No More Learning

The Parliament had already been listening
during three hours to dry theology, and was not inclined to hear any
thing more about original sin and election. The Duke of Hamilton said
that the Estates had already done all that was essential. They had given
their sanction to a digest of the great principles of Christianity.
The rest might well be left to the Church. The weary majority eagerly
assented, in spite of the muttering of some zealous Presbyterian
ministers who had been admitted to hear the debate, and who could
sometimes hardly restrain themselves from taking part in it, [770]

The memorable law which fixed the ecclesiastical constitution of
Scotland was brought in by the Earl of Sutherland. By this law the
synodical polity was reestablished. The rule of the Church was entrusted
to the sixty ejected ministers who had just been restored, and to such
other persons, whether ministers or elders, as the Sixty should think
fit to admit to a participation of power. The Sixty and their nominees
were authorised to visit all the parishes in the kingdom, and to turn
out all ministers who were deficient in abilities, scandalous in morals,
or unsound in faith. Those parishes which had, during the interregnum,
been deserted by their pastors, or, in plain words, those parishes of
which the pastors had been rabbled, were declared vacant, [771]

To the clause which reestablished synodical government no serious
opposition appears to have been made. But three days were spent in
discussing the question whether the Sovereign should have power to
convoke and to dissolve ecclesiastical assemblies; and the point was
at last left in dangerous ambiguity. Some other clauses were long and
vehemently debated. It was said that the immense power given to the
Sixty was incompatible with the fundamental principle of the polity
which the Estates were about to set up. That principle was that all
presbyters were equal, and that there ought to be no order of ministers
of religion superior to the order of presbyters. What did it matter
whether the Sixty were called prelates or not, if they were to lord it
with more than prelatical authority over God's heritage? To the argument
that the proposed arrangement was, in the very peculiar circumstances
of the Church, the most convenient that could be made, the objectors
replied that such reasoning might suit the mouth of an Erastian, but
that all orthodox Presbyterians held the parity of ministers to be
ordained by Christ, and that, where Christ had spoken, Christians were
not at liberty to consider what was convenient, [772]

With much greater warmth and much stronger reason the minority attacked
the clause which sanctioned the lawless acts of the Western fanatics.
Surely, it was said, a rabbled curate might well be left to the severe
scrutiny of the sixty Inquisitors. If he was deficient in parts or
learning, if he was loose in life, if he was heterodox in doctrine,
those stern judges would not fail to detect and to depose him. They
would probably think a game at bowls, a prayer borrowed from the English
Liturgy, or a sermon in which the slightest taint of Arminianism could
be discovered, a sufficient reason for pronouncing his benefice vacant.
Was it not monstrous, after constituting a tribunal from which he could
scarcely hope for bare justice, to condemn him without allowing him to
appear even before that tribunal, to condemn him without a trial, to
condemn him without an accusation? Did ever any grave senate, since the
beginning of the world, treat a man as a criminal merely because he
had been robbed, pelted, hustled, dragged through snow and mire, and
threatened with death if he returned to the house which was his by law?
The Duke of Hamilton, glad to have so good an Opportunity of attacking
the new Lord Commissioner, spoke with great vehemence against this
odious clause. We are told that no attempt was made to answer him; and,
though those who tell us so were zealous Episcopalians, we may easily
believe their report; for what answer was it possible to return?
Melville, on whom the chief responsibility lay, sate on the throne in
profound silence through the whole of this tempestuous debate. It
is probable that his conduct was determined by considerations which
prudence and shame prevented him from explaining. The state of the
southwestern shires was such that it would have been impossible to
put the rabbled minister in possession of their dwellings and churches
without employing a military force, without garrisoning every manse,
without placing guards round every pulpit, and without handing over some
ferocious enthusiasts to the Provost Marshal; and it would be no easy
task for the government to keep down by the sword at once the Jacobites
of the Highlands and the Covenanters of the Lowlands. The majority,
having made up their minds for reasons which could not well be produced,
became clamorous for the question. "No more debate," was the cry: "We
have heard enough: a vote! a vote! " The question was put according
to the Scottish form, "Approve or not approve the article? " Hamilton
insisted that the question, should be, "Approve or not approve the
rabbling? " After much altercation, he was overruled, and the clause
passed. Only fifteen or sixteen members voted with him. He warmly and
loudly exclaimed, amidst much angry interruption, that he was sorry to
see a Scottish Parliament disgrace itself by such iniquity. He then
left the house with several of his friends. It is impossible not to
sympathize with the indignation which he expressed. Yet we ought to
remember that it is the nature of injustice to generate injustice. There
are wrongs which it is almost impossible to repair without committing
other wrongs; and such a wrong had been done to the people of Scotland
in the preceding generation. It was because the Parliament of the
Restoration had legislated in insolent defiance of the sense of the
nation that the Parliament of the Revolution had to abase itself before
the mob.

When Hamilton and his adherents had retired, one of the preachers who
had been admitted to the hall called out to the members who were near
him; "Fie! Fie! Do not lose time. Make haste, and get all over before he
comes back. " This advice was taken. Four or five sturdy Prelatists staid
to give a last vote against Presbytery. Four or five equally sturdy
Covenanters staid to mark their dislike of what seemed to them a
compromise between the Lord and Baal. But the Act was passed by an
overwhelming majority, [773]

Two supplementary Acts speedily followed. One of them, now happily
repealed, required every officebearer in every University of Scotland to
sign the Confession of Faith and to give in his adhesion to the new form
of Church government, [774] The other settled the important and delicate
question of patronage. Knox had, in the First Book of Discipline,
asserted the right of every Christian congregation to choose its own
pastor. Melville had not, in the Second Book of Discipline, gone quite
so far; but he had declared that no pastor could lawfully be forced on
an unwilling congregation. Patronage had been abolished by a Covenanted
Parliament in 1649, and restored by a Royalist Parliament in 1661. What
ought to be done in 1690 it was no easy matter to decide. Scarcely any
question seems to have caused so much anxiety to William. He had, in his
private instructions, given the Lord Commissioner authority to assent to
the abolition of patronage, if nothing else would satisfy the Estates.
But this authority was most unwillingly given; and the King hoped that
it would not be used. "It is," he said, "the taking of men's property. "
Melville succeeded in effecting a compromise. Patronage was abolished;
but it was enacted that every patron should receive six hundred
marks Scots, equivalent to about thirty-five pounds sterling, as a
compensation for his rights. The sum seems ludicrously small. Yet,
when the nature of the property and the poverty of the country are
considered, it may be doubted whether a patron would have made much more
by going into the market. The largest sum that any member ventured to
propose was nine hundred marks, little more than fifty pounds sterling.
The right of proposing a minister was given to a parochial council
consisting of the Protestant landowners and the elders. The congregation
might object to the person proposed; and the Presbytery was to judge
of the objections. This arrangement did not give to the people all the
power to which even the Second Book of Discipline had declared that they
were entitled. But the odious name of patronage was taken away; it was
probably thought that the elders and landowners of a parish would seldom
persist in nominating a person to whom the majority of the congregation
had strong objections; and indeed it does not appear that, while the Act
of 1690 continued in force, the peace of the Church was ever broken by
disputes such as produced the schisms of 1732, of 1756, and of 1843,
[775]

Montgomery had done all in his power to prevent the Estates from
settling the ecclesiastical polity of the realm. He had incited the
zealous Covenanters to demand what he knew that the government would
never grant. He had protested against all Erastianism, against all
compromise. Dutch Presbyterianism, he said, would not do for Scotland.
She must have again the system of 1649. That system was deduced from the
Word of God: it was the most powerful check that had ever been devised
on the tyranny of wicked kings; and it ought to be restored without
addition or diminution. His Jacobite allies could not conceal their
disgust and mortification at hearing him hold such language, and were by
no means satisfied with the explanations which he gave them in private.
While they were wrangling with him on this subject, a messenger arrived
at Edinburgh with important despatches from James and from Mary of
Modena. These despatches had been written in the confident expectation
that the large promises of Montgomery would be fulfilled, and that the
Scottish Estates would, under his dexterous management, declare for the
rightful Sovereign against the Usurper. James was so grateful for the
unexpected support of his old enemies, that he entirely forgot the
services and disregarded the feelings of his old friends. The three
chiefs of the Club, rebels and Puritans as they were, had become his
favourites. Annandale was to be a Marquess, Governor of Edinburgh
Castle, and Lord High Commissioner. Montgomery was to be Earl of Ayr and
Secretary of State. Ross was to be an Earl and to command the guards. An
unprincipled lawyer named James Stewart, who had been deeply concerned
in Argyle's insurrection, who had changed sides and supported the
dispensing power, who had then changed sides a second time and concurred
in the Revolution, and who had now changed sides a third time and was
scheming to bring about a Restoration, was to be Lord Advocate. The
Privy Council, the Court of Session, the army, were to be filled with
Whigs. A Council of Five was appointed, which all loyal subjects were
to obey; and in this Council Annandale, Ross and Montgomery formed the
majority. Mary of Modena informed Montgomery that five thousand pounds
sterling had been remitted to his order, and that five thousand more
would soon follow. It was impossible that Balcarras and those who had
acted with him should not bitterly resent the manner in which they were
treated. Their names were not even mentioned. All that they had done and
suffered seemed to have faded from their master's mind. He had now given
them fair notice that, if they should, at the hazard of their lands and
lives, succeed in restoring him, all that he had to give would be given
to those who had deposed him. They too, when they read his letters,
knew, what he did not know when the letters were written, that he had
been duped by the confident boasts and promises of the apostate Whigs.
He imagined that the Club was omnipotent at Edinburgh; and, in truth,
the Club had become a mere byword of contempt. The Tory Jacobites easily
found pretexts for refusing to obey the Presbyterian Jacobites to whom
the banished King had delegated his authority. They complained that
Montgomery had not shown them all the despatches which he had received.
They affected to suspect that he had tampered with the seals. He called
God Almighty to witness that the suspicion was unfounded. But oaths were
very naturally regarded as insufficient guarantees by men who had just
been swearing allegiance to a King against whom they were conspiring.
There was a violent outbreak of passion on both sides; the coalition was
dissolved; the papers were flung into the fire; and, in a few days, the
infamous triumvirs who had been, in the short space of a year, violent
Williamites and violent Jacobites, became Williamites again, and
attempted to make their peace with the government by accusing each
other, [776]

Ross was the first who turned informer. After the fashion of the school
in which he had been bred, he committed this base action with all the
forms of sanctity. He pretended to be greatly troubled in mind, sent for
a celebrated Presbyterian minister named Dunlop, and bemoaned himself
piteously: "There is a load on my conscience; there is a secret which
I know that I ought to disclose; but I cannot bring myself to do it. "
Dunlop prayed long and fervently; Ross groaned and wept; at last it
seemed that heaven had been stormed by the violence of supplication; the
truth came out, and many lies with it. The divine and the penitent then
returned thanks together. Dunlop went with the news to Melville. Ross
set off for England to make his peace at court, and performed his
journey in safety, though some of his accomplices, who had heard of
his repentance, but had been little edified by it, had laid plans for
cutting his throat by the way. At London he protested, on his honour
and on the word of a gentleman, that he had been drawn in, that he had
always disliked the plot, and that Montgomery and Ferguson were the real
criminals, [777]

Dunlop was, in the mean time, magnifying, wherever he went, the divine
goodness which had, by so humble an instrument as himself, brought a
noble person back to the right path. Montgomery no sooner heard of this
wonderful work of grace than he too began to experience compunction. He
went to Melville, made a confession not exactly coinciding with Ross's,
and obtained a pass for England. William was then in Ireland; and Mary
was governing in his stead. At her feet Montgomery threw himself.
He tried to move her pity by speaking of his broken fortunes, and to
ingratiate himself with her by praising her sweet and affable manners.
He gave up to her the names of his fellow plotters. He vowed to dedicate
his whole life to her service, if she would obtain for him some place
which might enable him to subsist with decency. She was so much touched
by his supplications and flatteries that she recommended him to her
husband's favour; but the just distrust and abhorrence with which
William regarded Montgomery were not to be overcome, [778]

Before the traitor had been admitted to Mary's presence, he had obtained
a promise that he should be allowed to depart in safety. The promise was
kept. During some months, he lay hid in London, and contrived to carry
on a negotiation with the government. He offered to be a witness against
his accomplices on condition of having a good place. William would bid
no higher than a pardon. At length the communications were broken off.
Montgomery retired for a time to France. He soon returned to London, and
passed the miserable remnant of his life in forming plots which came to
nothing, and in writing libels which are distinguished by the grace
and vigour of their style from most of the productions of the Jacobite
press, [779]

Annandale, when he learned that his two accomplices had turned
approvers, retired to Bath, and pretended to drink the waters. Thence he
was soon brought up to London by a warrant. He acknowledged that he had
been seduced into treason; but he declared that he had only said Amen to
the plans of others, and that his childlike simplicity had been imposed
on by Montgomery, that worst, that falsest, that most unquiet of human
beings. The noble penitent then proceeded to make atonement for his own
crime by criminating other people, English and Scotch, Whig and Tory,
guilty and innocent. Some he accused on his own knowledge, and some
on mere hearsay. Among those whom he accused on his own knowledge was
Neville Payne, who had not, it should seem, been mentioned either by
Ross or by Montgomery, [780]

Payne, pursued by messengers and warrants, was so ill advised as to take
refuge in Scotland. Had he remained in England he would have been safe;
for, though the moral proofs of his guilt were complete, there was not
such legal evidence as would have satisfied a jury that he had committed
high treason; he could not be subjected to torture in order to force
him to furnish evidence against himself; nor could he be long confined
without being brought to trial. But the moment that he passed the border
he was at the mercy of the government of which he was the deadly foe.
The Claim of Right had recognised torture as, in cases like his, a
legitimate mode of obtaining information; and no Habeas Corpus Act
secured him against a long detention. The unhappy man was arrested,
carried to Edinburgh, and brought before the Privy Council. The general
notion was that he was a knave and a coward, and that the first sight
of the boots and thumbscrews would bring out all the guilty secrets
with which he had been entrusted. But Payne had a far braver spirit than
those highborn plotters with whom it was his misfortune to have been
connected. Twice he was subjected to frightful torments; but not a word
inculpating himself or any other person could be wrung out of him. Some
councillors left the board in horror. But the pious Crawford presided.
He was not much troubled with the weakness of compassion where an
Amalekite was concerned, and forced the executioner to hammer in wedge
after wedge between the knees of the prisoner till the pain was as
great as the human frame can sustain without dissolution. Payne was
then carried to the Castle of Edinburgh, where he long remained, utterly
forgotten, as he touchingly complained, by those for whose sake he had
endured more than the bitterness of death. Yet no ingratitude could damp
the ardour of his fanatical loyalty; and he continued, year after year,
in his cell, to plan insurrections and invasions, [781]

Before Payne's arrest the Estates had been adjourned after a Session
as important as any that had ever been held in Scotland. The nation
generally acquiesced in the new ecclesiastical constitution. The
indifferent, a large portion of every society, were glad that the
anarchy was over, and conformed to the Presbyterian Church as they had
conformed to the Episcopal Church. To the moderate Presbyterians the
settlement which had been made was on the whole satisfactory. Most of
the strict Presbyterians brought themselves to accept it under protest,
as a large instalment of what was due. They missed indeed what they
considered as the perfect beauty and symmetry of that Church which had,
forty years before, been the glory of Scotland. But, though the second
temple was not equal to the first, the chosen people might well rejoice
to think that they were, after a long captivity in Babylon, suffered to
rebuild, though imperfectly, the House of God on the old foundations;
nor could it misbecome them to feel for the latitudinarian William a
grateful affection such as the restored Jews had felt for the heathen
Cyrus.

There were however two parties which regarded the settlement of 1690
with implacable detestation. Those Scotchmen who were Episcopalians on
conviction and with fervour appear to have been few; but among them were
some persons superior, not perhaps in natural parts, but in learning,
in taste, and in the art of composition, to the theologians of the
sect which had now become dominant. It might not have been safe for the
ejected Curates and Professors to give vent in their own country to the
anger which they felt. But the English press was open to them; and they
were sure of the approbation of a large part of the English people.
During several years they continued to torment their enemies and to
amuse the public with a succession of ingenious and spirited pamphlets.
In some of these works the hardships suffered by the rabbled priests of
the western shires are set forth with a skill which irresistibly moves
pity and indignation. In others, the cruelty with which the Covenanters
had been treated during the reigns of the last two kings of the House
of Stuart is extenuated by every artifice of sophistry. There is much
joking on the bad Latin which some Presbyterian teachers had uttered
while seated in academic chairs lately occupied by great scholars. Much
was said about the ignorant contempt which the victorious barbarians
professed for science and literature. They were accused of
anathematizing the modern systems of natural philosophy as damnable
heresies, of condemning geometry as a souldestroying pursuit, of
discouraging even the study of those tongues in which the sacred books
were written. Learning, it was said, would soon be extinct in Scotland.
The Universities, under their new rulers, were languishing and must soon
perish. The booksellers had been half ruined: they found that the whole
profit of their business would not pay the rent of their shops, and were
preparing to emigrate to some country where letters were held in esteem
by those whose office was to instruct the public. Among the ministers
of religion no purchaser of books was left. The Episcopalian divine was
glad to sell for a morsel of bread whatever part of his library had
not been torn to pieces or burned by the Christmas mobs; and the only
library of a Presbyterian divine consisted of an explanation of the
Apocalypse and a commentary on the Song of Songs, [782] The pulpit
oratory of the triumphant party was an inexhaustible subject of mirth.
One little volume, entitled The Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence Displayed,
had an immense success in the South among both High Churchmen and
scoffers, and is not yet quite forgotten. It was indeed a book well
fitted to lie on the hall table of a Squire whose religion consisted in
hating extemporaneous prayer and nasal psalmody. On a rainy day, when
it was impossible to hunt or shoot, neither the card table nor the
backgammon board would have been, in the intervals of the flagon and the
pasty, so agreeable a resource. Nowhere else, perhaps, can be found, in
so small a compass, so large a collection of ludicrous quotations and
anecdotes. Some grave men, however, who bore no love to the Calvinistic
doctrine or discipline, shook their heads over this lively jest book,
and hinted their opinion that the writer, while holding up to derision
the absurd rhetoric by which coarseminded and ignorant men tried to
illustrate dark questions of theology and to excite devotional feeling
among the populace, had sometimes forgotten the reverence due to sacred
things. The effect which tracts of this sort produced on the public mind
of England could not be fully discerned, while England and Scotland were
independent of each other, but manifested itself, very soon after the
union of the kingdoms, in a way which we still have reason, and which
our posterity will probably long have reason to lament.

The extreme Presbyterians were as much out of humour as the extreme
Prelatists, and were as little inclined as the extreme Prelatists to
take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary. Indeed, though the
Jacobite nonjuror and the Cameronian nonjuror were diametrically opposed
to each other in opinion, though they regarded each other with mortal
aversion, though neither of them would have had any scruple about
persecuting the other, they had much in common. They were perhaps the
two most remarkable specimens that the world could show of perverse
absurdity. Each of them considered his darling form of ecclesiastical
polity, not as a means but as an end, as the one thing needful, as the
quintessence of the Christian religion. Each of them childishly fancied
that he had found a theory of civil government in his Bible. Neither
shrank from the frightful consequences to which his theory led. To all
objections both had one answer,--Thus saith the Lord. Both agreed in
boasting that the arguments which to atheistical politicians seemed
unanswerable presented no difficulty to the Saint. It might be perfectly
true that, by relaxing the rigour of his principles, he might save his
country from slavery, anarchy, universal ruin. But his business was not
to save his country, but to save his soul. He obeyed the commands of
God, and left the event to God. One of the two fanatical sects held
that, to the end of time, the nation would be bound to obey the heir of
the Stuarts; the other held that, to the end of time, the nation would
be bound by the Solemn League and Covenant; and thus both agreed in
regarding the new Sovereigns as usurpers.

The Presbyterian nonjurors have scarcely been heard of out of Scotland;
and perhaps it may not now be generally known, even in Scotland, how
long they continued to form a distinct class. They held that their
country was under a precontract to the Most High, and could never,
while the world lasted, enter into any engagement inconsistent with that
precontract. An Erastian, a latitudinarian, a man who knelt to receive
the bread and wine from the hands of bishops, and who bore, though
not very patiently, to hear anthems chaunted by choristers in white
vestments, could not be King of a covenanted kingdom. William had
moreover forfeited all claim to the crown by committing that sin for
which, in the old time, a dynasty preternaturally appointed had been
preternaturally deposed. He had connived at the escape of his father in
law, that idolater, that murderer, that man of Belial, who ought to
have been hewn in pieces before the Lord, like Agag. Nay, the crime of
William had exceeded that of Saul. Saul had spared only one Amalekite,
and had smitten the rest. What Amalekite had William smitten? The pure
Church had been twenty-eight years under persecution. Her children had
been imprisoned, transported, branded, shot, hanged, drowned, tortured.
And yet he who called himself her deliverer had not suffered her to
see her desire upon her enemies, [783] The bloody Claverhouse had been
graciously received at Saint James's. The bloody Mackenzie had found a
secure and luxurious retreat among the malignants of Oxford. The younger
Dalrymple who had prosecuted the Saints, the elder Dalrymple who had
sate in judgment on the Saints, were great and powerful. It was said
by careless Gallios, that there was no choice but between William and
James, and that it was wisdom to choose the less of two evils. Such was
indeed the wisdom of this world. But the wisdom which was from above
taught us that of two things, both of which were evil in the sight of
God, we should choose neither. As soon as James was restored, it would
be a duty to disown and withstand him. The present duty was to disown
and withstand his son in law. Nothing must be said, nothing must be done
that could be construed into a recognition of the authority of the man
from Holland. The godly must pay no duties to him, must hold no offices
under him, must receive no wages from him, must sign no instruments
in which he was styled King. Anne succeeded William; and Anne was
designated, by those who called themselves the remnant of the true
Church, as the pretended Queen, the wicked woman, the Jezebel. George
the First succeeded Anne; and George the First was the pretended King,
the German Beast, [784] George the Second succeeded George the First;
George the Second too was a pretended King, and was accused of having
outdone the wickedness of his wicked predecessors by passing a law
in defiance of that divine law which ordains that no witch shall be
suffered to live, [785] George the Third succeeded George the Second;
and still these men continued, with unabated stedfastness, though in
language less ferocious than before, to disclaim all allegiance to an
uncovenanted Sovereign, [786] So late as the year 1806, they were still
bearing their public testimony against the sin of owning his government
by paying taxes, by taking out excise licenses, by joining the
volunteers, or by labouring on public works, [787] The number of these
zealots went on diminishing till at length they were so thinly scattered
over Scotland that they were nowhere numerous enough to have a meeting
house, and were known by the name of the Nonhearers. They, however,
still assembled and prayed in private dwellings, and still persisted in
considering themselves as the chosen generation, the royal priesthood,
the holy nation, the peculiar people, which, amidst the common
degeneracy, alone preserved the faith of a better age. It is by no means
improbable that this superstition, the most irrational and the most
unsocial into which Protestant Christianity has ever been corrupted
by human prejudices and passions, may still linger in a few obscure
farmhouses.

The King was but half satisfied with the manner in which the
ecclesiastical polity of Scotland had been settled. He thought that the
Episcopalians had been hardly used; and he apprehended that they might
be still more hardly used when the new system was fully organized. He
had been very desirous that the Act which established the Presbyterian
Church should be accompanied by an Act allowing persons who were not
members of that Church to hold their own religious assemblies freely;
and he had particularly directed Melville to look to this, [788] But
some popular preachers harangued so vehemently at Edinburgh against
liberty of conscience, which they called the mystery of iniquity, that
Melville did not venture to obey his master's instructions. A draught of
a Toleration Act was offered to the Parliament by a private member, but
was coldly received and suffered to drop, [789]

William, however, was fully determined to prevent the dominant sect from
indulging in the luxury of persecution; and he took an early opportunity
of announcing his determination. The first General Assembly of the
newly established Church met soon after his return from Ireland.
It was
necessary that he should appoint a Commissioner and send a letter. Some
zealous Presbyterians hoped that Crawford would be the Commissioner;
and the ministers of Edinburgh drew up a paper in which they very
intelligibly hinted that this was their wish. William, however, selected
Lord Carmichael, a nobleman distinguished by good sense, humanity and
moderation, [790] The royal letter to the Assembly was eminently wise in
substance and impressive in language. "We expect," the King wrote, "that
your management shall be such that we may have no reason to repent
of what we have done. We never could be of the mind that violence was
suited to the advancing of true religion; nor do we intend that our
authority shall ever be a tool to the irregular passions of any party.
Moderation is what religion enjoins, what neighbouring Churches expect
from you, and what we recommend to you. " The Sixty and their associates
would probably have been glad to reply in language resembling that
which, as some of them could well remember, had been held by the clergy
to Charles the Second during his residence in Scotland. But they had
just been informed that there was in England a strong feeling in favour
of the rabbled curates, and that it would, at such a conjuncture, be
madness in the body which represented the Presbyterian Church to quarrel
with the King, [791] The Assembly therefore returned a grateful and
respectful answer to the royal letter, and assured His Majesty that they
had suffered too much from oppression ever to be oppressors, [792]

Meanwhile the troops all over the Continent were going into winter
quarters. The campaign had everywhere been indecisive. The victory
gained by Luxemburg at Fleurus had produced no important effect. On the
Upper Rhine great armies had eyed each other, month after month, without
exchanging a blow. In Catalonia a few small forts had been taken. In
the cast of Europe the Turks had been successful on some points, the
Christians on other points; and the termination of the contest seemed to
be as remote as ever. The coalition had in the course of the year lost
one valuable member and gained another. The Duke of Lorraine, the ablest
captain in the Imperial service, was no more. He had died, as he had
lived, an exile and a wanderer, and had bequeathed to his children
nothing but his name and his rights. It was popularly said that the
confederacy could better have spared thirty thousand soldiers than such
a general. But scarcely had the allied Courts gone into mourning for him
when they were consoled by learning that another prince, superior to him
in power, and not inferior to him in capacity or courage, had joined the
league against France.

This was Victor Amadeus Duke of Savoy. He was a young man; but he was
already versed in those arts for which the statesmen of Italy had,
ever since the thirteenth century, been celebrated, those arts by which
Castruccio Castracani and Francis Sforza rose to greatness, and which
Machiavel reduced to a system. No sovereign in modern Europe has, with
so small a principality, exercised so great an influence during so long
a period. He had for a time submitted, with a show of cheerfulness, but
with secret reluctance and resentment, to the French ascendency. When
the war broke out, he professed neutrality, but entered into private
negotiations with the House of Austria. He would probably have continued
to dissemble till he found some opportunity of striking an unexpected
blow, had not his crafty schemes been disconcerted by the decision and
vigour of Lewis. A French army commanded by Catinat, an officer of great
skill and valour, marched into Piedmont. The Duke was informed that his
conduct had excited suspicions which he could remove only by admitting
foreign garrisons into Turin and Vercelli. He found that he must
be either the slave or the open enemy of his powerful and imperious
neighbour. His choice was soon made; and a war began which, during seven
years, found employment for some of the best generals and best troops
of Lewis. An Envoy Extraordinary from Savoy went to the Hague, proceeded
thence to London, presented his credentials in the Banqueting House, and
addressed to William a speech which was speedily translated into many
languages and read in every part of Europe. The orator congratulated the
King on the success of that great enterprise which had restored England
to her ancient place among the nations, and had broken the chains of
Europe. "That my master," he said, "can now at length venture to express
feelings which have been long concealed in the recesses of his heart,
is part of the debt which he owes to Your Majesty. You have inspired him
with the hope of freedom after so many years of bondage. " [793]

It had been determined that, during the approaching winter a Congress
of all the powers hostile to France should be held at the Hague. William
was impatient to proceed thither. But it was necessary that he should
first hold a Session of Parliament. Early in October the Houses
reassembled at Westminster. The members had generally come up in
good humour. Those Tories whom it was possible to conciliate had been
conciliated by the Act of Grace, and by the large share which they had
obtained of the favours of the Crown. Those Whigs who were capable of
learning had learned much from the lesson which William had given them,
and had ceased to expect that he would descend from the rank of a
King to that of a party leader. Both Whigs and Tories had, with few
exceptions, been alarmed by the prospect of a French invasion and
cheered by the news of the victory of the Boyne. The Sovereign who had
shed his blood for their nation and their religion stood at this moment
higher in public estimation than at any time since his accession. His
speech from the throne called forth the loud acclamations of Lords and
Commons, [794] Thanks were unanimously voted by both Houses to the King
for his achievements in Ireland, and to the Queen for the prudence
with which she had, during his absence, governed England, [795] Thus
commenced a Session distinguished among the Sessions of that reign by
harmony and tranquillity. No report of the debates has been preserved,
unless a long forgotten lampoon, in which some of the speeches made on
the first day are burlesqued in doggrel rhymes, may be called a report,
[796] The time of the Commons appears to have been chiefly occupied
in discussing questions arising out of the elections of the preceding
spring. The supplies necessary for the war, though large, were granted
with alacrity. The number of regular troops for the next year was
fixed at seventy thousand, of whom twelve thousand were to be horse or
dragoons. The charge of this army, the greatest that England had ever
maintained, amounted to about two million three hundred thousand pounds;
the charge of the navy to about eighteen hundred thousand pounds. The
charge of the ordnance was included in these sums, and was roughly
estimated at one eighth of the naval and one fifth of the military
expenditure, [797] The whole of the extraordinary aid granted to the
King exceeded four millions.

The Commons justly thought that the extraordinary liberality with
which they had provided for the public service entitled them to demand
extraordinary securities against waste and peculation. A bill was
brought in empowering nine Commissioners to examine and state the public
accounts. The nine were named in the bill, and were all members of the
Lower House. The Lords agreed to the bill without amendments; and the
King gave his assent, [798]

The debates on the Ways and Means occupied a considerable part of the
Session. It was resolved that sixteen hundred and fifty thousand pounds
should be raised by a direct monthly assessment on land. The excise
duties on ale and beer were doubled; and the import duties on raw silk,
linen, timber, glass, and some other articles, were increased, [799]
Thus far there was little difference of opinion. But soon the smooth
course of business was disturbed by a proposition which was much more
popular than just or humane. Taxes of unprecedented severity had been
imposed; and yet it might well be doubted whether these taxes would be
sufficient. Why, it was asked, should not the cost of the Irish war be
borne by the Irish insurgents? How those insurgents had acted in their
mock Parliament all the world knew; and nothing could be more reasonable
than to mete to them from their own measure. They ought to be treated
as they had treated the Saxon colony. Every acre which the Act of
Settlement had left them ought to be seized by the state for the purpose
of defraying that expense which their turbulence and perverseness had
made necessary. It is not strange that a plan which at once gratified
national animosity, and held out the hope of pecuniary relief, should
have been welcomed with eager delight. A bill was brought in which bore
but too much resemblance to some of the laws passed by the Jacobite
legislators of Dublin. By this bill it was provided that the property of
every person who had been in rebellion against the King and Queen since
the day on which they were proclaimed should be confiscated, and that
the proceeds should be applied to the support of the war. An exception
was made in favour of such Protestants as had merely submitted to
superior force; but to Papists no indulgence was shown. The royal
prerogative of clemency was limited. The King might indeed, if such were
his pleasure, spare the lives of his vanquished enemies; but he was not
to be permitted to save any part of their estates from the general doom.
He was not to have it in his power to grant a capitulation which should
secure to Irish Roman Catholics the enjoyment of their hereditary lands.
Nay, he was not to be allowed to keep faith with persons whom he had
already received to mercy, who had kissed his hand, and had heard from
his lips the promise of protection. An attempt was made to insert a
proviso in favour of Lord Dover. Dover, who, with all his faults, was
not without some English feelings, had, by defending the interests of
his native country at Dublin, made himself odious to both the Irish and
the French. After the battle of the Boyne his situation was deplorable.
Neither at Limerick nor at Saint Germains could he hope to be welcomed.
In his despair, he threw himself at William's feet, promised to live
peaceably, and was graciously assured that he had nothing to fear.
Though the royal word seemed to be pledged to this unfortunate man,
the Commons resolved, by a hundred and nineteen votes to a hundred
and twelve, that his property should not be exempted from the general
confiscation.

The bill went up to the Peers, but the Peers were not inclined to pass
it without considerable amendments; and such amendments there was
not time to make. Numerous heirs at law, reversioners, and creditors
implored the Upper House to introduce such provisoes as might secure the
innocent against all danger of being involved in the punishment of the
guilty. Some petitioners asked to be heard by counsel. The King had made
all his arrangements for a voyage to the Hague; and the day beyond which
he could not postpone his departure drew near. The bill was therefore,
happily for the honour of English legislation, consigned to that dark
repository in which the abortive statutes of many generations sleep a
sleep rarely disturbed by the historian or the antiquary, [800]

Another question, which slightly and but slightly discomposed the
tranquillity of this short session, arose out of the disastrous and
disgraceful battle of Beachy Head. Torrington had, immediately after
that battle, been sent to the Tower, and had ever since remained there.
A technical difficulty had arisen about the mode of bringing him to
trial. There was no Lord High Admiral; and whether the Commissioners of
the Admiralty were competent to execute martial law was a point which
to some jurists appeared not perfectly clear. The majority of the judges
held that the Commissioners were competent; but, for the purpose of
removing all doubt, a bill was brought into the Upper House; and to this
bill several Lords offered an opposition which seems to have been most
unreasonable. The proposed law, they said, was a retrospective penal
law, and therefore objectionable. If they used this argument in good
faith, they were ignorant of the very rudiments of the science of
legislation. To make a law for punishing that which, at the time when it
was done, was not punishable, is contrary to all sound principle. But
a law which merely alters the criminal procedure may with perfect
propriety be made applicable to past as well as to future offences. It
would have been the grossest injustice to give a retrospective operation
to the law which made slavetrading felony. But there was not the
smallest injustice in enacting that the Central Criminal Court
should try felonies committed long before that Court was in being. In
Torrington's case the substantive law continued to be what it had always
been. The definition of the crime, the amount of the penalty, remained
unaltered. The only change was in the form of procedure; and that change
the legislature was perfectly justified in making retrospectively.

It is indeed hardly possible to believe that some of those who opposed
the bill were duped by the fallacy of which they condescended to make
use. The feeling of caste was strong among the Lords. That one of
themselves should be tried for his life by a court composed of plebeians
seemed to them a degradation of their whole order. If their noble
brother had offended, articles of impeachment ought to be exhibited
against him: Westminster Hall ought to be fitted up: his peers ought
to meet in their robes, and to give in their verdict on their honour;
a Lord High Steward ought to pronounce the sentence and to break the
staff. There was an end of privilege if an Earl was to be doomed to
death by tarpaulins seated round a table in the cabin of a ship. These
feelings had so much influence that the bill passed the Upper House by a
majority of only two, [801] In the Lower House, where the dignities and
immunities of the nobility were regarded with no friendly feeling, there
was little difference of opinion. Torrington requested to be heard at
the bar, and spoke there at great length, but weakly and confusedly. He
boasted of his services, of his sacrifices, and of his wounds. He abused
the Dutch, the Board of Admiralty, and the Secretary of State. The bill,
however, went through all its stages without a division, [802]

Early in December Torrington was sent under a guard down the river to
Sheerness. There the Court Martial met on board of a frigate named the
Kent. The investigation lasted three days; and during those days the
ferment was great in London. Nothing was heard of on the exchange, in
the coffeehouses, nay even at the church doors, but Torrington. Parties
ran high; wagers to an immense amount were depending; rumours were
hourly arriving by land and water, and every rumour was exaggerated and
distorted by the way. From the day on which the news of the ignominious
battle arrived, down to the very eve of the trial, public opinion
had been very unfavourable to the prisoner. His name, we are told by
contemporary pamphleteers, was hardly ever mentioned without a curse.
But, when the crisis of his fate drew nigh, there was, as in our country
there often is, a reaction. All his merits, his courage, his good
nature, his firm adherence to the Protestant religion in the evil times,
were remembered. It was impossible to deny that he was sunk in sloth and
luxury, that he neglected the most important business for his pleasures,
and that he could not say No to a boon companion or to a mistress; but
for these faults excuses and soft names were found. His friends used
without scruple all the arts which could raise a national feeling in his
favour; and these arts were powerfully assisted by the intelligence that
the hatred which was felt towards him in Holland bad vented itself in
indignities to some of his countrymen. The cry was that a bold, jolly,
freehanded English gentleman, of whom the worst that could be said was
that he liked wine and women, was to be shot in order to gratify the
spite of the Dutch. What passed at the trial tended to confirm the
populace in this notion. Most of the witnesses against the prisoner were
Dutch officers. The Dutch real admiral, who took on himself the part of
prosecutor, forgot himself so far as to accuse the judges of partiality.
When at length, on the evening of the third day, Torrington was
pronounced not guilty, many who had recently clamoured for his blood
seemed to be well pleased with his acquittal. He returned to London
free, and with his sword by his side. As his yacht went up the Thames,
every ship which he passed saluted him. He took his seat in the House
of Lords, and even ventured to present himself at court. But most of the
peers looked coldly on him; William would not see him, and ordered him
to be dismissed from the service, [803]

There was another subject about which no vote was passed by either
of the Houses, but about which there is reason to believe that some
acrimonious discussion took place in both. The Whigs, though much less
violent than in the preceding year, could not patiently see Caermarthen
as nearly prime minister as any English subject could be under a prince
of William's character. Though no man had taken a more prominent part in
the Revolution than the Lord President, though no man had more to fear
from a counterrevolution, his old enemies would not believe that he had
from his heart renounced those arbitrary doctrines for which he had
once been zealous, or that he could bear true allegiance to a government
sprung from resistance. Through the last six months of 1690 he was
mercilessly lampooned. Sometimes he was King Thomas and sometimes Tom
the Tyrant, [804] William was adjured not to go to the Continent leaving
his worst enemy close to the ear of the Queen. Halifax, who had, in the
preceding year, been ungenerously and ungratefully persecuted by the
Whigs, was now mentioned by them with respect and regret; for he was the
enemy of their enemy, [805] The face, the figure, the bodily infirmities
of Caermarthen, were ridiculed, [806] Those dealings with the French
Court in which, twelve years before, he had, rather by his misfortune
than by his fault, been implicated, were represented in the most odious
colours. He was reproached with his impeachment and his imprisonment.
Once, it was said, he had escaped; but vengeance might still overtake
him, and London might enjoy the long deferred pleasure of seeing the old
traitor flung off the ladder in the blue riband which he disgraced.
All the members of his family, wife, son, daughters, were assailed with
savage invective and contemptuous sarcasm, [807] All who were supposed
to be closely connected with him by political ties came in for a portion
of this abuse; and none had so large a portion as Lowther. The feeling
indicated by these satires was strong among the Whigs in Parliament.
Several of them deliberated on a plan of attack, and were in hopes that
they should be able to raise such a storm as would make it impossible
for him to remain at the head of affairs. It should seem that, at this
time, his influence in the royal closet was not quite what it had
been. Godolphin, whom he did not love, and could not control, but whose
financial skill had been greatly missed during the summer, was brought
back to the Treasury, and made First Commissioner. Lowther, who was
the Lord President's own man, still sate at the board, but no longer
presided there. It is true that there was not then such a difference as
there now is between the First Lord and his colleagues. Still the change
was important and significant. Marlborough, whom Caermarthen disliked,
was, in military affairs, not less trusted than Godolphin in financial
affairs. The seals which Shrewsbury had resigned in the summer had ever
since been lying in William's secret drawer. The Lord President probably
expected that he should be consulted before they were given away; but he
was disappointed. Sidney was sent for from Ireland; and the seals were
delivered to him. The first intimation which the Lord President received
of this important appointment was not made in a manner likely to soothe
his feelings. "Did you meet the new Secretary of State going out? " said
William. "No, Sir," answered the Lord President; "I met nobody but my
Lord Sidney. " "He is the new Secretary," said William. "He will do till
I find a fit man; and he will be quite willing to resign as soon as I
find a fit man. Any other person that I could put in would think himself
ill used if I were to put him out. " If William had said all that was in
his mind, he would probably have added that Sidney, though not a great
orator or statesman, was one of the very few English politicians who
could be as entirely trusted as Bentinck or Zulestein. Caermarthen
listened with a bitter smile. It was new, he afterwards said, to see a
nobleman placed in the Secretary's office, as a footman was placed in
a box at the theatre, merely in order to keep a seat till his betters
came. But this jest was a cover for serious mortification and alarm. The
situation of the prime minister was unpleasant and even perilous;
and the duration of his power would probably have been short, had
not fortune, just at this moment, put it in his power to confound his
adversaries by rendering a great service to the state, [808]

The Jacobites had seemed in August to be completely crushed. The victory
of the Boyne, and the irresistible explosion of patriotic feeling
produced by the appearance of Tourville's fleet on the coast of
Devonshire, had cowed the boldest champions of hereditary right. Most of
the chief plotters passed some weeks in confinement or in concealment.
But, widely as the ramifications of the conspiracy had extended, only
one traitor suffered the punishment of his crime. This was a man named
Godfrey Cross, who kept an inn on the beach near Rye, and who, when
the French fleet was on the coast of Sussex, had given information
to Tourville. When it appeared that this solitary example was thought
sufficient, when the danger of invasion was over, when the popular
enthusiasm excited by that danger had subsided, when the lenity of the
government had permitted some conspirators to leave their prisons and
had encouraged others to venture out of their hidingplaces, the faction
which had been prostrated and stunned began to give signs of returning
animation. The old traitors again mustered at the old haunts, exchanged
significant looks and eager whispers, and drew from their pockets libels
on the Court of Kensington, and letters in milk and lemon juice from the
Court of Saint Germains. Preston, Dartmouth, Clarendon, Penn, were among
the most busy. With them, was leagued the nonjuring Bishop of Ely, who
was still permitted by the government to reside in the palace, now no
longer his own, and who had, but a short time before, called heaven to
witness that he detested the thought of inviting foreigners to invade
England. One good opportunity had been lost; but another was at hand,
and must not be suffered to escape. The usurper would soon be again out
of England. The administration would soon be again confided to a weak
woman and a divided council. The year which was closing had certainly
been unlucky; but that which was about to commence might be more
auspicious.

In December a meeting of the leading Jacobites was held, [809] The sense
of the assembly, which consisted exclusively of Protestants, was that
something ought to be attempted, but that the difficulties were great.
None ventured to recommend that James should come over unaccompanied
by regular troops. Yet all, taught by the experience of the preceding
summer, dreaded the effect which might be produced by the sight of
French uniforms and standards on English ground. A paper was drawn
up which would, it was hoped, convince both James and Lewis that a
restoration could not be effected without the cordial concurrence of
the nation. France,--such was the substance of this remarkable
document,--might possibly make the island a heap of ruins, but never a
subject province. It was hardly possible for any person, who had not had
an opportunity of observing the temper of the public mind, to imagine
the savage and dogged determination with which men of all classes, sects
and factions were prepared to resist any foreign potentate who should
attempt to conquer the kingdom by force of arms. Nor could England
be governed as a Roman Catholic country. There were five millions of
Protestants in the realm: there were not a hundred thousand Papists:
that such a minority should keep down such a majority was physically
impossible; and to physical impossibility all other considerations
must give way. James would therefore do well to take without delay such
measures as might indicate his resolution to protect the established
religion. Unhappily every letter which arrived from France contained
something tending to irritate feelings which it was most desirable to
soothe. Stories were every where current of slights offered at Saint
Germains to Protestants who had given the highest proof of loyalty by
following into banishment a master zealous for a faith which was not
their own. The edicts which had been issued against the Huguenots might
perhaps have been justified by the anarchical opinions and practices of
those sectaries; but it was the height of injustice and of inhospitality
to put those edicts in force against men who had been driven from their
country solely on account of their attachment to a Roman Catholic
King. Surely sons of the Anglican Church, who had, in obedience to her
teaching, sacrificed all that they most prized on earth to the royal
cause, ought not to be any longer interdicted from assembling in some
modest edifice to celebrate her rites and to receive her consolations.
An announcement that Lewis had, at the request of James, permitted the
English exiles to worship God according to their national forms would
be the best prelude to the great attempt. That attempt ought to be
made early in the spring. A French force must undoubtedly accompany His
Majesty. But he must declare that he brought that force only for the
defence of his person and for the protection of his loving subjects, and
that, as soon as the foreign oppressors had been expelled, the foreign
deliverers should be dismissed. He must also promise to govern according
to law, and must refer all the points which had been in dispute between
him and his people to the decision of a Parliament.

It was determined that Preston should carry to Saint Germains the
resolutions and suggestions of the conspirators, John Ashton, a person
who had been clerk of the closet to Mary of Modena when she was on the
throne, and who was entirely devoted to the interests of the exiled
family, undertook to procure the means of conveyance, and for this
purpose engaged the cooperation of a hotheaded young Jacobite named
Elliot, who only knew in general that a service of some hazard was to be
rendered to the good cause.

It was easy to find in the port of London a vessel the owner of which
was not scrupulous about the use for which it might be wanted. Ashton
and Elliot were introduced to the master of a smack named the James and
Elizabeth. The Jacobite agents pretended to be smugglers, and talked
of the thousands of pounds which might be got by a single lucky trip to
France and back again. A bargain was struck: a sixpence was broken; and
all the arrangements were made for the voyage.

Preston was charged by his friends with a packet containing several
important papers. Among these was a list of the English fleet furnished
by Dartmouth, who was in communication with some of his old companions
in arms, a minute of the resolutions which had been adopted at the
meeting of the conspirators, and the Heads of a Declaration which it
was thought desirable that James should publish at the moment of his
landing. There were also six or seven letters from persons of note in
the Jacobite party. Most of these letters were parables, but parables
which it was not difficult to unriddle. One plotter used the cant of the
law. There was hope that Mr. Jackson would soon recover his estate. The
new landlord was a hard man, and had set the freeholders against him. A
little matter would redeem the whole property. The opinions of the best
counsel were in Mr. Jackson's favour. All that was necessary was that he
should himself appear in Westminster Hall. The final hearing ought to be
before the close of Easter Term. Other writers affected the style of the
Royal Exchange. There was a great demand for a cargo of the right sort.