were altogether

disregarded.

The ceremonious and do-nothing Plenipotentiaries were greatly startled

by the news that Portland and Boufflers were continually meeting,

and were supposed to be actually making a treaty without them. A

thing so irregular, so undiplomatic, was unheard of; but William was

a man of business, and, in spite of forms and ceremonies, pushed on

the treaty and concluded it. Spain, which had arranged a separate

treaty in Savoy, was especially scandalised. But still more was James

alarmed and incensed. He addressed two memorials to the princes of the

confederacy--one to the Catholic Princes, entreating them to unite with

him against England for his rights, reminding them that his case was

theirs, and that the English revolution was setting a fatal precedent

for them; the other was to the princes at large, warning them against

infringing his inalienable rights by entering into any agreement with

the usurper to transfer his crown and dignity to him. These producing

no effect, he issued a third, protesting against any engagements they

might enter into to his prejudice, or the prejudice of his son; and

declaring that he should himself never feel bound by any of them.

If Louis was not moved by his entreaties and remonstrances, it was

not likely that the princes who had for eight years been fighting in

alliance with his rival would. Perhaps, however, James felt it only his

duty to put in his disclaimer. The negotiations went on. Besides the

terms offered by France to William and his Allies being accepted by all

except the Emperor, it was agreed that Commissioners should meet in

London from France to settle the respective pretensions of France and

England to the territories of Hudson's Bay. The Dutch made a separate

treaty of commerce with France. France surrendered all conquests made

since the Treaty of Nimeguen, and placed the chief fortresses in the

Low Countries in the hands of Dutch garrisons; except eighty towns and

villages, which the French claimed from longer possession, and the

right to which was to be determined by commissioners, with a power

of appeal to the States-General. A demand of toleration was made on

behalf of the French Protestants, but was refused on the same ground

as William refused the amnesty to the Jacobites--interference with

the prerogative of Louis. On the 10th of July the representatives of

the Emperor were asked by the French to sign, but, on declining, the

21st of August was fixed as the last day on which France would be

bound by its offer. William and the rest of the Allies were greatly

exasperated at this refusal of the Emperor. The 21st arrived, and,

the Commissioners not signing, the representatives of France declared

his most Christian Majesty had now withdrawn Strasburg from his offer,

and would annex it for ever to his realm; and, moreover, if the treaty

were not signed on or before the 10th of September, he should not hold

himself bound by the rest of his engagements.

[Illustration: WILLIAM'S TRIUMPHANT PROCESSION TO WHITEHALL. (_See p._

501.)]

On the 10th the rest of the Allies signed the treaty, but the Emperor

still held out, and a further time was allowed him, namely, till the

1st of November. On the 11th of September an event occurred which made

the resistance of the Emperor the more obstinate for a time. Prince

Eugene fought a great battle at Zenta against the Sultan in person,

completely routed the Turks, and killed or caused to be drowned in

the Theiss the Grand Vizier, the Aga of the Janissaries, and thirty

thousand of the enemy. There were six thousand more wounded or taken

prisoners, with their artillery, baggage, tents, ammunition, and

provisions. The Grand Seignior himself escaped with difficulty, whilst

the Imperialists lost only about one thousand men in the action. The

Emperor hoped that such a brilliant victory would induce the Allies to

prolong the war; but, as it produced no such effect, he was obliged

to comply. The petty princes, who had done nothing during the war

but create delays and embarrassments, stood out to the very last on

the demand that the Lutheran religion should be restored in Louis's

territories, where it had been put down; but they stood out in vain.

The treaty was duly signed and ratified at the time fixed.

The new treaty produced very different sensations in France and

England. In France there was much murmuring. For what, it was asked,

had the king been fighting all these years? He had given up everything,

and could only have done that under defeat. The Court of St. Germains

and James's adherents were in despair. In England the most riotous

joy broke forth. There were all the usual demonstrations of such

occasions--bonfires, drinking, and firing of guns. The bells rang out

from every steeple, and the Bank of England stocks, which were at

twenty per cent. below par, rose to par. The Jacobites cursed Louis

for a traitor to the cause of James, and fled to hide themselves. The

rejoicings were equally enthusiastic all over the kingdom.

When William entered his capital it was a regular triumph. From

Greenwich to Whitehall it was one dense crowd of hurrahing people;

troops of militia and train-bands, the City authorities attending

him in all their paraphernalia, the Foot Guards standing under arms

at Whitehall, and the windows all the way crowded with handsome or

excited faces. The 2nd of December was appointed as a day of public

thanksgiving, and the new cathedral of St. Paul's was crowded by its

first great assemblage on the occasion. There were deputations bringing

zealous addresses to the foot of the Throne, and foremost and most

loyal in language amongst them was that of the University of Oxford,

which had so long distinguished itself by its Toryism and devotion to

the Stuarts.

There was cause, indeed, for joy; for the country was for a time freed

from the most exhausting war in which it had ever been engaged. It had

passed through it with credit, though its armies and navies were in a

great measure commanded by traitors. Its wealth and credit were higher

than ever; and, above all, the tone and temper of the nation were sure

guarantees that the return of James or his son was the most impossible

of things. Still, had the Allies on the Continent been true to each

other, and to the principles for which they professed to contend, they

might have inflicted a far more complete punishment on the heartless

ambition of Louis, and thus prevented the speedy recurrence of the

horrors which they now hoped were for a long time at an end.