No More Learning

But it soon became clear that they had served their country only
too well for their own interest. In 1695 adversity and danger had made
men amenable to that control to which it is the glory of free nations to
submit themselves, the control of superior minds. In 1698 prosperity
and security had made men querulous, fastidious and unmanageable.
The government was assailed with equal violence from widely different
quarters. The opposition, made up of Tories many of whom carried Toryism
to the length of Jacobitism, and of discontented Whigs some of whom
carried Whiggism to the length of republicanism, called itself the
Country party, a name which had been popular before the words Whig and
Tory were known in England. The majority of the late House of Commons,
a majority which had saved the State, was nicknamed the Court party.
The Tory gentry, who were powerful in all the counties, had special
grievances. The whole patronage of the government, they said, was in
Whig hands. The old landed interest, the old Cavalier interest, had now
no share in the favours of the Crown. Every public office, every bench
of justice, every commission of Lieutenancy, was filled with Roundheads.
The Tory rectors and vicars were not less exasperated. They accused the
men in power of systematically protecting and preferring Presbyterians,
Latitudinarians, Arians, Socinians, Deists, Atheists. An orthodox
divine, a divine who held high the dignity of the priesthood and the
mystical virtue of the sacraments, who thought schism as great a sin as
theft and venerated the Icon as much as the Gospel, had no more chance
of a bishopric or a deanery than a Papist recusant. Such complaints
as these were not likely to call forth the sympathy of the Whig
malecontents. But there were three war cries in which all the enemies of
the government, from Trenchard to Seymour, could join: No standing
army; No grants of Crown property; and No Dutchmen. Multitudes of honest
freeholders and freemen were weak enough to believe that, unless the
land force, which had already been reduced below what the public safety
required, were altogether disbanded, the nation would be enslaved, and
that, if the estates which the King had given away were resumed, all
direct taxes might be abolished. The animosity to the Dutch mingled
itself both with the animosity to standing armies and with the animosity
to Crown grants. For a brigade of Dutch troops was part of the military
establishment which was still kept up; and it was to Dutch favourites
that William had been most liberal of the royal domains.

The elections, however, began auspiciously for the government. The first
great contest was in Westminster. It must be remembered that Westminster
was then by far the greatest city in the island, except only the
neighbouring city of London, and contained more than three times as
large a population as Bristol or Norwich, which came next in size. The
right of voting at Westminster was in the householders paying scot and
lot; and the householders paying scot and lot were many thousands. It
is also to be observed that their political education was much further
advanced than that of the great majority of the electors of the kingdom.
A burgess in a country town, or a forty shilling freeholder in an
agricultural district, then knew little about public affairs except
what he could learn from reading the Postman at the alehouse, and from
hearing, on the 30th of January, the 29th of May or the 5th of November,
a sermon in which questions of state were discussed with more zeal than
sense. But the citizen of Westminster passed his days in the vicinity of
the palace, of the public offices, of the houses of parliament, of the
courts of law. He was familiar with the faces and voices of ministers,
senators and judges. In anxious times he walked in the great Hall to
pick up news. When there was an important trial, he looked into the
Court of King's Bench, and heard Cowper and Harcourt contending, and
Holt moderating between them. When there was an interesting debate, in
the House of Commons, he could at least squeeze himself into the lobby
or the Court of Requests, and hear who had spoken, and how and what were
the numbers on the division. He lived in a region of coffeehouses, of
booksellers' shops, of clubs, of pamphlets, of newspapers, of theatres
where poignant allusions to the most exciting questions of the day
perpetually called forth applause and hisses, of pulpits where the
doctrines of the High Churchman, of the Low Churchman, of the Nonjuror,
of the Nonconformist, were explained and defended every Sunday by the
most eloquent and learned divines of every persuasion. At that time,
therefore, the metropolitan electors were, as a class, decidedly
superior in intelligence and knowledge to the provincial electors.

Montague and Secretary Vernon were the ministerial candidates for
Westminster. They were opposed by Sir Henry Colt, a dull, surly,
stubborn professor of patriotism, who tired everybody to death with
his endless railing at standing armies and placemen. The electors were
summoned to meet on an open space just out of the streets. The first
Lord of the Treasury and the Secretary of State appeared at the head of
three thousand horsemen. Colt's followers were almost all on foot.
He was a favourite with the keepers of pot-houses, and had enlisted a
strong body of porters and chairmen. The two parties, after exchanging
a good deal of abuse, came to blows. The adherents of the ministers were
victorious, put the adverse mob to the rout, and cudgelled Colt himself
into a muddy ditch. The poll was taken in Westminster Hall. From the
first there was no doubt of the result. But Colt tried to prolong the
contest by bringing up a voter an hour. When it became clear that this
artifice was employed for the purpose of causing delay, the returning
officer took on himself the responsibility of closing the books, and of
declaring Montague and Vernon duly elected.

At Guildhall the junto was less fortunate. Three ministerial Aldermen
were returned. But the fourth member, Sir John Fleet, was not only
a Tory, but was Governor of the old East India Company, and had
distinguished himself by the pertinacity with which he had opposed the
financial and commercial policy of the first Lord of the Treasury. While
Montague suffered the mortification of finding that his empire over the
city was less absolute than he had imagined, Wharton, notwithstanding
his acknowledged preeminence in the art of electioneering, underwent a
succession of defeats in boroughs and counties for which he had expected
to name the members. He failed at Brackley, at Malmesbury and at
Cockermouth. He was unable to maintain possession even of his own
strongholds, Wycombe and Aylesbury. He was beaten in Oxfordshire. The
freeholders of Buckinghamshire, who had been true to him during many
years, and who in 1685, when the Whig party was in the lowest state of
depression, had, in spite of fraud and tyranny, not only placed him at
the head of the poll but put their second votes at his disposal, now
rejected one of his candidates, and could hardly be induced to return
the other, his own brother, by a very small majority.

The elections for Exeter appear to have been in that age observed by
the nation with peculiar interest. For Exeter was not only one of
the largest and most thriving cities in the Kingdom, but was also the
capital of the West of England, and was much frequented by the gentry of
several counties. The franchise was popular. Party spirit ran high; and
the contests were among the fiercest and the longest of which there
is any record in our history. Seymour had represented Exeter in the
Parliament of James, and in the two first Parliaments of William.
In 1695, after a struggle of several weeks which had attracted much
attention not only here but on the Continent, he had been defeated by
two Whig candidates, and forced to take refuge in a small borough.
But times had changed. He was now returned in his absence by a large
majority; and with him was joined another Tory less able and, if
possible, more unprincipled than himself, Sir Bartholomew Shower. Shower
had been notorious as one of the hangmen of James. When that cruel King
was bent on punishing with death soldiers who deserted from the army
which he kept up in defiance of the constitution, he found that he could
expect no assistance from Holt, who was the Recorder of London. Holt was
accordingly removed. Shower was made Recorder, and showed his gratitude
for his promotion by sending to Tyburn men who, as every barrister in
the Inns of Court knew, were guilty of no offence at all. He richly
deserved to have been excepted from the Act of Grace, and left to the
vengeance of the laws which he had so foully perverted. The return which
he made for the clemency which spared him was most characteristic. He
missed no opportunity of thwarting and damaging the Government which had
saved him from the gallows. Having shed innocent blood for the purpose
of enabling James to keep up thirty thousand troops without the consent
of Parliament, he now pretended to think it monstrous that William
should keep up ten thousand with the consent of Parliament. That a great
constituent body should be so forgetful of the past and so much out of
humour with the present as to take this base and hardhearted pettifogger
for a patriot was an omen which might well justify the most gloomy
prognostications.

When the returns were complete, it appeared that the new House of
Commons contained an unusual number of men about whom little was known,
and on whose support neither the government nor the opposition could
with any confidence reckon. The ranks of the staunch ministerial Whigs
were certainly much thinned; but it did not appear that the Tory ranks
were much fuller than before. That section of the representative body
which was Whiggish without being ministerial had gamed a great accession
of strength, and seemed likely to have, during some time, the fate of
the country in its hands. It was plain that the next session would be
a trying one. Yet it was not impossible that the servants of the Crown
might, by prudent management, succeed in obtaining a working majority.
Towards the close of August the statesmen of the junto, disappointed and
anxious but not hopeless, dispersed in order to lay in a stock of health
and vigour for the next parliamentary campaign. There were races at
that season in the neighbourhood of Winchenden, Wharton's seat in
Buckinghamshire; and a large party assembled there. Orford, Montague and
Shrewsbury repaired to the muster. But Somers, whose chronic maladies,
aggravated by sedulous application to judicial and political business,
made it necessary for him to avoid crowds and luxurious banquets,
retired to Tunbridge Wells, and tried to repair his exhausted frame with
the water of the springs and the air of the heath. Just at this moment
despatches of the gravest importance arrived from Guelders at Whitehall.

The long negotiation touching the Spanish succession had at length been
brought to a conclusion. Tallard had joined William at Loo, and had
there met Heinsius and Portland. After much discussion, the price in
consideration of which the House of Bourbon would consent to waive all
claim to Spain and the Indies, and to support the pretensions of the
Electoral Prince of Bavaria, was definitively settled. The Dauphin was
to have the Province of Guipuscoa, Naples, Sicily and some small Italian
islands which were part of the Spanish monarchy. The Milanese was
allotted to the Archduke Charles. As the Electoral Prince was still a
child, it was agreed that his father, who was then governing the Spanish
Netherlands as Viceroy, should be Regent of Spain during the minority.
Such was the first Partition Treaty, a treaty which has been during five
generations confidently and noisily condemned, and for which scarcely
any writer has ventured to offer even a timid apology, but which it may
perhaps not be impossible to defend by grave and temperate argument.

It was said, when first the terms of the Partition Treaty were made
public, and has since been many times repeated, that the English and
Dutch Governments, in making this covenant with France, were guilty of
a violation of plighted faith. They had, it was affirmed, by a secret
article of a Treaty of Alliance concluded in 1689, bound themselves to
support the pretensions of the Emperor to the Spanish throne; and they
now, in direct defiance of that article, agreed to an arrangement by
which he was excluded from the Spanish throne. The truth is that the
secret article will not, whether construed according to the letter or
according to the spirit, bear the sense which has generally been put
upon it. The stipulations of that article were introduced by a preamble,
in which it was set forth that the Dauphin was preparing to assert by
arms his claim to the great heritage which his mother had renounced, and
that there was reason to believe that he also aspired to the dignity of
King of the Romans. For these reasons, England and the States General,
considering the evil consequences which must follow if he should succeed
in attaining either of his objects, promised to support with all their
power his Caesarean Majesty against the French and their adherents.
Surely we cannot reasonably interpret this engagement to mean that,
when the dangers mentioned in the preamble had ceased to exist, when the
eldest Archduke was King of the Romans, and when the Dauphin had, for
the sake of peace, withdrawn his claim to the Spanish Crown, England
and the United Provinces would be bound to go to war for the purpose of
supporting the cause of the Emperor, not against the French but against
his own grandson, against the only prince who could reign at Madrid
without exciting fear and jealousy throughout all Christendom.

While some persons accused William of breaking faith with the House
of Austria, others accused him of interfering unjustly in the internal
affairs of Spain. In the most ingenious and humorous political satire
extant in our language, Arbuthnot's History of John Bull, England and
Holland are typified by a clothier and a linendraper, who take upon
themselves to settle the estate of a bedridden old gentleman in their
neighbourhood. They meet at the corner of his park with paper and
pencils, a pole, a chain and a semicircle, measure his fields, calculate
the value of his mines, and then proceed to his house in order to take
an inventory of his plate and furniture. But this pleasantry, excellent
as pleasantry, hardly deserves serious refutation. No person who has
a right to give any opinion at all about politics can think that the
question, whether two of the greatest empires in the world should be
virtually united so as to form one irresistible mass, was a question
with which other states had nothing to do, a question about which
other states could not take counsel together without being guilty of
impertinence as gross as that of a busybody in private life who should
insist on being allowed to dictate the wills of other people. If the
whole Spanish monarchy should pass to the House of Bourbon, it was
highly probable that in a few years England would cease to be great and
free, and that Holland would be a mere province of France. Such a danger
England and Holland might lawfully have averted by war; and it would be
absurd to say that a danger which may be lawfully averted by war
cannot lawfully be averted by peaceable means. If nations are so deeply
interested in a question that they would be justified in resorting to
arms for the purpose of settling it, they must surely be sufficiently
interested in it to be justified in resorting to amicable arrangements
for the purpose of settling it. Yet, strange to say, a multitude of
writers who have warmly praised the English and Dutch governments for
waging a long and bloody war in order to prevent the question of the
Spanish succession from being settled in a manner prejudicial to them,
have severely blamed those governments for trying to attain the same end
without the shedding of a drop of blood, without the addition of a crown
to the taxation of any country in Christendom, and without a moment's
interruption of the trade of the world by land or by sea.

It has been said to have been unjust that three states should have
combined to divide a fourth state without its own consent; and, in
recent times, the partition of the Spanish monarchy which was meditated
in 1698 has been compared to the greatest political crime which stains
the history of modern Europe, the partition of Poland. But those who
hold such language cannot have well considered the nature of the Spanish
monarchy in the seventeenth century. That monarchy was not a body
pervaded by one principle of vitality and sensation. It was an
assemblage of distinct bodies, none of which had any strong sympathy
with the rest, and some of which had a positive antipathy for each
other. The partition planned at Loo was therefore the very opposite of
the partition of Poland. The partition of Poland was the partition of a
nation. It was such a partition as is effected by hacking a living man
limb from limb. The partition planned at Loo was the partition of an ill
governed empire which was not a nation. It was such a partition as
is effected by setting loose a drove of slaves who have been fastened
together with collars and handcuffs, and whose union has produced only
pain, inconvenience and mutual disgust. There is not the slightest
reason to believe that the Neapolitans would have preferred the Catholic
King to the Dauphin, or that the Lombards would have preferred the
Catholic King to the Archduke. How little the Guipuscoans would have
disliked separation from Spain and annexation to France we may judge
from the fact that, a few years later, the States of Guipuscoa actually
offered to transfer their allegiance to France on condition that their
peculiar franchises should be held sacred.

One wound the partition would undoubtedly have inflicted, a wound on the
Castilian pride. But surely the pride which a nation takes in exercising
over other nations a blighting and withering dominion, a dominion
without prudence or energy, without justice or mercy, is not a feeling
entitled to much respect. And even a Castilian who was not greatly
deficient in sagacity must have seen that an inheritance claimed by two
of the greatest potentates in Europe could hardly pass entire to one
claimant; that a partition was therefore all but inevitable; and
that the question was in truth merely between a partition effected by
friendly compromise and a partition effected by means of a long and
devastating war.

There seems, therefore, to be no ground at all for pronouncing the terms
of the Treaty of Loo unjust to the Emperor, to the Spanish monarchy
considered as a whole, or to any part of that monarchy. Whether those
terms were or were not too favourable to France is quite another
question. It has often been maintained that she would have gained more
by permanently annexing to herself Guipuscoa, Naples and Sicily than by
sending the Duke of Anjou or the Duke of Berry to reign at the Escurial.
On this point, however, if on any point, respect is due to the opinion
of William. That he thoroughly understood the politics of Europe is
as certain as that jealousy of the greatness of France was with him a
passion, a ruling passion, almost an infirmity. Before we blame him,
therefore, for making large concessions to the power which it was the
chief business of his life to keep within bounds, we shall do well to
consider whether those concessions may not, on close examination, be
found to be rather apparent than real. The truth is that they were so,
and were well known to be so both by William and by Lewis.

Naples and Sicily formed indeed a noble kingdom, fertile, populous,
blessed with a delicious climate, and excellently situated for trade.
Such a kingdom, had it been contiguous to Provence, would indeed have
been a most formidable addition to the French monarchy. But a glance at
the map ought to have been sufficient to undeceive those who imagined
that the great antagonist of the House of Bourbon could be so weak as to
lay the liberties of Europe at the feet of that house. A King of France
would, by acquiring territories in the South of Italy, have really bound
himself over to keep the peace; for, as soon as he was at war with his
neighbours, those territories were certain to be worse than useless to
him. They were hostages at the mercy of his enemies. It would be easy to
attack them. It would be hardly possible to defend them. A French army
sent to them by land would have to force its way through the passes of
the Alps, through Piedmont, through Tuscany, and through the Pontifical
States, in opposition probably to great German armies. A French fleet
would run great risk of being intercepted and destroyed by the squadrons
of England and Holland. Of all this Lewis was perfectly aware. He
repeatedly declared that he should consider the kingdom of the Two
Sicilies as a source, not of strength, but of weakness. He accepted it
at last with murmurs; he seems to have intended to make it over to one
of his younger grandsons; and he would beyond all doubt have gladly
given it in exchange for a thirtieth part of the same area in the
Netherlands. [15] But in the Netherlands England and Holland were
determined to allow him nothing. What he really obtained in Italy
was little more than a splendid provision for a cadet of his house.
Guipuscoa was then in truth the price in consideration of which France
consented that the Electoral Prince of Bavaria should be King of Spain
and the Indies. Guipuscoa, though a small, was doubtless a valuable
province, and was in a military point of view highly important. But
Guipuscoa was not in the Netherlands. Guipuscoa would not make Lewis a
more formidable neighbour to England or to the United Provinces. And,
if the Treaty should be broken off, if the vast Spanish empire should
be struggled for and torn in pieces by the rival races of Bourbon and
Habsburg, was it not possible, was it not probable, that France might
lay her iron grasp, not on Guipuscoa alone, but on Luxemburg and Namur,
on Hainault, Brabant and Antwerp, on Flanders East and West? Was it
certain that the united force of all her neighbours would be sufficient
to compel her to relinquish her prey? Was it not certain that the
contest would be long and terrible? And would not the English and
Dutch think themselves most fortunate if, after many bloody and costly
campaigns, the French King could be compelled to sign a treaty, the
same, word for word, with that which he was ready uncompelled to sign
now?

William, firmly relying on his own judgment, had not yet, in the whole
course of this momentous negotiation, asked the advice or employed the
agency of any English minister. But the treaty could not be formally
concluded without the instrumentality of one of the Secretaries of State
and of the Great Seal. Portland was directed to write to Vernon. The
King himself wrote to the Chancellor. Somers was authorised to consult
any of his colleagues whom he might think fit to be entrusted with
so high a secret; and he was requested to give his own opinion of the
proposed arrangement. If that opinion should be favourable, not a day
must be lost. The King of Spain might die at any moment, and could
hardly live till the winter. Full powers must be sent to Loo, sealed,
but with blanks left for the names of the plenipotentiaries. Strict
secresy must be observed; and care must be taken that the clerks whose
duty it was to draw up the necessary documents should not entertain any
suspicion of the importance of the work which they were performing.

The despatch from Loo found Somers at a distance from all his political
friends, and almost incapacitated by infirmities and by remedies from
attending to serious business, his delicate frame worn out by the
labours and vigils of many months, his head aching and giddy with the
first draughts from the chalybeate spring. He roused himself, however,
and promptly communicated by writing with Shrewsbury and Orford.
Montague and Vernon came down to Tunbridge Wells, and conferred fully
with him. The opinion of the leading Whig statesmen was communicated
to the King in a letter which was not many months later placed on the
records of Parliament. These statesmen entirely agreed with William
in wishing to see the question of the Spanish succession speedily and
peaceably settled. They apprehended that, if Charles should die leaving
that question unsettled, the immense power of the French King and
the geographical situation of his dominions would enable him to
take immediate possession of the most important parts of the great
inheritance. Whether he was likely to venture on so bold a course, and
whether, if he did venture on it, any continental government would have
the means and the spirit to withstand him, were questions as to which
the English ministers, with unfeigned deference, submitted their opinion
to that of their master, whose knowledge of the interests and tempers
of all the courts of Europe was unrivalled. But there was one important
point which must not be left out of consideration, and about which his
servants might perhaps be better informed than himself, the temper of
their own country. It was, the Chancellor wrote, their duty to tell His
Majesty that the recent elections had indicated the public feeling in a
manner which had not been expected, but which could not be mistaken. The
spirit which had borne the nation up through nine years of exertions and
sacrifices seemed to be dead. The people were sick of taxes; they hated
the thought of war. As it would, in such circumstances, be no easy
matter to form a coalition capable of resisting the pretensions of
France, it was most desirable that she should be induced to withdraw
those pretensions; and it was not to be expected that she would withdraw
them without securing for herself a large compensation. The principle of
the Treaty of Loo, therefore, the English Ministers cordially approved.
But whether the articles of that treaty were or were not too favourable
to the House of Bourbon, and whether the House of Bourbon was likely
faithfully to observe them, were questions about which Somers delicately
hinted that he and his colleagues felt some misgivings. They had their
fears that Lewis might be playing false. They had their fears also that,
possessed of Sicily, he would be master of the trade of the Levant; and
that, possessed of Guipuscoa, he would be able at any moment to push
an army into the heart of Castile. But they had been reassured by the
thought that their Sovereign thoroughly understood this department of
politics, that he had fully considered all these things, that he had
neglected no precaution, and that the concessions which he had made
to France were the smallest which could have averted the calamities
impending over Christendom. It was added that the service which His
Majesty had rendered to the House of Bavaria gave him a right to ask for
some return. Would it be too much to expect, from the gratitude of the
prince who was soon to be a great king, some relaxation of the rigorous
system which excluded the English trade from the Spanish colonies? Such
a relaxation would greatly endear His Majesty to his subjects.

With these suggestions the Chancellor sent off the powers which the King
wanted. They were drawn up by Vernon with his own hand, and sealed
in such a manner that no subordinate officer was let into the secret.
Blanks were left, as the King had directed, for the names of two
Commissioners. But Somers gently hinted that it would be proper to
fill those blanks with the names of persons who were English by
naturalisation, if not by birth, and who would therefore be responsible
to Parliament.

The King now had what he wanted from England. The peculiarity of the
Batavian polity threw some difficulties in his way; but every difficulty
gelded to his authority and to the dexterous management of Heinsius. And
in truth the treaty could not but be favourably regarded by the States
General; for it had been carefully framed with the especial object
of preventing France from obtaining any accession of territory, or
influence on the side of the Netherlands; and Dutchmen, who remembered
the terrible year when the camp of Lewis had been pitched between
Utrecht and Amsterdam, were delighted to find that he was not to add to
his dominions a single fortress in their neighbourhood, and were quite
willing to buy him off with whole provinces under the Pyrenees and
the Apennines. The sanction both of the federal and of the provincial
governments was given with ease and expedition; and in the evening of
the fourth of September 1698, the treaty was signed. As to the blanks in
the English powers, William had attended to his Chancellor's suggestion,
and had inserted the names of Sir Joseph Williamson, minister at the
Hague, a born Englishman, and of Portland, a naturalised Englishman. The
Grand Pensionary and seven other Commissioners signed on behalf of the
United Provinces. Tallard alone signed for France. He seems to have
been extravagantly elated by what seemed to be the happy issue of the
negotiation in which he had borne so great a part, and in his next
despatch to Lewis boasted of the new treaty as destined to be the most
famous that had been made during many centuries.

William too was well pleased; and he had reason to be so. Had the King
of Spain died, as all men expected, before the end of that year, it is
highly probable that France would have kept faith with England and the
United Provinces; and it is almost certain that, if France had kept
faith, the treaty would have been carried into effect without any
serious opposition in any quarter. The Emperor might have complained and
threatened; but he must have submitted; for what could he do? He had
no fleet; and it was therefore impossible for him even to attempt to
possess himself of Castile, of Arragon, of Sicily, of the Indies, in
opposition to the united navies of the three greatest maritime powers in
the world. In fact, the only part of the Spanish empire which he could
hope to seize and hold by force against the will of the confederates
of Loo was the Milanese; and the Milanese the confederates of Loo had
agreed to assign to his family. He would scarcely have been so mad as
to disturb the peace of the world when the only thing which he had any
chance of gaining by war was offered him without war. The Castilians
would doubtless have resented the dismemberment of the unwieldy body
of which they formed the head. But they would have perceived that by
resisting they were much more likely to lose the Indies than to preserve
Guipuscoa. As to Italy, they could no more make war there than in the
moon. Thus the crisis which had seemed likely to produce an European war
of ten years would have produced nothing worse than a few angry notes
and plaintive manifestoes.

Both the confederate Kings wished their compact to remain a secret while
their brother Charles lived; and it probably would have remained secret,
had it been confided only to the English and French Ministers. But
the institutions of the United Provinces were not well fitted for the
purpose of concealment. It had been necessary to trust so many deputies
and magistrates that rumours of what had been passing at Loo got abroad.
Quiros, the Spanish Ambassador at the Hague, followed the trail with
such skill and perseverance that he discovered, if not the whole truth,
yet enough to furnish materials for a despatch which produced much
irritation and alarm at Madrid. A council was summoned, and sate long in
deliberation. The grandees of the proudest of Courts could hardly fail
to perceive that their next sovereign, be he who he might, would find
it impossible to avoid sacrificing part of his defenceless and widely
scattered empire in order to preserve the rest; they could not bear to
think that a single fort, a single islet, in any of the four quarters of
the world was about to escape from the sullen domination of Castile.
To
this sentiment all the passions and prejudices of the haughty race were
subordinate. "We are ready," such was the phrase then in their mouths,
"to go to any body, to go to the Dauphin, to go to the Devil, so that we
all go together. " In the hope of averting the threatened dismemberment,
the Spanish ministers advised their master to adopt as his heir the
candidate whose pretensions it was understood that France, England and
Holland were inclined to support. The advice was taken; and it was soon
every where known that His Catholic Majesty had solemnly designated as
his successor his nephew Francis Joseph, Electoral Prince of Bavaria.
France protested against this arrangement, not, as far as can now be
judged, because she meant to violate the Treaty of Loo, but because it
would have been difficult for her, if she did not protest, to insist on
the full execution of that treaty. Had she silently acquiesced in the
nomination of the Electoral Prince, she would have appeared to admit
that the Dauphin's pretensions were unfounded; and, if she admitted the
Dauphin's pretensions to be unfounded, she could not, without flagrant
injustice, demand several provinces as the price in consideration
of which she would consent to waive those pretensions. Meanwhile the
confederates had secured the cooperation of a most important person, the
Elector of Bavaria, who was actually Governor of the Netherlands, and
was likely to be in a few months, at farthest, Regent of the whole
Spanish monarchy. He was perfectly sensible that the consent of France,
England and Holland to his son's elevation was worth purchasing at
almost any cost, and, with much alacrity, promised that, when the time
came, he would do all in his power to facilitate the execution of the
Treaty of Partition. He was indeed bound by the strongest ties to the
confederates of Loo. They had, by a secret article, added to the treaty,
agreed that, if the Electoral Prince should become King of Spain, and
then die without issue, his father should be his heir. The news that
young Francis Joseph had been declared heir to the throne of Spain was
welcome to all the potentates of Europe with the single exception of his
grandfather the Emperor. The vexation and indignation of Leopold were
extreme. But there could be no doubt that, graciously or ungraciously,
he would submit. It would have been madness in him to contend against
all Western Europe on land; and it was physically impossible for him to
wage war on the sea. William was therefore able to indulge, during some
weeks, the pleasing belief that he had by skill and firmness averted
from the civilised world a general war which had lately seemed to be
imminent, and that he had secured the great community of nations against
the undue predominance of one too powerful member.

But the pleasure and the pride with which he contemplated the success of
his foreign policy gave place to very different feelings as soon as he
again had to deal with our domestic factions. And, indeed, those who
most revere his memory must acknowledge that, in dealing with these
factions, he did not, at this time, show his wonted statesmanship. For
a wise man, he seems never to have been sufficiently aware how much
offence is given by discourtesy in small things. His ministers had
apprised him that the result of the elections had been unsatisfactory,
and that the temper of the new representatives of the people would
require much management. Unfortunately he did not lay this intimation
to heart. He had by proclamation fixed the opening of the Parliament for
the 29th of November. This was then considered as a very late day. For
the London season began together with Michaelmas Term; and, even during
the war, the King had scarcely ever failed to receive the compliments of
his faithful Lords and Commons on the fifth of November, the anniversary
both of his birth and of his memorable landing. The numerous members of
the House of Commons who were in town, having their time on their hands,
formed cabals, and heated themselves and each other by murmuring at his
partiality for the country of his birth. He had been off to Holland,
they said, at the earliest possible moment. He was now lingering in
Holland till the latest possible moment. This was not the worst.
The twenty-ninth of November came; but the King was not come. It was
necessary that the Lords Justices should prorogue the Parliament to the
sixth of December. The delay was imputed, and justly, to adverse winds.
But the malecontents asked, with some reason, whether His Majesty had
not known that there were often gales from the West in the German Ocean,
and whether, when he had made a solemn appointment with the Estates of
his Realm for a particular day, he ought not to have arranged things in
such a way that nothing short of a miracle could have prevented him from
keeping that appointment.

Thus the ill humour which a large proportion of the new legislators had
brought up from their country seats became more and more aced every day,
till they entered on their functions. One question was much agitated
during this unpleasant interval. Who was to be Speaker? The junto wished
to place Sir Thomas Littleton in the chair. He was one of their ablest,
most zealous and most steadfast friends; and had been, both in the
House of Commons and at the Board of Treasury, an invaluable second to
Montague. There was reason indeed to expect a strong opposition. That
Littleton was a Whig was a grave objection to him in the opinion of the
Tories. That he was a placeman, and that he was for a standing army,
were grave objections to him in the opinion of many who were not Tories.
But nobody else came forward. The health of the late Speaker Foley had
failed. Musgrave was talked of in coffeehouses; but the rumour that he
would be proposed soon died away. Seymour's name was in a few mouths;
but Seymour's day had gone by. He still possessed, indeed, those
advantages which had once made him the first of the country gentlemen
of England, illustrious descent, ample fortune, ready and weighty
eloquence, perfect familiarity with parliamentary business. But all
these things could not do so much to raise him as his moral character
did to drag him down. Haughtiness such as his, though it could never
have been liked, might, if it had been united with elevated sentiments
of virtue and honour, have been pardoned. But of all the forms of pride,
even the pride of upstart wealth not excepted, the most offensive is the
pride of ancestry when found in company with sordid and ignoble vices,
greediness, mendacity, knavery and impudence; and such was the pride of
Seymour. Many, even of those who were well pleased to see the ministers
galled by his keen and skilful rhetoric, remembered that he had sold
himself more than once, and suspected that he was impatient to sell
himself again. On the very eve of the opening of Parliament, a little
tract entitled "Considerations on the Choice of a Speaker" was widely
circulated, and seems to have produced a great sensation. The writer
cautioned the representatives of the people, at some length, against
Littleton; and then, in even stronger language, though more concisely,
against Seymour; but did not suggest any third person. The sixth of
December came, and found the Country party, as it called itself, still
unprovided with a candidate. The King, who had not been many hours in
London, took his seat in the House of Lords. The Commons were summoned
to the bar, and were directed to choose a Speaker. They returned to
their Chamber. Hartington proposed Littleton; and the proposition was
seconded by Spencer. No other person was put in nomination; but there
was a warm debate of two hours. Seymour, exasperated by finding that no
party was inclined to support his pretensions, spoke with extravagant
violence. He who could well remember the military despotism of Cromwell,
who had been an active politician in the days of the Cabal, and who
had seen his own beautiful county turned into a Golgotha by the Bloody
Circuit, declared that the liberties of the nation had never been in
greater danger than at that moment, and that their doom would be fixed
if a courtier should be called to the chair. The opposition insisted on
dividing. Hartington's motion was carried by two hundred and forty-two
votes to a hundred and thirty-five, Littleton himself, according to
the childish old usage which has descended to our times, voting in the
minority. Three days later, he was presented and approved.

The King then spoke from the throne. He declared his firm conviction
that the Houses were disposed to do whatever was necessary for the
safety, honour and happiness of the kingdom; and he asked them for
nothing more. When they came to consider the military and naval
establishments, they would remember that, unless England were secure
from attack, she could not continue to hold the high place which she
had won for herself among European powers; her trade would languish;
her credit would fail; and even her internal tranquillity would be in
danger. He also expressed a hope that some progress would be made in the
discharge of the debts contracted during the War. "I think," he said,
"an English Parliament can never make such a mistake as not to hold
sacred all Parliamentary engagements. "

The speech appeared to be well received; and during a short time William
flattered himself that the great fault, as he considered it, of the
preceding session would be repaired, that the army would be augmented,
and that he should be able, at the important conjuncture which was
approaching, to speak to foreign powers in tones of authority, and
especially to keep France steady to her engagements. The Whigs of the
junto, better acquainted with the temper of the country and of the new
House of Commons, pronounced it impossible to carry a vote for a land
force of more than ten thousand men. Ten thousand men would probably be
obtained if His Majesty would authorise his servants to ask in his name
for that number, and to declare that with a smaller number he could
not answer for the public safety. William, firmly convinced that twenty
thousand would be too few, refused to make or empower others to make
a proposition which seemed to him absurd and disgraceful. Thus, at a
moment at which it was peculiarly desirable that all who bore a part in
the executive administration should act cordially together, there was
serious dissension between him and his ablest councillors. For that
dissension neither he nor they can be severely blamed. They were
differently situated, and necessarily saw the same objects from
different points of view. He, as was natural, considered the question
chiefly as an European question. They, as was natural, considered
it chiefly as an English question. They had found the antipathy to
a standing army insurmountably strong even in the late Parliament,
a Parliament disposed to place large confidence in them and in their
master. In the new Parliament that antipathy amounted almost to a mania.
That liberty, law, property, could never be secured while the Sovereign
had a large body of regular troops at his command in time of peace, and
that of all regular troops foreign troops were the most to be dreaded,
had, during the recent elections, been repeated in every town hall and
market place, and scrawled upon every dead wall. The reductions of the
preceding year, it was said, even if they had been honestly carved into
effect, would not have been sufficient; and they had not been honestly
carried into effect. On this subject the ministers pronounced the temper
of the Commons to be such that, if any person high in office were to
ask for what His Majesty thought necessary, there would assuredly be
a violent explosion; the majority would probably be provoked into
disbanding all that remained of the army; and the kingdom would be left
without a single soldier. William, however, could not be brought to
believe that the case was so hopeless. He listened too easily to some
secret adviser, Sunderland was probably the man, who accused Montague
and Somers of cowardice and insincerity. They had, it was whispered in
the royal ear, a majority, whenever they really wanted one. They were
bent upon placing their friend Littleton in the Speaker's chair;
and they had carried their point triumphantly. They would carry as
triumphantly a vote for a respectable military establishment if the
honour of their master and the safety of their country were as dear to
them as the petty interests of their own faction. It was to no purpose
that the King was told, what was nevertheless perfectly true, that not
one half of the members who had voted for Littleton, could, by any art
or eloquence, be induced to vote for an augmentation of the land force.
While he was urging his ministers to stand up manfully against the
popular prejudice, and while they were respectfully representing to him
that by so standing up they should only make that prejudice stronger and
more noxious, the day came which the Commons had fixed for taking
the royal speech into consideration. The House resolved itself into
a Committee. The great question was instantly raised; What provision
should be made for the defence of the realm? It was naturally expected
that the confidential advisers of the Crown would propose something. As
they remained silent, Harley took the lead which properly belonged to
them, and moved that the army should not exceed seven thousand men. Sir
Charles Sedley suggested ten thousand. Vernon, who was present, was of
opinion that this number would have been carved if it had been proposed
by one who was known to speak on behalf of the King. But few members
cared to support an amendment which was certain to be less pleasing to
their constituents, and did not appear to be more pleasing to the Court,
than the original motion. Harley's resolution passed the Committee. On
the morrow it was reported and approved. The House also resolved that
all the seven thousand men who were to be retained should be natural
born English subjects. Other votes were carried without a single
division either in the Committee or when the mace was on the table.

The King's indignation and vexation were extreme. He was angry with the
opposition, with the ministers, with all England. The nation seemed
to him to be under a judicial infatuation, blind to dangers which
his sagacity perceived to be real, near and formidable, and morbidly
apprehensive of dangers which his conscience told him were no dangers at
all. The perverse islanders were willing to trust every thing that was
most precious to them, their independence, their property, their laws,
their religion, to the moderation and good faith of France, to the
winds and the waves, to the steadiness and expertness of battalions of
ploughmen commanded by squires; and yet they were afraid to trust him
with the means of protecting them lest he should use those means for
the destruction of the liberties which he had saved from extreme peril,
which he had fenced with new securities, which he had defended with the
hazard of his life, and which from the day of his accession he had never
once violated. He was attached, and not without reason, to the Blue
Dutch Foot Guards. That brigade had served under him for many years, and
had been eminently distinguished by courage, discipline and fidelity. In
December 1688 that brigade had been the first in his army to enter
the English capital, and had been entrusted with the important duty of
occupying Whitehall and guarding the person of James. Eighteen months
later, that brigade had been the first to plunge into the waters of the
Boyne. Nor had the conduct of these veteran soldiers been less exemplary
in their quarters than in the field. The vote which required the King to
discard them merely because they were what he himself was seemed to him
a personal affront. All these vexations and scandals he imagined that
his ministers might have averted, if they had been more solicitous for
his honour and for the success of his great schemes of policy, and
less solicitous about their own popularity. They, on the other hand,
continued to assure him, and, as far as can now be judged, to assure him
with perfect truth, that it was altogether out of their power to effect
what he wished. Something they might perhaps be able to do. Many members
of the House of Commons had said in private that seven thousand men was
too small a number. If His Majesty would let it be understood that he
should consider those who should vote for ten thousand as having done
him good service, there might be hopes. But there could be no hope
if gentlemen found that by voting for ten thousand they should please
nobody, that they should be held up to the counties and towns which they
represented as turncoats and slaves for going so far to meet his wishes,
and that they should be at the same time frowned upon at Kensington for
not going farther. The King was not to be moved. He had been too great
to sink into littleness without a struggle. He had been the soul of
two great coalitions, the dread of France, the hope of all oppressed
nations. And was he to be degraded into a mere puppet of the Harleys
and the Hooves, a petty prince who could neither help nor hurt, a less
formidable enemy and less valuable ally than the Elector of Brandenburg
or the Duke of Savoy? His spirit, quite as arbitrary and as impatient
of control as that of any of his predecessors, Stuart, Tudor or
Plantagenet, swelled high against this ignominious bondage. It was well
known at Versailles that he was cruelly mortified and incensed; and,
during a short time, a strange hope was cherished there that, in the
heat of his resentment, he might be induced to imitate his uncles,
Charles and James, to conclude another treaty of Dover, and to sell
himself into vassalage for a subsidy which might make him independent of
his niggardly and mutinous Parliament. Such a subsidy, it was thought,
might be disguised under the name of a compensation for the little
principality of Orange, which Lewis had long been desirous to purchase
even at a fancy price. A despatch was drawn up containing a paragraph by
which Tallard was to be apprised of his master's views, and instructed
not to hazard any distinct proposition, but to try the effect of
cautious and delicate insinuations, and, if possible, to draw William on
to speak first. This paragraph was, on second thoughts, cancelled;
but that it should ever have been written must be considered a most
significant circumstance.

It may with confidence be affirmed that William would never have stooped
to be the pensioner of France; but it was with difficulty that he
was, at this conjuncture, dissuaded from throwing up the government of
England. When first he threw out hints about retiring to the Continent,
his ministers imagined that he was only trying to frighten them into
making a desperate effort to obtain for him an efficient army. But
they soon saw reason to believe that he was in earnest. That he was in
earnest, indeed, can hardly be doubted. For, in a confidential letter to
Heinsius, whom he could have no motive for deceiving, he intimated his
intention very clearly. "I foresee," he writes, "that I shall be driven
to take an extreme course, and that I shall see you again in Holland
sooner than I had imagined. " [16] In fact he had resolved to go down to
the Lords, to send for the Commons, and to make his last speech from the
throne. That speech he actually prepared and had it translated. He meant
to tell his hearers that he had come to England to rescue their religion
and their liberties; that, for that end, he had been under the necessity
of waging a long and cruel war; that the war had, by the blessing of
God, ended in an honourable and advantageous peace; and that the nation
might now be tranquil and happy, if only those precautions were adopted
which he had on the first day of the session recommended as essential
to the public security. Since, however, the Estates of the Realm thought
fit to slight his advice, and to expose themselves to the imminent risk
of ruin, he would not be the witness of calamities which he had not
caused and which he could not avert. He must therefore request the
Houses to present to him a bill providing for the government of the
realm; he would pass that bill, and withdraw from a post in which he
could no longer be useful, but he should always take a deep interest in
the welfare of England; and, if what he foreboded should come to pass,
if in some day of danger she should again need his services, his life
should be hazarded as freely as ever in her defence.

When the King showed his speech to the Chancellor, that wise minister
forgot for a moment his habitual self-command. "This is extravagance,
Sir," he said: "this is madness. I implore your Majesty, for the sake of
your own honour, not to say to anybody else what you have said to
me. " He argued the matter during two hours, and no doubt lucidly
and forcibly. William listened patiently; but his purpose remained
unchanged.

The alarm of the ministers seems to have been increased by finding that
the King's intention had been confided to Marlborough, the very last man
to whom such a secret would have been imparted unless William had really
made up his mind to abdicate in favour of the Princess of Denmark.
Somers had another audience, and again began to expostulate. But William
cut him short. "We shall not agree, my Lord; my mind is made up. "
"Then, Sir," said Somers, "I have to request that I may be excused from
assisting as Chancellor at the fatal act which Your Majesty meditates.
It was from my King that I received this seal; and I beg that he will
take it from me while he is still my King. "

In these circumstances the ministers, though with scarcely the faintest
hope of success, determined to try what they could do to meet the King's
wishes. A select Committee had been appointed by the House of Commons to
frame a bill for the disbanding of all the troops above seven thousand.
A motion was made by one of the Court party that this Committee should
be instructed to reconsider the number of men. Vernon acquitted himself
well in the debate. Montague spoke with even more than his wonted
ability and energy, but in vain. So far was he from being able to
rally round him such a majority as that which had supported him in the
preceding Parliament, that he could not count on the support even of the
placemen who sate at the same executive board with him. Thomas Pelham,
who had, only a few months before, been made a Lord of the Treasury,
tried to answer him. "I own," said Pelham, "that last year I thought a
large land force necessary; this year I think such a force unnecessary;
but I deny that I have been guilty of any inconsistency. Last year the
great question of the Spanish succession was unsettled, and there was
serious danger of a general war. That question has now been settled in
the best possible way; and we may look forward to many years of peace. "
A Whig of still greater note and authority, the Marquess of Hartington,
separated himself on this occasion from the junto. The current was
irresistible. At last the voices of those who tried to speak for the
Instruction were drowned by clamour. When the question was put, there
was a great shout of No, and the minority submitted. To divide would
have been merely to have exposed their weakness.

By this time it became clear that the relations between the executive
government and the Parliament were again what they had been before the
year 1695. The history of our polity at this time is closely connected
with the history of one man. Hitherto Montague's career had been more
splendidly and uninterruptedly successful than that of any member of the
House of Commons, since the House of Commons had begun to exist. And now
fortune had turned. By the Tories he had long been hated as a Whig; and
the rapidity of his rise, the brilliancy of his fame, and the unvarying
good luck which seemed to attend him, had made many Whigs his enemies.
He was absurdly compared to the upstart favourites of a former age, Carr
and Villiers, men whom he resembled in nothing but in the speed with
which he had mounted from a humble to a lofty position. They had,
without rendering any service to the State, without showing any
capacity for the conduct of great affairs, been elevated to the highest
dignities, in spite of the murmurs of the whole nation, by the mere
partiality of the Sovereign. Montague owed every thing to his own merit
and to the public opinion of his merit. With his master he appears to
have had very little intercourse, and none that was not official. He
was in truth a living monument of what the Revolution had done for the
Country. The Revolution had found him a young student in a cell by the
Cam, poring on the diagrams which illustrated the newly discovered laws
of centripetal and centrifugal force, writing little copies of verses,
and indulging visions of parsonages with rich glebes, and of closes in
old cathedral towns had developed in him new talents; had held out to
him the hope of prizes of a very different sort from a rectory or a
prebend. His eloquence had gained for him the ear of the legislature.
His skill in fiscal and commercial affairs had won for him the
confidence of the City. During four years he had been the undisputed
leader of the majority of the House of Commons; and every one of those
years he had made memorable by great parliamentary victories, and by
great public services. It should seem that his success ought to have
been gratifying to the nation, and especially to that assembly of
which he was the chief ornament, of which indeed he might be called
the creature. The representatives of the people ought to have been
well pleased to find that their approbation could, in the new order
of things, do for the man whom they delighted to honour all that the
mightiest of the Tudors could do for Leicester, or the most arbitrary of
the Stuarts for Strafford. But, strange to say, the Commons soon began
to regard with an evil eve that greatness which was their own work. The
fault indeed was partly Montague's. With all his ability, he had not the
wisdom to avert, by suavity and moderation, that curse, the inseparable
concomitant of prosperity and glory, which the ancients personified
under the name of Nemesis. His head, strong for all the purposes of
debate and arithmetical calculation, was weak against the intoxicating
influence of success and fame. He became proud even to insolence. Old
companions, who, a very few years before, had punned and rhymed with him
in garrets, had dined with him at cheap ordinaries, had sate with him
in the pit, and had lent him some silver to pay his seamstress's bill,
hardly knew their friend Charles in the great man who could not forget
for one moment that he was First Lord of the Treasury, that he was
Chancellor of the Exchequer, that he had been a Regent of the kingdom,
that he had founded the Bank of England and the new East India Company,
that he had restored the currency, that he had invented the Exchequer
Bills, that he had planned the General Mortgage, and that he had been
pronounced, by a solemn vote of the Commons, to have deserved all
the favours which he had received from the Crown. It was said that
admiration of himself and contempt of others were indicated by all his
gestures and written in all the lines of his face. The very way in which
the little jackanapes, as the hostile pamphleteers loved to call him,
strutted through the lobby, making the most of his small figure, rising
on his toe, and perking up his chin, made him enemies. Rash and arrogant
sayings were imputed to him, and perhaps invented for him. He was
accused of boasting that there was nothing that he could not carry
through the House of Commons, that he could turn the majority round his
finger. A crowd of libellers assailed him with much more than political
hatred. Boundless rapacity and corruption were laid to his charge. He
was represented as selling all the places in the revenue department for
three years' purchase. The opprobrious nickname of Filcher was fastened
on him. His luxury, it was said, was not less inordinate than his
avarice. There was indeed an attempt made at this time to raise against
the leading Whig politicians and their allies, the great moneyed men of
the City, a cry much resembling the cry which, seventy or eighty years
later, was raised against the English Nabobs. Great wealth, suddenly
acquired, is not often enjoyed with moderation, dignity and good taste.
It is therefore not impossible that there may have been some small
foundation for the extravagant stories with which malecontent
pamphleteers amused the leisure of malecontent squires. In such stories
Montague played a conspicuous part. He contrived, it was said, to be at
once as rich as Croesus and as riotous as Mark Antony. His stud and his
cellar were beyond all price. His very lacqueys turned up their noses at
claret. He and his confederates were described as spending the immense
sums of which they had plundered the public in banquets of four courses,
such as Lucullus might have eaten in the Hall of Apollo. A supper for
twelve Whigs, enriched by jobs, grants, bribes, lucky purchases and
lucky sales of stock, was cheap at eighty pounds. At the end of every
course all the fine linen on the table was changed.