Devonshire advised his
colleagues to postpone the trial till the pleasure of William could be
known.
colleagues to postpone the trial till the pleasure of William could be
known.
Macaulay
[707]
Just at this conjuncture Portland arrived from the Continent. He had
been sent by William with charge to obtain money, at whatever cost
and from whatever quarter. The King had strained his private credit
in Holland to procure bread for his army. But all was insufficient. He
wrote to his Ministers that, unless they could send him a speedy supply,
his troops would either rise in mutiny or desert by thousands. He knew,
he said, that it would be hazardous to call Parliament together during
his absence. But, if no other resource could be devised, that hazard
must be run. [708] The Council of Regency, in extreme embarrassment,
began to wish that the terms, hard as they were, which had been offered
by the Commissioners at Mercers' Hall had been accepted. The negotiation
was renewed. Shrewsbury, Godolphin and Portland, as agents for the
King, had several conferences with Harley and Foley, who had recently
pretended that eight hundred thousand pounds were ready to be subscribed
to the Land Bank. The Ministers gave assurances, that, if, at this
conjuncture, even half that sum were advanced, those who had done this
service to the State should, in the next session, be incorporated as a
National Land Bank. Harley and Foley at first promised, with an air of
confidence, to raise what was required. But they soon went back from
their word; they showed a great inclination to be punctilious and
quarrelsome about trifles; at length the eight hundred thousand pounds
dwindled to forty thousand; and even the forty thousand could be had
only on hard conditions. [709] So ended the great delusion of the Land
Bank. The commission expired; and the offices were closed.
And now the Council of Regency, almost in despair, had recourse to the
Bank of England. Two hundred thousand pounds was the very smallest sum
which would suffice to meet the King's most pressing wants. Would the
Bank of England advance that sum? The capitalists who lead the chief
sway in that corporation were in bad humour, and not without reason. But
fair words, earnest entreaties and large promises were not spared; all
the influence of Montague, which was justly great, was exerted; the
Directors promised to do their best; but they apprehended that it would
be impossible for them to raise the money without making a second call
of twenty per cent. on their constituents. It was necessary that the
question should be submitted to a General Court; in such a court more
than six hundred persons were entitled to vote; and the result might
well be doubted. The proprietors were summoned to meet on the fifteenth
of August at Grocers' Hall. During the painful interval of suspense,
Shrewsbury wrote to his master in language more tragic than is often
found in official letters. "If this should not succeed, God knows what
can be done. Any thing must be tried and ventured rather than lie down
and die. " [710] On the fifteenth of August, a great epoch in the history
of the Bank, the General Court was held. In the chair sate Sir John
Houblon, the Governor, who was also Lord Mayor of London, and, what
would in our time be thought strange, a Commissioner of the Admiralty.
Sir John, in a speech, every word of which had been written and had been
carefully considered by the Directors, explained the case, and implored
the assembly to stand by King William. There was at first a little
murmuring. "If our notes would do," it was said, "we should be most
willing to assist His Majesty; but two hundred thousand pounds in hard
money at a time like this. " The Governor announced explicitly that
nothing but gold or silver would supply the necessities of the army in
Flanders. At length the question was put to the vote; and every hand in
the Hall was held up for sending the money. The letters from the Dutch
Embassy informed the States General that the events of that day had
bound the Bank and the government together in close alliance, and that
several of the ministers had, immediately after the meeting, purchased
stock merely in order to give a pledge of their attachment to the body
which had rendered so great a service to the State. [711]
Meanwhile strenuous exertions were making to hasten the recoinage. Since
the Restoration the Mint had, like every other public establishment in
the kingdom, been a nest of idlers and jobbers. The important office of
Warden, worth between six and seven hundred a year, had become a mere
sinecure, and had been filled by a succession of fine gentlemen,
who were well known at the hazard table of Whitehall, but who never
condescended to come near the Tower. This office had just become vacant,
and Montague had obtained it for Newton. [712] The ability, the industry
and the strict uprightness of the great philosopher speedily produced
a complete revolution throughout the department which was under his
direction. [713] He devoted himself to his task with an activity which
left him no time to spare for those pursuits in which he had surpassed
Archimedes and Galileo. Till the great work was completely done, he
resisted firmly, and almost angrily, every attempt that was made by men
of science, here or on the Continent, to draw him away from his official
duties. [714] The old officers of the Mint had thought it a great feat
to coin silver to the amount of fifteen thousand pounds in a week.
When Montague talked of thirty or forty thousand, these men of form
and precedent pronounced the thing impracticable. But the energy of
the young Chancellor of the Exchequer and of his friend the Warden
accomplished far greater wonders. Soon nineteen mills were going at once
in the Tower. As fast as men could be trained to the work in London,
bands of them were sent off to other parts of the kingdom. Mints
were established at Bristol, York, Exeter, Norwich and Chester. This
arrangement was in the highest degree popular. The machinery and the
workmen were welcomed to the new stations with the ringing of bells and
the firing of guns. The weekly issue increased to sixty thousand pounds,
to eighty thousand, to a hundred thousand, and at length to a hundred
and twenty thousand. [715] Yet even this issue, though great, not only
beyond precedent, but beyond hope, was scanty when compared with the
demands of the nation. Nor did all the newly stamped silver pass into
circulation; for during the summer and autumn those politicians who were
for raising the denomination of the coin were active and clamorous;
and it was generally expected that, as soon as the Parliament should
reassemble, the standard would be lowered. Of course no person who
thought it probable that he should, at a day not far distant, be able
to pay a debt of a pound with three crown pieces instead of four, was
willing to part with a crown piece, till that day arrived. Most of the
milled pieces were therefore hoarded. [716] May, June and July passed
away without any perceptible increase in the quantity of good money. It
was not till August that the keenest observer could discern the first
faint signs of returning prosperity. [717]
The distress of the common people was severe, and was aggravated by the
follies of magistrates and by the arts of malecontents. A squire who was
one of the quorum would sometimes think it his duty to administer to his
neighbours, at this trying conjuncture, what seemed to him to be equity;
and as no two of these rural praetors had exactly the same notion of
what was equitable, their edicts added confusion to confusion. In one
parish people were, in outrageous violation of the law, threatened with
the stocks, if they refused to take clipped shillings by tale. In the
next parish it was dangerous to pay such shillings except by weight.
[718] The enemies of the government, at the same time, laboured
indefatigably in their vocation. They harangued in every place of public
resort, from the Chocolate House in Saint James's Street to the sanded
kitchen of the alehouse on the village green. In verse and prose they
incited the suffering multitude to rise up in arms. Of the tracts
which they published at this time, the most remarkable was written by
a deprived priest named Grascombe, of whose ferocity and scurrility the
most respectable nonjurors had long been ashamed. He now did his best
to persuade the rabble to tear in pieces those members of Parliament
who had voted for the restoration of the currency. [719] It would be too
much to say that the malignant industry of this man and of men like him
produced no effect on a population which was doubtless severely tried.
There were riots in several parts of the country, but riots which were
suppressed with little difficulty, and, as far as can be discovered,
without the shedding of a drop of blood. [720] In one place a crowd of
poor ignorant creatures, excited by some knavish agitator, besieged the
house of a Whig member of Parliament, and clamorously insisted on having
their short money changed. The gentleman consented, and desired to know
how much they had brought. After some delay they were able to produce a
single clipped halfcrown. [721] Such tumults as this were at a distance
exaggerated into rebellions and massacres. At Paris it was gravely
asserted in print that, in an English town which was not named, a
soldier and a butcher had quarrelled about a piece of money, that the
soldier had killed the butcher, that the butcher's man had snatched up
a cleaver and killed the soldier, that a great fight had followed, and
that fifty dead bodies had been left on the ground. [722] The truth
was, that the behaviour of the great body of the people was beyond
all praise. The judges when, in September, they returned from their
circuits, reported that the temper of the nation was excellent. [723]
There was a patience, a reasonableness, a good nature, a good faith,
which nobody had anticipated. Every body felt that nothing but mutual
help and mutual forbearance could prevent the dissolution of society. A
hard creditor, who sternly demanded payment to the day in milled money,
was pointed at in the streets, and was beset by his own creditors with
demands which soon brought him to reason. Much uneasiness had been felt
about the troops. It was scarcely possible to pay them regularly; if
they were not paid regularly, it might well be apprehended that they
would supply their wants by rapine; and such rapine it was certain that
the nation, altogether unaccustomed to military exaction and oppression,
would not tamely endure. But, strange to say, there was, through this
trying year, a better understanding than had ever been known between
the soldiers and the rest of the community. The gentry, the farmers,
the shopkeepers supplied the redcoats with necessaries in a manner
so friendly and liberal that there was no brawling and no marauding.
"Severely as these difficulties have been felt," L'Hermitage writes,
"they have produced one happy effect; they have shown how good the
spirit of the country is. No person, however favourable his opinion
of the English may have been, could have expected that a time of such
suffering would have been a time of such tranquillity. " [724]
Men who loved to trace, in the strangely complicated maze of human
affairs, the marks of more than human wisdom, were of opinion that, but
for the interference of a gracious Providence, the plan so elaborately
devised by great statesmen and great philosophers would have failed
completely and ignominiously. Often, since the Revolution, the English
had been sullen and querulous, unreasonably jealous of the Dutch, and
disposed to put the worst construction on every act of the King. Had
the fourth of May found our ancestors in such a mood, it can scarcely be
doubted that sharp distress, irritating minds already irritable, would
have caused an outbreak which must have shaken and might have subverted
the throne of William. Happily, at the moment at which the loyalty of
the nation was put to the most severe test, the King was more popular
than he had ever been since the day on which the Crown was tendered to
him in the Banqueting House. The plot which had been laid against his
life had excited general disgust and horror. His reserved manners, his
foreign attachments were forgotten. He had become an object of personal
interest and of personal affection to his people. They were every where
coming in crowds to sign the instrument which bound them to defend and
to avenge him. They were every where carrying about in their hats the
badges of their loyalty to him. They could hardly be restrained from
inflicting summary punishment on the few who still dared openly to
question his title. Jacobite was now a synonyme for cutthroat. Noted
Jacobite laymen had just planned a foul murder. Noted Jacobite priests
had, in the face of day, and in the administration of a solemn ordinance
of religion, indicated their approbation of that murder. Many honest and
pious men, who thought that their allegiance was still due to James, had
indignantly relinquished all connection with zealots who seemed to think
that a righteous end justified the most unrighteous means. Such was
the state of public feeling during the summer and autumn of 1696; and
therefore it was that hardships which, in any of the seven preceding
years, would certainly have produced a rebellion, and might perhaps
have produced a counterrevolution, did not produce a single tumult too
serious to be suppressed by the constable's staff.
Nevertheless, the effect of the commercial and financial crisis in
England was felt through all the fleets and armies of the coalition. The
great source of subsidies was dry. No important military operation could
any where be attempted. Meanwhile overtures tending to peace had been
made, and a negotiation had been opened. Callieres, one of the ablest
of the many able envoys in the service of France, had been sent to
the Netherlands, and had held many conferences with Dykvelt. Those
conferences might perhaps have come to a speedy and satisfactory close,
had not France, at this time, won a great diplomatic victory in another
quarter. Lewis had, during seven years, been scheming and labouring in
vain to break the great array of potentates whom the dread of his might
and of his ambition had brought together and kept together. But, during
seven years, all his arts had been baffled by the skill of William; and,
when the eighth campaign opened, the confederacy had not been weakened
by a single desertion. Soon however it began to be suspected that the
Duke of Savoy was secretly treating with the enemy. He solemnly assured
Galway, who represented England at the Court of Turin, that there
was not the slightest ground for such suspicions, and sent to William
letters filled with professions of zeal for the common cause, and with
earnest entreaties for more money. This dissimulation continued till a
French army, commanded by Catinat, appeared in Piedmont. Then the Duke
threw off his disguise, concluded peace with France, joined his troops
to those of Catinat, marched into the Milanese, and informed the allies
whom he had just abandoned that, unless they wished to have him for an
enemy, they must declare Italy neutral ground. The Courts of Vienna
and Madrid, in great dismay, submitted to the terms which he dictated.
William expostulated and protested in vain. His influence was no longer
what it had been. The general opinion of Europe was, that the riches
and the credit of England were completely exhausted; and both her
confederates and her enemies imagined that they might safely treat her
with indignity. Spain, true to her invariable maxim that every thing
ought to be done for her and nothing by her, had the effrontery to
reproach the Prince to whom she owed it that she had not lost the
Netherlands and Catalonia, because he had not sent troops and ships
to defend her possessions in Italy. The Imperial ministers formed and
executed resolutions gravely affecting the interests of the coalition
without consulting him who had been the author and the soul of the
coalition. [725] Lewis had, after the failure of the Assassination Plot,
made up his mind to the disagreeable necessity of recognising William,
and had authorised Callieres to make a declaration to that effect. But
the defection of Savoy, the neutrality of Italy, the disunion among the
allies, and, above all, the distresses of England, exaggerated as they
were in all the letters which the Jacobites of Saint Germains received
from the Jacobites of London, produced a change. The tone of Callieres
became high and arrogant; he went back from his word, and refused to
give any pledge that his master would acknowledge the Prince of Orange
as King of Great Britain. The joy was great among the nonjurors. They
had always, they said, been certain that the Great Monarch would not be
so unmindful of his own glory and of the common interest of Sovereigns
as to abandon the cause of his unfortunate guests, and to call an
usurper his brother. They knew from the best authority that His Most
Christian Majesty had lately, at Fontainebleau, given satisfactory
assurances on this subject to King James. Indeed, there is reason
to believe that the project of an invasion of our island was again
seriously discussed at Versailles. [726] Catinat's army was now at
liberty. France, relieved from all apprehension on the side of Savoy,
might spare twenty thousand men for a descent on England; and, if the
misery and discontent here were such as was generally reported, the
nation might be disposed to receive foreign deliverers with open arms.
So gloomy was the prospect which lay before William, when, in the
autumn of 1696, he quitted his camp in the Netherlands for England. His
servants here meanwhile were looking forward to his arrival with very
strong and very various emotions. The whole political world had
been thrown into confusion by a cause which did not at first appear
commensurate to such an effect.
During his absence, the search for the Jacobites who had been concerned
in the plots of the preceding winter had not been intermitted; and of
these Jacobites none was in greater peril than Sir John Fenwick. His
birth, his connections, the high situations which he had filled, the
indefatigable activity with which he had, during several years, laboured
to subvert the government, and the personal insolence with which he had
treated the deceased Queen, marked him out as a man fit to be made an
example. He succeeded, however, in concealing himself from the officers
of justice till the first heat of pursuit was over. In his hiding place
he thought of an ingenious device which might, as he conceived, save him
from the fate of his friends Charnock and Parkyns. Two witnesses were
necessary to convict him. It appeared from what had passed on the trials
of his accomplices, that there were only two witnesses who could prove
his guilt, Porter and Goodman. His life was safe if either of these men
could be persuaded to abscond.
Fenwick was not the only person who had strong reason to wish that
Porter or Goodman, or both, might be induced to leave England. Aylesbury
had been arrested, and committed to the Tower; and he well knew that, if
these men appeared against him, his head would be in serious danger. His
friends and Fenwick's raised what was thought a sufficient sum; and two
Irishmen, or, in the phrase of the newspapers of that day, bogtrotters,
a barber named Clancy, and a disbanded captain named Donelagh, undertook
the work of corruption.
The first attempt was made on Porter. Clancy contrived to fall in with
him at a tavern, threw out significant hints, and, finding that those
hints were favourably received, opened a regular negotiation. The terms
offered were alluring; three hundred guineas down, three hundred more as
soon as the witness should be beyond sea, a handsome annuity for life,
a free pardon from King James, and a secure retreat in France. Porter
seemed inclined, and perhaps was really inclined, to consent. He said
that he still was what he had been, that he was at heart attached to
the good cause, but that he had been tried beyond his strength. Life was
sweet. It was easy for men who had never been in danger to say that none
but a villain would save himself by hanging his associates; but a few
hours in Newgate, with the near prospect of a journey on a sledge
to Tyburn, would teach such boasters to be more charitable. After
repeatedly conferring with Clancy, Porter was introduced to Fenwick's
wife, Lady Mary, a sister of the Earl of Carlisle. Every thing was soon
settled. Donelagh made the arrangements for the flight. A boat was in
waiting. The letters which were to secure to the fugitive the protection
of King James were prepared by Fenwick. The hour and place were fixed at
which Porter was to receive the first instalment of the promised reward.
But his heart misgave him. He had, in truth, gone such lengths that it
would have been madness in him to turn back. He had sent Charnock, King,
Keyes, Friend, Parkyns, Rookwood, Cranburne, to the gallows. It was
impossible that such a Judas could ever be really forgiven. In France,
among the friends and comrades of those whom he had destroyed, his life
would not be worth one day's purchase. No pardon under the Great Seal
would avert the stroke of the avenger of blood. Nay, who could say that
the bribe now offered was not a bait intended to lure the victim to the
place where a terrible doom awaited him? Porter resolved to be true
to that government under which alone he could be safe; he carried
to Whitehall information of the whole intrigue; and he received full
instructions from the ministers. On the eve of the day fixed for his
departure he had a farewell meeting with Clancy at a tavern. Three
hundred guineas were counted out on the table. Porter pocketed them,
and gave a signal. Instantly several messengers from the office of the
Secretary of State rushed into the room, and produced a warrant.
The unlucky barber was carried off to prison, tried for his offence,
convicted and pilloried. [727]
This mishap made Fenwick's situation more perilous than ever. At the
next sessions for the City of London a bill of indictment against him,
for high treason, was laid before the grand jury. Porter and Goodman
appeared as witnesses for the Crown; and the bill was found. Fenwick
now thought that it was high time to steal away to the Continent.
Arrangements were made for his passage. He quitted his hiding place, and
repaired to Romney Marsh. There he hoped to find shelter till the vessel
which was to convey him across the Channel should arrive. For, though
Hunt's establishment had been broken up, there were still in that dreary
region smugglers who carried on more than one lawless trade. It chanced
that two of these men had just been arrested on a charge of harbouring
traitors. The messenger who had taken them into custody was returning to
London with them, when, on the high road, he met Fenwick face to face.
Unfortunately for Fenwick, no face in England was better known than his.
"It is Sir John," said the officer to the prisoners: "Stand by me, my
good fellows, and, I warrant you, you will have your pardons, and a
bag of guineas besides. " The offer was too tempting to be refused; but
Fenwick was better mounted than his assailants; he dashed through them,
pistol in hand, and was soon out of sight. They pursued him; the hue and
cry was raised; the bells of all the parish churches of the Marsh rang
out the alarm; the whole country was up; every path was guarded; every
thicket was beaten; every hut was searched; and at length the fugitive
was found in bed. Just then a bark, of very suspicious appearance, came
in sight; she soon approached the shore, and showed English colours; but
to the practised eyes of the Kentish fishermen she looked much like
a French privateer. It was not difficult to guess her errand. After
waiting a short time in vain for her passenger, she stood out to sea.
[728]
Fenwick, unluckily for himself, was able so far to elude the vigilance
of those who had charge of him as to scrawl with a lead pencil a short
letter to his wife. Every line contained evidence of his guilt. All, he
wrote, was over; he was a dead man, unless, indeed, his friends could,
by dint of solicitation, obtain a pardon for him. Perhaps the united
entreaties of all the Howards might succeed. He would go abroad; he
would solemnly promise never again to set foot on English ground, and
never to draw sword against the government. Or would it be possible
to bribe a juryman or two to starve out the rest? "That," he wrote, "or
nothing can save me. " This billet was intercepted in its way to the
post, and sent up to Whitehall. Fenwick was soon carried to London and
brought before the Lords Justices. At first he held high language and
bade defiance to his accusers. He was told that he had not always been
so confident; and his letter to his wife was laid before him. He had not
till then been aware that it had fallen into hands for which it was not
intended. His distress and confusion became great. He felt that, if
he were instantly sent before a jury, a conviction was inevitable.
One chance remained. If he could delay his trial for a short time, the
judges would leave town for their circuits; a few weeks would be gained;
and in the course of a few weeks something might be done.
He addressed himself particularly to the Lord Steward, Devonshire, with
whom he had formerly had some connection of a friendly kind. The unhappy
man declared that he threw himself entirely on the royal mercy,
and offered to disclose all that he knew touching the plots of the
Jacobites. That he knew much nobody could doubt.
Devonshire advised his
colleagues to postpone the trial till the pleasure of William could be
known. This advice was taken. The King was informed of what had
passed; and he soon sent an answer directing Devonshire to receive the
prisoner's confession in writing, and to send it over to the Netherlands
with all speed. [729]
Fenwick had now to consider what he should confess. Had he, according to
his promise, revealed all that he knew, there can be no doubt that his
evidence would have seriously affected many Jacobite noblemen, gentlemen
and clergymen. But, though he was very unwilling to die, attachment to
his party was in his mind a stronger sentiment than the fear of death.
The thought occurred to him that he might construct a story, which might
possibly be considered as sufficient to earn his pardon, which would at
least put off his trial some months, yet which would not injure a
single sincere adherent of the banished dynasty, nay, which would cause
distress and embarrassment to the enemies of that dynasty, and which
would fill the Court, the Council, and the Parliament of William with
fears and animosities. He would divulge nothing that could affect those
true Jacobites who had repeatedly awaited, with pistols loaded and
horses saddled, the landing of the rightful King accompanied by a French
army. But if there were false Jacobites who had mocked their banished
Sovereign year after year with professions of attachment and promises
of service, and yet had, at every great crisis, found some excuse for
disappointing him, and who were at that moment among the chief supports
of the usurper's throne, why should they be spared? That there were
such false Jacobites, high in political office and in military command,
Fenwick had good reason to believe. He could indeed say nothing against
them to which a Court of Justice would have listened; for none of them
had ever entrusted him with any message or letter for France; and all
that he knew about their treachery he had learned at second hand
and third hand. But of their guilt he had no doubt. One of them was
Marlborough. He had, after betraying James to William, promised to make
reparation by betraying William to James, and had, at last, after much
shuffling, again betrayed James and made peace with William. Godolphin
had practised similar deception. He had long been sending fair words to
Saint Germains; in return for those fair words he had received a
pardon; and, with this pardon in his secret drawer, he had continued to
administer the finances of the existing government. To ruin such a man
would be a just punishment for his baseness, and a great service to King
James. Still more desirable was it to blast the fame and to destroy the
influence of Russell and Shrewsbury. Both were distinguished members
of that party which had, under different names, been, during three
generations, implacably hostile to the Kings of the House of Stuart.
Both had taken a great part in the Revolution. The names of both were
subscribed to the instrument which had invited the Prince of Orange
to England. One of them was now his Minister for Maritime Affairs; the
other his Principal Secretary of State; but neither had been constantly
faithful to him. Both had, soon after his accession, bitterly resented
his wise and magnanimous impartiality, which, to their minds, disordered
by party spirit, seemed to be unjust and ungrateful partiality for the
Tory faction; and both had, in their spleen, listened to agents from
Saint Germains. Russell had vowed by all that was most sacred that he
would himself bring back his exiled Sovereign. But the vow was broken as
soon as it had been uttered; and he to whom the royal family had looked
as to a second Monk had crushed the hopes of that family at La Hogue.
Shrewsbury had not gone such lengths. Yet he too, while out of humour
with William, had tampered with the agents of James. With the power and
reputation of these two great men was closely connected the power and
reputation of the whole Whig party. That party, after some quarrels,
which were in truth quarrels of lovers, was now cordially reconciled to
William, and bound to him by the strongest ties. If those ties could be
dissolved, if he could be induced to regard with distrust and aversion
the only set of men which was on principle and with enthusiasm devoted
to his interests, his enemies would indeed have reason to rejoice.
With such views as these Fenwick delivered to Devonshire a paper so
cunningly composed that it would probably have brought some severe
calamity on the Prince to whom it was addressed, had not that Prince
been a man of singularly clear judgment and singularly lofty spirit. The
paper contained scarcely any thing respecting those Jacobite plots in
which the writer had been himself concerned, and of which he intimately
knew all the details. It contained nothing which could be of the
smallest prejudice to any person who was really hostile to the existing
order of things. The whole narrative was made up of stories, too true
for the most part, yet resting on no better authority than hearsay,
about the intrigues of some eminent warriors and statesmen, who,
whatever their former conduct might have been, were now at least hearty
in support of William. Godolphin, Fenwick averred, had accepted a seat
at the Board of Treasury, with the sanction and for the benefit of King
James. Marlborough had promised to carry over the army, Russell to
carry over the fleet. Shrewsbury, while out of office, had plotted with
Middleton against the government and King. Indeed the Whigs were now the
favourites at Saint Germains. Many old friends of hereditary right
were moved to jealousy by the preference which James gave to the new
converts. Nay, he had been heard to express his confident hope that the
monarchy would be set up again by the very hands which had pulled it
down.
Such was Fenwick's confession. Devonshire received it and sent it by
express to the Netherlands, without intimating to any of his fellow
councillors what it contained. The accused ministers afterwards
complained bitterly of this proceeding. Devonshire defended himself
by saying that he had been specially deputed by the King to take the
prisoner's information, and was bound, as a true servant of the Crown,
to transmit that information to His Majesty and to His Majesty alone.
The messenger sent by Devonshire found William at Loo. The King read the
confession, and saw at once with what objects it had been drawn up. It
contained little more than what he had long known, and had long, with
politic and generous dissimulation, affected not to know. If he spared,
employed and promoted men who had been false to him, it was not because
he was their dupe. His observation was quick and just; his intelligence
was good; and he had, during some years, had in his hands proofs of much
that Fenwick had only gathered from wandering reports. It has seemed
strange to many that a Prince of high spirit and acrimonious temper
should have treated servants, who had so deeply wronged him, with a
kindness hardly to be expected from the meekest of human beings. But
William was emphatically a statesman. Ill humour, the natural and
pardonable effect of much bodily and much mental suffering, might
sometimes impel him to give a tart answer. But never did he on any
important occasion indulge his angry passions at the expense of the
great interests of which he was the guardian. For the sake of those
interests, proud and imperious as he was by nature, he submitted
patiently to galling restraints, bore cruel indignities and
disappointments with the outward show of serenity, and not only forgave,
but often pretended not to see, offences which might well have moved him
to bitter resentment. He knew that he must work with such tools as
he had. If he was to govern England he must employ the public men of
England; and in his age, the public men of England, with much of a
peculiar kind of ability, were, as a class, lowminded and immoral. There
were doubtless exceptions. Such was Nottingham among the Tories, and
Somers among the Whigs. But the majority, both of the Tory and of the
Whig ministers of William, were men whose characters had taken the ply
in the days of the Antipuritan reaction. They had been formed in
two evil schools, in the most unprincipled of courts, and the most
unprincipled of oppositions, a court which took its character from
Charles, an opposition headed by Shaftesbury. From men so trained
it would have been unreasonable to expect disinterested and stedfast
fidelity to any cause. But though they could not be trusted, they might
be used and they might be useful. No reliance could be placed on their
principles but much reliance might be placed on their hopes and on their
fears; and of the two Kings who laid claim to the English crown, the
King from whom there was most to hope and most to fear was the King
in possession. If therefore William had little reason to esteem these
politicians his hearty friends, he had still less reason to number them
among his hearty foes. Their conduct towards him, reprehensible as it
was, might be called upright when compared with their conduct towards
James. To the reigning Sovereign they had given valuable service; to the
banished Sovereign little more than promises and professions. Shrewsbury
might, in a moment of resentment or of weakness, have trafficked with
Jacobite agents; but his general conduct had proved that he was as far
as ever from being a Jacobite. Godolphin had been lavish of fair words
to the dynasty which was out; but he had thriftily and skilfully managed
the revenues of the dynasty which was in. Russell had sworn that he
would desert with the English fleet; but he had burned the French fleet.
Even Marlborough's known treasons,--for his share in the disaster of
Brest and the death of Talmash was unsuspected--, had not done so much
harm as his exertions at Walcourt, at Cork and at Kinsale had done
good. William had therefore wisely resolved to shut his eyes to perfidy,
which, however disgraceful it might be, had not injured him, and still
to avail himself, with proper precautions, of the eminent talents which
some of his unfaithful counsellors possessed, Having determined on this
course, and having long followed it with happy effect, he could not but
be annoyed and provoked by Fenwick's confession. Sir John, it was plain,
thought himself a Machiavel. If his trick succeeded, the Princess, whom
it was most important to keep in good humour, would be alienated from
the government by the disgrace of Marlborough. The whole Whig party,
the firmest support of the throne, would be alienated by the disgrace of
Russell and Shrewsbury. In the meantime not one of those plotters whom
Fenwick knew to have been deeply concerned in plans of insurrection,
invasion, assassination, would be molested. This cunning schemer should
find that he had not to do with a novice. William, instead of turning
his accused servants out of their places, sent the confession to
Shrewsbury, and desired that it might be laid before the Lords Justices.
"I am astonished," the King wrote, "at the fellow's effrontery. You know
me too well to think that such stories as his can make any impression
on me. Observe this honest man's sincerity. He has nothing to say
except against my friends. Not a word about the plans of his brother
Jacobites. " The King concluded by directing the Lords justices to send
Fenwick before a jury with all speed. [730]
The effect produced by William's letter was remarkable. Every one of the
accused persons behaved himself in a manner singularly characteristic.
Marlborough, the most culpable of all, preserved a serenity, mild,
majestic and slightly contemptuous. Russell, scarcely less criminal
than Marlborough, went into a towering passion, and breathed nothing but
vengeance against the villanous informer. Godolphin, uneasy, but wary,
reserved and selfpossessed, prepared himself to stand on the defensive.
But Shrewsbury, who of all the four was the least to blame, was utterly
overwhelmed. He wrote in extreme distress to William, acknowledged with
warm expressions of gratitude the King's rare generosity, and protested
that Fenwick had malignantly exaggerated and distorted mere trifles into
enormous crimes. "My Lord Middleton,"--such was the substance of the
letter,--"was certainly in communication with me about the time of
the battle of La Hogue. We are relations; we frequently met; we supped
together just before he returned to France; I promised to take care of
his interests here; he in return offered to do me good offices there;
but I told him that I had offended too deeply to be forgiven, and that
I would not stoop to ask forgiveness. " This, Shrewsbury averred, was the
whole extent of his offence. [731] It is but too fully proved that this
confession was by no means ingenuous; nor is it likely that William
was deceived. But he was determined to spare the repentant traitor the
humiliation of owning a fault and accepting a pardon. "I can see," the
King wrote, "no crime at all in what you have acknowledged. Be assured
that these calumnies have made no unfavourable impression on me. Nay,
you shall find that they have strengthened my confidence in you. " [732]
A man hardened in depravity would have been perfectly contented with an
acquittal so complete, announced in language so gracious. But Shrewsbury
was quite unnerved by a tenderness which he was conscious that he had
not merited. He shrank from the thought of meeting the master whom he
had wronged, and by whom he had been forgiven, and of sustaining the
gaze of the peers, among whom his birth and his abilities had gained for
him a station of which he felt that he was unworthy. The campaign in
the Netherlands was over. The session of Parliament was approaching.
The King was expected with the first fair wind. Shrewsbury left town and
retired to the Wolds of Gloucestershire. In that district, then one of
the wildest in the south of the island, he had a small country seat,
surrounded by pleasant gardens and fish-ponds. William had, in his
progress a year before, visited this dwelling, which lay far from the
nearest high road and from the nearest market town, and had been much
struck by the silence and loneliness of the retreat in which he found
the most graceful and splendid of English courtiers.
At one in the morning of the sixth of October, the King landed at
Margate. Late in the evening he reached Kensington. The following
morning a brilliant crowd of ministers and nobles pressed to kiss his
hand; but he missed one face which ought to have been there, and asked
where the Duke of Shrewsbury was, and when he was expected in town. The
next day came a letter from the Duke, averring that he had just had a
bad fall in hunting. His side had been bruised; his lungs had suffered;
he had spit blood, and could not venture to travel. [733] That he had
fallen and hurt himself was true; but even those who felt most kindly
towards him suspected, and not without strong reason, that he made the
most of his convenient misfortune, and, that if he had not shrunk from
appearing in public, he would have performed the journey with little
difficulty. His correspondents told him that, if he was really as ill
as he thought himself, he would do well to consult the physicians and
surgeons of the capital. Somers, especially, implored him in the most
earnest manner to come up to London. Every hour's delay was mischievous.
His Grace must conquer his sensibility. He had only to face calumny
courageously, and it would vanish. [734] The King, in a few kind lines,
expressed his sorrow for the accident. "You are much wanted here," he
wrote: "I am impatient to embrace you, and to assure you that my esteem
for you is undiminished. " [735] Shrewsbury answered that he had resolved
to resign the seals. [736] Somers adjured him not to commit so fatal an
error. If at that moment His Grace should quit office, what could the
world think, except that he was condemned by his own conscience? He
would, in fact, plead guilty; he would put a stain on his own honour,
and on the honour of all who lay under the same accusation. It would no
longer be possible to treat Fenwick's story as a romance. "Forgive me,"
Somers wrote, "for speaking after this free manner; for I do own I can
scarce be temperate in this matter. " [737] A few hours later William
himself wrote to the same effect. "I have so much regard for you, that,
if I could, I would positively interdict you from doing what must
bring such grave suspicions on you. At any time, I should consider your
resignation as a misfortune to myself but I protest to you that, at this
time, it is on your account more than on mine that I wish you to remain
in my service. " [738] Sunderland, Portland, Russell and Wharton joined
their entreaties to their master's; and Shrewsbury consented to remain
Secretary in name. But nothing could induce him to face the Parliament
which was about to meet. A litter was sent down to him from London, but
to no purpose. He set out, but declared that he found it impossible to
proceed, and took refuge again in his lonely mansion among the hills.
[739]
While these things were passing, the members of both Houses were from
every part of the kingdom going up to Westminster. To the opening of the
session, not only England, but all Europe, looked forward with intense
anxiety. Public credit had been deeply injured by the failure of
the Land Bank. The restoration of the currency was not yet half
accomplished. The scarcity of money was still distressing. Much of the
milled silver was buried in private repositories as fast as it came
forth from the Mint. Those politicians who were bent on raising the
denomination of the coin had found too ready audience from a population
suffering under severe pressure; and, at one time, the general voice of
the nation had seemed to be on their side. [740] Of course every person
who thought it likely that the standard would be lowered, hoarded as
much money as he could hoard; and thus the cry for little shillings
aggravated the pressure from which it had sprung. [741] Both the allies
and the enemies of England imagined that her resources were spent,
that her spirit was broken, that the Commons, so often querulous and
parsimonious even in tranquil and prosperous times, would now positively
refuse to bear any additional burden, and would, with an importunity not
to be withstood, insist on having peace at any price.
But all these prognostications were confounded by the firmness and
ability of the Whig leaders, and by the steadiness of the Whig majority.
On the twentieth of October the Houses met. William addressed to them
a speech remarkable even among all the remarkable speeches in which
his own high thoughts and purposes were expressed in the dignified and
judicious language of Somers. There was, the King said, great reason
for congratulation. It was true that the funds voted in the preceding
session for the support of the war had failed, and that the recoinage
had produced great distress. Yet the enemy had obtained no advantage
abroad; the State had been torn by no convulsion at home; the loyalty
shown by the army and by the nation under severe trials had disappointed
all the hopes of those who wished evil to England. Overtures tending to
peace had been made. What might be the result of those overtures,
was uncertain; but this was certain, that there could be no safe or
honourable peace for a nation which was not prepared to wage vigorous
war. "I am sure we shall all agree in opinion that the only way of
treating with France is with our swords in our hands. "
The Commons returned to their chamber; and Foley read the speech from
the chair. A debate followed which resounded through all Christendom.
That was the proudest day of Montague's life, and one of the proudest
days in the history of the English Parliament. In 1798, Burke held up
the proceedings of that day as an example to the statesmen whose hearts
had failed them in the conflict with the gigantic power of the French
republic. In 1822, Huskisson held up the proceedings of that day as an
example to a legislature which, under the pressure of severe distress,
was tempted to alter the standard of value and to break faith with
the public creditor. Before the House rose the young Chancellor of the
Exchequer, whose ascendency, since the ludicrous failure of the Tory
scheme of finance, was undisputed, proposed and carried three memorable
resolutions. The first, which passed with only one muttered No, declared
that the Commons would support the King against all foreign and domestic
enemies, and would enable him to prosecute the war with vigour. The
second, which passed, not without opposition, but without a division,
declared that the standard of money should not be altered in fineness,
weight or denomination. The third, against which not a single opponent
of the government dared to raise his voice, pledged the House to make
good all the deficiencies of all parliamentary fund's established since
the King's accession. The task of framing an answer to the royal speech
was entrusted to a Committee exclusively composed of Whigs. Montague
was chairman; and the eloquent and animated address which he drew up may
still be read in the journals with interest and pride. [742]
Within a fortnight two millions and a half were granted for the military
expenditure of the approaching year, and nearly as much for the maritime
expenditure. Provision was made without any dispute for forty thousand
seamen. About the amount of the land force there was a division. The
King asked for eighty-seven thousand soldiers; and the Tories thought
that number too large. The vote was carried by two hundred and
twenty-three to sixty-seven.
The malecontents flattered themselves, during a short time, that
the vigorous resolutions of the Commons would be nothing more than
resolutions, that it would be found impossible to restore public credit,
to obtain advances from capitalists, or to wring taxes out of the
distressed population, and that therefore the forty thousand seamen and
the eighty-seven thousand soldiers would exist only on paper. Howe,
who had been more cowed than was usual with him on the first day of the
session, attempted, a week later, to make a stand against the Ministry.
"The King," he said, "must have been misinformed; or His Majesty never
would have felicitated Parliament on the tranquil state of the country.
I come from Gloucestershire. I know that part of the kingdom well. The
people are all living on alms, or ruined by paying alms. The soldier
helps himself, sword in hand, to what he wants. There have been serious
riots already; and still more serious riots are to be apprehended. "
The disapprobation of the House was strongly expressed. Several
members declared that in their counties every thing was quiet. If
Gloucestershire were in a more disturbed state than the rest of England,
might not the cause be that Gloucestershire was cursed with a more
malignant and unprincipled agitator than all the rest of England could
show? Some Gloucestershire gentlemen took issue with Howe on the facts.
There was no such distress, they said, no such discontent, no such
rioting as he had described. In that county, as in every other county,
the great body of the population was fully determined to support the
King in waging a vigorous war till he could make an honourable peace.
[743]
In fact the tide had already turned. From the moment at which the
Commons notified their fixed determination not to raise the denomination
of the coin, the milled money began to come forth from a thousand strong
boxes and private drawers. There was still pressure; but that pressure
was less and less felt day by day. The nation, though still suffering,
was joyful and grateful. Its feelings resembled those of a man who,
having been long tortured by a malady which has embittered his life, has
at last made up his mind to submit to the surgeon's knife, who has gone
through a cruel operation with safety, and who, though still smarting
from the steel, sees before him many years of health and enjoyment, and
thanks God that the worst is over. Within four days after the meeting of
Parliament there was a perceptible improvement in trade. The discount
on bank notes had diminished by one third. The price of those wooden
tallies, which, according to an usage handed to us from a rude age,
were given as receipts for sums paid into the Exchequer, had risen. The
exchanges, which had during many months been greatly against England,
had begun to turn. [744] Soon the effect of the magnanimous firmness of
the House of Commons was felt at every Court in Europe. So high indeed
was the spirit of that assembly that the King had some difficulty in
preventing the Whigs from moving and carrying a resolution that an
address should be presented to him, requesting him to enter into no
negotiation with France, till she should have acknowledged him as King
of England. [745] Such an address was unnecessary. The votes of the
Parliament had already forced on Lewis the conviction that there was no
chance of a counterrevolution. There was as little chance that he would
be able to effect that compromise of which he had, in the course of
the negotiations, thrown out hints. It was not to be hoped that either
William or the English nation would ever consent to make the settlement
of the English crown a matter of bargain with France. And even had
William and the English nation been disposed to purchase peace by such a
sacrifice of dignity, there would have been insuperable difficulties in
another quarter. James could not endure to hear of the expedient which
Lewis had suggested. "I can bear," the exile said to his benefactor, "I
can bear with Christian patience to be robbed by the Prince of Orange;
but I never will consent to be robbed by my own son. " Lewis never again
mentioned the subject. Callieres received orders to make the concession
on which the peace of the civilised world depended.
Just at this conjuncture Portland arrived from the Continent. He had
been sent by William with charge to obtain money, at whatever cost
and from whatever quarter. The King had strained his private credit
in Holland to procure bread for his army. But all was insufficient. He
wrote to his Ministers that, unless they could send him a speedy supply,
his troops would either rise in mutiny or desert by thousands. He knew,
he said, that it would be hazardous to call Parliament together during
his absence. But, if no other resource could be devised, that hazard
must be run. [708] The Council of Regency, in extreme embarrassment,
began to wish that the terms, hard as they were, which had been offered
by the Commissioners at Mercers' Hall had been accepted. The negotiation
was renewed. Shrewsbury, Godolphin and Portland, as agents for the
King, had several conferences with Harley and Foley, who had recently
pretended that eight hundred thousand pounds were ready to be subscribed
to the Land Bank. The Ministers gave assurances, that, if, at this
conjuncture, even half that sum were advanced, those who had done this
service to the State should, in the next session, be incorporated as a
National Land Bank. Harley and Foley at first promised, with an air of
confidence, to raise what was required. But they soon went back from
their word; they showed a great inclination to be punctilious and
quarrelsome about trifles; at length the eight hundred thousand pounds
dwindled to forty thousand; and even the forty thousand could be had
only on hard conditions. [709] So ended the great delusion of the Land
Bank. The commission expired; and the offices were closed.
And now the Council of Regency, almost in despair, had recourse to the
Bank of England. Two hundred thousand pounds was the very smallest sum
which would suffice to meet the King's most pressing wants. Would the
Bank of England advance that sum? The capitalists who lead the chief
sway in that corporation were in bad humour, and not without reason. But
fair words, earnest entreaties and large promises were not spared; all
the influence of Montague, which was justly great, was exerted; the
Directors promised to do their best; but they apprehended that it would
be impossible for them to raise the money without making a second call
of twenty per cent. on their constituents. It was necessary that the
question should be submitted to a General Court; in such a court more
than six hundred persons were entitled to vote; and the result might
well be doubted. The proprietors were summoned to meet on the fifteenth
of August at Grocers' Hall. During the painful interval of suspense,
Shrewsbury wrote to his master in language more tragic than is often
found in official letters. "If this should not succeed, God knows what
can be done. Any thing must be tried and ventured rather than lie down
and die. " [710] On the fifteenth of August, a great epoch in the history
of the Bank, the General Court was held. In the chair sate Sir John
Houblon, the Governor, who was also Lord Mayor of London, and, what
would in our time be thought strange, a Commissioner of the Admiralty.
Sir John, in a speech, every word of which had been written and had been
carefully considered by the Directors, explained the case, and implored
the assembly to stand by King William. There was at first a little
murmuring. "If our notes would do," it was said, "we should be most
willing to assist His Majesty; but two hundred thousand pounds in hard
money at a time like this. " The Governor announced explicitly that
nothing but gold or silver would supply the necessities of the army in
Flanders. At length the question was put to the vote; and every hand in
the Hall was held up for sending the money. The letters from the Dutch
Embassy informed the States General that the events of that day had
bound the Bank and the government together in close alliance, and that
several of the ministers had, immediately after the meeting, purchased
stock merely in order to give a pledge of their attachment to the body
which had rendered so great a service to the State. [711]
Meanwhile strenuous exertions were making to hasten the recoinage. Since
the Restoration the Mint had, like every other public establishment in
the kingdom, been a nest of idlers and jobbers. The important office of
Warden, worth between six and seven hundred a year, had become a mere
sinecure, and had been filled by a succession of fine gentlemen,
who were well known at the hazard table of Whitehall, but who never
condescended to come near the Tower. This office had just become vacant,
and Montague had obtained it for Newton. [712] The ability, the industry
and the strict uprightness of the great philosopher speedily produced
a complete revolution throughout the department which was under his
direction. [713] He devoted himself to his task with an activity which
left him no time to spare for those pursuits in which he had surpassed
Archimedes and Galileo. Till the great work was completely done, he
resisted firmly, and almost angrily, every attempt that was made by men
of science, here or on the Continent, to draw him away from his official
duties. [714] The old officers of the Mint had thought it a great feat
to coin silver to the amount of fifteen thousand pounds in a week.
When Montague talked of thirty or forty thousand, these men of form
and precedent pronounced the thing impracticable. But the energy of
the young Chancellor of the Exchequer and of his friend the Warden
accomplished far greater wonders. Soon nineteen mills were going at once
in the Tower. As fast as men could be trained to the work in London,
bands of them were sent off to other parts of the kingdom. Mints
were established at Bristol, York, Exeter, Norwich and Chester. This
arrangement was in the highest degree popular. The machinery and the
workmen were welcomed to the new stations with the ringing of bells and
the firing of guns. The weekly issue increased to sixty thousand pounds,
to eighty thousand, to a hundred thousand, and at length to a hundred
and twenty thousand. [715] Yet even this issue, though great, not only
beyond precedent, but beyond hope, was scanty when compared with the
demands of the nation. Nor did all the newly stamped silver pass into
circulation; for during the summer and autumn those politicians who were
for raising the denomination of the coin were active and clamorous;
and it was generally expected that, as soon as the Parliament should
reassemble, the standard would be lowered. Of course no person who
thought it probable that he should, at a day not far distant, be able
to pay a debt of a pound with three crown pieces instead of four, was
willing to part with a crown piece, till that day arrived. Most of the
milled pieces were therefore hoarded. [716] May, June and July passed
away without any perceptible increase in the quantity of good money. It
was not till August that the keenest observer could discern the first
faint signs of returning prosperity. [717]
The distress of the common people was severe, and was aggravated by the
follies of magistrates and by the arts of malecontents. A squire who was
one of the quorum would sometimes think it his duty to administer to his
neighbours, at this trying conjuncture, what seemed to him to be equity;
and as no two of these rural praetors had exactly the same notion of
what was equitable, their edicts added confusion to confusion. In one
parish people were, in outrageous violation of the law, threatened with
the stocks, if they refused to take clipped shillings by tale. In the
next parish it was dangerous to pay such shillings except by weight.
[718] The enemies of the government, at the same time, laboured
indefatigably in their vocation. They harangued in every place of public
resort, from the Chocolate House in Saint James's Street to the sanded
kitchen of the alehouse on the village green. In verse and prose they
incited the suffering multitude to rise up in arms. Of the tracts
which they published at this time, the most remarkable was written by
a deprived priest named Grascombe, of whose ferocity and scurrility the
most respectable nonjurors had long been ashamed. He now did his best
to persuade the rabble to tear in pieces those members of Parliament
who had voted for the restoration of the currency. [719] It would be too
much to say that the malignant industry of this man and of men like him
produced no effect on a population which was doubtless severely tried.
There were riots in several parts of the country, but riots which were
suppressed with little difficulty, and, as far as can be discovered,
without the shedding of a drop of blood. [720] In one place a crowd of
poor ignorant creatures, excited by some knavish agitator, besieged the
house of a Whig member of Parliament, and clamorously insisted on having
their short money changed. The gentleman consented, and desired to know
how much they had brought. After some delay they were able to produce a
single clipped halfcrown. [721] Such tumults as this were at a distance
exaggerated into rebellions and massacres. At Paris it was gravely
asserted in print that, in an English town which was not named, a
soldier and a butcher had quarrelled about a piece of money, that the
soldier had killed the butcher, that the butcher's man had snatched up
a cleaver and killed the soldier, that a great fight had followed, and
that fifty dead bodies had been left on the ground. [722] The truth
was, that the behaviour of the great body of the people was beyond
all praise. The judges when, in September, they returned from their
circuits, reported that the temper of the nation was excellent. [723]
There was a patience, a reasonableness, a good nature, a good faith,
which nobody had anticipated. Every body felt that nothing but mutual
help and mutual forbearance could prevent the dissolution of society. A
hard creditor, who sternly demanded payment to the day in milled money,
was pointed at in the streets, and was beset by his own creditors with
demands which soon brought him to reason. Much uneasiness had been felt
about the troops. It was scarcely possible to pay them regularly; if
they were not paid regularly, it might well be apprehended that they
would supply their wants by rapine; and such rapine it was certain that
the nation, altogether unaccustomed to military exaction and oppression,
would not tamely endure. But, strange to say, there was, through this
trying year, a better understanding than had ever been known between
the soldiers and the rest of the community. The gentry, the farmers,
the shopkeepers supplied the redcoats with necessaries in a manner
so friendly and liberal that there was no brawling and no marauding.
"Severely as these difficulties have been felt," L'Hermitage writes,
"they have produced one happy effect; they have shown how good the
spirit of the country is. No person, however favourable his opinion
of the English may have been, could have expected that a time of such
suffering would have been a time of such tranquillity. " [724]
Men who loved to trace, in the strangely complicated maze of human
affairs, the marks of more than human wisdom, were of opinion that, but
for the interference of a gracious Providence, the plan so elaborately
devised by great statesmen and great philosophers would have failed
completely and ignominiously. Often, since the Revolution, the English
had been sullen and querulous, unreasonably jealous of the Dutch, and
disposed to put the worst construction on every act of the King. Had
the fourth of May found our ancestors in such a mood, it can scarcely be
doubted that sharp distress, irritating minds already irritable, would
have caused an outbreak which must have shaken and might have subverted
the throne of William. Happily, at the moment at which the loyalty of
the nation was put to the most severe test, the King was more popular
than he had ever been since the day on which the Crown was tendered to
him in the Banqueting House. The plot which had been laid against his
life had excited general disgust and horror. His reserved manners, his
foreign attachments were forgotten. He had become an object of personal
interest and of personal affection to his people. They were every where
coming in crowds to sign the instrument which bound them to defend and
to avenge him. They were every where carrying about in their hats the
badges of their loyalty to him. They could hardly be restrained from
inflicting summary punishment on the few who still dared openly to
question his title. Jacobite was now a synonyme for cutthroat. Noted
Jacobite laymen had just planned a foul murder. Noted Jacobite priests
had, in the face of day, and in the administration of a solemn ordinance
of religion, indicated their approbation of that murder. Many honest and
pious men, who thought that their allegiance was still due to James, had
indignantly relinquished all connection with zealots who seemed to think
that a righteous end justified the most unrighteous means. Such was
the state of public feeling during the summer and autumn of 1696; and
therefore it was that hardships which, in any of the seven preceding
years, would certainly have produced a rebellion, and might perhaps
have produced a counterrevolution, did not produce a single tumult too
serious to be suppressed by the constable's staff.
Nevertheless, the effect of the commercial and financial crisis in
England was felt through all the fleets and armies of the coalition. The
great source of subsidies was dry. No important military operation could
any where be attempted. Meanwhile overtures tending to peace had been
made, and a negotiation had been opened. Callieres, one of the ablest
of the many able envoys in the service of France, had been sent to
the Netherlands, and had held many conferences with Dykvelt. Those
conferences might perhaps have come to a speedy and satisfactory close,
had not France, at this time, won a great diplomatic victory in another
quarter. Lewis had, during seven years, been scheming and labouring in
vain to break the great array of potentates whom the dread of his might
and of his ambition had brought together and kept together. But, during
seven years, all his arts had been baffled by the skill of William; and,
when the eighth campaign opened, the confederacy had not been weakened
by a single desertion. Soon however it began to be suspected that the
Duke of Savoy was secretly treating with the enemy. He solemnly assured
Galway, who represented England at the Court of Turin, that there
was not the slightest ground for such suspicions, and sent to William
letters filled with professions of zeal for the common cause, and with
earnest entreaties for more money. This dissimulation continued till a
French army, commanded by Catinat, appeared in Piedmont. Then the Duke
threw off his disguise, concluded peace with France, joined his troops
to those of Catinat, marched into the Milanese, and informed the allies
whom he had just abandoned that, unless they wished to have him for an
enemy, they must declare Italy neutral ground. The Courts of Vienna
and Madrid, in great dismay, submitted to the terms which he dictated.
William expostulated and protested in vain. His influence was no longer
what it had been. The general opinion of Europe was, that the riches
and the credit of England were completely exhausted; and both her
confederates and her enemies imagined that they might safely treat her
with indignity. Spain, true to her invariable maxim that every thing
ought to be done for her and nothing by her, had the effrontery to
reproach the Prince to whom she owed it that she had not lost the
Netherlands and Catalonia, because he had not sent troops and ships
to defend her possessions in Italy. The Imperial ministers formed and
executed resolutions gravely affecting the interests of the coalition
without consulting him who had been the author and the soul of the
coalition. [725] Lewis had, after the failure of the Assassination Plot,
made up his mind to the disagreeable necessity of recognising William,
and had authorised Callieres to make a declaration to that effect. But
the defection of Savoy, the neutrality of Italy, the disunion among the
allies, and, above all, the distresses of England, exaggerated as they
were in all the letters which the Jacobites of Saint Germains received
from the Jacobites of London, produced a change. The tone of Callieres
became high and arrogant; he went back from his word, and refused to
give any pledge that his master would acknowledge the Prince of Orange
as King of Great Britain. The joy was great among the nonjurors. They
had always, they said, been certain that the Great Monarch would not be
so unmindful of his own glory and of the common interest of Sovereigns
as to abandon the cause of his unfortunate guests, and to call an
usurper his brother. They knew from the best authority that His Most
Christian Majesty had lately, at Fontainebleau, given satisfactory
assurances on this subject to King James. Indeed, there is reason
to believe that the project of an invasion of our island was again
seriously discussed at Versailles. [726] Catinat's army was now at
liberty. France, relieved from all apprehension on the side of Savoy,
might spare twenty thousand men for a descent on England; and, if the
misery and discontent here were such as was generally reported, the
nation might be disposed to receive foreign deliverers with open arms.
So gloomy was the prospect which lay before William, when, in the
autumn of 1696, he quitted his camp in the Netherlands for England. His
servants here meanwhile were looking forward to his arrival with very
strong and very various emotions. The whole political world had
been thrown into confusion by a cause which did not at first appear
commensurate to such an effect.
During his absence, the search for the Jacobites who had been concerned
in the plots of the preceding winter had not been intermitted; and of
these Jacobites none was in greater peril than Sir John Fenwick. His
birth, his connections, the high situations which he had filled, the
indefatigable activity with which he had, during several years, laboured
to subvert the government, and the personal insolence with which he had
treated the deceased Queen, marked him out as a man fit to be made an
example. He succeeded, however, in concealing himself from the officers
of justice till the first heat of pursuit was over. In his hiding place
he thought of an ingenious device which might, as he conceived, save him
from the fate of his friends Charnock and Parkyns. Two witnesses were
necessary to convict him. It appeared from what had passed on the trials
of his accomplices, that there were only two witnesses who could prove
his guilt, Porter and Goodman. His life was safe if either of these men
could be persuaded to abscond.
Fenwick was not the only person who had strong reason to wish that
Porter or Goodman, or both, might be induced to leave England. Aylesbury
had been arrested, and committed to the Tower; and he well knew that, if
these men appeared against him, his head would be in serious danger. His
friends and Fenwick's raised what was thought a sufficient sum; and two
Irishmen, or, in the phrase of the newspapers of that day, bogtrotters,
a barber named Clancy, and a disbanded captain named Donelagh, undertook
the work of corruption.
The first attempt was made on Porter. Clancy contrived to fall in with
him at a tavern, threw out significant hints, and, finding that those
hints were favourably received, opened a regular negotiation. The terms
offered were alluring; three hundred guineas down, three hundred more as
soon as the witness should be beyond sea, a handsome annuity for life,
a free pardon from King James, and a secure retreat in France. Porter
seemed inclined, and perhaps was really inclined, to consent. He said
that he still was what he had been, that he was at heart attached to
the good cause, but that he had been tried beyond his strength. Life was
sweet. It was easy for men who had never been in danger to say that none
but a villain would save himself by hanging his associates; but a few
hours in Newgate, with the near prospect of a journey on a sledge
to Tyburn, would teach such boasters to be more charitable. After
repeatedly conferring with Clancy, Porter was introduced to Fenwick's
wife, Lady Mary, a sister of the Earl of Carlisle. Every thing was soon
settled. Donelagh made the arrangements for the flight. A boat was in
waiting. The letters which were to secure to the fugitive the protection
of King James were prepared by Fenwick. The hour and place were fixed at
which Porter was to receive the first instalment of the promised reward.
But his heart misgave him. He had, in truth, gone such lengths that it
would have been madness in him to turn back. He had sent Charnock, King,
Keyes, Friend, Parkyns, Rookwood, Cranburne, to the gallows. It was
impossible that such a Judas could ever be really forgiven. In France,
among the friends and comrades of those whom he had destroyed, his life
would not be worth one day's purchase. No pardon under the Great Seal
would avert the stroke of the avenger of blood. Nay, who could say that
the bribe now offered was not a bait intended to lure the victim to the
place where a terrible doom awaited him? Porter resolved to be true
to that government under which alone he could be safe; he carried
to Whitehall information of the whole intrigue; and he received full
instructions from the ministers. On the eve of the day fixed for his
departure he had a farewell meeting with Clancy at a tavern. Three
hundred guineas were counted out on the table. Porter pocketed them,
and gave a signal. Instantly several messengers from the office of the
Secretary of State rushed into the room, and produced a warrant.
The unlucky barber was carried off to prison, tried for his offence,
convicted and pilloried. [727]
This mishap made Fenwick's situation more perilous than ever. At the
next sessions for the City of London a bill of indictment against him,
for high treason, was laid before the grand jury. Porter and Goodman
appeared as witnesses for the Crown; and the bill was found. Fenwick
now thought that it was high time to steal away to the Continent.
Arrangements were made for his passage. He quitted his hiding place, and
repaired to Romney Marsh. There he hoped to find shelter till the vessel
which was to convey him across the Channel should arrive. For, though
Hunt's establishment had been broken up, there were still in that dreary
region smugglers who carried on more than one lawless trade. It chanced
that two of these men had just been arrested on a charge of harbouring
traitors. The messenger who had taken them into custody was returning to
London with them, when, on the high road, he met Fenwick face to face.
Unfortunately for Fenwick, no face in England was better known than his.
"It is Sir John," said the officer to the prisoners: "Stand by me, my
good fellows, and, I warrant you, you will have your pardons, and a
bag of guineas besides. " The offer was too tempting to be refused; but
Fenwick was better mounted than his assailants; he dashed through them,
pistol in hand, and was soon out of sight. They pursued him; the hue and
cry was raised; the bells of all the parish churches of the Marsh rang
out the alarm; the whole country was up; every path was guarded; every
thicket was beaten; every hut was searched; and at length the fugitive
was found in bed. Just then a bark, of very suspicious appearance, came
in sight; she soon approached the shore, and showed English colours; but
to the practised eyes of the Kentish fishermen she looked much like
a French privateer. It was not difficult to guess her errand. After
waiting a short time in vain for her passenger, she stood out to sea.
[728]
Fenwick, unluckily for himself, was able so far to elude the vigilance
of those who had charge of him as to scrawl with a lead pencil a short
letter to his wife. Every line contained evidence of his guilt. All, he
wrote, was over; he was a dead man, unless, indeed, his friends could,
by dint of solicitation, obtain a pardon for him. Perhaps the united
entreaties of all the Howards might succeed. He would go abroad; he
would solemnly promise never again to set foot on English ground, and
never to draw sword against the government. Or would it be possible
to bribe a juryman or two to starve out the rest? "That," he wrote, "or
nothing can save me. " This billet was intercepted in its way to the
post, and sent up to Whitehall. Fenwick was soon carried to London and
brought before the Lords Justices. At first he held high language and
bade defiance to his accusers. He was told that he had not always been
so confident; and his letter to his wife was laid before him. He had not
till then been aware that it had fallen into hands for which it was not
intended. His distress and confusion became great. He felt that, if
he were instantly sent before a jury, a conviction was inevitable.
One chance remained. If he could delay his trial for a short time, the
judges would leave town for their circuits; a few weeks would be gained;
and in the course of a few weeks something might be done.
He addressed himself particularly to the Lord Steward, Devonshire, with
whom he had formerly had some connection of a friendly kind. The unhappy
man declared that he threw himself entirely on the royal mercy,
and offered to disclose all that he knew touching the plots of the
Jacobites. That he knew much nobody could doubt.
Devonshire advised his
colleagues to postpone the trial till the pleasure of William could be
known. This advice was taken. The King was informed of what had
passed; and he soon sent an answer directing Devonshire to receive the
prisoner's confession in writing, and to send it over to the Netherlands
with all speed. [729]
Fenwick had now to consider what he should confess. Had he, according to
his promise, revealed all that he knew, there can be no doubt that his
evidence would have seriously affected many Jacobite noblemen, gentlemen
and clergymen. But, though he was very unwilling to die, attachment to
his party was in his mind a stronger sentiment than the fear of death.
The thought occurred to him that he might construct a story, which might
possibly be considered as sufficient to earn his pardon, which would at
least put off his trial some months, yet which would not injure a
single sincere adherent of the banished dynasty, nay, which would cause
distress and embarrassment to the enemies of that dynasty, and which
would fill the Court, the Council, and the Parliament of William with
fears and animosities. He would divulge nothing that could affect those
true Jacobites who had repeatedly awaited, with pistols loaded and
horses saddled, the landing of the rightful King accompanied by a French
army. But if there were false Jacobites who had mocked their banished
Sovereign year after year with professions of attachment and promises
of service, and yet had, at every great crisis, found some excuse for
disappointing him, and who were at that moment among the chief supports
of the usurper's throne, why should they be spared? That there were
such false Jacobites, high in political office and in military command,
Fenwick had good reason to believe. He could indeed say nothing against
them to which a Court of Justice would have listened; for none of them
had ever entrusted him with any message or letter for France; and all
that he knew about their treachery he had learned at second hand
and third hand. But of their guilt he had no doubt. One of them was
Marlborough. He had, after betraying James to William, promised to make
reparation by betraying William to James, and had, at last, after much
shuffling, again betrayed James and made peace with William. Godolphin
had practised similar deception. He had long been sending fair words to
Saint Germains; in return for those fair words he had received a
pardon; and, with this pardon in his secret drawer, he had continued to
administer the finances of the existing government. To ruin such a man
would be a just punishment for his baseness, and a great service to King
James. Still more desirable was it to blast the fame and to destroy the
influence of Russell and Shrewsbury. Both were distinguished members
of that party which had, under different names, been, during three
generations, implacably hostile to the Kings of the House of Stuart.
Both had taken a great part in the Revolution. The names of both were
subscribed to the instrument which had invited the Prince of Orange
to England. One of them was now his Minister for Maritime Affairs; the
other his Principal Secretary of State; but neither had been constantly
faithful to him. Both had, soon after his accession, bitterly resented
his wise and magnanimous impartiality, which, to their minds, disordered
by party spirit, seemed to be unjust and ungrateful partiality for the
Tory faction; and both had, in their spleen, listened to agents from
Saint Germains. Russell had vowed by all that was most sacred that he
would himself bring back his exiled Sovereign. But the vow was broken as
soon as it had been uttered; and he to whom the royal family had looked
as to a second Monk had crushed the hopes of that family at La Hogue.
Shrewsbury had not gone such lengths. Yet he too, while out of humour
with William, had tampered with the agents of James. With the power and
reputation of these two great men was closely connected the power and
reputation of the whole Whig party. That party, after some quarrels,
which were in truth quarrels of lovers, was now cordially reconciled to
William, and bound to him by the strongest ties. If those ties could be
dissolved, if he could be induced to regard with distrust and aversion
the only set of men which was on principle and with enthusiasm devoted
to his interests, his enemies would indeed have reason to rejoice.
With such views as these Fenwick delivered to Devonshire a paper so
cunningly composed that it would probably have brought some severe
calamity on the Prince to whom it was addressed, had not that Prince
been a man of singularly clear judgment and singularly lofty spirit. The
paper contained scarcely any thing respecting those Jacobite plots in
which the writer had been himself concerned, and of which he intimately
knew all the details. It contained nothing which could be of the
smallest prejudice to any person who was really hostile to the existing
order of things. The whole narrative was made up of stories, too true
for the most part, yet resting on no better authority than hearsay,
about the intrigues of some eminent warriors and statesmen, who,
whatever their former conduct might have been, were now at least hearty
in support of William. Godolphin, Fenwick averred, had accepted a seat
at the Board of Treasury, with the sanction and for the benefit of King
James. Marlborough had promised to carry over the army, Russell to
carry over the fleet. Shrewsbury, while out of office, had plotted with
Middleton against the government and King. Indeed the Whigs were now the
favourites at Saint Germains. Many old friends of hereditary right
were moved to jealousy by the preference which James gave to the new
converts. Nay, he had been heard to express his confident hope that the
monarchy would be set up again by the very hands which had pulled it
down.
Such was Fenwick's confession. Devonshire received it and sent it by
express to the Netherlands, without intimating to any of his fellow
councillors what it contained. The accused ministers afterwards
complained bitterly of this proceeding. Devonshire defended himself
by saying that he had been specially deputed by the King to take the
prisoner's information, and was bound, as a true servant of the Crown,
to transmit that information to His Majesty and to His Majesty alone.
The messenger sent by Devonshire found William at Loo. The King read the
confession, and saw at once with what objects it had been drawn up. It
contained little more than what he had long known, and had long, with
politic and generous dissimulation, affected not to know. If he spared,
employed and promoted men who had been false to him, it was not because
he was their dupe. His observation was quick and just; his intelligence
was good; and he had, during some years, had in his hands proofs of much
that Fenwick had only gathered from wandering reports. It has seemed
strange to many that a Prince of high spirit and acrimonious temper
should have treated servants, who had so deeply wronged him, with a
kindness hardly to be expected from the meekest of human beings. But
William was emphatically a statesman. Ill humour, the natural and
pardonable effect of much bodily and much mental suffering, might
sometimes impel him to give a tart answer. But never did he on any
important occasion indulge his angry passions at the expense of the
great interests of which he was the guardian. For the sake of those
interests, proud and imperious as he was by nature, he submitted
patiently to galling restraints, bore cruel indignities and
disappointments with the outward show of serenity, and not only forgave,
but often pretended not to see, offences which might well have moved him
to bitter resentment. He knew that he must work with such tools as
he had. If he was to govern England he must employ the public men of
England; and in his age, the public men of England, with much of a
peculiar kind of ability, were, as a class, lowminded and immoral. There
were doubtless exceptions. Such was Nottingham among the Tories, and
Somers among the Whigs. But the majority, both of the Tory and of the
Whig ministers of William, were men whose characters had taken the ply
in the days of the Antipuritan reaction. They had been formed in
two evil schools, in the most unprincipled of courts, and the most
unprincipled of oppositions, a court which took its character from
Charles, an opposition headed by Shaftesbury. From men so trained
it would have been unreasonable to expect disinterested and stedfast
fidelity to any cause. But though they could not be trusted, they might
be used and they might be useful. No reliance could be placed on their
principles but much reliance might be placed on their hopes and on their
fears; and of the two Kings who laid claim to the English crown, the
King from whom there was most to hope and most to fear was the King
in possession. If therefore William had little reason to esteem these
politicians his hearty friends, he had still less reason to number them
among his hearty foes. Their conduct towards him, reprehensible as it
was, might be called upright when compared with their conduct towards
James. To the reigning Sovereign they had given valuable service; to the
banished Sovereign little more than promises and professions. Shrewsbury
might, in a moment of resentment or of weakness, have trafficked with
Jacobite agents; but his general conduct had proved that he was as far
as ever from being a Jacobite. Godolphin had been lavish of fair words
to the dynasty which was out; but he had thriftily and skilfully managed
the revenues of the dynasty which was in. Russell had sworn that he
would desert with the English fleet; but he had burned the French fleet.
Even Marlborough's known treasons,--for his share in the disaster of
Brest and the death of Talmash was unsuspected--, had not done so much
harm as his exertions at Walcourt, at Cork and at Kinsale had done
good. William had therefore wisely resolved to shut his eyes to perfidy,
which, however disgraceful it might be, had not injured him, and still
to avail himself, with proper precautions, of the eminent talents which
some of his unfaithful counsellors possessed, Having determined on this
course, and having long followed it with happy effect, he could not but
be annoyed and provoked by Fenwick's confession. Sir John, it was plain,
thought himself a Machiavel. If his trick succeeded, the Princess, whom
it was most important to keep in good humour, would be alienated from
the government by the disgrace of Marlborough. The whole Whig party,
the firmest support of the throne, would be alienated by the disgrace of
Russell and Shrewsbury. In the meantime not one of those plotters whom
Fenwick knew to have been deeply concerned in plans of insurrection,
invasion, assassination, would be molested. This cunning schemer should
find that he had not to do with a novice. William, instead of turning
his accused servants out of their places, sent the confession to
Shrewsbury, and desired that it might be laid before the Lords Justices.
"I am astonished," the King wrote, "at the fellow's effrontery. You know
me too well to think that such stories as his can make any impression
on me. Observe this honest man's sincerity. He has nothing to say
except against my friends. Not a word about the plans of his brother
Jacobites. " The King concluded by directing the Lords justices to send
Fenwick before a jury with all speed. [730]
The effect produced by William's letter was remarkable. Every one of the
accused persons behaved himself in a manner singularly characteristic.
Marlborough, the most culpable of all, preserved a serenity, mild,
majestic and slightly contemptuous. Russell, scarcely less criminal
than Marlborough, went into a towering passion, and breathed nothing but
vengeance against the villanous informer. Godolphin, uneasy, but wary,
reserved and selfpossessed, prepared himself to stand on the defensive.
But Shrewsbury, who of all the four was the least to blame, was utterly
overwhelmed. He wrote in extreme distress to William, acknowledged with
warm expressions of gratitude the King's rare generosity, and protested
that Fenwick had malignantly exaggerated and distorted mere trifles into
enormous crimes. "My Lord Middleton,"--such was the substance of the
letter,--"was certainly in communication with me about the time of
the battle of La Hogue. We are relations; we frequently met; we supped
together just before he returned to France; I promised to take care of
his interests here; he in return offered to do me good offices there;
but I told him that I had offended too deeply to be forgiven, and that
I would not stoop to ask forgiveness. " This, Shrewsbury averred, was the
whole extent of his offence. [731] It is but too fully proved that this
confession was by no means ingenuous; nor is it likely that William
was deceived. But he was determined to spare the repentant traitor the
humiliation of owning a fault and accepting a pardon. "I can see," the
King wrote, "no crime at all in what you have acknowledged. Be assured
that these calumnies have made no unfavourable impression on me. Nay,
you shall find that they have strengthened my confidence in you. " [732]
A man hardened in depravity would have been perfectly contented with an
acquittal so complete, announced in language so gracious. But Shrewsbury
was quite unnerved by a tenderness which he was conscious that he had
not merited. He shrank from the thought of meeting the master whom he
had wronged, and by whom he had been forgiven, and of sustaining the
gaze of the peers, among whom his birth and his abilities had gained for
him a station of which he felt that he was unworthy. The campaign in
the Netherlands was over. The session of Parliament was approaching.
The King was expected with the first fair wind. Shrewsbury left town and
retired to the Wolds of Gloucestershire. In that district, then one of
the wildest in the south of the island, he had a small country seat,
surrounded by pleasant gardens and fish-ponds. William had, in his
progress a year before, visited this dwelling, which lay far from the
nearest high road and from the nearest market town, and had been much
struck by the silence and loneliness of the retreat in which he found
the most graceful and splendid of English courtiers.
At one in the morning of the sixth of October, the King landed at
Margate. Late in the evening he reached Kensington. The following
morning a brilliant crowd of ministers and nobles pressed to kiss his
hand; but he missed one face which ought to have been there, and asked
where the Duke of Shrewsbury was, and when he was expected in town. The
next day came a letter from the Duke, averring that he had just had a
bad fall in hunting. His side had been bruised; his lungs had suffered;
he had spit blood, and could not venture to travel. [733] That he had
fallen and hurt himself was true; but even those who felt most kindly
towards him suspected, and not without strong reason, that he made the
most of his convenient misfortune, and, that if he had not shrunk from
appearing in public, he would have performed the journey with little
difficulty. His correspondents told him that, if he was really as ill
as he thought himself, he would do well to consult the physicians and
surgeons of the capital. Somers, especially, implored him in the most
earnest manner to come up to London. Every hour's delay was mischievous.
His Grace must conquer his sensibility. He had only to face calumny
courageously, and it would vanish. [734] The King, in a few kind lines,
expressed his sorrow for the accident. "You are much wanted here," he
wrote: "I am impatient to embrace you, and to assure you that my esteem
for you is undiminished. " [735] Shrewsbury answered that he had resolved
to resign the seals. [736] Somers adjured him not to commit so fatal an
error. If at that moment His Grace should quit office, what could the
world think, except that he was condemned by his own conscience? He
would, in fact, plead guilty; he would put a stain on his own honour,
and on the honour of all who lay under the same accusation. It would no
longer be possible to treat Fenwick's story as a romance. "Forgive me,"
Somers wrote, "for speaking after this free manner; for I do own I can
scarce be temperate in this matter. " [737] A few hours later William
himself wrote to the same effect. "I have so much regard for you, that,
if I could, I would positively interdict you from doing what must
bring such grave suspicions on you. At any time, I should consider your
resignation as a misfortune to myself but I protest to you that, at this
time, it is on your account more than on mine that I wish you to remain
in my service. " [738] Sunderland, Portland, Russell and Wharton joined
their entreaties to their master's; and Shrewsbury consented to remain
Secretary in name. But nothing could induce him to face the Parliament
which was about to meet. A litter was sent down to him from London, but
to no purpose. He set out, but declared that he found it impossible to
proceed, and took refuge again in his lonely mansion among the hills.
[739]
While these things were passing, the members of both Houses were from
every part of the kingdom going up to Westminster. To the opening of the
session, not only England, but all Europe, looked forward with intense
anxiety. Public credit had been deeply injured by the failure of
the Land Bank. The restoration of the currency was not yet half
accomplished. The scarcity of money was still distressing. Much of the
milled silver was buried in private repositories as fast as it came
forth from the Mint. Those politicians who were bent on raising the
denomination of the coin had found too ready audience from a population
suffering under severe pressure; and, at one time, the general voice of
the nation had seemed to be on their side. [740] Of course every person
who thought it likely that the standard would be lowered, hoarded as
much money as he could hoard; and thus the cry for little shillings
aggravated the pressure from which it had sprung. [741] Both the allies
and the enemies of England imagined that her resources were spent,
that her spirit was broken, that the Commons, so often querulous and
parsimonious even in tranquil and prosperous times, would now positively
refuse to bear any additional burden, and would, with an importunity not
to be withstood, insist on having peace at any price.
But all these prognostications were confounded by the firmness and
ability of the Whig leaders, and by the steadiness of the Whig majority.
On the twentieth of October the Houses met. William addressed to them
a speech remarkable even among all the remarkable speeches in which
his own high thoughts and purposes were expressed in the dignified and
judicious language of Somers. There was, the King said, great reason
for congratulation. It was true that the funds voted in the preceding
session for the support of the war had failed, and that the recoinage
had produced great distress. Yet the enemy had obtained no advantage
abroad; the State had been torn by no convulsion at home; the loyalty
shown by the army and by the nation under severe trials had disappointed
all the hopes of those who wished evil to England. Overtures tending to
peace had been made. What might be the result of those overtures,
was uncertain; but this was certain, that there could be no safe or
honourable peace for a nation which was not prepared to wage vigorous
war. "I am sure we shall all agree in opinion that the only way of
treating with France is with our swords in our hands. "
The Commons returned to their chamber; and Foley read the speech from
the chair. A debate followed which resounded through all Christendom.
That was the proudest day of Montague's life, and one of the proudest
days in the history of the English Parliament. In 1798, Burke held up
the proceedings of that day as an example to the statesmen whose hearts
had failed them in the conflict with the gigantic power of the French
republic. In 1822, Huskisson held up the proceedings of that day as an
example to a legislature which, under the pressure of severe distress,
was tempted to alter the standard of value and to break faith with
the public creditor. Before the House rose the young Chancellor of the
Exchequer, whose ascendency, since the ludicrous failure of the Tory
scheme of finance, was undisputed, proposed and carried three memorable
resolutions. The first, which passed with only one muttered No, declared
that the Commons would support the King against all foreign and domestic
enemies, and would enable him to prosecute the war with vigour. The
second, which passed, not without opposition, but without a division,
declared that the standard of money should not be altered in fineness,
weight or denomination. The third, against which not a single opponent
of the government dared to raise his voice, pledged the House to make
good all the deficiencies of all parliamentary fund's established since
the King's accession. The task of framing an answer to the royal speech
was entrusted to a Committee exclusively composed of Whigs. Montague
was chairman; and the eloquent and animated address which he drew up may
still be read in the journals with interest and pride. [742]
Within a fortnight two millions and a half were granted for the military
expenditure of the approaching year, and nearly as much for the maritime
expenditure. Provision was made without any dispute for forty thousand
seamen. About the amount of the land force there was a division. The
King asked for eighty-seven thousand soldiers; and the Tories thought
that number too large. The vote was carried by two hundred and
twenty-three to sixty-seven.
The malecontents flattered themselves, during a short time, that
the vigorous resolutions of the Commons would be nothing more than
resolutions, that it would be found impossible to restore public credit,
to obtain advances from capitalists, or to wring taxes out of the
distressed population, and that therefore the forty thousand seamen and
the eighty-seven thousand soldiers would exist only on paper. Howe,
who had been more cowed than was usual with him on the first day of the
session, attempted, a week later, to make a stand against the Ministry.
"The King," he said, "must have been misinformed; or His Majesty never
would have felicitated Parliament on the tranquil state of the country.
I come from Gloucestershire. I know that part of the kingdom well. The
people are all living on alms, or ruined by paying alms. The soldier
helps himself, sword in hand, to what he wants. There have been serious
riots already; and still more serious riots are to be apprehended. "
The disapprobation of the House was strongly expressed. Several
members declared that in their counties every thing was quiet. If
Gloucestershire were in a more disturbed state than the rest of England,
might not the cause be that Gloucestershire was cursed with a more
malignant and unprincipled agitator than all the rest of England could
show? Some Gloucestershire gentlemen took issue with Howe on the facts.
There was no such distress, they said, no such discontent, no such
rioting as he had described. In that county, as in every other county,
the great body of the population was fully determined to support the
King in waging a vigorous war till he could make an honourable peace.
[743]
In fact the tide had already turned. From the moment at which the
Commons notified their fixed determination not to raise the denomination
of the coin, the milled money began to come forth from a thousand strong
boxes and private drawers. There was still pressure; but that pressure
was less and less felt day by day. The nation, though still suffering,
was joyful and grateful. Its feelings resembled those of a man who,
having been long tortured by a malady which has embittered his life, has
at last made up his mind to submit to the surgeon's knife, who has gone
through a cruel operation with safety, and who, though still smarting
from the steel, sees before him many years of health and enjoyment, and
thanks God that the worst is over. Within four days after the meeting of
Parliament there was a perceptible improvement in trade. The discount
on bank notes had diminished by one third. The price of those wooden
tallies, which, according to an usage handed to us from a rude age,
were given as receipts for sums paid into the Exchequer, had risen. The
exchanges, which had during many months been greatly against England,
had begun to turn. [744] Soon the effect of the magnanimous firmness of
the House of Commons was felt at every Court in Europe. So high indeed
was the spirit of that assembly that the King had some difficulty in
preventing the Whigs from moving and carrying a resolution that an
address should be presented to him, requesting him to enter into no
negotiation with France, till she should have acknowledged him as King
of England. [745] Such an address was unnecessary. The votes of the
Parliament had already forced on Lewis the conviction that there was no
chance of a counterrevolution. There was as little chance that he would
be able to effect that compromise of which he had, in the course of
the negotiations, thrown out hints. It was not to be hoped that either
William or the English nation would ever consent to make the settlement
of the English crown a matter of bargain with France. And even had
William and the English nation been disposed to purchase peace by such a
sacrifice of dignity, there would have been insuperable difficulties in
another quarter. James could not endure to hear of the expedient which
Lewis had suggested. "I can bear," the exile said to his benefactor, "I
can bear with Christian patience to be robbed by the Prince of Orange;
but I never will consent to be robbed by my own son. " Lewis never again
mentioned the subject. Callieres received orders to make the concession
on which the peace of the civilised world depended.
