Читать книгу A History of England, Period III. Constitutional Monarchy - J. Franck Bright - Страница 14

Parliament meets. Oct. 19, 1689.

Still it was not to be expected that Parliament, on its reassembling, should be in a better temper than when it separated. It again renewed its violent courses. The necessary supplies were indeed voted; The Bill of Rights, by which the Declaration of Right was to be formed into a statute, and which in the last session had been thrown aside because the Lords wished to introduce the name of the Electress Sophia in the succession to the throne, was passed without that amendment; but besides this scarcely any other work was done. On the other hand, the Whig majority proceeded on their course of vengeance. The violence of the Whigs. The Earls of Salisbury and Peterborough, Sir Edward Hales and Obadiah Walker were impeached; a Committee to inquire into the death of Russell and Sidney, known as the Murder Committee, was appointed, and the attack upon Halifax renewed. At length the Whigs, conscious that the King was not well pleased with their vindictive temper, attempted to secure their own permanent supremacy in Parliament. They introduced a Corporation Bill, for restoring all the charters which had been forfeited in the reign of James; and to this, at the suggestion of Sacheverell and Howard, were appended two clauses, the one providing that all who had taken part in the surrender of the charters should be incapable of holding office for seven years, the other adding that all who, in spite of being thus incapacitated, presumed to hold office should be fined £500, and be debarred for life from public employment. These clauses, which would have in fact disfranchized the Tory party in every borough, they attempted to pass through the House by a surprise, when the greater part of the Tory party had returned home for The Tories throw out the Corporation Act. Christmas. But so violent and factious a measure called out all the energies of the Opposition. The country gentlemen came crowding back to town, and, after a violent debate, the Whigs were defeated by a small majority. The Tories thought to improve their triumph by reintroducing the Bill of Indemnity without the exceptions, but they quite overrated their strength. Their attempt was defeated by an enormous majority, and a Bill of Pains and Penalties incorporated with the Indemnity Act, which rendered it a mere measure of proscription. But this violent measure was not destined to pass the House. The fierce struggle of parties was so repugnant to the King, any attempt at firm national government appeared to him so hopeless, that, having William threatens to leave England. secretly arranged means of retiring to Holland, he sent for his ministers, and told them it was his intention to withdraw from England, leaving the Queen upon the throne. The threat stupefied the Whigs. To whatever excesses their passion may have led them, they felt that their safety was bound up with the prudent chief they had elected. A passionate scene ensued, in which the Tory Nottingham and the Whig Dissolves Parliament, Jan. 27, 1690, and undertakes Irish war. Shrewsbury vied with each other in intreating William to forego his plan. At length he yielded, but determined that he would escape from the atmosphere of faction which surrounded him, and himself go to carry on the war in Ireland. Having stated that such was his unalterable intention, he prorogued and dissolved the factious Parliament which he had been unable to bring to reason.

The dissolution brought with it a reaction. The Tories in the New Tory reaction in new Parliament. Parliament were as strong as the Whigs had lately been. Even London returned four opponents to the obnoxious clauses of the Corporation Act. As yet the theory of a ministry not having been established, there was no great change, yet the balance among the ministers was somewhat altered. Halifax withdrew from the Government; the Board of Treasury and the Board of Admiralty were both reconstituted, with a larger proportion of Tories, and Caermarthen attained such an amount of power as to make him virtually Prime Minister. Sir John Lowther Venality of Parliament. was put at the head of the Treasury, while the purchase of votes, an art at which Caermarthen was an adept, and which for many years to come was constantly employed by the Government, was intrusted to Sir John Trevor, who became Speaker. William had hitherto tried to act without bribery; he had found his efforts futile, and his influence in Parliament neutralized by the passion of faction. He now, against his own feelings, allowed Caermarthen to have his way. The strange venality of Parliament at this time, and for many years afterwards, may probably be traced to the fact that the secrecy with which debates in Parliament were shrouded prevented the exercise of any wholesome popular opinion upon the vote of the representatives, while the Crown had lost that power of coercing the Opposition which it had enjoyed in the time of the Tudors. It became necessary to purchase what could not be procured by violence, while there was no pressure from without to restrain the cupidity of unprincipled members. With his new Parliament William found himself more free to act.

The revenue settled.

Its first duty was the settlement of the revenue. This had hitherto been chiefly collected under Acts passed for short terms only. It was now put on a permanent basis. The hereditary revenues, consisting of the rents of royal domains, fees and fines, post office and ecclesiastical dues, together with that portion of the excise which had been paid to Charles II. as the price for the abolition of feudal services, were given to William and Mary. These revenues amounted to about £400,000 or £500,000 a year. The King had hoped to obtain a grant for life of the other excise and custom duties which had been granted to James, and had amounted to £900,000 a year; but the Tory majority felt as distinctly as their opponents that an income which set the Crown free from the necessity of consulting Parliament might prove a source of evils similar to those of the last reign. They therefore gave William for life only £300,000 a year from the excise, the remaining £600,000, which arose from customs, they granted for four years only.

On other points the Parliament now acted more in accordance with the King's wishes, although the Whigs produced several embarrassing measures, and attempted to compel all place-holders to take an oath abjuring King James. But William was determined to check the course of vengeance; the known wish of the King enabled the Tories to throw out the obnoxious measure, and the revenge of the Whigs Act of Grace, May 20. was finally balked by an Act of Grace from the Crown, which took the place of the unfinished Bill of Indemnity. This declared a perfect oblivion for all political offences up to that moment, excepting from the benefits of the Act only such of the regicides as were still alive, and about thirty others; of whom some were either dead or in safety abroad, while the rest, though in England, were suffered to live unharmed. It is a noble addition to the glory of William that, through his firmness and generosity, no blood was shed at the Great Revolution.

Preparation for war.

Meanwhile the King had been hastening preparations for his war. The number of the troops in Ireland had been raised to 30,000, at length well armed and well provisioned; a fleet, with still more provisions and equipments, was ready to receive the King at Chester. But at that moment it became very difficult for him to leave the Jacobite plot discovered. country, for the Jacobites had determined to seize the opportunity of his absence for a great effort. Clarendon the Queen's uncle, Dartmouth commander of the fleet which should have opposed William's landing, and Preston James's last Secretary of State, were the leaders of the scheme. Fortunately their secrets were intrusted to a man named Fuller, who at once determined to turn traitor. He gave over to the Privy Council the despatches from the Queen in France, which had been sewn into his buttons. His fellow-messenger was apprehended; when convicted and condemned to death, he too confessed, and the chiefs of the conspiracy were in the hands of the Government. Nevertheless it was a terrible time to be absent from home. An insurrection might break out at any moment, and an invasion was threatened from France.

William was determined that, come what would, he would put an end to the disgraceful state of affairs in Ireland. He placed the Government in the hands of the Queen, assisted by a Council of nine, with Danby William goes to Ireland. for her chief minister, Admiral Russell to advise her on naval, and Marlborough on military affairs, and then crossed to Belfast. Fortunately the two objects of the Jacobites proved incompatible; the threatened invasion so roused the national spirit, that domestic insurrection became impossible. While William advanced southward, Threatened invasion and insurrection. and the Irish army, reinforced by a considerable number of French under Lauzun, fell back behind the Boyne, a great French fleet under Tourville appeared off the Needles. Torrington, the English commander, had been reinforced by a Dutch squadron, yet shrunk from the encounter, and retreated towards the Straits of Dover. The Queen and her Council sent peremptory orders to fight. Jealous of Russell, afraid of risking a great battle with superior numbers, Torrington unwillingly obeyed. Battle of Beachy Head. With shameful policy, he sent the Dutch squadron forward to bear the brunt of the danger, and left it almost unsupported, till, after exhibiting their usual stubborn bravery, the Dutch were compelled to fall back with their shattered ships, and Tourville swept the Channel unopposed. Almost at the same time as the news of this disgraceful defeat reached London, tidings arrived that the allies, under the Prince of Waldeck, had been beaten by Luxemburg at the battle of Spirited behaviour of England. Fleurus. But the very misfortunes which seemed falling upon the nation roused its spirit. The Lord Mayor offered the Queen at once £100,000, 10,000 Londoners, well armed for immediate purposes, and six regiments of foot and two regiments of horse, to be raised at once, without cost to the Crown. The same temper was visible throughout England, and suddenly, after three days of depression, hope was again raised in the national mind by the news of the battle of the Boyne.

James had determined to make a stand behind that river, which separates the counties of Louth and Meath, falling into the Battle of the Boyne. July 1, 1690. sea at Drogheda. The position was a fairly strong one; the ground rose immediately from the river, and some of William's generals scarcely liked to venture upon an attack. But he felt that some great blow was necessary to retrieve the disasters of the last year, and he gave orders for crossing the river at once. Early in the morning of the 1st of July the English began to advance. Young Schomberg was sent some miles up the river, to cross at the bridge of Slane, and thus turn the left flank of the Irish army. His success in this movement alarmed Lauzun. There was a narrow passage at Duleek, four miles south of the Boyne, where two carriages could scarcely pass between impassable bogs. If Schomberg could secure this pass the Irish would be enclosed in a trap. It was necessary at any price to avoid this danger; Lauzun therefore marched to oppose him, taking with him all the French troops, leaving the Irish alone to hold the river. William commanded the left wing, formed entirely of horse. He fought his way across the river not far above Drogheda. In the centre Schomberg led the main body of the infantry across the fords of Old Bridge. The Irish infantry which should have opposed him, thoroughly demoralized by a year spent under lax discipline and in habits of plunder, fled at the first onset. The cavalry, who had been more carefully drilled under command of the traitor Richard Hamilton, strove in vain to restore the day. For half an hour the struggle in the bed of the river was fierce. The leader of the Protestant refugees was killed, and Schomberg himself, while rallying these troops, and calling out to them, "Come on, gentlemen, there are your persecutors," also fell. But William, having crossed with the left wing, now came up on the flank of the Irish, and the passage was secured. The Irish cavalry were left entirely unsupported by the infantry. Fighting bravely, and with considerable loss, they were slowly driven from the ground. Their leader Richard Hamilton was taken prisoner. James, whose personal courage it had been usual to praise, turned early from the fight and fled towards Dublin. The rout of fugitives hurried through the pass of Duleek, covered by the French infantry, who had been resisting young Schomberg's flank attack all the day. William is said to have been slack in the pursuit; Schomberg's death, and his own exhaustion, after having been thirty-five hours out of the last forty on horseback, may have been the cause of this. On neither side was the loss very great. Of the English about 500 are said to have been killed, of the Irish 1500; but they were chiefly cavalry, the only trustworthy Irish troops.

James's final flight.

James, having reached Dublin, summoned the Lord Mayor and principal Catholic citizens to the castle. Forgetful of his own speedy flight, he upbraided the Irish for cowardice, and vowed he would never more command an Irish army. He then at once took flight again, hurried to Waterford, and thence by Kinsale to France. Lauzun and Tyrconnel, with the remains of their army, also thought it desirable to evacuate the capital, which William entered in triumph. For a short time he thought of returning to England, for news of the defeat of Beachy Head and of the battle of Fleurus had reached him, and his presence in London seemed necessary. But when he heard of the courageous spirit showed by the nation, and knew that the only use Tourville had made of his victory was to attack and burn Teignmouth, thus still further exasperating the people, he felt that the crisis was over, that he might remain to complete his victory.

Siege of Limerick.

He gradually conquered the country as far as Limerick. There the Irish stood at bay. In the eyes of the French commander nothing could be more useless than the attempt to defend the city. "The walls could be knocked down with roasted apples," said Lauzun. He consequently withdrew his troops, and the Irish were left to themselves, under the command of Sarsfield, the only Irish general who seems to have possessed any military character, and vain though their hopes seemed to Lauzun, the defence of the city was successful. The want of artillery at first checked the proceedings of the besiegers. A daring raid, headed by Sarsfield, destroyed the convoy which was bringing up the siege train. The artillery was buried and exploded, and Sarsfield's party returned unhurt. Then came the heavy rains which occur at this William returns to England. Sept. 6. season in Ireland; the country around the town became a marsh. A final vigorous assault proved unsuccessful, and the siege was raised. This check was somewhat balanced by the success of an expedition planned and Marlborough's success in the south. commanded by Marlborough, which had landed in the south, and in five weeks had conquered both Cork and Kinsale. William returned to England in September, intrusting the government to three Lords Justices, and the management of the war to Ginkel. But no further military operation of importance took place till May in the following year.

The northern and eastern part of the island was in the hands of the English, and brought under some sort of government by the Lords Justices. In that part trade and industry had revived. In the Irish portion of the island, into which the Celtic inhabitants had crowded, there was wild confusion and much distress. Gangs of robbers infested the country, the soldiers were little better themselves than robbers. The currency of James's brass money entirely ruined trade. As usual in Ireland, jealousy of race began to show itself. In the Councils of Regency and of War, to whom the management of James's affairs were intrusted, men not of Irish blood had considerable influence; they were therefore involved in constant quarrels with the purely Irish party. Some order however began to show itself when Tyrconnel returned from France, accompanied by a French general of ability called St. Ruth. St. Ruth devoted himself with extreme energy to discipline the crowd of disorderly bandits whom he had to command, and prepared as well as he could to oppose the advance of Ginkel, who, seconded by Tollemache and St. Ruth comes from France. Mackay, moved in the beginning of June from their headquarters at Mullingar. The French generals, both now and before, had been of opinion that Athlone was the right spot for the Irish to make a stand. It lay almost in the middle of the island, half on one side, half on the other of the Shannon, separating the provinces of Leinster and Connaught. Ginkel determined that he would take this place, which seemed to him to be the key of the Irish frontier. It was a work of no common difficulty. St. Ruth thought the attempt absolutely hopeless. "His master," he said of Ginkel, "ought to hang him for attempting to take the town, mine ought to hang me if I lose it." The half of the town upon the English side of the river was taken on the 19th, but the real difficulty yet remained. Siege of Athlone. The narrow bridge which joined the two towns was gallantly defended. There was a ford lower down, but it was almost impassable. During the rest of the month the efforts of the besiegers were in vain. At last want of supplies compelled them either to succeed or to retreat. A gallant assault on the ford, which was almost up to the necks of the men, proved successful; to the astonishment and anger of St. Ruth the town was taken (June 30).

In spite of the advice of Sarsfield and the rest of the Irish generals, who wisely wished to employ their undisciplined troops in a partisan warfare, St. Ruth determined to fight. He fell back about thirty miles from Athlone, to the hill of Aghrim, where his troops occupied rising ground, covered along its whole front by a deep bog; while along the bottom of the firm ground ran enclosures, which were turned into breastworks. Against these difficulties Ginkel marched. But the Irish, now well posted and well commanded, showed such firmness, that it seemed probable they would make good their position, and evening was already drawing on, when at length Mackay, with the Battle of Aghrim. July 12, 1691. English and Huguenot cavalry, succeeded in passing the bog, and placing his troops on the flank of the Irish army. At this critical moment St. Ruth was killed. With singular folly, his friends concealed his death, not only from his men, but also from his generals. Sarsfield had been ordered to remain immoveable with reserves till St. Ruth ordered his advance, as the order did not come Sarsfield did not move, and the victory of the English thus became complete. The Irish army broke up, and was pursued with relentless cruelty; 6000 or 7000 Irish are said to have been put to death as they fled. The plain beyond the field of battle was so studded with white corpses, that it was described as looking like a pasture covered with flocks of sheep.

This battle completed the conquest of Ireland. The fall of Galway immediately followed, and Ginkel proceeded to attack for a second time the city of Limerick. The chances were now all in favour of the English, while the Irish were thoroughly disheartened by their late defeat. Ginkel's army was well supplied, and all hope of succour was Second siege and capitulation of Limerick. Oct. 3. cut off from the besieged by an English squadron which occupied the Shannon. Under these circumstances a capitulation was granted, the terms of which were fairly favourable to the Irish. By the military treaty, all officers and soldiers who desired it were conveyed to France, under command of their own generals. By the civil treaty, the Roman Catholics were promised the enjoyment of such privileges as they had enjoyed in the reign of Charles II. To all who took the oath of allegiance a perfect amnesty was promised. It is to the disgrace of England that this treaty with regard to the Catholics was not kept. End of the Irish war. For the time, however, Ireland was completely subdued, and the English supremacy established so firmly, that for more than a century, in spite of the difficulties which more than once beset the English Government, no outbreak of the Irishry against the Englishry was even suggested.

In Scotland, at length, the establishment of the Government was Revolution completed in Scotland. equally complete. The members of the factious Club had gone so far as to make common cause with the Jacobites. But in the Parliament which met in 1690, under the management of Melville as Lord High Commissioner, the Government succeeded in obtaining a majority. The union among its opponents was at once dissolved. A general acquiescence met the re-establishment of the Presbyterian form of Church government, and no further difficulties of importance were to be apprehended. William could now turn his attention to the affairs of England and of the Continent.

Jacobite plots in England.

In England, from the middle of 1690, the Jacobite intrigues continued. The lenity shown by William, after the abortive efforts of the Jacobites during the threatened French invasion, encouraged further conspiracies. It seemed certain that William's presence would be required abroad, and that again during his absence an opportunity would be offered for striking a blow against the Government. In December 1690, a meeting was held of the leading Jacobites, and it was determined that Preston should be sent to St. Germains. He was to beg James to return to England, bringing with him a sufficient French force to secure his success, but at the same time, in the name of the Jacobites, he was to intreat him to allow the Protestant religion to remain undisturbed, and to rule in strict accordance with law. Preston's plot thwarted. Besides this general letter, separate papers were intrusted to Preston, especially one from the nonjuring Bishop Turner, apparently in the name of Sancroft and his brother Bishops. He also took with him notes as to the most vulnerable points of the coast. But the captain of the ship which was engaged to take him over thought it wiser to inform Lord Caermarthen what he was doing, and just as the messengers thought they were safe out of the river, a vessel of remarkable swiftness belonging to Lord Caermarthen's son suddenly appeared alongside, and they were discovered hidden among the gravel which formed the ballast of their vessel.

William's successful policy abroad.

The capture of Preston, and the disclosure of the Jacobite plot, allowed William to go abroad, leaving the complete investigation of the treason to his ministers in England. On the Continent his diplomacy had been singularly successful. He had brought together a great coalition, and had succeeded in winning the Duke of Savoy, whom the King of France had reckoned among his allies, and whose territory closed the passage of the French to the Spanish dominions in Italy. Success would have cemented the coalition, and induced Denmark and Sweden, which were still wavering, to join it. But in rapidity of action a coalition is seldom a match for a single power, and Louis was able to forestall the action of the allies, and capture the important fortress of Mons, in spite of all William's efforts to relieve it. But this first success, though damaging to the coalition, produced no very important military events; the advantages of the French both in Spain and Italy were counterbalanced by the disasters which befell their allies First crisis of the war over. the Turks in Hungary, and the main armies in Flanders under William and Luxemburg were content merely to watch each other. The first crisis of the war was in fact over. The centre of the coalition was William; his strength was derived from his position as King of England; deprived of that position, he would have lost most of his influence, and the only chance of depriving him of it had been the success of the Irish. It was in Ireland, therefore, that the real crisis of the war had arrived. The defeat of James at the Boyne in 1690, and of St. Ruth at Aghrim almost exactly a year after, had thus rendered all hopes of destroying William's position futile. Once again, in the following year, the same critical situation of affairs arose. With the battle of La Hogue the success of James became hopeless, and though the war continued for many years, there is no other point in it which can really be called critical.

James's hopes upheld by the treason of the ministry

The causes which led James still to cherish hope, and which induced him to persuade Louis to contemplate that invasion of England to which the battle of La Hogue put an end, are to be found in the conduct of the Jacobite party in England: for while William's attention was constantly turned to the Continent, treason found its way among his own immediate ministers. Uncertain even yet of the stability of the new Government, three of the greatest among them determined to be safe on either issue. Admiral Russell, and Godolphin, head of the Treasury, succeeded in obtaining written pardons from James; and Marlborough, whose previous treachery might have been supposed unpardonable, made such a show of repentance, that he obtained the same favour, promising in exchange, when he should be in command of the English troops, to bring them over to the enemy. But even the treachery of Marlborough and of Marlborough. partook of the greatness of his character. His views reached far beyond this commonplace act of treason. He was already devising plans by which the fate of England and of Europe should be in his own hands. As his schemes were not yet ready, though the opportunity he had mentioned to James arose in Flanders, he contrived to excuse himself from performing his promise. But before long circumstances led him to believe that he might carry out his treacherous plans in a way more in accordance with his own wishes. The session of Parliament had been a somewhat stormy one. The immense emoluments of place-holders had excited the anger of the Opposition, and although the extreme measures suggested, which went so far as to cut down all official salaries to £500, had destroyed all attempts at wholesome reform, there was much continued discontent against the Court. There had been bitter quarrels also between the Upper and Lower Houses upon new arrangements of the Treason Law which had been suggested, and all parties seemed to be combined in mistrust and dislike of the favours lavished on foreigners. This state of affairs seemed to open the way for Marlborough's intrigues. In fact, years of rivalry and several bloody wars, coupled with constant outrages on one side or the other on distant colonies, had rendered the Dutch at least as hateful to the English as the French; nor was the feeling diminished by seeing many of the greater and more lucrative offices in the hands of members of the hated nation. By working on this feeling, Marlborough hoped to induce Parliament to petition the King to discharge all foreign troops, a line of conduct which at a subsequent period was actually followed. Once rid of these troops (and he thought it impossible that William, situated as he was, could withstand a formal Parliamentary request), Marlborough relied on his own ability to induce the English army, which was very jealous of William's liking for his own Dutch troops, to further his views. The absolute authority which his wife exercised over the Princess Anne enabled him to secure her adhesion to his plans. She wrote friendly and repentant letters to her father. With the army at his command, and with the Protestant heiress inclined to favour his projects, Marlborough would declare for James, and secure his return without the danger of foreign invasion, without the shedding of a drop of blood. Such at least was the story he told the Jacobites. Men who knew his character mistrusted him. It was more likely, they thought, and this seems to have been his real plan, that he would declare not for King James, but for Princess Anne herself. He would thus become indirectly the ruler of England, and as such the head of the European coalition, and the arbiter of Europe.

Marlborough is deprived of his offices. Jan. 10, 1692.

Luckily for William, even the Jacobites looked with suspicion on the scheme; Bentinck received information of Marlborough's treachery. The King, placed on his guard, stripped him of all his offices; and when Anne, who knew well the reason of his disgrace, persisted in ignoring it and in bringing the Duchess of Marlborough to Court, the spirit of the Queen The Queen's quarrel with the Princess Anne. was roused, and a bitter quarrel broke out between the sisters. The full details of the plot were not at the time known, and a false plot, invented and brought to light by a wretched informer of the name of Fuller, gave Marlborough an opportunity of ostentatiously clearing his character. He was thus regarded as a martyr to the jealousy of William, and to an unreasonable dislike of her sister on the part of the Queen.

Although for the time the danger of Marlborough's treason seemed to have been escaped, it was undoubtedly the knowledge of its existence, and of the feeling prevalent among William's other ministers, that encouraged James still to retain hopes of success in England.

Massacre of Glencoe. Feb. 13.

Before passing to the events to which those hopes gave rise, an incident must be mentioned which, though it had but little effect at the moment, has been always considered as a blot on William's character, and added point to the bitter attacks directed against him towards the close of his reign. Melville had proved unequal to the task of governing Scotland, and the management of the affairs of that country had passed almost entirely into the hands of the Dalrymples, father and son, the elder of whom was President of the Court of Session, having been lately raised to the peerage by the title of Viscount Stair. The son, known as the Master of Stair, was appointed Secretary for Scotland, resident in London. To him now fell the duty of pacifying the Highlands, where the civil war continued to smoulder. Unable to give the Highlanders any effectual support, James had told them that they were at liberty to make peace with the conqueror. It has been already mentioned that local politics had more to do with the conduct of the Highlanders than any question as to the reigning dynasty, and that their hatred directed against the head of the Campbell clan arose largely from the condition of dependence to him in which they found themselves, and which was due in a great degree to unpaid arrears of rent. It was determined now to adopt a plan which had been formerly suggested, and to expend some £15,000 in relieving them from their difficulties. The distribution of this money was unwisely intrusted to Breadalbane, himself a Campbell, and too much interested in the encroachments of that house not to be unpopular. He was profoundly and justly mistrusted by the Highlanders, and the negotiations for the distribution of the money proceeded but slowly, the chief leader of the opposition to the settlement being Macdonald of Glencoe, one of that tribe which had suffered most from the growth of the Campbells. Pressure was put upon the Highlanders to bring the negotiation to a conclusion. A proclamation was issued, promising pardon to all who, before the 31st of December 1691, should swear to live peaceably under the existing Government. All who refused to take this oath were to be regarded as public enemies. As the Government appeared to be in earnest, the chiefs yielded, making it a sort of point of honour to yield as slowly as possible. In this foolish contest of honour Mac Ian of Glencoe was unfortunately the victor. Not till the very day named did he appear at Fort William to take the oaths. When he arrived there he found to his dismay that there was no magistrate to receive them, and he was compelled forthwith to set out through the winter snow to Inverary to find a magistrate. The journey was so difficult that it was not till the 6th of January that he reached Inverary. Under the circumstances, the sheriff there consented, though after the prescribed date, to receive the oath, and sent it, with a certificate stating the circumstances to Edinburgh. The slowness of Macdonald had played into the hands of his enemies the Campbells. Breadalbane and Argyle were at one in their determination to use their advantage, and they found a ready assistant in the Master of Stair, whose views, free from all local feeling, were of the sternest description, and who thought the Highlanders should be treated as uncivilized barbarians. He had been disappointed at the submission of the clans, and rejoiced at the opportunity of making one example. By his means the certificate granted by the sheriff appears to have been suppressed, and an order was drawn up and laid before William, in which, along with other instructions to the commander of the army in Scotland, were these words with regard to the clan of Glencoe: "It will be proper, for the vindication of public justice, to extirpate that set of thieves." William signed the order, probably without carefully reading it, almost certainly without understanding what Dalrymple meant by extirpation. His scheme was one of the utmost barbarity. A detachment of soldiers was sent into the glen as though on a friendly mission. They were kindly received and hospitably kept for more than a week. Then, at a fixed date, when other troops were to have stopped all the passes, they suddenly fell upon their kindly hosts and cruelly murdered them. The plan was but partially carried out. The passes had not been stopped, and not more than thirty-eight of the Highlanders were actually killed. But the villages were destroyed, the cattle driven off, and it is unknown how many more perished as they fled in the dead of winter in the wild mountains which surrounded their glen.

Threatened invasion of England.

It was just after this event, in March, that William went abroad to resume the Continental war. As usual, his absence was the time of danger for England. An invasion from France had long been planned, and was on the point of taking place. Excited by the constant untruthful account of his agents in England, encouraged by the artful and well-planned treachery of Marlborough and William's other ministers, James had never ceased to press upon Louis the wisdom of an assault upon England. His urgent instances had always been met by the opposition of the war minister Louvois. Conscious that his superiority lay in the organization of large disciplined armies in the field, and led by the experience of his life to look to the great operations of regular warfare on the Rhine and in Italy as the real sources of greatness for France, that minister had always set his face against little wars. He was moreover jealous of the influence of Lauzun at the Court of St. Germains, and had repeatedly pointed out what was very true, the falseness of the Jacobite accounts, the weak character of James, the total untrustworthiness of his resources, and the consequent necessity which would be laid upon France of carrying out such an invasion, in fact, entirely unaided. He had dwelt also upon the strong national feeling of the English, repeatedly exhibited when an invasion was threatened, and the uncertainty, even were the attempt successful, of the continued assistance and alliance of a Prince so ignorant and selfish as James. Nevertheless, in this instance James was right, not that all and more than all that Louvois urged was not true, but that the separation of England from the coalition, the command of the sea, and the blow which would be dealt to William's influence, were worth any sacrifice which France might make. Louvois' arguments, however, had hitherto prevailed; the assistance given to James had been but slight. But Louvois' death (which took place on the 16th of July 1691) opened brighter hopes to the exiled King. Louis was at length persuaded; and a vast plan was made which, had it been carried out as intended, might well have been successful. An army was secretly collected during the winter on the coast of Normandy. Two fleets were assembled at Brest and at Toulon, numbering together 80 ships of the line, and placed under the command of Tourville and D'Estrées, to convoy this army to England. James, misled by his hopes and by the double-dealing of Russell, believed, and made Louis believe, that the English fleet was thoroughly disaffected. Secure in this belief, it was without much anxiety that the invaders found the spring far advanced, while still the weather prevented the junction of the fleets.

Battle of La Hogue. May 19.

But meanwhile all secresy had been lost. The Queen in England, and William in Holland, had put forth all their energy, and a combined Dutch and English fleet of 90 ships was in the Channel under command of Russell. At last one French squadron, that of Tourville, consisting of 44 ships, made its appearance. It was supposed that, weak as it was, it was sufficient for all necessary purposes; it could probably beat the Dutch contingent, and the English fleet was of no account, for neither Russell nor his men were likely to fight. Relying on this false belief, Louis issued peremptory orders to his admiral to cover the invasion, and fight the enemy wherever he met them. But James's folly had already gone far to thwart any hopes based upon the temper of the English. He had issued a Declaration, the work of his counsellor Melfort, excepting from all hope of pardon, not only a long list of gentlemen by name, but whole classes of Englishmen, all judges, jurymen, and lawyers who had been employed in any of the prosecutions of Jacobites, all magistrates who did not instantly (regardless of where they might be) make common cause with him upon his appearance, all spies and informers who had divulged his secrets, even the insignificant fishermen of Sheerness who had hindered him on his first attempt to escape from England. So ridiculous, so ill-judged was the Declaration, that, far from suppressing it, the English Council reprinted it, and distributed it largely, with a few pungent criticisms of their own. Even Jacobites had to confess that at least 500 men were excepted. It is easy to conceive the effect of such a Declaration, when contrasted with William's noble Act of Grace of the preceding year. What James's folly had thus half done the Queen's sagacity completed. Urged on all sides to apprehend known Jacobites, with the denunciations of a plot, perfectly fictitious indeed, but none the less very plausible, the creation of a rascal of the name of Young, just placed in her hands, and fully conscious of the intrigues of Russell her admiral, she wrote a noble letter, expressing her trust and reliance on the patriotism of her fleet, and sent it to Russell, with orders to read it to the captains of his fleet. Russell, at heart a Whig and a devoted lover of his profession, hesitated no longer. He would fight, he said, though King James himself were in the hostile fleet. He went from ship to ship, encouraging the crews, and when Tourville bore down upon him there was no sign of faint-heartedness in the English fleet. Overpowered by numbers, the French fleet fled, broke into fragments, and was destroyed piecemeal. But twelve of the largest ships, with Tourville himself, took refuge under the Forts of La Hogue, under the eyes of James and Marshal Bellefonds, commander of the army. There, as they lay in two divisions in shallow water, they were attacked on two successive days by a flotilla of English boats, under Admiral Rooke; and under the guns of the forts, which were supposed to render them quite secure, they were taken and burnt, while James looked on and saw the destruction of this his last hope.

Second crisis of the war over.

This great victory over the French, the first which the nation had won for many years, drove the people wild with delight. All the more heavy was their disappointment at the feeble manner in which it was followed up, and at the ill success of the war in the Netherlands in the latter part of the year. An expedition against St. Malo failed through the jealousy of its commanders. Subsequent ill success of the fleet. The broken fleet of Tourville, unable to keep the sea, assumed a new form. French cruisers and privateers covered the ocean, and hundreds of English merchantmen fell a prey to them. The commercial world suffered more heavily from the individual enterprises of men such as the privateer captains Jean Bart and Dugouay Trouin than from the great united fleets of France, and almost regretted the victory which had called to life such enemies.

Fall of Namur. June 30.

The chief incidents of the war in the Netherlands—the fall of the great fortress of Namur, and the battle of Steinkirk—were very characteristic of the art of war at this period. It was a time of slow, methodical, and scientific movement in the field, but of great advance in the art of attacking and defending fortresses, which in the hands of Vauban and Cohorn was so far perfected, that for more than a century no important change was made in the system they advocated. Louis did not press his advantage; after taking Namur his army was diminished by detachments sent to other quarters, and William thought he saw an opportunity of striking a heavy blow against his weakened opponent. A traitor in the English army had habitually informed Marshal Luxemburg of every movement of the allied troops. His correspondence was discovered, and with a pistol at his breast he was forced to write false information which William dictated. Having thus, as he hoped, Battle of Steinkirk. Aug. 4. misdirected the vigilance of his enemy, the King determined upon a surprise. The unexpected difficulties offered by the country prevented its success. Luxemburg got his troops into order with extraordinary rapidity, and the English division under Mackay soon found itself hotly engaged. It was successful in its first efforts, but the household troops of Louis were sent against it, and Count Solmes withheld the supports which should have come to its assistance. The division was nearly destroyed, and the anger of the English blazed up fiercely against the Dutch general, who, set over the head of the English commanders, thus basely deserted their troops.

Discontented Parliament. Nov. 4.

It was thus, with many causes of discontent, that, upon the return of William to England, the Parliament assembled. Mismanagement had neutralized the great victory of La Hogue; the discovery of Preston's plot had not been followed by a single act of justice upon the Jacobites, a sharp quarrel had broken out between the Queen and her sister, which, as Marlborough's treachery was unknown, seemed merely capricious and causeless; the war in the Netherlands had been a mere disastrous repetition of the last year's campaign; William's chief misfortune was commonly attributed to the mismanagement, or perhaps the treachery of the Dutch general; the House of Lords had been alienated by the apprehension of two of its members, who had been put to their recognizances, and no further charge brought against them; the harvest in England had failed, so that corn had doubled its natural price; and the police had grown so lax that highwaymen in gangs of twenty and thirty infested the country, and robbed almost within sight of London. Both Lords and Commons consequently entered warmly upon the consideration of the state of the nation. But the continued jealousy which existed between the two Houses brought their inquiries to nothing. As yet neither Ministry nor Opposition was sufficiently organized to secure the advantages either of stable government or of thorough reform. The administration was carried on as before with all the evils of a Ministry divided against itself, in the presence of a factious and disorganized Opposition.

The Land Tax.

Some important steps were however taken with regard to finance. There was still a tolerably unanimous feeling in favour of the war, and money had to be procured. In the arrangements for supplying the necessary money, the financial talents of Charles Montague, a young and rising member of the Whig party, first became conspicuous. Early known as a man of letters, and the author in company with Prior of "The Town and Country Mouse," he had been introduced to the King by his patron the Earl of Dorset, and, after strengthening his position by a marriage with the Dowager Countess of Manchester, had entered political life, and had been appointed one of the Lords of the Treasury in 1691. The financial measures recommended consisted of a reorganization of the Land Tax and of the first establishment of Government loans. The extraordinary expenses of Government had in early times been met by subsidies. These subsidies were levied both on moveables and on land, but were chiefly supported by an assessment on the land at the nominal rate of four shillings in the pound. Land had increased greatly in value as the demand for it increased, while gold and silver had fallen greatly in value after the discovery of America. In the assessment for subsidies neither of these circumstances was taken into consideration. The four shilling land tax had come in reality to be less than twopence in the pound. During the Commonwealth, and subsequently, a different method of taxation had been followed. The sum to be raised had been first determined, and each landowner had been called upon to pay a proportional share. In 1692 the Land Tax was reintroduced and reorganized. A new valuation was made, and upon this basis a tax was annually laid upon the land varying from a minimum of one shilling in time of peace to four shillings Origin of the National Debt. Jan. 20, 1693. in times of emergency. Four shillings on this new valuation produced about £2,000,000. This sum fell considerably short of what was required. In addition, therefore, a loan, which is the origin of the National Debt, was raised. Money was plentiful in the country, and was so easily obtained, that bubble companies and stock-jobbing had become rife. Montague determined to turn some of this superfluous wealth to the use of the country, and to spread the payment of the debt over several generations. The plan at first adopted in raising these loans was not exactly the same as our present method of perpetual funding. The lenders were life annuitants, and the interest of the loan was secured on new duties on beer and other liquors. As each annuitant died his annuity was divided among the survivors, till their number was reduced to seven, who would at that time be naturally in receipt of an enormous interest on their original loan. After that, on the death of each of those seven, his annuity lapsed to Government. The whole debt would therefore be extinguished at the death of the longest-lived annuitant.