# The History of England from the Accession of James II/Notes to Volume IV

* ↑ Relation de la Voyage de Sa Majesté Britannique en Hollande, enrichie de planches très curieuses, 1692; Wagenaar; London Gazette, Jan. 29, 1690/1; Burnet, ii. 71.
* ↑ The names of these two great scholars are associated in a very interesting letter of Bentley to Grævius, dated April 29, 1698. "Sciunt omnes qui me norunt, et si vitam mihi Deus O. M. prorogaverit, scient etiam posteri, ut te et τὸυ πάνυ Spanhemium, geminos hujus ævi Dioscuros, lucida literarum sidera, semper prædicaverim, semper veneratus sim."
* ↑ Relation de la Voyage de Sa Majesté Britannique en Hollande, 1692; London Gazette, Feb. 2, 1690/1; Le Triomphe Royal où l'on voit descrits les Arcs de Triomphe, Pyramides, Tableaux et Devises an Nombre de 65, erigez à la Haye à l'honneur de Guillaume Trois, 1692; Le Carnaval de la Haye, 1691. This last work is a savage pasquinade on William.
* ↑ London Gazette, Feb. 5, 1690/1; His Majesty's Speech to the Assembly of the States General of the United Provinces at the Hague the 7th of February N.S., together with the Answer of their High and Mighty Lordships, as both are extracted out of the Register of the Resolutions of the States General, 1691.
* ↑ Relation de la Voyage de Sa Majesté Britannique en Hollande; Burnet, ii. 72; London Gazette, Feb. 12, 19, 23, 1690/1; Mémoires du Comte de Dohna; William Fuller's Memoirs.
* ↑ Wagenaar, lxii; Le Carnaval de la Haye, Mars 1691; Le Tabouret des Electeurs, April 1691; Cérémonial de ce qui s'est passé à la Haye entre le Roi Guillaume et les Electeurs de Bavière et de Brandebourg. This last tract is a MS. presented to the British Museum by George IV.
* ↑ London Gazette, Feb. 23, 1690/1.
* ↑ The secret article by which the Duke of Savoy bound himself to grant toleration to the Waldenses is in Dumont's collection. It was signed Feb. 8, 1691.
* ↑ London Gazette from March 26, to April 13, 1691; Monthly Mercuries of March and April; William's Letters to Heinsius of March 18, and 29, April 7, 9; Dangeau's Memoirs; The Siege of Mons, a tragi-comedy, 1691. In this drama the clergy, who are in the interest of France, persuade the burghers to deliver up the town. This treason calls forth an indignant exclamation: "Oh priestcraft, shopcraft, how do ye effeminate The minds of men!"
* ↑ Trial of Preston in the Collection of State Trials. A person who was present gives the following account of Somers's opening speech: "In the opening the evidence, there was no affected exaggeration of matters, nor ostentation of a putid eloquence, one after another, as in former trials, like so many geese cackling in a row. Here was nothing besides fair matter of fact, or natural and just reflections from thence arising." The pamphlet from which I quote these words is entitled, An Account of the late horrid Conspiracy by a Person who was present at the Trials, 1691.
* ↑ State Trials.
* ↑ Paper delivered by Mr. Ashton, at his execution, to Sir Francis Child, Sheriff of London; Answer to the Paper delivered by Mr. Ashton. The Answer was written by Dr. Edward Fowler, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester. Burnet, ii. 70; Letter from Bishop Lloyd to Dodwell, in the second volume of Gutch's Collectanea Curiosa.
* ↑ Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
* ↑ Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Burnet, ii. 71.
* ↑ Letter of Collier and Cook to Sancroft among the Tanner MSS.
* ↑ Caermarthen to William, February 3, 1690/1; Life of James, ii. 443.
* ↑ That this account of what passed is true in substance is sufficiently proved by the Life of James, ii. 443. I have taken one or two slight circumstances from Dalrymple, who, I believe, took them from papers, now irrecoverably lost, which he had seen in the Scotch College at Paris.
* ↑ The success of William's "seeming clemency" is admitted in the Life of James, ii. 443. The Prince of Orange's method, it is acknowledged, "succeeded so well that, whatever sentiments those Lords which Mr. Penn had named might have had at that time, they proved in effect most bitter enemies to His Majesty's cause afterwards." It ought to be observed that this part of the Life of James was revised and corrected by his son.
* ↑ See his Diary; Evelyn's Diary, Mar. 25, April 22, July 11, 1691; Burnet, ii. 71; Letters of Rochester to Burnet, March 21, and April 2, 1691.
* ↑ Life of James, ii. 443, 450; Legge Papers in the Mackintosh Collection.
* ↑ Burnet, ii. 71; Evelyn's Diary, Jan. 4 and 18, 1690; Letter from Turner to Sancroft, Jan. 19, 1690/1; Letter from Sancroft to Lloyd of Norwich, April 2, 1692. These two letters are among the Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian Library, and are printed in the Life of Ken by a Layman. Turner's escape to France is mentioned in Narcissus Luttrell's Diary for February 1690. See also a Dialogue between the Bishop of Ely and his Conscience, 16th February 1690/1. The dialogue is interrupted by the sound of trumpets. The Bishop hears himself proclaimed a traitor, and cries out, "Come, brother Pen, 'tis time we both were gone."
* ↑ For a specimen of his visions, see his Journal, page 13; for his casting out of devils, page 26. I quote the folio edition of 1765.
* ↑ Journal, page 4.
* ↑ Ibid. page 7.
* ↑ "What they know, they know naturally, who turn from the command and err from the spirit, whose fruit withers, who saith that Hebrew, Greek, and Latine is the original: before Babell was, the earth was of one language; and Nimrod the cunning hunter, before the Lord which came out of cursed Ham's stock, the original and builder of Babell, whom God confounded with many languages, and this they say is the original who erred from the spirit and command; and Pilate had his original Hebrew, Greek and Latine, which crucified Christ and set over him." — A message from the Lord to the Parliament of England by G. Fox, 1654. The same argument will be found in the journals, but has been put by the editor into a little better English. "Dost thou think to make ministers of Christ by these natural confused languages which sprung from Babell, are admired in Babylon, and set atop of Christ, the Life, by a persecutor?" — Page 64.
* ↑ His journal, before it was published, was revised by men of more sense and knowledge than himself, and therefore, absurd as it is, gives us no notion of his genuine style. The following is a fair specimen. It is the exordium of one of his manifestoes. "Them which the world who are without the fear of God calls Quakers in scorn do deny all opinions, and they do deny all conceivings, and they do deny all sects, and they do deny all imaginations, and notions, and judgments which riseth out of the will and the thoughts, and do deny witchcraft and all oaths, and the world and the works of it, and their worships and their customs with the light, and do deny false ways and false worships, seducers and deceivers which are now seen to be in the world with the light, and with it they are condemned, which light leadeth to peace and life from death which now thousands do witness the new teacher Christ, him by whom the world was made, who raigns among the children of light, and with the spirit and power of the living God, doth let them see and know the chaff from the wheat, and doth see that which must be shaken with that which cannot be shaken nor moved, what gives to see that which is shaken and moved, such as live in the notions, opinions, conceivings, and thoughts and fancies these be all shaken and comes to be on heaps, which they who witness those things before mentioned shaken and removed walks in peace not seen and discerned by them who walks in those things unremoved and not shaken." — A Warning to the World that are Groping in the Dark, by G. Fox, 1655.
* ↑ See the piece entitled, Concerning Good morrow and Good even, the World's Customs, but by the Light which into the World is come by it made manifest to all who be in the Darkness, by G. Fox, 1657.
* ↑ Journal, page 166.
* ↑ Epistle from Harlingen, 11th of 6th month, 1677.
* ↑ Of Bowings, by G. Fox, 1657.
* ↑ See, for example, the Journal, pages 24, 26, and 51.
* ↑ See, for example, the Epistle to Sawrey, a justice of the peace, in the Journal, page 86; the Epistle to William Lampitt, a clergyman, which begins, "The word of the Lord to thee, oh Lampitt," page 80; and the Epistle to another clergyman whom he calls Priest Tatham, page 92.
* ↑ Journal, page 55.
* ↑ Ibid. Page 300.
* ↑ Ibid. page 323.
* ↑ Ibid. page 48.
* ↑ "Especially of late," says Leslie, the keenest of all the enemies of the sect, "some of them have made nearer advances towards Christianity than ever before; and among them the ingenious Mr. Penn has of late refined some of their gross notions, and brought them into some form, and has made them speak sense and English, of both which George Fox, their first and great apostle, was totally ignorant. . . . . They endeavour all they can to make it appear that their doctrine was uniform from the beginning, and that there has been no alteration; and therefore they take upon them to defend all the writings of George Fox, and others of the first Quakers, and turn and wind them to make them (but it is impossible) agree with what they teach now at this day." (The Snake in the Grass, 3rd ed. 1698. Introduction.) Leslie was always more civil to his brother Jacobite Penn than to any other Quaker. Penn himself says of his master, "As abruptly and brokenly as sometimes his sentences would fall from him about divine things; it is well known they were often as texts to many fairer declarations." That is to say, George Fox talked nonsense and some of his friends paraphrased it into sense.
* ↑ In the Life of Penn which is prefixed to his works, we are told that the warrants were issued on the 6th of January 1690/1, in consequence of an accusation backed by the oath of William Fuller, who is truly designated as a wretch, a cheat and an impostor; and this story is repeated by Mr. Clarkson. It is, however, certainly false. Caermarthen, writing to William on the 3rd of February, says that there was then only one witness against Penn, and that Preston was that one witness. It is therefore evident that Fuller was not the informer on whose oath the warrant against Penn was issued. In fact Fuller appears from his Life of himself, to have been then at the Hague. When Nottingham wrote to William on the 26th of June, another witness had come forward.
* ↑ Sidney to William, Feb. 27, 1690/1. The letter is in Dalrymple's Appendix, Part II. book vi. Narcissus Luttrell in his Diary for September 1691, mentions Penn's escape from Shoreham to France. On the 5th of December 1693 Narcissus made the following entry: "William Penn the Quaker, having for some time absconded, and having compromised the matters against him, appears now in public, and, on Friday last, held forth at the Bull and Month, in Saint Martin's." On December 18/28, 1693 was drawn up at Saint Germains, under Melfort's direction, a paper containing a passage of which the following is a translation: "Mr. Penn says that Your Majesty has had several occasions, but never any so favourable, as the present; and he hopes that Your Majesty will be earnest with the most Christian King not to neglect it: that a descent with thirty thousand men will not only reestablish Your Majesty, but according to all appearance break the league." This paper is among the Nairne MSS., and was translated by Macpherson.
* ↑ Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, April 11, 1691.
* ↑ Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, August 1691; Letter from Vernon to Wharton, Oct. 17, 1691, in the Bodleian.
* ↑ The opinion of the Jacobites appears from a letter which is among the archives of the French War Office. It was written in London on the 25th of June 1691.
* ↑ Welwood's Mercurius Reformatus, April 11, 24, 1691; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, April 1691; L'Hermitage to the States General, June 19/29, 1696; Calamy's Life. The story of Fenwick's rudeness to Mary is told in different ways. I have followed what seems to me the most authentic, and what is certainly the least disgraceful, version.
* ↑ Burnet, ii. 71.
* ↑ Lloyd to Sancroft, Jan. 24, 1691. The letter is among the Tanner MSS., and is printed in the Life of Ken by a Layman.
* ↑ London Gazette, June 1, 1691; Birch's Life of Tillotson; Congratulatory Poem to the Reverend Dr. Tillotson on his Promotion, 1691; Vernon to Wharton, May 28, and 30, 1691. These letters to Wharton are in the Bodleian Library, and form part of a highly curious collection, which was kindly pointed out to me by Dr. Bandinel.
* ↑ Birch's Life of Tillotson; Leslie's Charge of Socinianism against Dr. Tillotson considered, by a True Son of the Church, 1695; Hickes's Discourses upon Dr. Burnet and Dr. Tillotson, 1695; Catalogue of Books of the Newest Fashion to be Sold by Auction at the Whig's Coffee House, evidently printed in 1693. More than sixty years later Johnson described a sturdy Jacobite as firmly convinced that Tillotson died an Atheist; Idler, No, 10. A Latin epitaph on the Church of England, written soon after Tillotson's consecration, ends thus: "Oh Miseranda Ecclesia, cui Rex Batavus, et Patriarcha non baptizatus. In a poem called the Eucharisticon, which appeared in 1692, are these lines: "Unblest and unbaptized, this Church's son Hath all his Mother's children half undone."
* ↑ Tillotson to Lady Russell, June 23, 1691.
* ↑ Birch's Life of Tillotson; Memorials of Tillotson by his pupil John Beardmore; Sherlock's Sermon preached in the Temple Church on the death of Queen Mary, 1694/5.
* ↑ Wharton's Collectanea quoted in Birch's Life of Tillotson.
* ↑ Wharton's Collectanea quoted in D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
* ↑ The Lambeth MS. quoted in D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Vernon to Wharton, June 9, 11, 1691.
* ↑ See a letter of R. Nelson, dated Feb. 21, 1709/10, in the appendix to N. Marshall's Defence of our Constitution in Church and State, 1717; Hawkins's Life of Ken; Life of Ken by a Layman.
* ↑ See a paper dictated by him on the 15th Nov. 1693, in Wagstaffe's Letter from Suffolk.
* ↑ Kettlewell's Life, iii. 59.
* ↑ See D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft, Hallam's Constitutional History, and Dr. Lathbury's History of the Nonjurors.
* ↑ See the autobiography of his descendant and namesake the dramatist. See also Onslow's note on Burnet, ii. 76.
* ↑ A vindication of their Majesties' authority to fill the sees of the deprived Bishops, May 20, 1691; London Gazette, April 27, and June 15, 1691; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, May 1691. Among the Tanner MSS. are two letters from Jacobites to Beveridge, one mild and decent, the other scurrilous even beyond the ordinary scurrility of the nonjurors. The former will be found in the Life of Ken by a Layman.
* ↑ It does not seem quite clear whether Sharp's scruple about the deprived prelates was a scruple of conscience or merely a scruple of delicacy. See his Life by his Son.
* ↑ See Overall's Convocation Book, chapter 28. Nothing can be clearer or more to the purpose than his language "When, having attained their ungodly desires, whether ambitious kings by bringing any country into their subjection, or disloyal subjects by rebellious rising against their natural sovereigns, they have established any of the said degenerate governments among their people, the authority either so unjustly established, or wrung by force from the true and lawful possessor, being always God's authority, and therefore receiving no impeachment by the wickedness of those that have it, is ever, when such alterations are thoroughly settled, to be reverenced and obeyed; and the people of all sorts, as well of the clergy as of the laity, are to be subject unto it, not only for fear, but likewise for conscience sake." < Then follows the canon "If any man shall affirm that, when any such new forms of government, begun by rebellion, are after thoroughly settled, the authority in them is not of God, or that any who live within the territories of any such new governments are not bound to be subject to God's authority which is there executed, but may rebel against the same, he doth greatly err."
* ↑ A list of all the pieces which I have read relating to Sherlock's apostasy would fatigue the reader. I will mention a few of different kinds. Parkinson's Examination of Dr. Sherlock's Case of Allegiance, 1691; Answer to Dr. Sherlock's Case of Allegiance, by a London Apprentice, 1691; the Reasons of the New Converts taking the Oaths to the present Government, 1691; Utrum horum? or God's ways of disposing of Kingdoms and some Clergymen's ways of disposing of them, 1691; Sherlock and Xanthippe, 1691; Saint Paul's Triumph in his Sufferings for Christ, by Matthew Bryan, LL.D., dedicated Ecclesiæ sub cruce gementi; A Word to a wavering Levite; The Trimming Court Divine; Proteus Ecclesiasticus, or Observations on Dr. Sh—'s late Case of Allegiance; the Weasil Uncased; A Whip for the Weasil; the Anti-Weasils. Numerous allusions to Sherlock and his wife will be found in the ribald writings of Tom Brown, Tom Durfey, and Ned Ward. See Life of James, ii. 318. Several curious letters about Sherlock's apostasy are among the Tanner MSS. I will give two or three specimens of the rhymes which the Case of Allegiance called forth "When Eve the fruit had tasted, She to her husband hasted, And chuck'd him on the chin-a. Dear Bud, quoth she, come taste this fruit; 'Twill finely with your palate suit, To eat it is no sin-a." "As moody Job, in shirtless ease, With collyflowers all o'er his face, Did on the dunghill languish, His spouse thus whispers in his ear, Swear, husband, as you love me, swear, 'Twill ease you of your anguish." "At first he had doubt, and therefore did pray That heaven would instruct him in the right way, Whether Jemmy or William he ought to obey, Which nobody can deny. "The pass at the Boyne determin'd that case; And precept to Providence then did give place; To change his opinion he thought no disgrace; Which nobody can deny. "But this with the Scripture can never agree, As by Hosea the eighth and the fourth you may see; 'They have set up kings, but yet not by me,' Which nobody can deny."
* ↑ The chief authority for this part of my history is the Life of James, particularly the highly important and interesting passage which begins at page 444, and ends at page 450, of the second volume. This passage was corrected by the Pretender with his own hand.
* ↑ Russell to William, May 10, 1691, in Dalrymple's Appendix, Part II. Book vii. See also the Memoirs of Sir John Leake.
* ↑ Commons' Journals, Mar. 21, 24, 1679; Grey's Debates; Observator.
* ↑ London Gazette, July 21, 1690.
* ↑ Life of James, ii. 449.
* ↑ Shadwell's Volunteers. The description of this young hero in the list of the Dramatis Personæ is amusing: Sir Nicholas Dainty, A most conceited fantastic Beau, of drolling, affected Speech; a very Coxcomb, but stout; a most luxurious effeminate Volunteer."
* ↑ Story's Continuation; Proclamation of February 21, 1690/1; the London Gazette of March 12.
* ↑ Story's Continuation.
* ↑ Story's Impartial History; London Gazette, Nov. 17, 1690.
* ↑ Story's Impartial History. The year 1684 had been considered as a time of remarkable prosperity, and the revenue from the Customs had been unusually large. But the receipt from all the ports of Ireland, during the whole year, was only a hundred and twenty-seven thousand pounds. See Clarendon's Memoirs.
* ↑ Story's History and Continuation; London Gazettes of September 29, 1690, and Jan. 8, and Mar. 12, 1690/1.
* ↑ See the Lords' Journals of March 2, and 4, 1692/3, and the Commons' Journals of Dec. 16, 1693, and Jan. 29, 1695/4. The story, bad enough at best, was told by the personal and political enemies of the Lords justices with additions which the House of Commons evidently considered as calumnious, and which I really believe to have been so. See the Gallienus Redivivus. The narrative which Colonel Robert Fitzgerald, a Privy Councillor and an eyewitness delivered in writing to the House of Lords, under the sanction of an oath, seems to me perfectly trustworthy. It is strange that Story, though he mentions the murder of the soldiers, says nothing about Gafney.
* ↑ Burnet, ii. 66; Leslie's Answer to King.
* ↑ Macariæ Excidium; Fumeron to Louvois Jan. 31/Feb. 10, 1691. It is to be observed that Kelly, the author of the Macariæ Excidium, and Fumeron, the French intendant, are most unexceptionable witnesses. They were both, at this time, within the walls of Limerick. There is no reason to doubt the impartiality of the Frenchman; and the Irishman was partial to his own countrymen.
* ↑ Story's Impartial History and Continuation and the London Gazettes of December, January, February, and March 1690/1.
* ↑ It is remarkable that Avaux, though a very shrewd judge of men, greatly underrated Berwick. In a letter to Louvois, dated Oct. 15/25, 1689, Avaux says: "Je ne puis m'empescher de vous dire qu'il est brave de sa personne, à ce que l'on dit, mais que c'est un aussy mechant officier, qu'il y en ayt, et qu'il n'a pas le sens commun."
* ↑ Leslie's Answer to King, Macariæ Excidium.
* ↑ Macariæ Excidium.
* ↑ Macariæ Excidium; Life of James, ii. 422; Memoirs of Berwick.
* ↑ Macariæ Excidium.
* ↑ Life of James, ii. 422, 423; Mémoires de Berwick.
* ↑ Life of James, ii. 433, 451; Story's Continuation.
* ↑ Life of James, ii. 438; Light to the Blind; Fumeron to Louvois, April 22/May 2, 1691.
* ↑ Macariæ Excidium; Mémoires de Berwick; Life of James, ii. 451, 452.
* ↑ Macariæ Excidium; Burnet, ii. 78; Dangeau; The Mercurius Reformatus, June 5, 1691.
* ↑ An exact journal of the victorious progress of Their Majesties' forces under the command of General Ginckle this summer in Ireland, 1691; Story's Continuation; Mackay's Memoirs.
* ↑ London Gazette, June 18, 22, 1691; Story's Continuation; Life of James, ii. 452. The author of the Life accuses the Governor of treachery or cowardice.
* ↑ London Gazette, June 22, 25, July 2, 1691; Story's Continuation; Exact Journal.
* ↑ Life of James, ii. 373, 376, 377.
* ↑ Macariæ Excidium. I may observe that this is one of the many passages which lead me to believe the Latin text to be the original. The Latin is: "Oppidum ad Salaminium amnis latus recentibus ac sumptuosioribus ædificiis attollebatur; antiquius et ipsa vetustate in cultius quod in Paphiis finibus exstructum erat." The English version is: "The town on Salaminia side was better built than that in Paphia." Surely there is in the Latin the particularity which we might expect from a person who had known Athlone before the war. The English version is contemptibly bad. I need hardly say that the Paphian side is Connaught, and the Salaminian side Leinster.
* ↑ I have consulted several contemporary maps of Athlone. One will be found in Story's Continuation.
* ↑ Diary of the Siege of Athlone, by an Engineer of the Army, a Witness of the Action, licensed July 11, 1691; Story's Continuation; London Gazette, July 2, 1691; Fumeron to Louvois, June 28/July 8, 1691. The account of this attack in the Life of James, ii. 453, is an absurd romance. It does not appear to have been taken from the King's original Memoirs.
* ↑ Macariæ Excidium. Here again I think that I see clear proof that the English version of this curious work is only a bad translation from the Latin. The English merely says: "Lysander," — Sarsfield, — "accused him, a few days before, in the general's presence," without intimating what the accusation was. The Latin original runs thus: "Acriter Lysander, paucos ante dies, coram præfecto copiarum illi exprobraverat nescio quid, quod in aula Syriaca in Cypriorum opprobrium effutivisse dicebatur." The English translator has, by omitting the most important words, and by using the aorist instead of the preterpluperfect tense, made the whole passage unmeaning.
* ↑ Story's Continuation; Macariæ Excidium; Daniel Macneal to Sir Arthur Rawdon, June 28, 1691, in the Rawdon Papers.
* ↑ London Gazette, July 6, 1691; Story's Continuation; Macariæ Excidium; Light to the Blind.
* ↑ Macariæ Excidium; Light to the Blind.
* ↑ Life of James, ii. 460; Life of William, 1702.
* ↑ Story's Continuation; Mackay's Memoirs; Exact Journal; Diary of the Siege of Athlone.
* ↑ Story's Continuation; Macariæ Excid.; Burnet, ii. 78, 79; London Gaz. July 6, 13, 1689; Fumeron to Louvois June 30/July 10, 1690; Diary of the Siege of Athlone; Exact Account.
* ↑ Story's Continuation; Life of James, ii. 455; Fumeron to Louvois June 30/July 10, 1691; London Gazette, July 13.
* ↑ The story, as told by the enemies of Tyrconnel, will be found in the Macariæ Excidium, and in a letter written by Felix O'Neill to the Countess of Antrim on the 10th of July 1691. The letter was found on the corpse of Felix O'Neill after the battle of Aghrim. It is printed in the Rawdon Papers. The other story is told in Berwick's Memoirs and in the Light to the Blind.
* ↑ Macariæ Excidium; Life of James, ii 456; Light to the Blind.
* ↑ Macariæ Excidium.
* ↑ Story's Continuation.
* ↑ Burnet, ii. 79; Story's Continuation.
* ↑ "They maintained their ground much longer than they had been accustomed to do," says Burnet. "They behaved themselves like men of another nation," says Story. "The Irish were never known to fight with more resolution," says the London Gazette.
* ↑ Story's Continuation; London Gazette, July 20, 23, 1691; Mémoires de Berwick; Life of James, ii. 456; Burnet, ii. 79; Macariæ Excidium; Light to the Blind; Letter from the English camp to Sir Arthur Rawdon, in the Rawdon Papers; History of William the Third, 1702. The narratives to which I have referred differ very widely from each other. Nor can the difference be ascribed solely or chiefly to partiality. For no two narratives differ more widely than that which will be found in the Life of James, and that which will be found in the memoirs of his son. In consequence, I suppose, of the fall of Saint Ruth, and of the absence of D'Usson, there is at the French War Office no despatch containing a detailed account of the battle.
* ↑ Story's Continuation.
* ↑ Story's Continuation; Macariæ Excidium; Life of James, ii. 464; London Gazette, July 30, Aug. 17, 1691; Light to the Blind.
* ↑ Story's Continuation; Macariæ Excidium; Life of James, ii. 459; London Gazette, July 30, Aug. 3, 1691.
* ↑ He held this language in a letter to Louis XIV., dated the 5/15th of August. This letter, written in a hand which it is not easy to decipher, is in the French War Office. Macariæ Excidium; Light to the Blind.
* ↑ Macariæ Excidium; Life of James, ii. 461, 462.
* ↑ Macariæ Excidium; Life of James, ii. 459, 462; London Gazette, Aug. 31, 1691; Light to the Blind; D'Usson and Tessé to Barbesieux, Aug. 13/23.
* ↑ Story's Continuation; D'Usson and Tessé to Barbesieux Aug. 15/25, 1691. An unpublished letter from Nagle to Lord Merion of Aug. 15. This letter is quoted by Mr. O'Callaghan in a note on Macariæ Excidium.
* ↑ Macariæ Excidium; Story's Continuation.
* ↑ Story's Continuation; London Gazette, Sept. 28, 1691; Life of James, ii. 463; Diary of the Siege of Lymerick, 1692; Light to the Blind. In the account of the siege which is among the archives of the French War Office, it is said that the Irish cavalry behaved worse than the infantry.
* ↑ Story's Continuation; Macariæ Excidium; R. Douglas to Sir A. Rawdon, Sept. 28, 1691, in the Rawdon Papers; London Gazette, October 8; Diary of the Siege of Lymerick; Light to the Blind; Account of the Siege of Limerick in the archives of the French War Office. The account of this affair in the Life of James, ii. 464, deserves to be noticed merely for its preeminent absurdity. The writer tells us that seven hundred of the Irish held out some time against a much larger force, and warmly praises their heroism. He did not know, or did not choose to mention, one fact which is essential to the right understanding of the story; namely, that these seven hundred men were in a fort. That a garrison should defend a fort during a few hours against superior numbers is surely not strange. Forts are built because they can be defended by few against many.
* ↑ Account of the Siege of Limerick in the archives of the French War Office; Story's Continuation.
* ↑ D'Usson to Barbesieux, Oct. 4/14, 1691.
* ↑ Macariæ Excidium.
* ↑ Story's Continuation; Diary of the Siege of Lymerick.
* ↑ London Gazette, Oct. 8, 1691; Story's Continuation; Diary of the Siege of Lymerick.
* ↑ Life of James, 464, 465.
* ↑ Story's Continuation.
* ↑ Story's Continuation; Diary of the Siege of Lymerick; Burnet, ii. 81; London Gazette, Oct. 12, 1691.
* ↑ Story's Continuation; Diary of the Siege of Lymerick; London Gazette, Oct. 15, 1691.
* ↑ The articles of the civil treaty have often been reprinted.
* ↑ Story's Continuation; Diary of the Siege of Lymerick.
* ↑ Story's Continuation; Diary of the Siege of Lymerick.
* ↑ Story's Continuation. His narrative is confirmed by the testimony which an Irish Captain who was present has left us in bad Latin. "Hic apud sacrum omnes advertizantur a capellanis ire potius in Galliam."
* ↑ D'Usson and Tessé to Barbesieux, Oct. 7/17, 1691.
* ↑ That there was little sympathy between the Celts of Ulster and those of the Southern Provinces is evident from the curious memorial which the agent of Baldearg O'Donnel delivered to Avaux.
* ↑ Treasury Letter Book, June 19, 1696; Journals of the Irish House of Commons Nov. 7, 1717.
* ↑ This I relate on Mr. O'Callaghan's authority. History of the Irish Brigades, Note 47.
* ↑ There is, Junius wrote eighty years after the capitulation of Limerick, "a certain family in this country on which nature seems to have entailed a hereditary baseness of disposition. As far as their history has been known, the son has regularly improved upon the vices of the father, and has taken care to transmit them pure and undiminished into the bosom of his successors." Elsewhere he says of the member for Middlesex, "He has degraded even the name of Luttrell." He exclaims, in allusion to the marriage of the Duke of Cumberland and Mrs. Horton who was born a Luttrell: "Let Parliament look to it. A Luttrell shall never succeed to the Crown of England." It is certain that very few Englishmen can have sympathized with Junius's abhorrence of the Luttrells, or can even have understood it. Why then did he use expressions which to the great majority of his readers must have been unintelligible? My answer is that Philip Francis was born, and passed the first ten years of his life, within a walk of Luttrellstown.
* ↑ Story's Continuation; London Gazette, Oct. 22, 1691; D'Usson and Tessé to Lewis, Oct. 4/14, and to Barbesieux, Oct. 7/17; Light to the Blind.
* ↑ Story's Continuation; London Gazette Jan. 4, 1691/2.
* ↑ Story's Continuation; Macariæ Excidium, and Mr. O'Callaghan's note; London Gazette, Jan. 4, 1691/2.
* ↑ Some interesting facts relating to Wall, who was minister of Ferdinand the Sixth and Charles the Third, will be found in the letters of Sir Benjamin Keene and Lord Bristol, published in Coxe's Memoirs of Spain.
* ↑ This is Swift's language, language held not once, but repeatedly and at long intervals. In the Letter on the Sacramental Test, written in 1708, he says: "If we (the clergy) were under any real fear of the Papists in this kingdom, it would be hard to think us so stupid as not to be equally apprehensive with others, since we are likely to be the greater and more immediate sufferers; but, on the contrary, we look upon them to be altogether as inconsiderable as the women and children. . . . . The common people without leaders, without discipline, or natural courage, being little better than hewers of wood and drawers of water, are out of all capacity of doing any mischief, if they were ever so well inclined." In the Drapier's Sixth Letter, written in 1724, he says: "As to the people of this kingdom, they consist either of Irish Papists, who are as inconsiderable, in point of power, as the women and children, or of English Protestants." Again, in the Presbyterian's Plea of Merit written in 1731, he says: "The estates of Papists are very few, crumbling into small parcels, and daily diminishing; their common people are sunk in poverty, ignorance and cowardice, and of as little consequence as women and children. Their nobility and gentry are at least one half ruined, banished or converted. They all soundly feel the smart of what they suffered in the last Irish war. Some of them are already retired into foreign countries; others, as I am told, intend to follow them; and the rest, I believe to a man, who still possess any lands, are absolutely resolved never to hazard them again for the sake of establishing their superstition." I may observe that, to the best of my belief, Swift never, in any thing that he wrote, used the word Irishman to denote a person of Anglosaxon race born in Ireland. He no more considered himself as an Irishman than an Englishman born at Calcutta considers himself as a Hindoo.
* ↑ In 1749 Lucas was the idol of the democracy of his own caste. It is curious to see what was thought of him by those who were not of his own caste. One of the chief Pariah, Charles O'Connor, wrote thus: "I am by no means interested, nor is any of our unfortunate population, in this affair of Lucas. A true patriot would not have betrayed such malice to such unfortunate slaves as we." He adds, with too much truth, that those boasters the Whigs wished to have liberty all to themselves.
* ↑ On this subject Johnson was the most liberal politician of his time. "The Irish," he said with great warmth, "are in a most unnatural state for we see there the minority prevailing over the majority." I suspect that Alderman Beckford and Alderman Sawbridge would have been far from sympathizing with him. Charles O'Connor, whose unfavourable opinion of the Whig Lucas I have quoted, pays, in the Preface to the Dissertations on Irish History, a high compliment to the liberality of the Tory Johnson.
[144] London Gazette, Oct. 22. 1691.
[145] Burnet, ii. 78, 79.; Burchett's Memoirs of Transactions at Sea; Journal of the English and Dutch fleet in a Letter from an Officer on board the Lennox, at Torbay, licensed August 21. 1691. The writer says: "We attribute our health, under God, to the extraordinary care taken in the well ordering of our provisions, both meat and drink."
[146] Lords' and Commons' Journals, Oct. 22. 1691.
[147] This appears from a letter written by Lowther, after he became Lord Lonsdale, to his son. A copy of this letter is among the Mackintosh MSS.
[148] See Commons' Journals, Dec. 3. 1691; and Grey's Debates. It is to be regretted that the Report of the Commissioners of Accounts has not been preserved. Lowther, in his letter to his son, alludes to the badgering of this day with great bitterness. "What man," he asks, "that hath bread to eat, can endure, after having served with all the diligence and application mankind is capable of, and after having given satisfaction to the King from whom all officers of State derive their authoritie, after acting rightly by all men, to be hated by men who do it to all people in authoritie?"
[149] Commons' Journals, Dec. 12. 1691.
[150] Commons' Journals, Feb. 15. 1690/1; Baden to the States General, Jan 26/Feb 5
[151] Stat. 3 W. & M. c. 2., Lords' Journals; Lords' Journals, 16 Nov. 1691; Commons' Journals, Dec. 1. 9. 5.
[152] The Irish Roman Catholics complained, and with but too much reason, that, at a later period, the Treaty of Limerick was violated; but those very complaints are admissions that the Statute 3 W. & M. c. 2. was not a violation of the Treaty. Thus the author of A Light to the Blind, speaking of the first article, says: "This article, in seven years after, was broken by a Parliament in Ireland summoned by the Prince of Orange, wherein a law was passed for banishing the Catholic bishops, dignitaries, and regular clergy." Surely he never would have written thus, if the article really had, only two months after it was signed, been broken by the English Parliament. The Abbe Mac Geoghegan, too, complains that the Treaty was violated some years after it was made. But he does not pretend that it was violated by Stat. 3 W. & M. c. 2.
[153] Stat. 21 Jac. 1. c. 3.
[154] See particularly Two Letters by a Barrister concerning the East India Company (1676), and an Answer to the Two Letters published in the same year. See also the judgment of Lord Jeffreys concerning the Great Case of Monopolies. This judgment was published in 1689, after the downfall of Jeffreys. It was thought necessary to apologize in the preface for printing anything that bore so odious a name. "To commend this argument," says the editor, "I'll not undertake because of the author. But yet I may tell you what is told me, that it is worthy any gentleman's perusal." The language of Jeffreys is most offensive, sometimes scurrilous, sometimes basely adulatory; but his reasoning as to the mere point of law is certainly able, if not conclusive.
[155] Addison's Clarinda, in the week of which she kept a journal, read nothing but Aurengzebe; Spectator, 323. She dreamed that Mr. Froth lay at her feet, and called her Indamora. Her friend Miss Kitty repeated, without book, the eight best lines of the play; those, no doubt, which begin, "Trust on, and think tomorrow will repay." There are not eight finer lines in Lucretius.
[156] A curious engraving of the India House of the seventeenth century will be found in the Gentleman's Magazine for December 1784.
[157] See Davenant's Letter to Mulgrave.
[158] Answer to Two Letters concerning the East India Company, 1676.
[159] Anderson's Dictionary; G. White's Account of the Trade to the East Indies, 1691; Treatise on the East India Trade by Philopatris, 1681.
[160] Reasons for constituting a New East India Company in London, 1681; Some Remarks upon the Present State of the East India Company's Affairs, 1690.
[161] Evelyn, March 16. 1683
[162] See the State Trials.
[163] Pepys's Diary, April 2. and May 10 1669.
[164] Tench's Modest and Just Apology for the East India Company, 1690.
[165] Some Remarks on the Present State of the East India Company's Affairs, 1690; Hamilton's New Account of the East Indies.
[166] White's Account of the East India Trade, 1691; Pierce Butler's Tale, 1691.
[167] White's Account of the Trade to the East Indies, 1691; Hamilton's New Account of the East Indies; Sir John Wyborne to Pepys from Bombay, Jan. 7. 1688.
[168] London Gazette, Feb. 16/26 1684.
[169] Hamilton's New Account of the East Indies.
[170] Papillon was of course reproached with his inconsistency. Among the pamphlets of that time is one entitled "A Treatise concerning the East India Trade, wrote at the instance of Thomas Papillon, Esquire, and in his House, and printed in the year 1680, and now reprinted for the better Satisfaction of himself and others."
[171] Commons' Journals, June 8. 1689.
[172] Among the pamphlets in which Child is most fiercely attacked are Some Remarks on the Present State of the East India Company's Affairs, 1690; fierce Butler's Tale, 1691; and White's Account of the Trade to the East Indies, 1691.
[173] Discourse concerning the East India Trade, showing it to be unprofitable to the Kingdom, by Mr. Cary; pierce Butler's Tale, representing the State of the Wool Case, or the East India Case truly stated, 1691. Several petitions to the same effect will be found in the Journals of the House of Commons.
[174] Reasons against establishing an East India Company with a joint Stock, exclusive to all others, 1691.
[175] The engagement was printed, and has been several times reprinted. As to Skinners' Hall, see Seymour's History of London, 1734
[176] London Gazette, May 11. 1691; White's Account of the East India Trade.
[177] Commons' Journals, Oct. 28. 1691.
[178] Ibid. Oct. 29. 1691.
[179] Rowe, in the Biter, which was damned, and deserved to be so, introduced an old gentleman haranguing his daughter thus: "Thou hast been bred up like a virtuous and a sober maiden; and wouldest thou take the part of a profane wretch who sold his stock out of the Old East India Company?"
[180] Hop to the States General, Oct 30/Nov. 9 1691.
[181] Hop mentions the length and warmth of the debates; Nov. 12/22. 1691. See the Commons' Journals, Dec. 17. and 18.
[182] Commons' Journals, Feb 4. and 6. 1691.
[183] Ibid. Feb. 11. 1691.
[184] The history of this bill is to be collected from the bill itself, which is among the Archives of the Upper House, from the Journals of the two Houses during November and December 1690, and January 1691; particularly from the Commons' Journals of December 11. and January 13. and 25., and the Lords' Journals of January 20. and 28. See also Grey's Debates.
[185] The letter, dated December 1. 1691, is in the Life of James, ii. 477.
[186] Burnet, ii. 85.; and Burnet MS. Harl. 6584. See also a memorial signed by Holmes, but consisting of intelligence furnished by Ferguson, among the extracts from the Nairne Papers, printed by Macpherson. It bears date October 1691. "The Prince of Orange," says Holmes, "is mortally hated by the English. They see very fairly that he hath no love for them; neither doth he confide in them, but all in his Dutch. . . It's not doubted but the Parliament will not be for foreigners to ride them with a caveson."
[187] Evelyn's Diary, Jan. 24.; Hop to States General, Jan 22/Feb 1 1691; Bader to States General, Feb. 16/26
[188] The words of James are these; they were written in November 1692:- Mes amis, l'annee passee, avoient dessein de me rappeler par le Parlement. La maniere etoit concertee; et Milord Churchill devoit proposer dans le Parlement de chasser tous les etrangers tant des conseils et de l'armee que du royaume. Si le Prince d'Orange avoit consenti a cette proposition ils l'auroient eu entre leurs mains. S'il l'avoit refusee, il auroit fait declarer le Parlement contre lui; et en meme temps Milord Churchill devoir se declarer avec l'armee pour le Parlement; et la flotte devoit faire de meme; et l'on devoit me rappeler. L'on avoit deja commence d'agir dans ce projet; et on avoit gagne un gros parti, quand quelques fideles sujets indiscrets, croyant me servir, et s'imaginant que ce que Milord Churchill faisoit n'etoit pas pour moi, mais pour la Princesse de Danemarck, eurent l'imprudence de decouvrir le tout a Benthing, et detournerent ainsi le coup."
A translation of this most remarkable passage, which at once solves many interesting and perplexing problems, was published eighty years ago by Macpherson. But, strange to say, it attracted no notice, and has never, as far as I know, been mentioned by any biographer of Marlborough.
The narrative of James requires no confirmation; but it is strongly confirmed by the Burnet MS. Harl. 6584. "Marleburrough," Burnet wrote in September 1693, "set himself to decry the King's conduct and to lessen him in all his discourses, and to possess the English with an aversion to the Dutch, who, as he pretended, had a much larger share of the King's favour and confidence than they,"--the English, I suppose,--"had. This was a point on which the English, who are too apt to despise all other nations, and to overvalue themselves, were easily enough inflamed. So it grew to be the universal subject of discourse, and was the constant entertainment at Marleburrough's, where there was a constant randivous of the English officers." About the dismission of Marlborough, Burnet wrote at the same time: "The King said to myself upon it that he had very good reason to believe that he had made his peace with King James and was engaged in a correspondence with France. It is certain he was doing all he could to set on a faction in the army and the nation against the Dutch."
It is curious to compare this plain tale, told while the facts were recent, with the shuffling narrative which Burnet prepared for the public eye many years later, when Marlborough was closely united to the Whigs, and was rendering great and splendid services to the country. Burnet, ii. 90.
The Duchess of Marlborough, in her Vindication, had the effrontery to declare that she "could never learn what cause the King assigned for his displeasure." She suggests that Young's forgery may have been the cause. Now she must have known that Young's forgery was not committed till some months after her husband's disgrace. She was indeed lamentably deficient in memory, a faculty which is proverbially said to be necessary to persons of the class to which she belonged. Her own volume convicts her of falsehood. She gives us a letter from Mary to Anne, in which Mary says, "I need not repeat the cause my Lord Marlborough has given the King to do what he has done." These words plainly imply that Anne had been apprised of the cause. If she had not been apprised of the cause would she not have said so in her answer? But we have her answer; and it contains not a word on the subject. She was then apprised of the cause; and is it possible to believe that she kept it a secret from her adored Mrs. Freeman?
[189] My account of these transactions I have been forced to take from the narrative of the Duchess of Marlborough, a narrative which is to be read with constant suspicion, except when, as is often the case, she relates some instance of her own malignity and insolence.
[190] The Duchess of Marlborough's Vindication; Dartmouth's Note on Burnet, ii. 92.; Verses of the Night Bellman of Piccadilly and my Lord Nottingham's Order thereupon, 1691. There is a bitter lampoon on Lady Marlborough of the same date, entitled The Universal Health, a true Union to the Queen and Princess.
[191] It must not be supposed that Anne was a reader of Shakspeare. She had no doubt, often seen the Enchanted Island. That miserable rifacimento of the Tempest was then a favourite with the town, on account of the machinery and the decorations.
[192] Burnet MS. Harl. 6584.
[193] The history of an abortive attempt to legislate on this subject may be studied in the Commons' Journals of 1692/3.
[194] North's Examen,
[195] North's Examen; Ward's London Spy; Crosby's English Baptists, vol. iii. chap. 2.
[196] The history of this part of Fuller's life I have taken from his own narrative.
[197] Commons' Journals, Dec. 2. and 9. 1691; Grey's Debates.
[198] Commons' Journals, Jan. 4. 1691/2 Grey's Debates.
[199] Commons' Journals, Feb. 22, 23, and 24. 1691/2.
[200] Fuller's Original Letters of the late King James and others to his greatest Friends in England.
[201] Burnet, ii. 86. Burnet had evidently forgotten what the bill contained. Ralph knew nothing about it but what he had learned from Burnet. I have scarcely seen any allusion to the subject in any of the numerous Jacobite lampoons of that day. But there is a remarkable passage in a pamphlet which appeared towards the close of William's reign, and which is entitled The Art of Governing by Parties. The writer says, "We still want an Act to ascertain some fund for the salaries of the judges; and there was a bill, since the Revolution, past both Houses of Parliament to this purpose; but whether it was for being any way defective or otherwise that His Majesty refused to assent to it, I cannot remember. But I know the reason satisfied me at that time. And I make no doubt but he'll consent to any good bill of this nature whenever 'tis offered." These words convinced me that the bill was open to some grave objection which did not appear in the title, and which no historian had noticed. I found among the archives of the House of Lords the original parchment, endorsed with the words "Le Roy et La Royne s'aviseront." And it was clear at the first glance what the objection was.
There is a hiatus in that part of Narcissus Luttrell's Diary which relates to this matter. "The King," he wrote, "passed ten public bills and thirty-four private ones, and rejected that of the--"
As to the present practice of the House of Commons in such cases, see Hatsell's valuable work, ii. 356. I quote the edition of 1818. Hatsell says that many bills which affect the interest of the Crown may be brought in without any signification of the royal consent, and that it is enough if the consent be signified on the second reading, or even later; but that, in a proceeding which affects the hereditary revenue, the consent must be signified in the earliest stage.
[202] The history of these ministerial arrangements I have taken chiefly from the London Gazette of March 3. and March 7. 1691/2 and from Narcissus Luttrell's Diary for that month. Two or three slight touches are from contemporary pamphlets.
[203] William to Melville, May 22. 1690.
[204] See the preface to the Leven and Melville Papers. I have given what I believe to be a true explanation of Burnet's hostility to Melville. Melville's descendant, who has deserved well of all students of history by the diligence and fidelity with which he has performed his editorial duties, thinks that Burnet's judgment was blinded by zeal for Prelacy and hatred of Presbyterianism. This accusation will surprise and amuse English High Churchmen.
[205] Life of James, ii. 468, 469.
[206] Burnet, ii. 88.; Master of Stair to Breadalbane, Dee. 2. 1691.
[207] Burnet, i. 418.
[208] Crawford to Melville, July 23. 1689; The Master of Stair to Melville, Aug. 16. 1689; Cardross to Melville, Sept. 9. 1689; Balcarras's Memoirs; Annandale's Confession, Aug. i4. 1690.
[209] Breadalbane to Melville, Sept. 17. 1690.
[210] The Master of Stair to Hamilton, Aug. 17/27. 1691; Hill to Melville, June 26. 1691; The Master of Stair to Breadalbane, Aug. 24. 1691.
[211] "The real truth is, they were a branch of the Macdonalds (who were a brave courageous people always), seated among the Campbells, who (I mean the Glencoe men) are all Papists, if they have any religion, were always counted a people much given to rapine and plunder, or sorners as we call it, and much of a piece with your highwaymen in England. Several governments desired to bring them to justice; but their country was inaccessible to small parties." See An impartial Account of some of the Transactions in Scotland concerning the Earl of Breadalbane, Viscount and Master of Stair, Glenco Men, &c., London, 1695.
[212] Report of the Commissioners, signed at Holyrood, June 20. 1695.
[213] Gallienus Redivivus; Burnet, ii. 88.; Report of the Commission of 1695.
[214] Report of the Glencoe Commission, 1695.
[215] Hill to Melville, May 15. 1691.
[216] Ibid. June 3. 1691.
[217] Burnet, ii. 8, 9.; Report of the Glencoe Commission. The authorities quoted in this part of the Report were the depositions of Hill, of Campbell of Ardkinglass, and of Mac Ian's two sons.
[218] Johnson's Tour to the Hebrides.
[219] Proclamation of the Privy Council of Scotland, Feb. q. 1589. I give this reference on the authority of Sir Walter Scott. See the preface to the Legend of Montrose.
[220] Johnson's Tour to the Hebrides.
[221] Lockhart's Memoirs.
[222] "What under heaven was the Master's byass in this matter? I can imagine none." Impartial Account, 1695. "Nor can any man of candour and ingenuity imagine that the Earl of Stair, who had neither estate, friendship nor enmity in that country, nor so much as knowledge of these persons, and who was never noted for cruelty in his temper, should have thirsted after the blood of these wretches." Complete History of Europe, 1707.
[223] Dalrymple, in his Memoirs, relates this story, without referring to any authority. His authority probably was family tradition. That reports were current in 1692 of horrible crimes committed by the Macdonalds of Glencoe, is certain from the Burnet MS. Marl. 6584. "They had indeed been guilty of many black murthers," were Burnet's words, written in 1693. He afterwards softened down this expression.
[224] That the plan originally framed by the Master of Stair was such as I have represented it, is clear from parts of his letters which are quoted in the Report of 1695; and from his letters to Breadalbane of October 27., December 2., and December 3. 1691. Of these letters to Breadalbane the last two are in Dalrymple's Appendix. The first is in the Appendix to the first volume of Mr. Burtons valuable History of Scotland. "It appeared," says Burnet (ii. 157.), "that a black design was laid, not only to cut off the men of Glencoe, but a great many more clans, reckoned to be in all above six thousand persons."
[225] This letter is in the Report of 1695.
[226] London Gazette, January 14 and 18. 1691.
[227] "I could have wished the Macdonalds had not divided; and I am sorry that Keppoch and Mackian of Glenco are safe."--Letter of the Master of Stair to Levingstone, Jan. 9. 1691/2 quoted in the Report of 1695.
[228] Letter of the Master of Stair to Levingstone, Jan. 11 1692, quoted in the Report of 1695.
[229] Burnet, in 1693, wrote thus about William:--"He suffers matters to run till there is a great heap of papers; and then he signs them as much too fast as he was before too slow in despatching them." Burnet MS. Harl. 6584. There is no sign either of procrastination or of undue haste in William's correspondence with Heinsius. The truth is, that the King understood Continental politics thoroughly, and gave his whole mind to them. To English business he attended less, and to Scotch business least of all.
[230] Impartial Account, 1695.
[231] See his letters quoted in the Report of 1695, and in the Memoirs of the Massacre of Glencoe.
[232] Report of 1695.
[233] Deposition of Ronald Macdonald in the Report of 1695; Letters from the Mountains, May 17. 1773. I quote Mrs. Grant's authority only for what she herself heard and saw. Her account of the massacre was written apparently without the assistance of books, and is grossly incorrect. Indeed she makes a mistake of two years as to the date.
[234] I have taken the account of the Massacre of Glencoe chiefly from the Report of 1695, and from the Gallienus Redivivus. An unlearned, and indeed a learned, reader may be at a loss to guess why the Jacobites should have selected so strange a title for a pamphlet on the massacre of Glencoe. The explanation will be found in a letter of the Emperor Gallienus, preserved by Trebellius Pollio in the Life of Ingenuus. Ingenuus had raised a rebellion in Moesia. He was defeated and killed. Gallienus ordered the whole province to be laid waste, and wrote to one of his lieutenants in language to which that of the Master of Stair bore but too much resemblance. "Non mihi satisfacies si tantum armatos occideris, quos et fors belli interimere potuisset. Perimendus est omnis sexus virilis. Occidendus est quicunque maledixit. Occidendus est quicunque male voluit. Lacera. Occide. Concide."
[235] What I have called the Whig version of the story is given, as well as the Jacobite version, in the Paris Gazette of April 7. 1692.
[236] I believe that the circumstances which give so peculiar a character of atrocity to the Massacre of Glencoe were first published in print by Charles Leslie in the Appendix to his answer to King. The date of Leslie's answer is 1692. But it must be remembered that the date of 1692 was then used down to what we should call the 25th of March 1693. Leslie's book contains some remarks on a sermon by Tillotson which was not printed till November 1692. The Gallienus Redivivus speedily followed.
[237] Gallienus Redivivus.
[238] Hickes on Burnet and Tillotson, 1695.
[239] Report of 1695.
[240] Gallienus Redivivus.
[241] Report of 1695.
[242] London Gazette, Mar. 7. 1691/2
[243] Burnet (ii. 93.) says that the King was not at this time informed of the intentions of the French Government. Ralph contradicts Burnet with great asperity. But that Burnet was in the right is proved beyond dispute, by William's correspondence with Heinsius. So late as April 24/May 4 William wrote thus: "Je ne puis vous dissimuler que je commence a apprehender une descente en Angleterre, quoique je n'aye pu le croire d'abord: mais les avis sont si multiplies de tous les cotes, et accompagnes de tant de particularites, qu'il n'est plus guere possible d'en douter." I quote from the French translation among the Mackintosh MSS.
[244] Burnet, ii. 95. and Onslow's note; Memoires de Saint Simon; Memoires de Dangeau.
[245] Life of James ii. 411, 412.
[246] Memoires de Dangeau; Memoires de Saint Simon. Saint Simon was on the terrace and, young as he was, observed this singular scene with an eye which nothing escaped.
[247] Memoires de Saint Simon; Burnet, ii. 95.; Guardian No. 48. See the excellent letter of Lewis to the Archbishop of Rheims, which is quoted by Voltaire in the Siecle de Louis XIV.
[248] In the Nairne papers printed by Macpherson are two memorials from James urging Lewis to invade England. Both were written in January 1692.
[249] London Gazette, Feb. 15. 1691/2
[250] Memoires de Berwick; Burnet, ii. 92.; Life of James, ii. 478. 491.
[251] History of the late Conspiracy, 1693.
[252] Life of James, ii. 479. 524. Memorials furnished by Ferguson to Holmes in the Nairne Papers.
[253] Life of James, ii. 474.
[254] See the Monthly Mercuries of the spring of 1692.
[255] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary for April and May 1692; London Gazette, May 9. and 12.
[256] Sheridan MS.; Life of James, ii. 492.
[257] Life of James, ii. 488.
[258] James told Sheridan that the Declaration was written by Melfort. Sheridan MS.
[259] A Letter to a Friend concerning a French Invasion to restore the late King James to his Throne, and what may be expected from him should he be successful in it, 1692; A second Letter to a Friend concerning a French Invasion, in which the Declaration lately dispersed under the Title of His Majesty's most gracious Declaration to all his loving Subjects, commanding their Assistance against the P. of O. and his Adherents, is entirely and exactly published according to the dispersed Copies, with some short Observations upon it, 1692; The Pretences of the French Invasion examined, 1692; Reflections on the late King James's Declaration, 1692. The two Letters were written, I believe, by Lloyd Bishop of Saint Asaph. Sheridan says, "The King's Declaration pleas'd none, and was turn'd into ridicule burlesque lines in England." I do not believe that a defence of this unfortunate Declaration is to be found in any Jacobite tract. A virulent Jacobite writer, in a reply to Dr. Welwood, printed in 1693, says, "As for the Declaration that was printed last year. . . I assure you that it was as much misliked by many, almost all, of the King's friends, as it can be exposed by his enemies."
[260] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, April 1692.
[261] Sheridan MS.; Memoires de Dangeau.
[262] London Gazette, May 12. 16. 1692; Gazette de Paris, May 31. 1692.
[263] London Gazette, April 28. 1692
[264] Ibid. May 2. 5. 12. 16.
[265] London Gazette, May 16. 1692; Burchett.
[266] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; London Gazette, May 19. 1692.
[267] Russell's Letter to Nottingham, May 20. 1692, in the London Gazette of May 23.; Particulars of Another Letter from the Fleet published by authority; Burchett; Burnet, ii. 93.; Life of James, ii. 493, 494.; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Memoires de Berwick. See also the contemporary ballad on the battle one of the best specimens of English street poetry, and the Advice to a Painter, 1692.
[268] See Delaval's Letter to Nottingham, dated Cherburg, May 22., in the London Gazette of May 26.
[269] London Gaz., May 26. 1692; Burchett's Memoirs of Transactions at Sea; Baden to the States General, May 24/June 3; Life of James, ii. 494; Russell's Letters in the Commons' Journals of Nov. 28. 1692; An Account of the Great Victory, 1692; Monthly Mercuries for June and July 1692; Paris Gazette, May 28/June 7; Van Almonde's despatch to the States General, dated May 24/June 3. 1692. The French official account will be found in the Monthly Mercury for July. A report drawn up by Foucault, Intendant of the province of Normandy, will be found in M. Capefigue's Louis XIV.
[270] An Account of the late Great Victory, 1692; Monthly Mercury for June; Baden to the States General, May 24/ June 3; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[271] London Gazette, June 2. 1692; Monthly Mercury; Baden to the States General, June 14/24. Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[272] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Monthly Mercury.
[273] London Gazette, June 9.; Baden to the States General, June 7/17
[274] Baden to the States General, June. 3/13
[275] Baden to the States General, May 24/June 3; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[276] An Account of the late Great Victory, 1692; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[277] Baden to the States General, June 7/17. 1692.
[278] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[279] I give one short sentence as a specimen: "O fie that ever it should be said that a clergyman have committed such durty actions!"
[280] Gutch, Collectanea Curiosa.
[281] My account of this plot is chiefly taken from Sprat's Relation of the late Wicked Contrivance of Stephen Blackhead and Robert Young, 1692. There are very few better narratives in the language.
[282] Baden to the States General, Feb. 14/24 1693.
[283] Postman, April 13. and 20. 1700; Postboy, April 18.; Flying Post, April 20.
[284] London Gazette, March 14. 1692.
[285] The Swedes came, it is true, but not till the campaign was over. London Gazette, Sept, 10 1691,
[286] William to Heinsius March 14/24. 1692.
[287] William to Heinsius, Feb. 2/12 1692.
[288] Ibid. Jan 12/22 1692.
[289] Ibid. Jan. 19/29. 1692.
[290] Burnet, ii. 82 83.; Correspondence of William and Heinsius, passim.
[291] Memoires de Torcy.
[292] William to Heinsius, Oct 28/Nov 8 1691.
[293] Ibid. Jan. 19/29. 1692.
[294] His letters to Heinsius are full of this subject.
[295] See the Letters from Rome among the Nairne Papers. Those in 1692 are from Lytcott; those in 1693 from Cardinal Howard; those in 1694 from Bishop Ellis; those in 1695 from Lord Perth. They all tell the same story.
[296] William's correspondence with Heinsius; London Gazette, Feb. 4. 1691. In a pasquinade published in 1693, and entitled "La Foire d'Ausbourg, Ballet Allegorique," the Elector of Saxony is introduced saying
"Moy, je diray naivement, Qu'une jartiere d'Angleterre Feroit tout Mon empressement; Et je ne vois rien sur la terre Ou je trouve plus d'agrement."
[297] William's correspondence with Heinsius. There is a curious account of Schoening in the Memoirs of Count Dohna.
[298] Burnet, ii. 84.
[299] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[300] Monthly Mercuries of January and April 1693; Burnet, ii. 84. In the Burnet MS. Hail. 6584, is a warm eulogy on the Elector of Bavaria. When the MS. was written he was allied with England against France. In the History, which was prepared for publication when he was allied with France against England, the eulogy is omitted.
[301] "Nec pluribus impar."
[302] Memoires de Saint Simon; Dangeau; Racine's Letters, and Narrative entitled Relation de ce qui s'est passe au Siege de Namur; Monthly Mercury, May 1692.
[303] Memoires de Saint Simon; Racine to Boileau , May 21. 1692.
[304] Monthly Mercury for June; William to Heinsius May 26/ June 5 1692.
[305] William to Heinsius, May 26/June 5 1692.
[306] Monthly Mercuries of June and July 1692; London Gazettes of June; Gazette de Paris; Memoires de Saint Simon; Journal de Dangeau; William to Heinsius, May 30/June 9 June 2/12 June 11/21; Vernon's Letters to Colt, printed in Tindal's History; Racine's Narrative, and Letters to Boileau of June 15. and 24.
[307] Memoires de Saint Simon.
[308] London Gazette, May 30. 1692; Memoires de Saint Simon; Journal de Dangeau; Boyer's History of William III.
[309] Memoires de Saint Simon; Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XIV. Voltaire speaks with a contempt which is probably just of the account of this affair in the Causes Celebres. See also the Letters of Madame de Sevigne during the months of January and February 1680. In several English lampoons Luxemburg is nicknamed Aesop, from his deformity, and called a wizard, in allusion to his dealings with La Voisin. In one Jacobite allegory he is the necromancer Grandorsio. In Narcissus Luttrell's Diary for June 1692 he is called a conjuror. I have seen two or three English caricatures of Luxemburg's figure.
[310] Memoires de Saint Simon; Memoires de Villars; Racine to Boileau, May 21. 1692.
[311] Narcissus Luttrell, April 28. 1692.
[312] London Gazette Aug. 4. 8. 11. 1692; Gazette de Paris, Aug. 9. 16.; Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XIV.; Burnet, ii. 97; Memoires de Berwick; Dykvelt's Letter to the States General dated August 4. 1692. See also the very interesting debate which took place in the House of Commons on Nov. 21. 1692. An English translation of Luxemburg's very elaborate and artful despatch will be found in the Monthly Mercury for September 1692. The original has recently been printed in the new edition of Dangeau. Lewis pronounced it the best despatch that he had ever seen. The editor of the Monthly Mercury maintains that it was manufactured at Paris. "To think otherwise," he says, "is mere folly; as if Luxemburg could be at so much leisure to write such a long letter, more like a pedant than a general, or rather the monitor of a school, giving an account to his master how the rest of the boys behaved themselves." In the Monthly Mercury will be found also the French official list of killed and wounded. Of all the accounts of the battle that which seems to me the best is in the Memoirs of Feuquieres. It is illustrated by a map. Feuquieres divides his praise and blame very fairly between the generals. The traditions of the English mess tables have been preserved by Sterne, who was brought up at the knees of old soldiers of William. "'There was Cutts's' continued the Corporal, clapping the forefinger of his right hand upon the thumb of his left, and counting round his hand; 'there was Cutts's, Mackay's Angus's, Graham's and Leven's, all cut to pieces; and so had the English Lifeguards too, had it not been for some regiments on the right, who marched up boldly to their relief, and received the enemy's fire in their faces before any one of their own platoons discharged a musket. They'll go to heaven for it,' added Trim."
[313] Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XIV.
[314] Langhorne, the chief lay agent of the Jesuits in England, always, as he owned to Tillotson, selected tools on this principle. Burnet, i. 230.
[315] I have taken the history of Grandval's plot chiefly from Grandval's own confession. I have not mentioned Madame de Maintenon, because Grandval, in his confession, did not mention her. The accusation brought against her rests solely on the authority of Dumont. See also a True Account of the horrid Conspiracy against the Life of His most Sacred Majesty William III. 1692; Reflections upon the late horrid Conspiracy contrived by some of the French Court to murder His Majesty in Flanders 1692: Burnet, ii. 92.; Vernon's letters from the camp to Colt, published by Tindal; the London Gazette, Aug, 11. The Paris Gazette contains not one word on the subject,--a most significant silence.
[316] London Gazette, Oct. 20. 24. 1692.
[317] See his report in Burchett.
[318] London Gazette, July 28. 1692. See the resolutions of the Council of War in Burchett. In a letter to Nottingham, dated July 10, Russell says, "Six weeks will near conclude what we call summer." Lords Journals, Dec. 19. 1692.
[319] Monthly Mercury, Aug. and Sept. 1692.
[320] Evelyn's Diary, July 25. 1692; Burnet, ii. 94, 95., and Lord Dartmouth's Note. The history of the quarrel between Russell and Nottingham will be best learned from the Parliamentary Journals and Debates of the Session of 1692/3.
[321] Commons' Journals, Nov. 19. 1692; Burnet, ii. 95.; Grey's Debates, Nov. 21. 1692; Paris Gazettes of August and September; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, Sept.
[322] See Bart's Letters of Nobility, and the Paris Gazettes of the autumn of 1692.
[323] Memoires de Du Guay Trouin.
[324] London Gazette, Aug. 11. 1692; Evelyn's Diary, Aug. 10.; Monthly Mercury for September; A Full Account of the late dreadful Earthquake at Port Royal in Jamaica, licensed Sept. 9. 1692.
[325] Evelyn's Diary, June 25. Oct. 1. 1690; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, June 1692, May 1693; Monthly Mercury, April, May, and June 1693; Tom Brown's Description of a Country Life, 1692.
[326] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, Nov. 1692.
[327] See, for example, the London Gazette of Jan. 12. 1692
[328] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, Dec. 1692.
[329] Ibid. Jan. 1693.
[330] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, July 1692.
[331] Evelyn's Diary, Nov. 20. 1692: Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; London Gazette, Nov. 24.; Hop to the Greffier of the States General, Nov. 18/28
[332] London Gazette, Dec. 19. 1692.
[333] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, Dec. 1692.
[334] Ibid. Nov. 1692.
[335] Ibid. August 1692.
[336] Hop to the Greffier of the States General, Dec 23/Jan 2 1693. The Dutch despatches of this year are filled with stories of robberies.
[337] Hop to the Greffier of the States General, Dec 23/Jan 2 1693; Historical Records of the Queen's Bays, published by authority; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, Nov. 15.
[338] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, Dee. 22.
[339] Ibid. Dec. 1692; Hop, Jan. 3/13 Hop calls Whitney, "den befaamsten roover in Engelandt."
[340] London Gazette January 2. 1692/3.
[341] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, Jan. 1692/3.
[342] Ibid. Dec. 1692.
[343] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, January and February; Hop Jan 31/Feb 10 and Feb 3/13 1693; Letter to Secretary Trenchard, 1694; New Court Contrivances or more Sham Plots still, 1693.
[344] Lords' and Commons' Journals, Nov. 4., Jan. 1692.
[345] Commons' Journals, Nov. 10 1692.
[346] See the Lords' Journals from Nov. 7. to Nov. 18. 1692; Burnet, ii. 102. Tindall's account of these proceedings was taken from letters addressed by Warre, Under Secretary of State, to Colt, envoy at Hanover. Letter to Mr. Secretary Trenchard, 1694.
[347] Lords' Journals, Dec. 7.; Tindal, from the Colt Papers; Burnet, ii. 105.
[348] Grey's Debates, Nov. 21. and 23. 1692.
[349] Grey's Debates, Nov. 21. 1692; Colt Papers in Tindal.
[350] Tindal, Colt Papers; Commons' Journals, Jan. 11. 1693.
[351] Colt Papers in Tindal; Lords' Journals from Dec. 6. to Dec. 19. 1692; inclusive,
[352] As to the proceedings of this day in the House of Commons, see the Journals, Dec. 20, and the letter of Robert Wilmot, M.P. for Derby, to his colleague Anchitel Grey, in Grey's Debates.
[353] Commons' Journals, Jan. 4. 1692/3.
[354] Colt Papers in Tindal; Commons' Journals, Dec. 16. 1692, Jan. 11 1692; Burnet ii. 104.
[355] The peculiar antipathy of the English nobles to the Dutch favourites is mentioned in a highly interesting note written by Renaudot in 1698, and preserved among the Archives of the French Foreign Office.
[356] Colt Papers in Tindal; Lords' Journals, Nov. 28. and 29. 1692, Feb. 18. and 24. 1692/3.
[357] Grey's Debates, Nov 18. 1692; Commons' Journals, Nov. 18., Dec. 1. 1692.
[358] See Cibber's Apology, and Mountford's Greenwich Park.
[359] See Cibber's Apology, Tom Brown's Works, and indeed the works of every man of wit and pleasure about town.
[360] The chief source of information about this case is the report of the trial, which will be found in Howell's Collection. See Evelyn's Diary, February 4. 1692/3. I have taken some circumstances from Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, from a letter to Sancroft which is among the Tanner MSS in the Bodleian Library, and from two letters addressed by Brewer to Wharton, which are also in the Bodleian Library.
[361] Commons' Journals, Nov. 14. 1692.
[362] Commons' Journals of the Session, particularly of Nov. 17., Dec. 10., Feb. 25., March 3.; Colt Papers in Tindal.
[363] Commons' Journals, Dec. 10.; Tindal, Colt Papers.
[364] See Coke's Institutes, part iv. chapter 1. In 1566 a subsidy was 120,000L.; in 1598, 78,000L.; when Coke wrote his Institutes, about the end of the reign of James I. 70,000L. Clarendon tells us that, in 1640, twelve subsidies were estimated at about 600,000L.
[365] See the old Land Tax Acts, and the debates on the Land Tax Redemption Bill of 1798.
[366] Lords' Journals Jan. 16, 17, 18, 19, 20.; Commons' Journals, Jan. 17, 18. 20. 1692; Tindal, from the Colt Papers; Burnet, ii. 104, 105. Burnet has used an incorrect expression, which Tindal, Ralph and others have copied. He says that the question was whether the Lords should tax themselves. The Lords did not claim any right to alter the amount of taxation laid on them by the bill as it came up to them. They only demanded that their estates should be valued, not by the ordinary commissioners, but by special commissioners of higher rank.
[367] Commons' Journals, Dec. 2/12. 1692,
[368] For this account of the origin of stockjobbing in the City of London I am chiefly indebted to a most curious periodical paper, entitled, "Collection for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade, by J. Houghton, F.R.S." It is in fact a weekly history of the commercial speculations of that time. I have looked through the files of several years. In No. 33., March 17. 1693, Houghton says: "The buying and selling of Actions is one of the great trades now on foot. I find a great many do not understand the affair." On June 13. and June 22. 1694, he traces the whole progress of stockjobbing. On July 13. of the same year he makes the first mention of time bargains. Whoever is desirous to know more about the companies mentioned in the text may consult Houghton's Collection and a pamphlet entitled Anglia Tutamen, published in 1695.
[369] Commons' Journals; Stat. 4 W. & M. c. 3.
[370] See a very remarkable note in Hume's History of England, Appendix III.
[371] Wealth of Nations, book v. chap. iii.
[371a] I have said that Burke alone among his contemporaries was superior to the vulgar error in which men so eminent as David Hume and Adam Smith shared. I will quote, in illustration of my meaning, a few weighty words from the Observations on the Late State of the Nation written by Burke in 1769. "An enlightened reader laughs at the inconsistent chimera of our author (George Grenville), of a people universally luxurious, and at the same time oppressed with taxes and declining in trade. For my part, I cannot look on these duties as the author does. He sees nothing but the burden. I can perceive the burden as well as he: but I cannot avoid contemplating also the strength that supports it. From thence I draw the most comfortable assurances of the future vigour and the ample resources of this great misrepresented country."
[372] Wesley was struck with this anomaly in 1745. See his Journal.
[373] Pepys, June 10. 1668.
[374] See the Politics, iv. 13.
[375] The bill will be found among the archives of the House of Lords.
[376] Lords' Journals, Jan. 3. 1692/3.
[377] Introduction to the Copies and Extracts of some Letters written to and from the Earl of Danby, now Duke of Leeds, published by His Grace's Direction, 1710.
[378] Commons' Journals; Grey's Debates. The bill itself is among the archives of the House of Lords.
[379] Dunton's Life and Errors; Autobiography of Edmund Bohun, privately printed in 1853. This autobiography is, in the highest degree, curious and interesting.
[380] Vox Cleri, 1689.
[381] Bohun was the author of the History of the Desertion, published immediately after the Revolution. In that work he propounded his favourite theory. "For my part," he says, "I am amazed to see men scruple the submitting to the present King; for, if ever man had a just cause of war, he had; and that creates a right to the thing gained by it. The King by withdrawing and disbanding his army yielded him the throne; and if he had, without any more ceremony, ascended it, he had done no more than all other princes do on the like occasions."
[382] Character of Edmund Bohun, 1692.
[383] Dryden, in his Life of Lucian, speaks in too high terms of Blount's abilities. But Dryden's judgment was biassed; for Blount's first work was a pamphlet in defence of the Conquest of Granada.
[384] See his Appeal from the Country to the City for the Preservation of His Majesty's Person, Liberty, Property, and the Protestant Religion.
[385] See the article on Apollonius in Bayle's Dictionary. I say that Blount made his translation from the Latin; for his works contain abundant proofs that he was not competent to translate from the Greek.
[386] See Gildon's edition of Blount's Works, 1695.
[387] Wood's Athenae Oxonienses under the name Henry Blount (Charles Blount's father); Lestrange's Observator, No. 290.
[388] This piece was reprinted by Gildon in 1695 among Blount's Works.
[389] That the plagiarism of Blount should have been detected by few of his contemporaries is not wonderful. But it is wonderful that in the Biographia Britannica his just Vindication should be warmly extolled, without the slightest hint that every thing good in it is stolen. The Areopagitica is not the only work which he pillaged on this occasion. He took a noble passage from Bacon without acknowledgment.
[390] I unhesitatingly attribute this pamphlet to Blount, though it was not reprinted among his works by Gildon. If Blount did not actually write it he must certainly have superintended the writing. That two men of letters, acting without concert, should bring out within a very short time two treatises, one made out of one half of the Areopagitica and the other made out of the other half, is incredible. Why Gildon did not choose to reprint the second pamphlet will appear hereafter.
[391] Bohun's Autobiography.
[392] Bohun's Autobiography; Commons' Journals, Jan. 20. 1692/3.
[393] Ibid. Jan. 20, 21. 1692/3
[394] Oldmixon; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, Nov. and Dec. 1692; Burnet, ii. 334; Bohun's Autobiography.
[395] Grey's Debates; Commons' Journals Jan. 21. 23. 1692/3.; Bohun's Autobiography; Kennet's Life and Reign of King William and Queen Mary.
[396] "Most men pitying the Bishop."--Bohun's Autobiography.
[397] The vote of the Commons is mentioned, with much feeling in the memoirs which Burnet wrote at the time. "It look'd," he says, "somewhat extraordinary that I, who perhaps was the greatest assertor of publick liberty, from my first setting out, of any writer of the age, should be so severely treated as an enemy to it. But the truth was the Toryes never liked me, and the Whiggs hated me because I went not into their notions and passions. But even this, and worse things that may happen to me shall not, I hope, be able to make me depart from moderate principles and the just asserting the liberty of mankind."--Burnet MS. Harl. 6584.
[398] Commons' Journals, Feb. 27. 1692/3; Lords' Journals, Mar. 4.
[399] Lords' Journals, March 8. 1692/3.
[400] In the article on Blount in the Biographia Britannica he is extolled as having borne a principal share in the emancipation of the press. But the writer was very imperfectly informed as to the facts.
It is strange that the circumstances of Blount's death should be so uncertain. That he died of a wound inflicted by his own hand, and that he languished long, are undisputed facts. The common story was that he shot himself; and Narcissus Luttrell at the time, made an entry to this effect in his Diary. On the other hand, Pope, who had the very best opportunities of obtaining accurate information, asserts that Blount, "being in love with a near kinswoman of his, and rejected, gave himself a stab in the arm, as pretending to kill himself, of the consequence of which he really died."--Note on the Epilogue to the Satires, Dialogue I. Warburton, who had lived first with the heroes of the Dunciad, and then with the most eminent men of letters of his time ought to have known the truth; and Warburton, by his silence, confirms Pope's assertion. Gildon's rhapsody about the death of his friend will suit either story equally.
[401] The charges brought against Coningsby will be found in the journals of the two Houses of the English Parliament. Those charges were, after the lapse of a quarter of a century, versified by Prior, whom Coningsby had treated with great insolence and harshness. I will quote a few stanzas. It will be seen that the poet condescended to imitate the style of the street ballads.
"Of Nero tyrant, petty king, Who heretofore did reign In famed Hibernia, I will sing, And in a ditty plain.
"The articles recorded stand Against this peerless peer; Search but the archives of the land, You'll find them written there."
The story of Gaffney is then related. Coningsby's speculations are described thus:
"Vast quantities of stores did he Embezzle and purloin Of the King's stores he kept a key, Converting them to coin.
"The forfeited estates also, Both real and personal, Did with the stores together go. Fierce Cerberas swallow'd all."
The last charge is the favour shown the Roman Catholics:
"Nero, without the least disguise, The Papists at all times Still favour'd, and their robberies Look'd on as trivial crimes.
"The Protestants whom they did rob During his government, Were forced with patience, like good Job, To rest themselves content.
"For he did basely them refuse All legal remedy; The Romans still he well did use, Still screen'd their roguery."
[402] An Account of the Sessions of Parliament in Ireland, 1692, London, 1693.
[403] The Poynings Act is 10 H. 7. c. 4. It was explained by another Act, 3&4P.and M.c.4.
[404] The history of this session I have taken from the journals of the Irish Lords and Commons, from the narratives laid in writing before the English Lords and Commons by members of the Parliament of Ireland and from a pamphlet entitled a Short Account of the Sessions of Parliament in Ireland, 1692, London, 1693. Burnet seems to me to have taken a correct view of the dispute, ii. 118. "The English in Ireland thought the government favoured the Irish too much; some said this was the effect of bribery, whereas others thought it was necessary to keep them safe from the prosecutions of the English, who hated them, and were much sharpened against them . . . . There were also great complaints of an ill administration, chiefly in the revenue, in the pay of the army, and in the embezzling of stores."
[405] As to Swift's extraction and early life, see the Anecdotes written by himself.
[406] Journal to Stella, Letter liii.
[407] See Swift's Letter to Temple of Oct. 6. 1694.
[408] Journal to Stella, Letter xix.;
[409] Swift's Anecdotes.
[410] London Gazette, March 27. 1693.
[411] Burnet, ii. 108, and Speaker Onslow's Note; Sprat's True Account of the Horrid Conspiracy; Letter to Trenchard, 1694.
[412] Burnett, ii. 107.
[413] These rumours are more than once mentioned in Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[414] London Gazette, March 27. 1693; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary:
[415] Burnett, ii, 123.; Carstairs Papers.
[416] Register of the Actings or Proceedings of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held at Edinburgh, Jan. 15. 1692, collected and extracted from the Records by the Clerk thereof. This interesting record was printed for the first time in 1852.
[417] Act. Parl. Scot., June 12. 1693.
[418] Ibid. June 15. 1693.
[419] The editor of the Carstairs Papers was evidently very desirous, from whatever motive, to disguise this most certain and obvious truth. He has therefore prefixed to some of Johnstone's letters descriptions which may possibly impose on careless readers. For example Johnstone wrote to Carstairs on the 18th of April, before it was known that the session would be a quiet one, "All arts have been used and will be used to embroil matters." The editor's account of the contents of this letter is as follows
"Arts used to embroil matters with reference to the affair of Glencoe." Again, Johnstone, in a letter written some weeks later, complained that the liberality and obsequiousness of the Estates had not been duly appreciated." Nothing, he says, "is to be done to gratify the Parliament, I mean that they would have reckoned a gratification." The editor's account of the contents of this letter is as follows: "Complains that the Parliament is not to be gratified by an inquiry into the massacre of Glencoe."
[420] Life of James, ii. 479.
[421] Hamilton's Zeneyde.
[422] A View of the Court of St. Germains from the Year 1690 to 1695, 1696; Ratio Ultima, 1697. In the Nairne Papers is a letter in which the nonjuring bishops are ordered to send a Protestant divine to Saint Germains. This letter was speedily followed by another letter revoking the order. Both letters will he found in Macpherson's collection. They both bear date Oct. 16. 1693. I suppose that the first letter was dated according to the New Style and the letter of revocation according to the Old Style.
[423] Ratio Ultima, 1697; History of the late Parliament, 1699.
[424] View of the Court of Saint Germains from 1690 to 1695. That Dunfermline was grossly ill used is plain even from the Memoirs of Dundee, 1714.
[425] So early as the year 1690, that conclave of the leading Jacobites which gave Preston his instructions made a strong representation to James on this subject. "He must overrule the bigotry of Saint Germains; and dispose their minds to think of those methods that are more likely to gain the nation. For there is one silly thing or another daily done there, that comes to our notice here which prolongs what they so passionately desire." See also A Short and True Relation of Intrigues transacted both at Home and Abroad to restore the late King James, 1694.
[426] View of the Court of Saint Germains. The account given in this View is confirmed by a remarkable paper, which is among the Nairne MSS. Some of the heads of the Jacobite party in England made a representation to James, one article of which is as follows: "They beg that Your Majesty would be pleased to admit of the Chancellor of England into your Council; your enemies take advantage of his not being in it." James's answer is evasive. "The King will be, on all occasions, ready to express the just value and esteem he has for his Lord Chancellor."
[427] A short and true Relation of Intrigues, 1694.
[428] See the paper headed "For my Son the Prince of Wales, 1692." It is printed at the end of the Life of James.
[429] Burnet, i. 683.
[430] As to this change of ministry at Saint Germains see the very curious but very confused narrative in the Life of James, ii. 498-575.; Burnet, ii. 219.; Memoires de Saint Simon; A French Conquest neither desirable nor practicable, 1693; and the Letters from the Nairne MSS. printed by Macpherson.
[431] Life of James, ii. 509. Bossuet's opinion will be found in the Appendix to M. Mazure's history. The Bishop sums up his arguments thus "Je dirai done volontiers aux Catholiques, s'il y en a qui n'approuvent point la declaration dont il s'agit; Noli esse justus multum; neque plus sapias quam necesse est, ne obstupescas." In the Life of James it is asserted that the French Doctors changed their opinion, and that Bossuet, though he held out longer than the rest, saw at last that he had been in error, but did not choose formally to retract. I think much too highly of Bossuet's understanding to believe this.
[432] Life of James, ii. 505.
[433] "En fin celle cy--j'entends la declaration--n'est que pour rentrer: et l'on peut beaucoup mieux disputer des affaires des Catholiques a Whythall qu'a Saint Germain."--Mazure, Appendix.
[434] Baden to the States General, June 2/12 1693. Four thousand copies, wet from the press, were found in this house.
[435] Baden's Letters to the States General of May and June 1693; An Answer to the Late King James's Declaration published at Saint Germains, 1693.
[436] James, ii. 514. I am unwilling to believe that Ken was among those who blamed the Declaration of 1693 as too merciful.
[437] Among the Nairne Papers is a letter sent on this occasion by Middleton to Macarthy, who was then serving in Germany. Middleton tries to soothe Macarthy and to induce Macarthy to soothe others. Nothing more disingenuous was ever written by a Minister of State. "The King," says the Secretary, "promises in the foresaid Declaration to restore the Settlement, but at the same time, declares that he will recompense all those who may suffer by it by giving them equivalents." Now James did not declare that he would recompense any body, but merely that he would advise with his Parliament on the subject. He did not declare that he would even advise with his Parliament about recompensing all who might suffer, but merely about recompensing such as had followed him to the last. Finally he said nothing about equivalents. Indeed the notion of giving an equivalent to every body who suffered by the Act of Settlement, in other words, of giving an equivalent for the fee simple of half the soil of Ireland, was obviously absurd. Middleton's letter will be found in Macpherson's collection. I will give a sample of the language held by the Whigs on this occasion. "The Roman Catholics of Ireland," says one writer, "although in point of interest and profession different from us yet, to do them right, have deserved well from the late King, though ill from us; and for the late King to leave them and exclude them in such an instance of uncommon ingratitude that Protestants have no reason to stand by a Prince that deserts his own party, and a people that have been faithful to him and his interest to the very last."--A short and true Relation of the Intrigues, &c., 1694.
[438] The edict of creation was registered by the Parliament of Paris on the 10th of April 1693.
[439] The letter is dated the 19th of April 1693. It is among the Nairne MSS., and was printed by Macpherson.
[440] "Il ne me plait nullement que M. Middleton est alle en France. Ce n'est pas un homme qui voudroit faire un tel pas sans quelque chose d'importance, et de bien concerte, sur quoy j'ay fait beaucoup de reflections que je reserve a vous dire a vostre heureuse arrivee."--William to Portland from Loo. April 18/28 1693.
[441] The best account of William's labours and anxieties at this time is contained in his letters to Heinsius--particularly the letters of May 1. 9. and 30. 1693.
[442] He speaks very despondingly in his letter to Heinsius of the 30th of May, Saint Simon says: "On a su depuis que le Prince d'Orange ecrivit plusieurs fois au prince de Vaudmont son ami intime, qu'il etait perdu et qu'il n'y avait que par un miracle qu'il pût echapper."
[443] Saint Simon; Monthly Mercury, June 1693; Burnet, ii. 111.
[444] Memoires de Saint Simon; Burnet, i. 404.
[445] William to Heinsius, July. 1693.
[446] Saint Simon's words are remarkable. "Leur cavalerie," he says, "y fit d'abord plier des troupes d'elite jusqu'alors invincibles. He adds, "Les gardes du Prince d'Orange, ceux de M. de Vaudemont, et deux regimens Anglais en eurent l'honneur."
[447] Berwick; Saint Simon; Burnet, i. 112, 113.; Feuquieres; London Gazette, July 27. 31. Aug. 3. 1693; French Official Relation; Relation sent by the King of Great Britain to their High Mightinesses, Aug. 2. 1693; Extract of a Letter from the Adjutant of the King of England's Dragoon Guards, Aug. 1.; Dykvelt's Letter to the States General dated July 30. at noon. The last four papers will be found in the Monthly Mercuries of July and August 1693. See also the History of the Last Campaign in the Spanish Netherlands by Edward D'Auvergne, dedicated to the Duke of Ormond, 1693. The French did justice to William. "Le Prince d'Orange," Racine wrote to Boileau, "pensa etre pris, apres avoir fait des merveilles." See also the glowing description of Sterne, who, no doubt, had many times heard the battle fought over by old soldiers. It was on this occasion that Corporal Trim was left wounded on the field, and was nursed by the Beguine.
[448] Letter from Lord Perth to his sister, June 17. 1694.
[449] Saint Simon mentions the reflections thrown on the Marshal. Feuquieres, a very good judge, tells us that Luxemburg was unjustly blamed, and that the French army was really too much crippled by its losses to improve the victory.
[450] This account of what would have taken place, if Luxemburg had been able and willing to improve his victory, I have taken from what seems to have been a very manly and sensible speech made by Talmash in the House of Commons on the 11th of December following. See Grey's Debates.
[451] William to Heinsius, July 20/30. 1693.
[452] William to Portland, July 21/31. 1693.
[453] London Gazette, April 24., May 15. 1693.
[454] Burchett's Memoirs of Transactions at Sea; Burnet, ii. 114, 115, 116.; the London Gazette, July 17. 1693; Monthly Mercury of July; Letter from Cadiz, dated July 4.
[455] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Baden to the States General, Jul 14/24, July 25/Aug 4. Among the Tanner MSS. in the Bodleian Library are letters describing the agitation in the City. "I wish," says one of Sancroft's Jacobite correspondents, "it may open our eyes and change our minds. But by the accounts I have seen, the Turkey Company went from the Queen and Council full of satisfaction and good humour."
[456] London Gazette, August 21 1693; L'Hermitage to the States General, July 28/Aug 7 As I shall, in this and the following chapters, make large use of the despatches of L'Hermitage, it may be proper to say something about him. He was a French refugee, and resided in London as agent for the Waldenses. One of his employments had been to send newsletters to Heinsius. Some interesting extracts from those newsletters will be found in the work of the Baron Sirtema de Grovestins. It was probably in consequence of the Pensionary's recommendation that the States General, by a resolution dated July 24/Aug 3 1693, desired L'Hermitage to collect and transmit to them intelligence of what was passing in England. His letters abound with curious and valuable information which is nowhere else to be found. His accounts of parliamentary proceedings are of peculiar value, and seem to have been so considered by his employers.
Copies of the despatches of L'Hermitage, and, indeed of the despatches of all the ministers and agents employed by the States General in England from the time of Elizabeth downward, now are or will soon be in the library of the British Museum. For this valuable addition to the great national storehouse of knowledge, the country is chiefly indebted to Lord Palmerston. But it would be unjust not to add that his instructions were most zealously carried into effect by the late Sir Edward Disbrowe, with the cordial cooperation of the enlightened men who have charge of the noble collection of Archives at the Hague.
[457] It is strange that the indictment should not have been printed in Howell's State Trials. The copy which is before me was made for Sir James Mackintosh.
[458] Most of the information which has come down to us about Anderton's case will be found in Howell's State Trials.
[459] The Remarks are extant, and deserve to be read.
[460] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[461] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[462] There are still extant a handbill addressed to All Gentlemen Seamen that are weary of their Lives; and a ballad accusing the King and Queen of cruelty to the sailors.
"To robbers, thieves, and felons, they Freely grant pardons every day. Only poor seamen, who alone Do keep them in their father's throne, Must have at all no mercy shown."
Narcissus Luttrell gives an account of the scene at Whitehall.
[463] L'Hermitage, Sept. 5/15. 1693; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[464] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[465] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary. In a pamphlet published at this time, and entitled A Dialogue between Whig and Tory, the Whig alludes to "the public insolences at the Bath upon the late defeat in Flanders." The Tory answers, "I know not what some hotheaded drunken men may have said and done at the Bath or elsewhere." In the folio Collection of State Tracts, this Dialogue is erroneously said to have been printed about November 1692.
[466] The Paper to which I refer is among the Nairne MSS., and will be found in Macpherson's collection. That excellent writer Mr. Hallam has, on this subject, fallen into an error of a kind very rare with him. He says that the name of Caermarthen is perpetually mentioned among those whom James reckoned as his friends. I believe that the evidence against Caermarthen will be found to begin and to end with the letter of Melfort which I have mentioned. There is indeed, among the Nairne MSS, which Macpherson printed, an undated and anonymous letter in which Caermarthen is reckoned among the friends of James. But this letter is altogether undeserving of consideration. The writer was evidently a silly hotheaded Jacobite, who knew nothing about the situation or character of any of the public men whom he mentioned. He blunders grossly about Marlborough, Godolphin, Russell, Shrewsbury and the Beaufort family. Indeed the whole composition is a tissue of absurdities.
It ought to be remarked that, in the Life of James compiled from his own Papers, the assurances of support which he received from Marlborough, Russell, Godolphin Shrewsbury, and other men of note are mentioned with very copious details. But there is not a word indicating that any such assurances were ever received from Caermarthen.
[467] A Journal of several Remarkable Passages relating to the East India Trade, 1693.
[468] See the Monthly Mercuries and London Gazettes of September, October, November and December 1693; Dangeau, Sept. 5. 27., Oct. 21., Nov. 21.; the Price of the Abdication, 1693.
[469] Correspondence of William and Heinsius; Danish Note, dated Dec 11/21 1693. The note delivered by Avaux to the Swedish government at this time will be found in Lamberty's Collection and in the Memoires et Negotiations de la Paix de Ryswick.
[470] "Sir John Lowther says, nobody can know one day what a House of Commons would do the next; in which all agreed with him." These remarkable words were written by Caermarthen on the margin of a paper drawn up by Rochester in August 1692. Dalrymple, Appendix to part ii. chap. 7.
[471] See Sunderland's celebrated Narrative which has often been printed, and his wife's letters, which are among the Sidney papers, published by the late Serjeant Blencowe.
[472] Van Citters, May 6/16. 1690.
[473] Evelyn, April 24. 1691.
[474] Lords' Journals, April 28. 1693.
[475] L'Hermitage, Sept. 19/29, Oct 2/12 1693.
[476] It is amusing to see how Johnson's Toryism breaks out where we should hardly expect to find it. Hastings says, in the Third Part of Henry the Sixth,
"Let us be back'd with God and with the seas Which He hath given for fence impregnable, And with their helps alone defend ourselves."
"This," says Johnson in a note, "has been the advice of every man who, in any age, understood and favoured the interest of England."
[477] Swift, in his Inquiry into the Behaviour of the Queen's last Ministry, mentions Somers as a person of great abilities, who used to talk in so frank a manner that he seemed to discover the bottom of his heart. In the Memoirs relating to the Change in the Queen's Ministry, Swift says that Somers had one and only one unconversable fault, formality. It is not very easy to understand how the same man can be the most unreserved of companions and yet err on the side of formality. Yet there may be truth in both the descriptions. It is well known that Swift loved to take rude liberties with men of high rank and fancied that, by doing so, he asserted his own independence. He has been justly blamed for this fault by his two illustrious biographers, both of them men of spirit at least as independent as his, Samuel Johnson and Walter Scott. I suspect that he showed a disposition to behave with offensive familiarity to Somers, and that Somers, not choosing to submit to impertinence, and not wishing to be forced to resent it, resorted, in selfdefence, to a ceremonious politeness which he never would have practised towards Locke or Addison.
[478] The eulogies on Somers and the invectives against him are innumerable. Perhaps the best way to come to a just judgment would be to collect all that has been said about him by Swift and by Addison. They were the two keenest observers of their time; and they both knew him well. But it ought to be remarked that, till Swift turned Tory, he always extolled Somers not only as the most accomplished, but as the most virtuous of men. In the dedication of the Tale of a Tub are these words, "There is no virtue, either of a public or private life, which some circumstances of your own have not often produced upon the stage of the world;" and again, "I should be very loth the bright example of your Lordship's virtues should be lost to other eyes, both for their sake and your own." In the Discourse of the Contests and Dissensions at Athens and Rome, Somers is the just Aristides. After Swift had ratted he described Somers as a man who "possessed all excellent qualifications except virtue."
[479] See Whiston's Autobiography.
[480] Swift's note on Mackay's Character of Wharton.
[481] This account of Montague and Wharton I have collected from innumerable sources. I ought, however, to mention particularly the very curious Life of Wharton published immediately after his death.
[482] Much of my information about the Harleys I have derived from unpublished memoirs written by Edward Harley, younger brother of Robert. A copy of these memoirs is among the Mackintosh MSS.
[483] The only writer who has praised Harley's oratory, as far as I remember, is Mackay, who calls him eloquent. Swift scribbled in the margin, "A great lie." And certainly Swift was inclined to do more than justice to Harley. "That lord," said Pope, "talked of business in so confused a manner that you did not know what he was about; and every thing he went to tell you was in the epic way; for he always began in the middle."--Spence's Anecdotes.
[484] "He used," said Pope, "to send trifling verses from Court to the Scriblerus Club almost every day, and would come and talk idly with them almost every night even when his all was at stake." Some specimens of Harley's poetry are in print. The best, I think, is a stanza which he made on his own fall in 1714; and bad is the best.
"To serve with love, And shed your blood, Approved is above; But here below The examples show 'Tis fatal to be good."
[485] The character of Harley is to be collected from innumerable panegyrics and lampoons; from the works and the private correspondence of Swift, Pope, Arbuthnot, Prior and Bolingbroke, and from multitudes of such works as Ox and Bull, the High German Doctor, and The History of Robert Powell the Puppet Showman.
[486] In a letter dated Sept. 12. 1709 a short time before he was brought into power on the shoulders of the High Church mob, he says: "My soul has been among Lyons, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongues sharp swords. But I learn how good it is to wait on the Lord, and to possess one's soul in peace." The letter was to Carstairs. I doubt whether Harley would have canted thus if he had been writing to Atterbury.
[487] The anomalous position which Harley and Foley at this time occupied is noticed in the Dialogue between a Whig and a Tory, 1693. "Your great P. Fo-y," says the Tory, "turns cadet and carries arms under the General of the West Saxons. The two Har- ys, father and son, are engineers under the late Lieutenant of the Ordnance, and bomb any bill which he hath once resolv'd to reduce to ashes." Seymour is the General of the West Saxons. Musgrave had been Lieutenant of the Ordnance in the reign of Charles the Second.
[488] Lords' and Commons' Journals, Nov. 7. 1693.
[489] Commons' Journals, Nov. 13. 1693; Grey's Debates.
[490] Commons' Journals, Nov. 17. 1693.
[491] Ibid. Nov. 22. 27. 1693; Grey's Debates.
[492] Commons' Journals, Nov. 29. Dec. 6. 1693; L'Hermitage, Dec. 1/11 1693.
[493] L'Hermitage, Sept. 1/11. Nov. 7/17 1693.
[494] See the Journal to Stella, lii. liii. lix. lxi.; and Lady Orkney's Letters to Swift.
[495] See the letters written at this time by Elizabeth Villiers, Wharton, Russell and Shrewsbury, in the Shrewsbury Correspondence.
[496] Commons' Journals, Jan. 6. 8. 1693/4.
[497] Ibid. Jan. 19. 1693/4
[498] Hamilton's New Account.
[499] The bill I found in the Archives of the Lords. Its history I learned from the journals of the two Houses, from a passage in the Diary of Narcissus Luttrell, and from two letters to the States General, both dated on Feb 27/March 9 1694 the day after the debate in the Lords. One of these letters is from Van Citters; the other, which contains fuller information, is from L'Hermitage.
[500] Commons' Journals, Nov. 28. 1693; Grey's Debates. L'Hermitage expected that the bill would pas;, and that the royal assent would not be withheld. On November. he wrote to the States General, "Il paroist dans toute la chambre beaucoup de passion a faire passer ce bil." On Nov 28/Dec 8 he says that the division on the passing "n'a pas cause une petite surprise. Il est difficile d'avoir un point fixe sur les idees qu'on peut se former des emotions du parlement, car il paroist quelquefois de grander chaleurs qui semblent devoir tout enflammer, et qui, peu de tems apres, s'evaporent." That Seymour was the chief manager of the opposition to the bill is asserted in the once celebrated Hush Money pamphlet of that year.
[501] Commons' Journals; Grey's Debates. The engrossed copy of this Bill went down to the House of Commons and is lost. The original draught on paper is among the Archives of the Lords. That Monmouth brought in the bill I learned from a letter of L'Hermitage to the States General Dec. 13. 1693. As to the numbers on the division, I have followed the journals. But in Grey's Debates and in the letters of Van Citters and L'Hermitage, the minority is said to have been 172.
[502] The bill is in the Archives of the Lords. Its history I have collected from the journals, from Grey's Debates, and from the highly interesting letters of Van Citters and L'Hermitage. I think it clear from Grey's Debates that a speech which L'Hermitage attributes to a nameless "quelq'un" was made by Sir Thomas Littleton.
[503] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, September 1691.
[504] Commons' Journals, Jan. 4. 1693/4.
[505] Of the Naturalisation Bill no copy, I believe exists. The history of that bill will be found in the Journals. From Van Citters and L'Hermitage we learn less than might have been expected on a subject which must have been interesting to Dutch statesmen. Knight's speech will be found among the Somers Papers. He is described by his brother Jacobite, Roger North, as "a gentleman of as eminent integrity and loyalty as ever the city of Bristol was honoured with."
[506] Commons' Journals, Dec 5. 1694.
[507] Commons' Journals, Dec. 20. and 22. 1693/4. The journals did not then contain any notice of the divisions which took place when the House was in committee. There was only one division on the army estimates of this year, when the mace was on the table. That division was on the question whether 60,000L. or 147,000L. should be granted for hospitals and contingencies. The Whigs carried the larger sum by 184 votes to 120. Wharton was a teller for the majority, Foley for the minority.
[508] Commons' Journals, Nov. 25. 1694.
[509] Stat. 5 W. & M. c. I.
[510] Stat. 5 & 6 W.& M. c. 14.
[511] Stat. 5 & 6 W. & M. c. 21.; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[512] Stat. 5 & 6 W. & M. c. 22.; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[513] Stat. 5 W. & M. c. 7.; Evelyn's Diary, Oct. 5, Nov. 22. 1694; A Poem on Squire Neale's Projects; Malcolm's History of London. Neale's functions are described in several editions of Chamberlayne's State of England. His name frequently appears in the London Gazette, as, for example, on July 28. 1684.
[514] See, for example, the Mystery of the Newfashioned Goldsmiths or Brokers, 1676; Is not the Hand of Joab in all this? 1676; and an answer published in the same year. See also England's Glory in the great Improvement by Banking and Trade, 1694.
[515] See the Life of Dudley North, by his brother Roger.
[516] See a pamphlet entitled Corporation Credit; or a Bank of Credit, made Current by Common Consent in London, more Useful and Safe than Money.
[517] A proposal by Dr. Hugh Chamberlayne, in Essex Street, for a Bank, of Secure Current Credit to be founded upon Land, in order to the General Good of Landed Men, to the great Increase in the Value of Land, and the no less Benefit of Trade and Commerce, 1695; Proposals for the supplying their Majesties with Money on Easy Terms, exempting the Nobility, Gentry, &c., from Taxes enlarging their Yearly Estates, and enriching all the Subjects of the Kingdom by a National Land Bank; by John Briscoe. "O fortunatos nimium bona si sua norint Anglicanos." Third Edition, 1696. Briscoe seems to have been as much versed in Latin literature as in political economy.
[518] In confirmation of what is said in the text, I extract a single paragraph from Briscoe's proposals. "Admit a gentleman hath barely 100L. per annum estate to live on, and hath a wife and four children to provide for; this person, supposing no taxes were upon his estates must be a great husband to be able to keep his charge, but cannot think of laying up anything to place out his children in the world; but according to this proposed method he may give his children 500l. a piece and have 90l. per annum left for himself and his wife to live upon, the which he may also leave to such of his children as he pleases after his and his wife's decease. For first having settled his estate of 100l. per annum, as in proposals 1. 3., he may have bills of credit for 2000L. for his own proper use, for 10s per cent. per annum as in proposal 22., which is but 10L. per annum for the 2000L., which being deducted out of his estate of 100L. per annum, there remains 90L. per annum clear to himself." It ought to be observed that this nonsense reached a third edition.
[519] See Chamberlayne's Proposal, his Positions supported by the Reasons explaining the Office of Land Credit, and his Bank Dialogue. See also an excellent little tract on the other side entitled "A Bank Dialogue between Dr. H. C. and a Country Gentleman, 1696," and "Some Remarks upon a nameless and scurrilous Libel entitled a Bank Dialogue between Dr. H. C. and a Country Gentleman, in a Letter to a Person of Quality."
[520] Commons' Journals Dec. 7. 1693. I am afraid that I may be suspected of exaggerating the absurdity of this scheme. I therefore transcribe the most important part of the petition. "In consideration of the freeholders bringing their lands into this bank, for a fund of current credit, to be established by Act of Parliament, it is now proposed that, for every 150L per annum, secured for 150 years, for but one hundred yearly payments of 100L per annum, free from all manner of taxes and deductions whatsoever, every such freeholder shall receive 4000L in the said current credit, and shall have 2000L more put into the fishery stock for his proper benefit; and there may be further 2000L reserved at the Parliament's disposal towards the carrying on this present war . . . . . The free holder is never to quit the possession of his said estate unless the yearly rent happens to be in arrear."
[521] Commons' Journals, Feb. 5. 1693/4.
[522] Account of the Intended Bank of England, 1694.
[523] See the Lords' Journals of April 23, 24, 25. 1694, and the letter of L'Hermitage to the States General dated April 24/May 4
[524] Narcissus Luttrell's. Diary, June 1694.
[525] Heath's Account of the Worshipful Company of Grocers; Francis's History of the Bank of England.
[526] Spectator, No. 3.
[527] Proceedings of the Wednesday Club in Friday Street.
[528] Lords' Journals, April 25. 1694; London Gazette, May 7. 1694.
[529] Life of James ii. 520.; Floyd's (Lloyd's) Account in the Nairne Papers, under the date of May 1. 1694; London Gazette, April 26. 30. 1694.
[530] London Gazette, May 3. 1694.
[531] London Gazette, April 30. May 7. 1694; Shrewsbury to William, May 11/21; William to Shrewsbury, May 22?June 1; L'Hermitage, April 27/Nay 7
[532] L'Hermitage, May 15/25. After mentioning the various reports, he says, "De tous ces divers projets qu'on s'imagine aucun n'est venu a la cognoissance du public." This is important; for it has often been said, in excuse for Marlborough, that he communicated to the Court of Saint Germains only what was the talk of all the coffeehouses, and must have been known without his instrumentality.
[533] London Gazette, June 14. 18. 1694; Paris Gazette June 16/July 3; Burchett; Journal of Lord Caermarthen; Baden, June 15/25; L'Hermitage, June 15/25. 19/29
[534] Shrewsbury to William, June 15/25. 1694. William to Shrewsbury, July 1; Shrewsbury to William, June 22/July 2
[535] This account of Russell's expedition to the Mediterranean I have taken chiefly from Burchett.
[536] Letter to Trenchard, 1694.
[537] Burnet, ii. 141, 142.; and Onslow's note; Kingston's True History, 1697.
[538] See the Life of James, ii. 524.,
[539] Kingston; Burnet, ii. 142.
[540] Kingston. For the fact that a bribe was given to Taaffe, Kingston cites the evidence taken on oath by the Lords.
[541] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, Oct. 6. 1694.
[542] As to Dyer's newsletter, see Narcissus Luttrell's Diary for June and August 1693, and September 1694.
[543] The Whig narrative is Kingston's; the Jacobite narrative, by an anonymous author, has lately been printed by the Chetham Society. See also a Letter out of Lancashire to a Friend in London, giving some Account of the late Trials, 1694.
[544] Birch's Life of Tillotson; the Funeral Sermon preached by Burnet; William to Heinsius, Nov 23/Dec 3 1694.
[545] See the Journals of the two Houses. The only account that we have of the debates is in the letters of L'Hermitage.
[546] Commons' Journals, Feb. 20. 1693/4 As this bill never reached the Lords, it is not to be found among their archives. I have therefore no means of discovering whether it differed in any respect from the bill of the preceding year.
[547] The history of this bill may be read in the Journals of the Houses. The contest, not a very vehement one, lasted till the 20th of April.
[548] "The Commons," says Narcissus Luttrell, "gave a great hum." "Le murmure qui est la marque d'applaudissement fut si grand qu'on pent dire qu'il estoit universel. "--L'Hermitage, Dec. 25/Jan. 4.
[549] L'Hermitage says this in his despatch of Nov. 20/30.
[550] Burnet, ii. 137.; Van Citters, Dec 25/Jan 4.
[551] Burnet, ii. 136. 138.; Narcissus Luttrell's Dairy; Van Citters, Dec 28/Jan 7 1694/5; L'Hermitage, Dec 25/Jan 4, Dec 28/Jan 7 Jan. 1/11; Vernon to Lord Lexington, Dec. 21. 25. 28., Jan. 1.; Tenison's Funeral Sermon.
[552] Evelyn's Dairy; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Commons' Journals, Dec. 28. 1694; Shrewsbury to Lexington, of the same date; Van Citters of the same date; L'Hermitage, Jan. 1/11 1695. Among the sermons on Mary's death, that of Sherlock, preached in the Temple Church, and those of Howe and Bates, preached to great Presbyterian congregations, deserve notice.
[553] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[554] Remarks on some late Sermons, 1695; A Defence of the Archbishop's Sermon, 1695.
[555] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[556] L'Hermitage, March 1/11, 6/16 1695; London Gazette, March 7,; Tenison's Funeral Sermon; Evelyn's Diary.
[557] See Claude's Sermon on Mary's death.
[558] Prior to Lord and Lady Lexington, Jan. 14/24 1695. The letter is among the Lexington papers, a valuable collection, and well edited.
[559] Monthly Mercury for January 1695. An orator who pronounced an eulogium on the Queen at Utrecht was so absurd as to say that she spent her last breath in prayers for the prosperity of the United Provinces:--"Valeant et Batavi;"--these are her last words--"sint incolumes; sint florentes; sint beati; stet in sternum, stet immota praeclarissima illorum civitas hospitium aliquando mihi gratissimum, optime de me meritum." See also the orations of Peter Francius of Amsterdam, and of John Ortwinius of Delft.
[560] Journal de Dangeau; Memoires de Saint Simon.
[561] Saint Simon; Dangeau; Monthly Mercury for January 1695.
[562] L'Hermitage, Jan. 1/11. 1695; Vernon to Lord Lexington Jan. I. 4.; Portland to Lord Lexington, Jan 15/25; William to Heinsius, Jan 22/Feb 1
[562a] In the Craftsman of November 20. 1731, it is said that Locke drew up the paper in which the Commons gave their reasons for refusing to renew the Licensing Act. If this were so, it must be remembered that Locke wrote, not in his own name, but in the name of a multitude of plain country gentlemen and merchants, to whom his opinions touching the liberty of the press would probably have seemed strange and dangerous. We must suppose, therefore, with his usual prudence, he refrained from giving an exposition of his own views, and contented himself with putting into a neat and perspicuous form arguments suited to the capacity of the parliamentary majority.
[563] See the Commons' Journals of Feb. 11, April 12. and April 27., and the Lords' Journals of April 8. and April is. 1695. Unfortunately there is a hiatus in the Commons' Journal of the 12th of April, so that it is now impossible to discover whether there was a division on the question to agree with the amendment made by the Lords.
[564] L'Hermitage, April 10/20. 1695; Burnet, ii. 149.
[565] An Essay upon Taxes, calculated for the present Juncture of Affairs, 1693.
[566] Commons' Journals, Jan. 12 Feb. 26. Mar. 6.; A Collection of the Debates and Proceedings in Parliament in 1694 and 1695 upon the Inquiry into the late Briberies and Corrupt Practices, 1695; L'Hermitage to the States General, March 8/18; Van Citters, Mar. 15/25; L'Hermitage says
"Si par cette recherche la chambre pouvoit remedier au desordre qui regne, elle rendroit un service tres utile et tres agreable au Roy."
[567] Commons' Journals, Feb. 16, 1695; Collection of the Debates and Proceedings in Parliament in 1694 and 1695; Life of Wharton; Burnet, ii. 144.
[568] Speaker Onslow's note on Burnet ii. 583.; Commons' Journals, Mar 6, 7. 1695. The history of the terrible end of this man will be found in the pamphlets of the South Sea year.
[569] Commons' Journals, March 8. 1695; Exact Collection of Debates and Proceedings in Parliament in 1694 and 1695; L'Hermitage, March 8/18
[570] Exact Collection of Debates.
[571] L'Hermitage, March 8/18. 1695. L'Hermitage's narrative is confirmed by the journals, March 7. 1694/5. It appears that just before the committee was appointed, the House resolved that letters should not be delivered out to members during a sitting.
[572] L'Hermitage, March 19/29 1695.
[573] Birch's Life of Tillotson.
[574] Commons' Journals, March 12 13, 14 15, 16, 1694/5; Vernon to Lexington, March 15.; L'Hermitage, March 15/25.
[575] On vit qu'il etoit impossible de le poursuivre en justice, chacun toutefois demeurant convaincu que c'etoit un marche fait a la main pour lui faire present de la somme de 10,000l et qu'il avoit ete plus habile que les autres novices que n'avoient pas su faire si finement leure affaires.-- L'Hermitage, March 29/April 8; Commons' Journals, March 12.; Vernon to Lexington, April 26.; Burnet, ii. 145.
[576] In a poem called the Prophecy (1703), is the line
"when Seymour scorns saltpetre pence."
In another satire is the line
"Bribed Seymour bribes accuses."
[577] Commons' Journals from March 26. to April 8. 1695.
[578] L'Hermitage, April 10/20 1695.
[579] Exact Collection of Debates and Proceedings.
[580] L'Hermitage, April 30/May 10 1695; Portland to Lexington, April 23/May 3
[581] L'Hermitage (April 30/May 10 1695) justly remarks, that the way in which the money was sent back strengthened the case against Leeds.
[582] There can, I think, be no doubt, that the member who is called D in the Exact Collection was Wharton.
[583] As to the proceedings of this eventful day, April 27. 1695, see the Journals of the two Houses, and the Exact Collection.
[584] Exact Collection; Lords' Journals, May 3. 1695; Commons' Journals, May 2, 3.; L'Hermitage, May 3/13.; London Gazette, May 13.
[585] L'Hermitage, May 10/20. 1695; Vernon to Shrewsbury, June 22. 1697.
[586] London Gazette, May 6. 1695.
[587] Letter from Mrs. Burnet to the Duchess of Marlborough, 1704, quoted by Coxe; Shrewsbury to Russell, January 24. 1695; Burnett, ii. 149.
[588] London Gazette April 8. 15. 29. 1695.
[589] Shrewsbury to Russell, January 24. 1695; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary,
[590] De Thou, liii. xcvi.
[591] Life of James ii. 545., Orig. Mem. Of course James does not use the word assassination. He talks of the seizing and carrying away of the Prince of Orange.
[592] Every thing bad that was known or rumoured about Porter came out on the State Trials of 1696.
[593] As to Goodman see the evidence on the trial of Peter Cook; Cleverskirke, Feb 28/March 9 1696; L'Hermitage, April 10/20 1696; and a pasquinade entitled the Duchess of Cleveland's Memorial.
[594] See the preamble to the Commission of 1695.
[595] The Commission will be found in the Minutes of the Parliament.
[596] Act. Parl. Scot., May 21. 1695; London Gazette, May 30.
[597] Act. Parl. Scot. May 23. 1695.
[598] Ibid. June 14. 18. 20. 1695; London Gazette, June 27.
[599] Burnet, ii. 157.; Act. Parl., June 10 1695.
[600] Act. Parl., June 26. 1695; London Gazette, July 4.
[601] There is an excellent portrait of Villeroy in St. Simon's Memoirs.
[602] Some curious traits of Trumball's character will be found in Pepys's Tangier Diary.
[603] Postboy, June 13., July 9. 11., 1695; Intelligence Domestic and Foreign, June 14.; Pacquet Boat from Holland and Flanders, July 9.
[604] Vaudemont's Despatch and William's Answer are in the Monthly Mercury for July 1695.
[605] See Saint Simon's Memoirs and his note upon Dangeau.
[606] London Gazette July 22. 1695; Monthly Mercury of August, 1695. Swift ten years later, wrote a lampoon on Cutts, so dull and so nauseously scurrilous that Ward or Gildon would have been ashamed of it, entitled the Description of a Salamander.
[607] London Gazette, July 29. 1695; Monthly Mercury for August 1695; Stepney to Lord Lexington, Aug. 16/26; Robert Fleming's Character of King William, 1702. It was in the attack of July 17/27 that Captain Shandy received the memorable wound in his groin.
[608] London Gazette, Aug. r. 5. 1695; Monthly Mercury of August 1695, containing the Letters of William and Dykvelt to the States General.
[609] Monthly Mercury for August 1695; Stepney to Lord Lexington, Aug. 16/26
[610] Monthly Mercury for August 1695; Letter from Paris, Aug 26/Sept 5 1695, among the Lexington Papers.
[611] L'Hermitage, Aug. 13/23 1695.
[612] London Gazette, Aug. 26. 1695; Monthly Mercury, Stepney to Lexington, Aug. 20/30.
[613] Boyer's History of King William III, 1703; London Gazette, Aug. 29. 1695; Stepney to Lexington, Aug. 20/30.; Blathwayt to Lexington, Sept. 2.
[614] Postscript to the Monthly Mercury for August 1695; London Gazette, Sept. 9.; Saint Simon; Dangeau.
[615] Boyer, History of King William III, 2703; Postscript to the Monthly Mercury, Aug. 1695; London Gazette, Sept. 9. 12.; Blathwayt to Lexington, Sept. 6.; Saint Simon; Dangeau.
[616] There is a noble, and I suppose, unique Collection of the newspapers of William's reign in the British Museum. I have turned over every page of that Collection. It is strange that neither Luttrell nor Evelyn should have noticed the first appearance of the new journals. The earliest mention of those journals which I have found, is in a despatch of L'Hermitage, dated July 12/22, 1695. I will transcribe his words:--"Depuis quelque tems on imprime ici plusieurs feuilles volantes en forme de gazette, qui sont remplies de toutes sortes de nouvelles. Cette licence est venue de ce que le parlement n'a pas acheve le bill ou projet d'acte qui avoit ete porte dans la Chambre des Communes pour regler l'imprimerie et empecher que ces sortes de choses n'arrivassent. Il n'y avoit ci-devant qu'un des commis des Secretaires d'Etat qui eut le pouvoir de faire des gazettes: mais aujourdhui il s'en fait plusieurs sons d'autres noms." L'Hermitage mentions the paragraph reflecting on the Princess, and the submission of the libeller.
[617] L'Hermitage, Oct. 15/25., Nov. 15/25. 1695.
[618] London Gazette, Oct. 24. 1695. See Evelyn's Account of Newmarket in 1671, and Pepys, July 18. 1668. From Tallard's despatches written after the Peace of Ryswick it appears that the autumn meetings were not less numerous or splendid in the days of William than in those of his uncles.
[619] I have taken this account of William's progress chiefly from the London Gazettes, from the despatches of L'Hermitage, from Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, and from the letters of Vernon, Yard and Cartwright among the Lexington Papers.
[620] See the letter of Yard to Lexington, November 8. 1695, and the note by the editor of the Lexington Papers.
[621] L'Hermitage, Nov. 15/25. 1695.
[622] L'Hermitage Oct 25/Nov 4 Oct 29/Nov 8 1695.
[623] Ibid. Nov. 5/15 1695.
[624] L'Hermitage, Nov. 15/25 1695; Sir James Forbes to Lady Russell, Oct. 3. 1695; Lady Russell to Lord Edward Russell; The Postman, Nov. 1695.
[625] There is a highly curious account of this contest in the despatches of L'Hermitage.
[626] Postman, Dec. 15. 17. 1696; Vernon to Shrewsbury, Dec. 13. 15.; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; Burnet, i. 647.; Saint Evremond's Verses to Hampden.
[627] L'Hermitage, Nov. 13/23. 1695.
[628] I have derived much valuable information on this subject from a MS. in the British Museum, Lansdowne Collection, No. 801. It is entitled Brief Memoires relating to the Silver and Gold Coins of England, with an Account of the Corruption of the Hammered Money, and of the Reform by the late Grand Coinage at the Tower and the Country Mints, by Hopton Haynes, Assay Master of the Mint.
[629] Stat. 5 Eliz. c. ii., and 18 Eliz. c. 1
[630] Pepys's Diary, November 23. 1663.
[631] The first writer who noticed the fact that, where good money and bad money are thown into circulation together, the bad money drives out the good money, was Aristophanes. He seems to have thought that the preference which his fellow citizens gave to light coins was to be attributed to a depraved taste such as led them to entrust men like Cleon and Hyperbolus with the conduct of great affairs. But, though his political economy will not bear examination, his verses are excellent:--
pollakis g' emin edoksen e polis peponthenai tauton es te ton politon tous kalous te kagathous es te tarkhaion nomisma Kai to kainon khrusion. oute gar toutoisin ousin ou kekibdeleumenios alla kallistois apanton, us dokei, nomismaton, kai monois orthos kopeisi, kai kekodonismenois en te tois Ellisim kai tois barbarioisi pantahkou khrometh' ouden, alla toutois tois ponerois khalkiois, khthes te kai proen kopeisi to kakistu kommati. ton politon th' ous men ismen eugeneis kai sophronas andras ontas, kai dikaious, kai kalous te kagathous, kai traphentas en palaistrais, kai khorois kai mousiki prouseloumen tois de khalkois, kai ksenois, kai purriais, kai ponerois kak poneron eis apanta khrometha.
[632] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary is filled with accounts of these executions. "Le metier de rogneur de monnoye," says L'Hermitage, "est si lucratif et paroit si facile que, quelque chose qu'on fasse pour les detruire, il s'en trouve toujours d'autres pour prendre leur place. Oct 1/11. 1695."
[633] As to the sympathy of the public with the clippers, see the very curious sermon which Fleetwood afterwards Bishop of Ely, preached before the Lord Mayor in December 1694. Fleetwood says that "a soft pernicious tenderness slackened the care of magistrates, kept back the under officers, corrupted the juries, and withheld the evidence." He mentions the difficulty of convincing the criminals themselves that they had done wrong. See also a Sermon preached at York Castle by George Halley, a clergyman of the Cathedral, to some clippers who were to be hanged the next day. He mentions the impenitent ends which clippers generally made, and does his best to awaken the consciences of his bearers. He dwells on one aggravation of their crime which I should not have thought of. "If," says he, "the same question were to be put in this age, as of old, 'Whose is this image and superscription?' we could not answer the whole. We may guess at the image; but we cannot tell whose it is by the superscription; for that is all gone." The testimony of these two divines is confirmed by that of Tom Brown, who tells a facetious story, which I do not venture to quote, about a conversation between the ordinary of Newgate and a clipper.
[634] Lowndes's Essay for the Amendment of the Silver Coins, 1695.
[635] L'Hermitage, Nov 29/Dec 9 1695.
[636] The Memoirs of this Lancashire Quaker were printed a few years ago in a most respectable newspaper, the Manchester Guardian.
[637] Lowndes's Essay.
[638] L'Hermitage, Dec 24/Jan 3 1695.
[639] It ought always to be remembered, to Adam Smith's honour, that he was entirely converted by Bentham's Defence of Usury, and acknowledged, with candour worthy of a true philosopher, that the doctrine laid down in the Wealth of Nations was erroneous.
[640] Lowndes's Essay for the Amendment of the Silver Coins; Locke's Further Considerations concerning raising the Value of Money; Locke to Molyneux, Nov. 20. 1695; Molyneux to Locke, Dec. 24. 1695.
[641] Burnet, ii. 147.
[642] Commons' Journals, Nov. 22, 23. 26. 1695; L'Hermitage, Nov 26/Dec 6
[643] Commons' Journals, Nov. 26, 27, 28, 29. 1695; L'Hermitage, Nov 26./Dec 6 Nov. 29/Dec 9 Dec 3/13
[644] Commons' Journals, Nov. 28, 29. 1695; L'Hermitage, Dec. 3/13
[645] L'Hermitage, Nov 22/Dec 2, Dec 6/16 1695; An Abstract of the Consultations and Debates between the French King and his Council concerning the new Coin that is intended to be made in England, privately sent by a Friend of the Confederates from the French Court to his Brother at Brussels, Dec. 12. 1695; A Discourse of the General Notions of Money, Trade and Exchanges, by Mr. Clement of Bristol; A Letter from an English Merchant at Amsterdam to his Friend in London; A Fund for preserving and supplying our Coin; An Essay for regulating the Coin, by A. V.; A Proposal for supplying His Majesty with 1,200,000L, by mending the Coin, and yet preserving the ancient Standard of the Kingdom. These are a few of the tracts which were distributed among members of Parliament at this conjuncture.
[646] Commons' Journals, Dec. 10. 1695; L'Hermitage, Dec. 3/13 6/16 10/20
[647] Commons' Journals, Dec. 13. 1695.
[648] Stat. 7 Gul. 3.c.1.; Lords' and Commons' Journals; L'Hermitage, Dec 31/Jan 10 Jan 7/17 10/20 14/24 1696. L'Hermitage describes in strong language the extreme inconvenience caused by the dispute between the Houses:--"La longueur qu'il y a dans cette affaire est d'autant plus desagreable qu'il n'y a point (le sujet sur lequel le peuple en general puisse souffrir plus d'incommodite, puisqu'il n'y a personne qui, a tous moments, n'aye occasion de l'esprouver.
[649] That Locke was not a party to the attempt to make gold cheaper by penal laws, I infer from a passage in which he notices Lowndes's complaints about the high price of guineas. "The only remedy," says Locke, "for that mischief, as well as a great many others, is the putting an end to the passing of clipp'd money by tale." Locke's Further Considerations. That the penalty proved, as might have been expected, inefficacious, appears from several passages in the despatches of L'Hermitage, and even from Haynes's Brief Memoires, though Haynes was a devoted adherent of Montague.
[650] L'Hermitage, Jan 14/24 1696.
[651] Commons' Journals, Jan. 14. 17. 23. 1696; L'Hermitage, Jan. 14/24; Gloria Cambriae, or Speech of a Bold Briton against a Dutch Prince of Wales 1702; Life of the late Honourable Robert Price, &c. 1734. Price was the bold Briton whose speech--never, I believe, spoken--was printed in 1702. He would have better deserved to be called bold, if he had published his impertinence while William was living. The Life of Price is a miserable performance, full of blunders and anachronisms.
[652] L'Hermitage mentions the unfavourable change in the temper of the Commons; and William alludes to it repeatedly in his letters to Heinsius, Jan 21/31 1696, Jan 28/Feb 7.
[653] The gaiety of the Jacobites is said by Van Cleverskirke to have been noticed during some time; Feb 25/March 6 1696.
[654] Harris's deposition, March 28. 1696.
[655] Hunt's deposition.
[656] Fisher's and Harris's depositions.
[657] Barclay's narrative, in the Life of James, ii. 548.; Paper by Charnock among the MSS. in the Bodleian Library.
[658] Harris's deposition.
[659] Ibid. Bernardi's autobiography is not at all to be trusted.
[660] See his trial.
[661] Fisher's deposition; Knightley's deposition; Cranburne's trial; De la Rue's deposition.
[662] See the trials and depositions.
[663] L'Hermitage, March 3/13
[664] See Berwick's Memoirs.
[665] Van Cleverskirke, Feb 25/March 6 1696. I am confident that no sensible and impartial person, after attentively reading Berwick's narrative of these transactions and comparing it with the narrative in the Life of James (ii. 544.) which is taken, word for word, from the Original Memoirs, can doubt that James was accessory to the design of assassination.
[666] L'Hermitage, March Feb 25/March 6
[667] My account of these events is taken chiefly from the trials and depositions. See also Burnet, ii. 165, 166, 167, and Blackmore's True and Impartial History, compiled under the direction of Shrewsbury and Somers, and Boyer's History of King William III., 1703.
[668] Portland to Lexington, March 3/13. 1696; Van Cleverskirke, Feb 25/Mar 6 L'Hermitage, same date.
[669] Commons' Journals, Feb. 24 1695.
[670] England's Enemies Exposed, 1701.
[671] Commons' Journals, Feb. 24. 1695/6.
[672] Ibid. Feb. 25. 1695/6; Van Cleverskirke, Feb 28/March 9; L'Hermitage, of the same date.
[673] According to L'Hermitage, Feb 27/Mar 8,there were two of these fortunate hackney coachmen. A shrewd and vigilant hackney coachman indeed was from the nature of his calling, very likely to be successful in this sort of chase. The newspapers abound with proofs of the general enthusiasm.
[674] Postman March 5. 1695/6
[675] Ibid. Feb. 29., March 2., March 12., March 14. 1695/6.
[676] Postman, March 12. 1696; Vernon to Lexington, March 13; Van Cleverskirke, March 13/23 The proceedings are fully reported in the Collection of State Trials.
[677] Burnet, ii. 171.; The Present Disposition of England considered; The answer entitled England's Enemies Exposed, 1701; L'Hermitage, March 17/27. 1696. L'Hermitage says, "Charnock a fait des grandes instances pour avoir sa grace, et a offert de tout declarer: mais elle lui a este refusee."
[678] L'Hermitage, March 17/27
[679] This most curious paper is among the Nairne MSS. in the Bodleian Library. A short, and not perfectly ingenuous abstract of it will be found in the Life of James, ii. 555. Why Macpherson, who has printed many less interesting documents did not choose to print this document, it is easy to guess. I will transcribe two or three important sentences. "It may reasonably be presumed that what, in one juncture His Majesty had rejected he might in another accept, when his own and the public good necessarily required it. For I could not understand it in such a manner as if he had given a general prohibition that at no time the Prince of Orange should be touched. . . Nobody that believes His Majesty to be lawful King of England can doubt but that in virtue of his commission to levy war against the Prince of Orange and his adherents, the setting upon his person is justifiable, as well by the laws of the land duly interpreted and explained as by the law of God."
[680] The trials of Friend and Parkyns will be found, excellently reported, among the State Trials.
[681] L'Hermitage, April 3/13 1696.
[682] Commons' Journals, April 1, 2. 1696; L'Hermitage, April 3/13. 1696; Van Cleverskirke, of the same date.
[683] L'Hermitage, April 7/17. 1696. The Declaration of the Bishops, Collier's Defence, and Further Defence, and a long legal argument for Cook and Snatt will be found in the Collection of State Trials.
[684] See the Manhunter, 1690.
[685] State Trials.
[686] The best, indeed the only good, account of these debates is given by L'Hermitage, Feb 28/March 9 1696. He says, very truly; "La difference n'est qu'une dispute de mots, le droit qu'on a a une chose selon les loix estant aussy bon qu'il puisse estre."
[687] See the London Gazettes during several weeks; L'Hermitage, March 24/April 3 April 14/24. 1696; Postman, April 9 25 30
[688] Journals of the Commons and Lords; L'Hermitage, April 7/17 10/20 1696.
[689] See the Freeholder's Plea against Stockjobbing Elections of Parliament Men, and the Considerations upon Corrupt Elections of Members to serve in Parliament. Both these pamphlets were published in 1701.
[690] The history of this bill will be found in the Journals of the Commons, and in a very interesting despatch of L'Hermitage, April 14/24 1696.
[691] The Act is 7 & 8 Will. 3. c. 31. Its history maybe traced in the Journals.
[692] London Gazette, May 4. 1696
[693] Ibid. March 12. 16. 1696; Monthly Mercury for March, 1696.
[694] The Act provided that the clipped money must be brought in before the fourth of May. As the third was a Sunday, the second was practically the last day.
[695] L'Hermitage, May 5/15 1696; London Newsletter, May 4., May 6. In the Newsletter the fourth of May is mentioned as "the day so much taken notice of for the universal concern people had in it."
[696] London Newsletter, May 21. 1696; Old Postmaster, June 25.; L'Hermitage, May 19/29.
[697] Haynes's Brief Memoirs, Lansdowne MSS. 801.
[698] See the petition from Birmingham in the Commons' Journals, Nov. 12. 1696; and the petition from Leicester, Nov. 21
[699] "Money exceeding scarce, so that none was paid or received; but all was on trust."--Evelyn, May 13. And again, on June 11.: "Want of current money to carry on the smallest concerns, even for daily provisions in the markets."
[700] L'Hermitage, May 22/June 1; See a Letter of Dryden to Tonson, which Malone, with great probability, supposes to have been written at this time.
[701] L'Hermitage to the States General May 8/18.; Paris Gazette, June 2/12.; Trial and Condemnation of the Land Bank at Exeter Change for murdering the Bank of England at Grocers' Hall, 1696. The Will and the Epitaph will be found in the Trial.
[702] L'Hermitage, June 12/22. 1696.
[703] On this subject see the Short History of the Last Parliament, 1699; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; the newspapers of 1696 passim, and the letters of L'Hermitage passim. See also the petition of the Clothiers of Gloucester in the Commons' Journal, Nov. 27. 1696. Oldmixon, who had been himself a sufferer, writes on this subject with even more than his usual acrimony.
[704] See L'Hermitage, June 12/22, June 23/July, 3 June 30/July 10, Aug 1/11 Aug 28/Sept 7 1696. The Postman of August 15. mentions the great benefit derived from the Exchequer Bills. The Pegasus of Aug. 24. says: "The Exchequer Bills do more and more obtain with the public; and 'tis no wonder." The Pegasus of Aug. 28. says: "They pass as money from hand to hand; 'tis observed that such as cry them down are ill affected to the government." "They are found by experience," says the Postman of the seventh of May following, "to be of extraordinary use to the merchants and traders of the City of London, and all other parts of the kingdom." I will give one specimen of the unmetrical and almost unintelligible doggrel which the Jacobite poets published on this subject:--
"Pray, Sir, did you hear of the late proclamation, Of sending paper for payment quite thro' the nation? Yes, Sir, I have: they're your Montague's notes, Tinctured and coloured by your Parliament votes. But 'tis plain on the people to be but a toast, They come by the carrier and go by the post."
[705] Commons' Journals, Nov. 25. 1696.
[706] L'Hermitage, June 2/12. 1696; Commons' Journals, Nov. 25.; Post-man, May 5., June 4., July 2.
[707] L'Hermitage, July.3/13 10/20 1696; Commons' Journals, Nov. 25.; Paris Gazette, June 30., Aug. 25.; Old Postmaster, July 9.
[708] William to Heinsius, July 30. 1696; William to Shrewsbury, July 23. 30. 31.
[709] Shrewsbury to William, July 28. 31., Aug. 4. 1696; L'Hermitage, Aug. 1/11
[710] Shrewsbury to William, Aug 7. 1696; L'Hermitage, Aug 14/24.; London Gazette, Aug. 13.
[711] L'Hermitage, Aug.18/28. 1696. Among the records of the Bank is a resolution of the Directors prescribing the very words which Sir John Houblon was to use. William's sense of the service done by the Bank on this occasion is expressed in his letter to Shrewsbury, of Aug. 24/Sept 3. One of the Directors, in a letter concerning the Bank, printed in 1697, says: "The Directors could not have answered it to their members, had it been for any less occasion than the preservation of the kingdom."
[712] Haynes's Brief Memoires; Lansdowne MSS. 801. Montague's friendly letter to Newton, announcing the appointment, has been repeatedly printed. It bears date March 19. 1695/6.
[713] I have very great pleasure in quoting the words of Haynes, an able, experienced and practical man, who had been in the habit of transacting business with Newton. They have never I believe, been printed. "Mr. Isaac Newton, public Professor of the Mathematicks in Cambridge, the greatest philosopher, and one of the best men of this age, was, by a great and wise statesman, recommended to the favour of the late King for Warden of the King's Mint and Exchanges, for which he was peculiarly qualified, because of his extraordinary skill in numbers, and his great integrity, by the first of which he could judge correctly of the Mint accounts and transactions as soon as he entered upon his office; and by the latter--I mean his integrity--he set a standard to the conduct and behaviour of every officer and clerk in the Mint. Well had it been for the publick, had he acted a few years sooner in that situation." It is interesting to compare this testimony, borne by a man who thoroughly understood the business of the Mint, with the childish talk of Pope. "Sir Isaac Newton," said Pope, "though so deep in algebra and fluxions, could not readily make up a common account; and, whilst he was Master of the Mint, used to get somebody to make up the accounts for him." Some of the statesmen with whom Pope lived might have told him that it is not always from ignorance of arithmetic that persons at the head of great departments leave to clerks the business of casting up pounds, shillings and pence.
[714] "I do not love, he wrote to Flamsteed, "to be printed on every occasion, much less to be dunned and teased by foreigners about mathematical things, or to be thought by our own people to be trifling away my time about them, when I am about the King's business."
[715] Hopton Haynes's Brief Memoires; Lansdowne MSS. 801.; the Old Postmaster, July 4. 1696; the Postman May 30., July 4 , September 12. 19., October 8,; L'Hermitage's despatches of this summer and autumn, passim.
[716] Paris Gazette, Aug. 11. 1696.
[717] On the 7th of August L'Hermitage remarked for the first time that money seemed to be more abundant.
[718] Compare Edmund Bohn's Letter to Carey of the 31st of July 1696 with the Paris Gazette of the same date. Bohn's description of the state of Norfolk is coloured, no doubt, by his constitutionally gloomy temper, and by the feeling with which he, not unnaturally, regarded the House of Commons. His statistics are not to be trusted; and his predictions were signally falsified. But he may be believed as to plain facts which happened in his immediate neighbourhood.
[719] As to Grascombe's character, and the opinion entertained of him by the most estimable Jacobites, see the Life of Kettlewell, part iii., section 55. Lee the compiler of the Life of Kettlewell mentions with just censure some of Grascombe's writings, but makes no allusion to the worst of them, the Account of the Proceedings in the House of Commons in relation to the Recoining of the Clipped Money, and falling the price of Guineas. That Grascombe was the author, was proved before a Committee of the House of Commons. See the Journals, Nov. 3o. 1696.
[720] L'Hermitage, June 12/22., July 7/17. 1696.
[721] See the Answer to Grascombe, entitled Reflections on a Scandalous Libel.
[722] Paris Gazette, Sept. 15. 1696,
[723] L'Hermitage, Oct. 2/12 1696.
[724] L'Hermitage, July 20/30., Oct. 2/12 9/10 1696.
[725] The Monthly Mercuries; Correspondence between Shrewsbury and Galway; William to Heinsius, July 23. 30. 1696; Memoir of the Marquess of Leganes.
[726] William to Heinsius, Aug 27/Sept 6, Nov 15/25 Nov. 17/27 1696; Prior to Lexington, Nov. 17/27; Villiers to Shrewsbury, Nov. 13/23
[727] My account of the attempt to corrupt Porter is taken from his examination before the House of Commons on Nov. 16. 1696, and from the following sources: Burnet, ii. 183.; L'Hermitage to the States General, May 8/18. 12/22 1696; the Postboy, May 9.; the Postman, May 9.; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; London Gazette, Oct. 19. 1696.
[728] London Gazette; Narcissus Luttrell; L'Hermitage, June 12/22; Postman, June 11.
[729] Life of William III. 1703; Vernon's evidence given in his place in the House of Commons, Nov. 16. 1696.
[730] William to Shrewsbury from Loo, Sept. 10. 1696.
[731] Shrewsbury to William, Sept. 18. 1696.
[732] William to Shrewsbury, Sept. 25. 1696.
[733] London Gazette, Oct. 8. 1696; Vernon to Shrewsbury, October 8. Shrewsbury to Portland, Oct. 11.
[734] Vernon to Shrewsbury, Oct. 13. 1696; Somers to Shrewsbury, Oct. 15.
[735] William to Shrewsbury, Oct. 9. 1696.
[736] Shrewsbury to William, Oct. 11. 1696.
[737] Somers to Shrewsbury, Oct. 19. 1696.
[738] William to Shrewsbury, Oct. 20. 1696.
[739] Vernon to Shrewsbury, Oct. 13. 15.; Portland to Shrewsbury, Oct, 20, 1696.
[740] L'Hermitage, July 10/20 1696.
[741] Lansdowne MS. 801.
[742] I take my account of these proceedings from the Commons' Journals, from the despatches of Van Cleverskirke and L'Hermitage to the States General, and from Vernon's letter to Shrewsbury of the 27th of October 1696. "I don't know," says Vernon "that the House of Commons ever acted with greater concert than they do at present."
[743] Vernon to Shrewsbury, Oct. 29. 1696; L'Hermitage, Oct 30/Nov 9 L'Hermitage calls Howe Jaques Haut. No doubt the Frenchman had always heard Howe spoken of as Jack.
[744] Postman, October 24. 1696; L'Hermitage, Oct 23/Nov 2. L'Hermitage says: "On commence deja a ressentir des effets avantageux des promptes et favorables resolutions que la Chambre des Communes prit Mardy. Le discomte des billets de banque, qui estoit le jour auparavant a 18, est revenu a douze, et les actions ont aussy augmente, aussy bien que les taillis."
[745] William to Heinsius, Nov. 13/23 1696.
[746] Actes et Memoires des Negociations de la Paix de Ryswick, 1707; Villiers to Shrewsbury Dec. 1.11. 4/14. 1696; Letter of Heinsius quoted by M. Sirtema de Grovestins. Of this letter I have not a copy.
[747] Vernon to Shrewsbury, Dec. 8. 1696.
[748] Wharton to Shrewsbury, Oct. 27. 1696.
[749] Somers to Shrewsbury, Oct. 27. 31. 1696; Vernon to Shrewsbury, Oct. 31.; Wharton to Shrewsbury, Nov. 10. "I am apt to think," says Wharton, "there never was more management than in bringing that about."
[750] See for example a poem on the last Treasury day at Kensington, March 1696/7.
[751] Somers to Shrewsbury, Oct 31. 1696; Wharton to Shrewsbury, of the same date.
[752] Somers to Shrewsbury, Nov. 3. 1696. The King's unwillingness to see Fenwick is mentioned in Somers's letter of the 15th of October.
[753] Vernon to Shrewsbury, Nov. 3. 1696.
[754] The circumstances of Goodman's flight were ascertained three years later by the Earl of Manchester, when Ambassador at Paris, and by him communicated to Jersey in a letter dated Sept 25/Oct 5 1699.
[755] London Gazette Nov. 9. 1696; Vernon to Shrewsbury, Nov. 3.; Van Cleverskirke and L'Hermitage of the same date.
[756] The account of the events of this day I have taken from the Commons' Journals; the valuable work entitled Proceedings in Parliament against Sir John Fenwick, Bart. upon a Bill of Attainder for High Treason, 1696; Vernon's Letter to Shrewsbury, November 6. 1696, and Somers's Letter to Shrewsbury, November 7. From both these letters it is plain that the Whig leaders had much difficulty in obtaining the absolution of Godolphin.
[757] Commons' Journals, Nov. 9. 1696 - Vernon to Shrewsbury, Nov. 10. The editor of the State Trials is mistaken in supposing that the quotation from Caesar's speech was made in the debate of the 13th.
[758] Commons' Journals, Nov. 13. 16, 17.; Proceedings against Sir John Fenwick.
[759] A Letter to a Friend in Vindication of the Proceedings against Sir John Fenwick, 1697.
[760] This incident is mentioned by L'Hermitage.
[761] L'Hermitage tells us that such things took place in these debates.
[762] See the Lords' Journals, Nov. 14., Nov. 30., Dec. 1. 1696.
[763] Wharton to Shrewsbury, Dec. 1. 1696; L'Hermitage, of same date.
[764] L'Hermitage, Dec. 4/14. 1696; Wharton to Shrewsbury, Dec. 1.
[765] Lords' Journals Dec. 8. 1696; L'Hermitage, of the same date.
[766] L'Hermitage, Dec. 15/25 18/28 1696.
[767] Ibid. Dec. 18/28 1696.
[768] Lords' Journals, Dec. 15. 1696; L'Hermitage, Dec.18/28; Vernon to Shrewsbury, Dec. 15. About the numbers there is a slight difference between Vernon and L'Hermitage. I have followed Vernon.
[769] Lords' Journals, Dec. 18. 1696; Vernon to Shrewsbury, Dec. 19.; L'Hermitage, Dec 22/Jan 1. I take the numbers from Vernon.
[770] Lords' Journals, Dec. 25 1696; L'Hermitage, Dec 26/Jan 4. In the Vernon Correspondence there is a letter from Vernon to Shrewsbury giving an account of the transactions of this day; but it is erroneously dated Dec. 2., and is placed according to that date. This is not the only blunder of the kind. A letter from Vernon to Shrewsbury, evidently written on the 7th of November 1696, is dated and placed as a letter of the 7th of January 1697. A letter of June 14. 1700 is dated and placed as a letter of June 15. 1698. The Vernon Correspondence is of great value; but it is so ill edited that it cannot be safely used without much caution, and constant reference to other authorities.
[771] Lords' Journals, Dec. 23. 1696; Vernon to Shrewsbury, Dec. 24; L'Hermitage, Dec 25/Jan 4.
[772] Vernon to Shrewsbury, Dec, 24 1696.
[773] Dohna, who knew Monmouth well, describes him thus: "Il avoit de l'esprit infiniment, et meme du plus agreable; mais il y avoir un peu trop de haut et de bas dans son fait. Il ne savoit ce que c'etoit que de menager les gens; et il turlupinoit a l'outrance ceux qui ne lui plaisoient pas."
[774] L'Hermitage, Jan. 12/22 1697.
[775] Lords' Journals, Jan. 9. 1696/7; Vernon to Shrewsbury, of the same date; L'Hermitage, Jan. 12/22.
[776] Lords' Journals, Jan. 15. 1691; Vernon to Shrewsbury, of the same date; L'Hermitage, of the same date.
[777] Postman, Dec. 29. 31. 1696.
[778] L'Hermitage, Jan. 12/22. 1697.
[779] Van Cleverskirke, Jan. 12/22. 1697; L'Hermitage, Jan. 15/25.
[780] L'Hermitage, Jan. 15/25. 1697.
[781] Lords' Journals, Jan. 22. 26. 1696/7; Vernon to Shrewsbury, Jan. 26.
[782] Commons' Journals, Jan. 27. 169. The entry in the journals, which might easily escape notice, is explained by a letter of L'Hermitage, written Jan 29/Feb 8
[783] L'Hermitage, Jan 29/Feb 8; 1697; London Gazette, Feb. 1.; Paris Gazette; Vernon to Shrewsbury; Jan. 28.; Burnet, ii. 193.
[784] Commons' Journals, December 19. 1696; Vernon to Shrewsbury, Nov. 28. 1696.
[785] Lords' Journals, Jan. 23. 1696/7; Vernon to Shrewsbury, Jan. 23.; L'Hermitage, Jan 26/Feb 5.
[786] Commons' Journals, Jan. 26. 1696/7; Vernon to Shrewsbury and Van Cleverskirke to the States General of the same date. It is curious that the King and the Lords should have made so strenuous a fight against the Commons in defence of one of the five points of the Peoples Charter.
[787] Commons' Journals, April1. 3. 1697; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary; L'Hermitage, April 2/12 As L'Hermitage says, "La plupart des membres, lorsqu'ils sont a la campagne, estant bien aises d'estre informez par plus d'un endroit de ce qui se passe, et s'imaginant que la Gazette qui se fait sous la direction d'un des Secretaires d'Etat, ne contiendroit pas autant de choses que fait celle-cy, ne sont pas fichez que d'autres les instruisent." The numbers on the division I take from L'Hermitage. They are not to be found in the Journals. But the Journals were not then so accurately kept as at present.
[788] Narcissus Luttrell's Diary, June 1691, May 1693.
[789] Commons' Journals, Dec 30. 1696; Postman, July 4. 1696.
[790] Postman April 22. 1696; Narcissus Luttrell's Diary.
[791] London Gazette, April 26. 29. 1697,
[792] London Gazette, April 29. 1697; L'Hermitage, April 23/May 3
[793] London Gazette, April 26. 29 1697 L'Hermitage, April 23/May 3
[794] What the opinion of the public was we learn from a letter written by L'Hermitage immediately after Godolphin's resignation, Nov 3/13. 1696, "Le public tourne plus la veue sur le Sieur Montegu, qui a la seconde charge de la Tresorerie que sur aucun autre." The strange silence of the London Gazette is explained by a letter of Vernon to Shrewsbury, dated May 1. 1697.
[795] London Gazette, April 22. 26: 1697.
[796] Postman, Jan. 26; Mar. 7. 11. 1696/7; April 8. 1697.
[797] Ibid. Oct. 29. 1696.
[798] Howell's State Trials; Postman, Jan. 9/19 1696/7. Some idle and dishonest objections which have been made to this part of my narrative have been triumphantly refuted in a little tract entitled "Thomas Aikenhead", by Mr. John Gordon.
[799] See the Protocol of February 10 1697, in the Actes et Memoires des Negociations de la Paix de Ryswick, 1707.
[800] William to Heinsius, Dec. 11/21 1696. There are similar expressions in other letters written by the King about the same time.
[801] See the papers drawn up at Vienna, and dated Sept. 16. 1696, and March 14 1697. See also the protocol drawn up at the Hague, March 14. 1697. These documents will be found in the Actes et Memoires des Negociations de la Paix de Ryswick, 1707.
[802] Characters of all the three French ministers are given by Saint Simon.
[803] Actes et Memoires des Negociations de la Paix de Ryswick.
[804] An engraving and ground plan of the mansion will be found in the Actes et Memoires.
[805] Whoever wishes to be fully informed as to the idle controversies and mummeries in which the Congress wasted its time, may consult the Actes et Memoires.
[806] Saint Simon was certainly as good a judge of men as any of those English grumblers who called Portland a dunce and a boor; Saint Simon too had every opportunity of forming a correct judgment; for he saw Portland in a situation full of difficulties; and Saint Simon says, in one place, "Benting, discret, secret, poli aux autres, fidele a son maitre, adroit en affaires, le servit tres utilement;" in another, "Portland parut avec un eclat personnel, une politesse, un air de monde et de cour, une galanterie et des graces qui surprirent; avec cela, beaucoup de dignite, meme de hauteur, mais avec discernement et un jugement prompt sans rien de hasarde." Boufflers too extols Portland's good breeding and tact. Boufflers to Lewis, July 9. 1697. This letter is in the archives of the French Foreign Office. A translation will be found in the valuable collection published by M. Grimblot.
[807] Boufflers to Lewis, June 21/July 1 1697; Lewis to Boufflers, June 22/July 2; Boufflers to Lewis, June 25/July 5
[808] Boufflers to Lewis June 28/July 8, June 29/July 9 1697
[809] My account of this negotiation I have taken chiefly from the despatches in the French Foreign Office. Translations of those despatches have been published by M. Grimblot. See also Burnet, ii. 200, 201.
It has been frequently asserted that William promised to pay Mary of Modena fifty thousand pounds a year. Whoever takes the trouble to read the Protocol of Sept. 10/20 1697, among the Acts of the Peace of Ryswick, will see that my account is correct. Prior evidently understood the protocol as I understand it. For he says, in a letter to Lexington of Sept. 17. 1697, "No. 2. is the thing to which the King consents as to Queen Marie's settlements. It is fairly giving her what the law allows her. The mediator is to dictate this paper to the French, and enter it into his protocol; and so I think we shall come off a bon marche upon that article."
It was rumoured at the time (see Boyer's History of King William III. 1703) that Portland and Boufflers had agreed on a secret article by which it was stipulated that, after the death of William, the Prince of Wales should succeed to the English throne. This fable has often been repeated, but was never believed by men of sense, and can hardly, since the publication of the letters which passed between Lewis and Boufflers, find credit even with the weakest. Dalrymple and other writers imagined that they had found in the Life of James (ii. 574, 575.) proof that the story of the secret article was true. The passage on which they relied was certainly not written by James, nor under his direction; and the authority of those portions of the Life which were not written by him, or under his direction, is but small. Moreover, when we examine this passage, we shall find that it not only does not bear out the story of the secret article, but directly contradicts that story. The compiler of the Life tells us that, after James had declared that he never would consent to purchase the English throne for his posterity by surrendering his own rights, nothing more was said on the subject. Now it is quite certain that James in his Memorial published in March 1697, a Memorial which will be found both in the Life (ii. 566,) and in the Acts of the Peace of Ryswick, declared to all Europe that he never would stoop to so low and degenerate an action as to permit the Prince of Orange to reign on condition that the Prince of Wales should succeed. It follows, therefore, that nothing can have been said on this subject after March 1697. Nothing therefore, can have been said on this subject in the conferences between Boufflers and Portland, which did not begin till late in June.
Was there then absolutely no foundation for the story? I believe that there was a foundation; and I have already related the facts on which this superstructure of fiction has been reared. It is quite certain that Lewis, in 1693, intimated to the allies through the government of Sweden, his hope that some expedient might be devised which would reconcile the Princes who laid claim to the English crown. The expedient at which be hinted was, no doubt, that the Prince of Wales should succeed William and Mary. It is possible that, as the compiler of the Life of James says, William may have "show'd no great aversness" to this arrangement. He had no reason, public or private, for preferring his sister in law to his brother in law, if his brother in law were bred a Protestant. But William could do nothing without the concurrence of the Parliament; and it is in the highest degree improbable that either he or the Parliament would ever have consented to make the settlement of the English crown a matter of stipulation with France. What he would or would not have done, however, we cannot with certainty pronounce. For James proved impracticable. Lewis consequently gave up all thoughts of effecting a compromise and promised, as we have seen, to recognise William as King of England "without any difficulty, restriction, condition, or reserve." It seems certain that, after this promise, which was made in December 1696, the Prince of Wales was not again mentioned in the negotiations.
[810] Prior MS.; Williamson to Lexington, July 20/30. 1697; Williamson to Shrewsbury, July 23/Aug 2
[811] The note of the French ministers, dated July 10/20 1697, will be found in the Actes et Memoires.
[812] Monthly Mercuries for August and September, 1697.
[813] Life of James, ii: 565.
[814] Actes et Memoires des Negociations de la Paix de Ryswick; Life of James, ii. 566.
[815] James's Protest will be found in his Life, ii. 572.
[816] Actes et Memoires des Negociations de la Paix de Ryswick; Williamson to Lexington, Sept 14/24 1697; Prior MS.
[817] Prior MS.
[818] L'Hermitage, July 20/30; July 27/Aug 6, Aug 24/Sept 3, Aug 27/Sept 6 Aug 31/Sept 10 1697 Postman, Aug. 31.
[819] Van Cleverskirke to the States General, Sept. 14/24 1697; L'Hermitage, Sept. 14/24; Postscript to the Postman, of the same date; Postman and Postboy of Sept. 19/29 Postman of Sept. 18/28.
[820] L'Hermitage, Sept 17/27, Sept 25/Oct 4 1697 Oct 19/29; Postman, Nov. 20.
[821] L'Hermitage, Sept 21/Oct 1 Nov 2/12 I697; Paris Gazette, Nov. 20/30; Postboy, Nov. 2. At this time appeared a pasquinade entitled, A Satyr upon the French King, written after the Peace was concluded at Reswick, anno 1697, by a Non-Swearing Parson, and said to be drop'd out of his Pocket at Sam's Coffee House. I quote a few of the most decent couplets.
"Lord! with what monstrous lies and senseless shams Have we been cullied all along at Sam's! Who could have e'er believed, unless in spite Lewis le Grand would turn rank Williamite? Thou that hast look'd so fierce and talk'd so big, In thine old age to dwindle to a Whig! Of Kings distress'd thou art a fine securer. Thou mak'st me swear, that am a known nonjuror. Were Job alive, and banter'd by such shufflers, He'd outrail Oates, and curse both thee and Boufflers For thee I've lost, if I can rightly scan 'em, Two livings, worth full eightscore pounds per annum, Bonae et legalis Angliae Monetae. But now I'm clearly routed by the treaty."
[822] London Gazettes; Postboy of Nov. 18 1697; L'Hermitage, Nov. 5/15.
[823] London Gazette, Nov. 18. 22 1697; Van Cleverskirke Nov. 16/26, 19/29.; L'Hermitage, Nov. 16/26; Postboy and Postman, Nov. 18. William to Heinsius, Nov. 16/26
[824] Evelyn's Diary, Dec, 2. 1697. The sermon is extant; and I must acknowledge that it deserves Evelyn's censure.
[825] London Gazette, Dec. 6. 1697; Postman, Dec. 4.; Van Cleverskirke, Dec. 2/12; L'Hermitage, Nov. 19/29.