But they had
retreated ignominiously from the walls of Londonderry.
retreated ignominiously from the walls of Londonderry.
Macaulay
"I do not like this job;" one of
them muttered, "I should be glad to fight the Macdonalds. But to kill
men in their beds--" "We must do as we are bid," answered another voice.
"If there is any thing wrong, our officers must answer for it. " John
Macdonald was so uneasy that, soon after midnight, he went to Glenlyon's
quarters. Glenlyon and his men were all up, and seemed to be getting
their arms ready for action. John, much alarmed, asked what these
preparations meant. Glenlyon was profuse of friendly assurances. "Some
of Glengarry's people have been harrying the country. We are getting
ready to march against them. You are quite safe. Do you think that, if
you were in any danger, I should not have given a hint to your brother
Sandy and his wife? " John's suspicions were quieted. He returned to his
house, and lay down to rest.
It was five in the morning. Hamilton and his men were still some miles
off; and the avenues which they were to have secured were open. But the
orders which Glenlyon had received were precise; and he began to execute
them at the little village where he was himself quartered. His host
Inverriggen and nine other Macdonalds were dragged out of their beds,
bound hand and foot, and murdered. A boy twelve years old clung round
the Captain's legs, and begged hard for life. He would do any thing;
he would go any where; he would follow Glenlyon round the world. Even
Glenlyon, it is said, showed signs of relenting; but a ruffian named
Drummond shot the child dead.
At Auchnaion the tacksman Auchintriater was up early that morning, and
was sitting with eight of his family round the fire, when a volley
of musketry laid him and seven of his companions dead or dying on the
floor. His brother, who alone had escaped unhurt, called to Serjeant
Barbour, who commanded the slayers, and asked as a favour to be allowed
to die in the open air. "Well," said the Serjeant, "I will do you that
favour for the sake of your meat which I have eaten. " The mountaineer,
bold, athletic, and favoured by the darkness, came forth, rushed on the
soldiers who were about to level their pieces at him, flung his plaid
over their faces, and was gone in a moment.
Meanwhile Lindsay had knocked at the door of the old Chief and had asked
for admission in friendly language. The door was opened. Mac Ian,
while putting on his clothes and calling to his servants to bring some
refreshment for his visitors, was shot through the head. Two of his
attendants were slain with him. His wife was already up and dressed in
such finery as the princesses of the rude Highland glens were accustomed
to wear. The assassins pulled off her clothes and trinkets. The rings
were not easily taken from her fingers but a soldier tore them away with
his teeth. She died on the following day.
The statesman, to whom chiefly this great crime is to be ascribed, had
planned it with consummate ability: but the execution was complete in
nothing but in guilt and infamy. A succession of blunders saved three
fourths of the Glencoe men from the fate of their chief. All the moral
qualities which fit men to bear a part in a massacre Hamilton and
Glenlyon possessed in perfection. But neither seems to have had much
professional skill; Hamilton had arranged his plan without making
allowance for bad weather, and this in a country and at a season when
the weather was very likely to be bad. The consequence was that the fox
earths, as he called them, were not stopped in time. Glenlyon and his
men committed the error of despatching their hosts with firearms instead
of using the cold steel. The peal and flash of gun after gun gave
notice, from three different parts of the valley at once; that murder
was doing. From fifty cottages the half naked peasantry fled under cover
of the night to the recesses of their pathless glen. Even the sons of
Mac Ian, who had been especially marked out for destruction, contrived
to escape. They were roused from sleep by faithful servants. John,
who, by the death of his father, had become the patriarch of the tribe,
quitted his dwelling just as twenty soldiers with fixed bayonets marched
up to it. It was broad day long before Hamilton arrived. He found the
work not even half performed. About thirty corpses lay wallowing in
blood on the dunghills before the doors. One or two women were seen
among the number, and, a yet more fearful and piteous sight, a little
hand, which had been lopped in the tumult of the butchery from some
infant. One aged Macdonald was found alive. He was probably too infirm
to fly, and, as he was above seventy, was not included in the orders
under which Glenlyon had acted. Hamilton murdered the old man in cold
blood. The deserted hamlets were then set on fire; and the troops
departed, driving away with them many sheep and goats, nine hundred
kine, and two hundred of the small shaggy ponies of the Highlands.
It is said, and may but too easily be believed, that the sufferings of
the fugitives were terrible. How many old men, how many women with babes
in their arms, sank down and slept their last sleep in the snow; how
many, having crawled, spent with toil and hunger, into nooks among the
precipices, died in those dark holes, and were picked to the bone by the
mountain ravens, can never be known. But it is probable that those who
perished by cold, weariness and want were not less numerous than those
who were slain by the assassins. When the troops had retired, the
Macdonalds crept out of the caverns of Glencoe, ventured back to the
spot where the huts had formerly stood, collected the scorched
corpses from among the smoking ruins, and performed some rude rites of
sepulture. The tradition runs that the hereditary bard of the tribe took
his seat on a rock which overhung the place of slaughter, and poured
forth a long lament over his murdered brethren, and his desolate home.
Eighty years later that sad dirge was still repeated by the population
of the valley. [233]
The survivors might well apprehend that they had escaped the shot
and the sword only to perish by famine. The whole domain was a waste.
Houses, barns, furniture, implements of husbandry, herds, flocks,
horses, were gone. Many months must elapse before the clan would be
able to raise on its own ground the means of supporting even the most
miserable existence. [234]
It may be thought strange that these events should not have been
instantly followed by a burst of execration from every part of the
civilised world. The fact, however, is that years elapsed before the
public indignation was thoroughly awakened, and that months elapsed
before the blackest part of the story found credit even among the
enemies of the government. That the massacre should not have been
mentioned in the London Gazettes, in the Monthly Mercuries which were
scarcely less courtly than the Gazettes, or in pamphlets licensed by
official censors, is perfectly intelligible. But that no allusion to it
should be found in private journals and letters, written by persons free
from all restraint, may seem extraordinary. There is not a word on the
subject in Evelyn's Diary. In Narcissus Luttrell's Diary is a remarkable
entry made five weeks after the butchery. The letters from Scotland, he
says, described that kingdom as perfectly tranquil, except that there
was still some grumbling about ecclesiastical questions. The Dutch
ministers regularly reported all the Scotch news to their government.
They thought it worth while, about this time, to mention that a collier
had been taken by a privateer near Berwick, that the Edinburgh mail had
been robbed, that a whale, with a tongue seventeen feet long and seven
feet broad, had been stranded near Aberdeen. But it is not hinted in
any of their despatches that there was any rumour of any extraordinary
occurrence in the Highlands. Reports that some of the Macdonalds had
been slain did indeed, in about three weeks, travel through Edinburgh up
to London. But these reports were vague and contradictory; and the very
worst of them was far from coming up to the horrible truth. The Whig
version of the story was that the old robber Mac Ian had laid an
ambuscade for the soldiers, that he had been caught in his own snare,
and that he and some of his clan had fallen sword in hand. The Jacobite
version, written at Edinburgh on the twenty-third of March, appeared in
the Paris Gazette of the seventh of April. Glenlyon, it was said, had
been sent with a detachment from Argyle's regiment, under cover of
darkness, to surprise the inhabitants of Glencoe, and had killed
thirty-six men and boys and four women. [235] In this there was nothing
very strange or shocking. A night attack on a gang of freebooters
occupying a strong natural fortress may be a perfectly legitimate
military operation; and, in the obscurity and confusion of such an
attack, the most humane man may be so unfortunate as to shoot a woman
or a child. The circumstances which give a peculiar character to the
slaughter of Glencoe, the breach of faith, the breach of hospitality,
the twelve days of feigned friendship and conviviality, of morning
calls, of social meals, of healthdrinking, of cardplaying, were not
mentioned by the Edinburgh correspondent of the Paris Gazette; and we
may therefore confidently infer that those circumstances were as yet
unknown even to inquisitive and busy malecontents residing in the
Scottish capital within a hundred miles of the spot where the deed had
been done. In the south of the island the matter produced, as far as
can now be judged, scarcely any sensation. To the Londoner of those days
Appin was what Caffraria or Borneo is to us. He was not more moved by
hearing that some Highland thieves had been surprised and killed than we
are by hearing that a band of Amakosah cattle stealers has been cut
off, or that a bark full of Malay pirates has been sunk. He took it for
granted that nothing had been done in Glencoe beyond what was doing in
many other glens. There had been a night brawl, one of a hundred night
brawls, between the Macdonalds and the Campbells; and the Campbells had
knocked the Macdonalds on the head.
By slow degrees the whole truth came out. From a letter written at
Edinburgh about two months after the crime had been committed, it
appears that the horrible story was already current among the Jacobites
of that city. In the summer Argyle's regiment was quartered in the south
of England, and some of the men made strange confessions, over their
ale, about what they had been forced to do in the preceding winter. The
nonjurors soon got hold of the clue, and followed it resolutely; their
secret presses went to work; and at length, near a year after the crime
had been committed, it was published to the world. [236] But the world
was long incredulous. The habitual mendacity of the Jacobite libellers
had brought on them an appropriate punishment. Now, when, for the first
time, they told the truth, they were supposed to be romancing. They
complained bitterly that the story, though perfectly authentic, was
regarded by the public as a factious lie. [237] So late as the year
1695, Hickes, in a tract in which he endeavoured to defend his darling
tale of the Theban legion against the unanswerable argument drawn
from the silence of historians, remarked that it might well be doubted
whether any historian would make mention of the massacre of Glencoe.
There were in England, he said, many thousands of well educated men who
had never heard of that massacre, or who regarded it as a mere fable.
[238]
Nevertheless the punishment of some of the guilty began very early.
Hill, who indeed can hardly be called guilty, was much disturbed.
Breadalbane, hardened as he was, felt the stings of conscience or the
dread of retribution. A few days after the Macdonalds had returned to
their old dwellingplace, his steward visited the ruins of the house of
Glencoe, and endeavoured to persuade the sons of the murdered chief to
sign a paper declaring that they held the Earl guiltless of the blood
which had been shed. They were assured that, if they would do this, all
His Lordship's great influence should be employed to obtain for them
from the Crown a free pardon and a remission of all forfeitures.
[239] Glenlyon did his best to assume an air of unconcern. He made his
appearance in the most fashionable coffeehouse at Edinburgh, and talked
loudly and self-complacently about the important service in which he
had been engaged among the mountains. Some of his soldiers, however, who
observed him closely, whispered that all this bravery was put on. He
was not the man that he had been before that night. The form of his
countenance was changed. In all places, at all hours, whether he waked
or slept, Glencoe was for ever before him. [240]
But, whatever apprehensions might disturb Breadalbane, whatever spectres
might haunt Glenlyon, the Master of Stair had neither fear nor remorse.
He was indeed mortified; but he was mortified only by the blunders of
Hamilton and by the escape of so many of the damnable breed. "Do right,
and fear nobody;" such is the language of his letters. "Can there be
a more sacred duty than to rid the country of thieving? The only thing
that I regret is that any got away. " [241]
On the sixth of March, William, entirely ignorant, in all probability,
of the details of the crime which has cast a dark shade over his glory,
had set out for the Continent, leaving the Queen his viceregent in
England. [242]
He would perhaps have postponed his departure if he had been aware
that the French Government had, during some time, been making great
preparations for a descent on our island. [243] An event had taken place
which had changed the policy of the Court of Versailles. Louvois was
no more. He had been at the head of the military administration of his
country during a quarter of a century; he had borne a chief part in the
direction of two wars which had enlarged the French territory, and had
filled the world with the renown of the French arms; and he had lived
to see the beginning of a third war which tasked his great powers to the
utmost. Between him and the celebrated captains who carried his plans
into execution there was little harmony. His imperious temper and
his confidence in himself impelled him to interfere too much with the
conduct of troops in the field, even when those troops were commanded
by Conde, by Turenne or by Luxemburg. But he was the greatest Adjutant
General, the greatest Quartermaster General, the greatest Commissary
General, that Europe had seen. He may indeed be said to have made a
revolution in the art of disciplining, distributing, equipping and
provisioning armies. In spite, however, of his abilities and of his
services, he had become odious to Lewis and to her who governed Lewis.
On the last occasion on which the King and the minister transacted
business together, the ill humour on both sides broke violently forth.
The servant, in his vexation, dashed his portfolio on the ground. The
master, forgetting, what he seldom forgot, that a King should be a
gentleman, lifted his cane. Fortunately his wife was present. She, with
her usual prudence, caught his arm. She then got Louvois out of the
room, and exhorted him to come back the next day as if nothing had
happened. The next day he came; but with death in his face. The King,
though full of resentment, was touched with pity, and advised Louvois to
go home and take care of himself. That evening the great minister died.
[244]
Louvois had constantly opposed all plans for the invasion of England.
His death was therefore regarded at Saint Germains as a fortunate event.
[245] It was however necessary to look sad, and to send a gentleman
to Versailles with some words of condolence. The messenger found the
gorgeous circle of courtiers assembled round their master on the terrace
above the orangery. "Sir," said Lewis, in a tone so easy and cheerful
that it filled all the bystanders with amazement, "present my
compliments and thanks to the King and Queen of England, and tell them
that neither my affairs nor theirs will go on the worse by what has
happened. " These words were doubtless meant to intimate that the
influence of Louvois had not been exerted in favour of the House of
Stuart. [246] One compliment, however, a compliment which cost France
dear, Lewis thought it right to pay to the memory of his ablest
servant. The Marquess of Barbesieux, son of Louvois, was placed, in his
twenty-fifth year, at the head of the war department. The young man was
by no means deficient in abilities, and had been, during some years,
employed in business of grave importance. But his passions were strong;
his judgment was not ripe; and his sudden elevation turned his head. His
manners gave general disgust. Old officers complained that he kept them
long in his antechamber while he was amusing himself with his spaniels
and his flatterers. Those who were admitted to his presence went away
disgusted by his rudeness and arrogance. As was natural at his age, he
valued power chiefly as the means of procuring pleasure. Millions of
crowns were expended on the luxurious villa where he loved to forget
the cares of office in gay conversation, delicate cookery and foaming
champagne. He often pleaded an attack of fever as an excuse for not
making his appearance at the proper hour in the royal closet, when
in truth he had been playing truant among his boon companions and
mistresses. "The French King," said William, "has an odd taste.
He chooses an old woman for his mistress, and a young man for his
minister. " [247]
There can be little doubt that Louvois, by pursuing that course which
had made him odious to the inmates of Saint Germains, had deserved well
of his country. He was not maddened by Jacobite enthusiasm. He well knew
that exiles are the worst of all advisers. He had excellent information;
he had excellent judgment; he calculated the chances; and he saw that a
descent was likely to fail, and to fail disastrously and disgracefully.
James might well be impatient to try the experiment, though the odds
should be ten to one against him. He might gain; and he could not lose.
His folly and obstinacy had left him nothing to risk. His food, his
drink, his lodging, his clothes, he owed to charity. Nothing could be
more natural than that, for the very smallest chance of recovering the
three kingdoms which he had thrown away, he should be willing to stake
what was not his own, the honour of the French arms, the grandeur and
the safety of the French monarchy. To a French statesman such a wager
might well appear in a different light. But Louvois was gone. His
master yielded to the importunity of James, and determined to send an
expedition against England. [248]
The scheme was, in some respects, well concerted. It was resolved that
a camp should be formed on the coast of Normandy, and that in this
camp all the Irish regiments which were in the French service should be
assembled under their countryman Sarsfield. With them were to be joined
about ten thousand French troops. The whole army was to be commanded by
Marshal Bellefonds.
A noble fleet of about eighty ships of the line was to convoy this
force to the shores of England. In the dockyards both of Brittany and of
Provence immense preparations were made. Four and forty men of war, some
of which were among the finest that had ever been built, were assembled
in the harbour of Brest under Tourville. The Count of Estrees, with
thirty-five more, was to sail from Toulon. Ushant was fixed for the
place of rendezvous. The very day was named. In order that there might
be no want either of seamen or of vessels for the intended expedition,
all maritime trade, all privateering was, for a time, interdicted by a
royal mandate. [249] Three hundred transports were collected near the
spot where the troops were to embark. It was hoped that all would be
ready early in the spring, before the English ships were half rigged or
half manned, and before a single Dutch man of war was in the Channel.
[250]
James had indeed persuaded himself that, even if the English fleet
should fall in with him, it would not oppose him. He imagined that
he was personally a favourite with the mariners of all ranks. His
emissaries had been busy among the naval officers, and had found some
who remembered him with kindness, and others who were out of humour
with the men now in power. All the wild talk of a class of people not
distinguished by taciturnity or discretion was reported to him with
exaggeration, till he was deluded into a belief that he had more friends
than enemies on board of the vessels which guarded our coasts. Yet he
should have known that a rough sailor, who thought himself ill used by
the Admiralty, might, after the third bottle, when drawn on by artful
companions, express his regret for the good old times, curse the new
government, and curse himself for being such a fool as to fight for
that government, and yet might be by no means prepared to go over to the
French on the day of battle. Of the malecontent officers, who, as James
believed, were impatient to desert, the great majority had probably
given no pledge of their attachment to him except an idle word
hiccoughed out when they were drunk, and forgotten when they were sober.
One those from whom he expected support, Rear Admiral Carter, had indeed
heard and perfectly understood what the Jacobite agents had to say, had
given them fair words, and had reported the whole to the Queen and her
ministers. [251]
But the chief dependence of James was on Russell. That false, arrogant
and wayward politician was to command the Channel Fleet. He had never
ceased to assure the Jacobite emissaries that he was bent on effecting
a Restoration. Those emissaries fully reckoned, if not on his entire
cooperation, yet at least on his connivance; and there could be no doubt
that, with his connivance, a French fleet might easily convoy an army to
our shores. James flattered himself that, as soon as he had landed, he
should be master of the island. But in truth, when the voyage had ended,
the difficulties of his enterprise would have been only beginning. Two
years before he had received a lesson by which he should have profited.
He had then deceived himself and others into the belief that the English
were regretting him, were pining for him, were eager to rise in arms
by tens of thousands to welcome him. William was then, as now, at a
distance. Then, as now, the administration was entrusted to a woman.
Then, as now, there were few regular troops in England. Torrington had
then done as much to injure the government which he served as Russell
could now do. The French fleet had then, after riding, during several
weeks, victorious and dominant in the Channel, landed some troops on
the southern coast. The immediate effect had been that whole counties,
without distinction of Tory or Whig, Churchman or Dissenter, had risen
up, as one man, to repel the foreigners, and that the Jacobite party,
which had, a few days before, seemed to be half the nation, had crouched
down in silent terror, and had made itself so small that it had, during
some time, been invisible. What reason was there for believing that
the multitude who had, in 1690, at the first lighting of the beacons,
snatched up firelocks, pikes, scythes, to defend, their native soil
against the French, would now welcome the French as allies? And of the
army by which James was now to be accompanied the French formed the
least odious part. More than half of that army was to consist of Irish
Papists; and the feeling, compounded of hatred and scorn, with which the
Irish Papists had long been regarded by the English Protestants, had
by recent events been stimulated to a vehemence before unknown. The
hereditary slaves, it was said, had been for a moment free; and that
moment had sufficed to prove that they knew neither how to use nor how
to defend their freedom. During their short ascendency they had done
nothing but slay, and burn, and pillage, and demolish, and attaint, and
confiscate. In three years they had committed such waste on their native
land as thirty years of English intelligence and industry would scarcely
repair. They would have maintained their independence against the world,
if they had been as ready to fight as they were to steal.
But they had
retreated ignominiously from the walls of Londonderry. They had fled
like deer before the yeomanry of Enniskillen. The Prince whom they
now presumed to think that they could place, by force of arms, on the
English throne, had himself, on the morning after the rout of the Boyne,
reproached them with their cowardice, and told them that he would never
again trust to their soldiership. On this subject Englishmen were of one
mind. Tories, Nonjurors, even Roman Catholics, were as loud as Whigs in
reviling the ill fated race. It is, therefore, not difficult to guess
what effect would have been produced by the appearance on our soil of
enemies whom, on their own soil, we had vanquished and trampled down.
James, however, in spite of the recent and severe teaching of
experience, believed whatever his correspondents in England told him;
and they told him that the whole nation was impatiently expecting him,
that both the West and the North were ready to rise, that he would
proceed from the place of landing to Whitehall with as little
opposition as when, in old times, he returned from a progress. Ferguson
distinguished himself by the confidence with which he predicted a
complete and bloodless victory. He and his printer, he was absurd enough
to write, would be the two first men in the realm to take horse for His
Majesty. Many other agents were busy up and down the country, during the
winter and the early part of the spring. It does not appear that they
had much success in the counties south of Trent. But in the north,
particularly in Lancashire, where the Roman Catholics were more numerous
and more powerful than in any other part of the kingdom, and where there
seems to have been, even among the Protestant gentry, more than the
ordinary proportion of bigoted Jacobites, some preparations for an
insurrection were made. Arms were privately bought; officers were
appointed; yeomen, small farmers, grooms, huntsmen, were induced to
enlist. Those who gave in their names were distributed into eight
regiments of cavalry and dragoons, and were directed to hold themselves
in readiness to mount at the first signal. [252]
One of the circumstances which filled James, at this time, with
vain hopes, was that his wife was pregnant and near her delivery. He
flattered himself that malice itself would be ashamed to repeat any
longer the story of the warming pan, and that multitudes whom that story
had deceived would instantly return to their allegiance. He took, on
this occasion, all those precautions which, four years before, he had
foolishly and perversely forborne to take. He contrived to transmit to
England letters summoning many Protestant women of quality to assist at
the expected birth; and he promised, in the name of his dear brother the
Most Christian King, that they should be free to come and go in safety.
Had some of these witnesses been invited to Saint James's on the morning
of the tenth of June 1688, the House of Stuart might, perhaps, now be
reigning in our island. But it is easier to keep a crown than to regain
one. It might be true that a calumnious fable had done much to bring
about the Revolution. But it by no means followed that the most complete
refutation of that fable would bring about a Restoration. Not a single
lady crossed the sea in obedience to James's call. His Queen was safely
delivered of a daughter; but this event produced no perceptible effect
on the state of public feeling in England. [253]
Meanwhile the preparations for his expedition were going on fast. He
was on the point of setting out for the place of embarkation before the
English government was at all aware of the danger which was impending.
It had been long known indeed that many thousands of Irish were
assembled in Normandy; but it was supposed that they had been assembled
merely that they might be mustered and drilled before they were sent
to Flanders, Piedmont, and Catalonia. [254] Now, however, intelligence,
arriving from many quarters, left no doubt that an invasion would be
almost immediately attempted. Vigorous preparations for defence were
made. The equipping and manning of the ships was urged forward with
vigour. The regular troops were drawn together between London and the
sea. A great camp was formed on the down which overlooks Portsmouth. The
militia all over the kingdom was called out. Two Westminster regiments
and six City regiments, making up a force of thirteen thousand fighting
men, were arrayed in Hyde Park, and passed in review before the Queen.
The trainbands of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey marched down to the coast.
Watchmen were posted by the beacons. Some nonjurors were imprisoned,
some disarmed, some held to bail. The house of the Earl of Huntingdon, a
noted Jacobite, was searched. He had had time to burn his papers and to
hide his arms; but his stables presented a most suspicious appearance.
Horses enough to mount a whole troop of cavalry were at the mangers;
and this evidence, though not legally sufficient to support a charge of
treason, was thought sufficient, at such a conjuncture, to justify the
Privy Council in sending him to the Tower. [255] Meanwhile James had
gone down to his army, which was encamped round the basin of La
Hogue, on the northern coast of the peninsula known by the name of the
Cotentin. Before he quitted Saint Germains, he held a Chapter of the
Garter for the purpose of admitting his son into the order. Two noblemen
were honoured with the same distinction, Powis, who, among his brother
exiles, was now called a Duke, and Melfort, who had returned from Rome,
and was again James's Prime Minister. [256] Even at this moment, when it
was of the greatest importance to conciliate the members of the Church
of England, none but members of the Church of Rome were thought worthy
of any mark of royal favour. Powis indeed was an eminent member of the
English aristocracy; and his countrymen disliked him as little as they
disliked any conspicuous Papist. But Melfort was not even an Englishman;
he had never held office in England; he had never sate in the English
Parliament; and he had therefore no pretensions to a dignity peculiarly
English. He was moreover hated by all the contending factions of all the
three kingdoms. Royal letters countersigned by him had been sent both to
the Convention at Westminster and to the Convention at Edinburgh; and,
both at Westminster and at Edinburgh, the sight of his odious name and
handwriting had made the most zealous friends of hereditary right hang
down their heads in shame. It seems strange that even James should have
chosen, at such a conjuncture, to proclaim to the world that the men
whom his people most abhorred were the men whom he most delighted to
honour.
Still more injurious to his interests was the Declaration in which he
announced his intentions to his subjects. Of all the State papers
which were put forth even by him it was the most elaborately and
ostentatiously injudicious. When it had disgusted and exasperated all
good Englishmen of all parties, the Papists at Saint Germains pretended
that it had been drawn up by a stanch Protestant, Edward Herbert, who
had been Chief Justice of the Common Pleas before the Revolution, and
who now bore the empty title of Chancellor. [257] But it is certain that
Herbert was never consulted about any matter of importance, and that
the Declaration was the work of Melfort and of Melfort alone. [258]
In truth, those qualities of head and heart which had made Melfort the
favourite of his master shone forth in every sentence. Not a word was
to be found indicating that three years of banishment had made the King
wiser, that he had repented of a single error, that he took to himself
even the smallest part of the blame of that revolution which had
dethroned him, or that he purposed to follow a course in any respect
differing from that which had already been fatal to him. All the
charges which had been brought against him he pronounced to be utterly
unfounded. Wicked men had put forth calumnies. Weak men had believed
those calumnies. He alone had been faultless. He held out no hope that
he would consent to any restriction of that vast dispensing power to
which he had formerly laid claim, that he would not again, in defiance
of the plainest statutes, fill the Privy Council, the bench of justice,
the public offices, the army, the navy, with Papists, that he would not
reestablish the High Commission, that he would not appoint a new set of
regulators to remodel all the constituent bodies of the kingdom. He did
indeed condescend to say that he would maintain the legal rights of the
Church of England; but he had said this before; and all men knew what
those words meant in his mouth. Instead of assuring his people of his
forgiveness, he menaced them with a proscription more terrible than any
which our island had ever seen. He published a list of persons who had
no mercy to expect. Among these were Ormond, Caermarthen, Nottingham,
Tillotson and Burnet. After the roll of those who were doomed to death
by name, came a series of categories. First stood all the crowd
of rustics who had been rude to His Majesty when he was stopped at
Sheerness in his flight. These poor ignorant wretches, some hundreds in
number, were reserved for another bloody circuit. Then came all persons
who had in any manner borne a part in the punishment of any Jacobite
conspirator; judges, counsel, witnesses, grand jurymen, petty jurymen,
sheriffs and undersheriffs, constables and turnkeys, in short, all
the ministers of justice from Holt down to Ketch. Then vengeance was
denounced against all spies and all informers who had divulged to the
usurpers the designs of the Court of Saint Germains. All justices of
the peace who should not declare for their rightful Sovereign the moment
that they heard of his landing, all gaolers who should not instantly set
political prisoners at liberty, were to be left to the extreme rigour of
the law. No exception was made in favour of a justice or of a gaoler
who might be within a hundred yards of one of William's regiments, and
a hundred miles from the nearest place where there was a single Jacobite
in arms.
It might have been expected that James, after thus denouncing vengeance
against large classes of his subjects, would at least have offered a
general amnesty to the rest. But of general amnesty he said not a
word. He did indeed promise that any offender who was not in any of the
categories of proscription, and who should by any eminent service merit
indulgence, should receive a special pardon. But, with this exception,
all the offenders, hundreds of thousands in number, were merely informed
that their fate should be decided in Parliament.
The agents of James speedily dispersed his Declaration over every part
of the kingdom, and by doing so rendered a great service to William.
The general cry was that the banished oppressor had at least given
Englishmen fair warning, and that, if, after such a warning, they
welcomed him home, they would have no pretence for complaining, though
every county town should be polluted by an assize resembling that
which Jeffreys had held at Taunton. That some hundreds of people,--the
Jacobites put the number so low as five hundred,--were to be hanged
without mercy was certain; and nobody who had concurred in the
Revolution, nobody who had fought for the new government by sea or
land, no soldier who had borne a part in the conquest of Ireland, no
Devonshire ploughman or Cornish miner who had taken arms to defend his
wife and children against Tourville, could be certain that he should
not be hanged. How abject too, how spiteful, must be the nature of a man
who, engaged in the most momentous of all undertakings, and aspiring to
the noblest of all prizes, could not refrain from proclaiming that he
thirsted for the blood of a multitude of poor fishermen, because,
more than three years before, they had pulled him about and called him
Hatchetface. If, at the very moment when he had the strongest motives
for trying to conciliate his people by the show of clemency, he could
not bring himself to hold towards them any language but that of an
implacable enemy, what was to be expected from him when he should be
again their master? So savage was his nature that, in a situation
in which all other tyrants have resorted to blandishments and fair
promises, he could utter nothing but reproaches and threats. The only
words in his Declaration which had any show of graciousness were those
in which he promised to send away the foreign troops as soon as his
authority was reestablished; and many said that those words, when
examined, would be found full of sinister meaning. He held out no hope
that he would send away Popish troops who were his own subjects. His
intentions were manifest. The French might go; but the Irish would
remain. The people of England were to be kept down by these thrice
subjugated barbarians. No doubt a Rapparee who had run away at Newton
Butler and the Boyne might find courage enough to guard the scaffolds on
which his conquerors were to die, and to lay waste our country as he had
laid waste his own.
The Queen and her ministers, instead of attempting to suppress James's
manifesto, very wisely reprinted it, and sent it forth licensed by the
Secretary of State, and interspersed with remarks by a shrewd and severe
commentator. It was refuted in many keen pamphlets; it was turned into
doggrel rhymes; and it was left undefended even by the boldest and most
acrimonious libellers among the nonjurors. [259]
Indeed, some of the nonjurors were so much alarmed by observing the
effect which this manifesto produced, that they affected to treat it as
spurious, and published as their master's genuine Declaration a paper
full of gracious professions and promises. They made him offer a free
pardon to all his people with the exception of four great criminals.
They made him hold out hopes of great remissions of taxation. They
made him pledge his word that he would entrust the whole ecclesiastical
administration to the nonjuring bishops. But this forgery imposed on
nobody, and was important only as showing that even the Jacobites were
ashamed of the prince whom they were labouring to restore. [260]
No man read the Declaration with more surprise and anger than Russell.
Bad as he was, he was much under the influence of two feelings, which,
though they cannot be called virtuous, have some affinity to virtue, and
are respectable when compared with mere selfish cupidity. Professional
spirit and party spirit were strong in him. He might be false to his
country, but not to his flag; and, even in becoming a Jacobite, he had
not ceased to be a Whig. In truth, he was a Jacobite only because he was
the most intolerant and acrimonious of Whigs. He thought himself and his
faction ungratefully neglected by William, and was for a time too much
blinded by resentment to perceive that it would be mere madness in the
old Roundheads, the old Exclusionists, to punish William by recalling
James. The near prospect of an invasion, and the Declaration in which
Englishmen were plainly told what they had to expect if that invasion
should be successful, produced, it should seem, a sudden and entire
change in Russell's feelings; and that change he distinctly avowed. "I
wish," he said to Lloyd, "to serve King James. The thing might be done,
if it were not his own fault. But he takes the wrong way with us. Let
him forget all the past; let him grant a general pardon; and then I will
see what I can do for him. " Lloyd hinted something about the honours
and rewards designed for Russell himself. But the Admiral, with a spirit
worthy of a better man, cut him short. "I do not wish to hear anything
on that subject. My solicitude is for the public. And do not think that
I will let the French triumph over us in our own sea. Understand this,
that if I meet them I fight them, ay, though His Majesty himself should
be on board. "
This conversation was truly reported to James; but it does not appear to
have alarmed him. He was, indeed, possessed with a belief that Russell,
even if willing, would not be able to induce the officers and sailors of
the English navy to fight against their old King, who was also their old
Admiral.
The hopes which James felt, he and his favourite Melfort succeeded in
imparting to Lewis and to Lewis's ministers. [261] But for those hopes,
indeed, it is probable that all thoughts of invading England in the
course of that year would have been laid aside. For the extensive plan
which had been formed in the winter had, in the course of the spring,
been disconcerted by a succession of accidents such as are beyond the
control of human wisdom. The time fixed for the assembling of all the
maritime forces of France at Ushant had long elapsed; and not a single
sail had appeared at the place of rendezvous. The Atlantic squadron was
still detained by bad weather in the port of Brest. The Mediterranean
squadron, opposed by a strong west wind, was vainly struggling to pass
the pillars of Hercules. Two fine vessels had gone to pieces on the
rocks of Ceuta. [262] Meanwhile the admiralties of the allied powers
had been active. Before the end of April the English fleet was ready to
sail. Three noble ships, just launched from our dockyards, appeared
for the first time on the water. [263] William had been hastening the
maritime preparations of the United Provinces; and his exertions had
been successful. On the twenty-ninth of April a fine squadron from the
Texel appeared in the Downs. Soon came the North Holland squadron,
the Maes squadron, the Zealand squadron. [264] The whole force of the
confederate powers was assembled at Saint Helen's in the second week
of May, more than ninety sail of the line, manned by between thirty and
forty thousand of the finest seamen of the two great maritime nations.
Russell had the chief command. He was assisted by Sir Ralph Delaval,
Sir John Ashley, Sir Cloudesley Shovel, Rear Admiral Carter, and Rear
Admiral Rooke. Of the Dutch officers Van Almonde was highest in rank.
No mightier armament had ever appeared in the British Channel. There was
little reason for apprehending that such a force could be defeated in a
fair conflict. Nevertheless there was great uneasiness in London. It was
known that there was a Jacobite party in the navy. Alarming rumours had
worked their way round from France. It was said that the enemy reckoned
on the cooperation of some of those officers on whose fidelity, in this
crisis, the safety of the State might depend. Russell, as far as can now
be discovered, was still unsuspected. But others, who were probably less
criminal, had been more indiscreet. At all the coffee houses admirals
and captains were mentioned by name as traitors who ought to be
instantly cashiered, if not shot. It was even confidently affirmed that
some of the guilty had been put under arrest, and others turned out of
the service. The Queen and her counsellors were in a great strait. It
was not easy to say whether the danger of trusting the suspected persons
or the danger of removing them were the greater. Mary, with many painful
misgivings, resolved, and the event proved that she resolved wisely,
to treat the evil reports as calumnious, to make a solemn appeal to the
honour of the accused gentlemen, and then to trust the safety of her
kingdom to their national and professional spirit.
On the fifteenth of May a great assembly of officers was convoked at
Saint Helen's on board the Britannia, a fine three decker, from which
Russell's flag was flying. The Admiral told them that he had received a
despatch which he was charged to read to them. It was from Nottingham.
The Queen, the Secretary wrote, had been informed that stories deeply
affecting the character of the navy were in circulation. It had
even been affirmed that she had found herself under the necessity of
dismissing many officers. But Her Majesty was determined to believe
nothing against those brave servants of the State. The gentlemen who
had been so foully slandered might be assured that she placed entire
reliance on them. This letter was admirably calculated to work on those
to whom it was addressed. Very few of them probably had been guilty of
any worse offence than rash and angry talk over their wine. They were as
yet only grumblers. If they had fancied that they were marked men, they
might in selfdefence have become traitors. They became enthusiastically
loyal as soon as they were assured that the Queen reposed entire
confidence in their loyalty. They eagerly signed an address in
which they entreated her to believe that they would, with the utmost
resolution and alacrity, venture their lives in defence of her rights,
of English freedom and of the Protestant religion, against all foreign
and Popish invaders. "God," they added, "preserve your person, direct
your counsels, and prosper your arms; and let all your people say Amen. "
[265]
The sincerity of these professions was soon brought to the test. A
few hours after the meeting on board of the Britannia the masts
of Tourville's squadron were seen from the cliffs of Portland. One
messenger galloped with the news from Weymouth to London, and roused
Whitehall at three in the morning. Another took the coast road, and
carried the intelligence to Russell. All was ready; and on the morning
of the seventeenth of May the allied fleet stood out to sea. [266]
Tourville had with him only his own squadron, consisting of forty-four
ships of the line. But he had received positive orders to protect the
descent on England, and not to decline a battle. Though these orders had
been given before it was known at Versailles that the Dutch and
English fleets had joined, he was not disposed to take on himself the
responsibility of disobedience. He still remembered with bitterness the
reprimand which his extreme caution had drawn upon him after the fight
of Beachy Head. He would not again be told that he was a timid and
unenterprising commander, that he had no courage but the vulgar courage
of a common sailor. He was also persuaded that the odds against him were
rather apparent than real. He believed, on the authority of James and
Melfort, that the English seamen, from the flag officers down to the
cabin boys, were Jacobites. Those who fought would fight with half
a heart; and there would probably be numerous desertions at the most
critical moment. Animated by such hopes he sailed from Brest, steered
first towards the north east, came in sight of the coast of Dorsetshire,
and then struck across the Channel towards La Hogue, where the army
which he was to convoy to England had already begun to embark on board
of the transports. He was within a few leagues of Barfleur when, before
daybreak, on the morning of the nineteenth of May, he saw the great
armament of the allies stretching along the eastern horizon. He
determined to bear down on them. By eight the two lines of battle were
formed; but it was eleven before the firing began. It soon became plain
that the English, from the Admiral downward, were resolved to do their
duty. Russell had visited all his ships, and exhorted all his crews.
"If your commanders play false," he said, "overboard with them, and
with myself the first. " There was no defection. There was no slackness.
Carter was the first who broke the French line. He was struck by a
splinter of one of his own yard arms, and fell dying on the deck. He
would not be carried below. He would not let go his sword. "Fight the
ship," were his last words: "fight the ship as long as she can swim. "
The battle lasted till four in the afternoon. The roar of the guns
was distinctly heard more than twenty miles off by the army which was
encamped on the coast of Normandy. During the earlier part of the day
the wind was favourable to the French; they were opposed to half of the
allied fleet; and against that half they maintained the conflict with
their usual courage and with more than their usual seamanship. After a
hard and doubtful fight of five hours, Tourville thought that enough had
been done to maintain the honour of the white flag, and began to draw
off. But by this time the wind had veered, and was with the allies. They
were now able to avail themselves of their great superiority of force.
They came on fast. The retreat of the French became a flight. Tourville
fought his own ship desperately. She was named, in allusion to Lewis's
favourite emblem, the Royal Sun, and was widely renowned as the finest
vessel in the world. It was reported among the English sailors that she
was adorned with an image of the Great King, and that he appeared there,
as he appeared in the Place of Victories, with vanquished nations in
chains beneath his feet. The gallant ship, surrounded by enemies, lay
like a great fortress on the sea, scattering death on every side from
her hundred and four portholes. She was so formidably manned that all
attempts to board her failed. Long after sunset, she got clear of her
assailants, and, with all her scuppers spouting blood, made for the
coast of Normandy. She had suffered so much that Tourville hastily
removed his flag to a ship of ninety guns which was named the Ambitious.
By this time his fleet was scattered far over the sea. About twenty of
his smallest ships made their escape by a road which was too perilous
for any courage but the courage of despair.
them muttered, "I should be glad to fight the Macdonalds. But to kill
men in their beds--" "We must do as we are bid," answered another voice.
"If there is any thing wrong, our officers must answer for it. " John
Macdonald was so uneasy that, soon after midnight, he went to Glenlyon's
quarters. Glenlyon and his men were all up, and seemed to be getting
their arms ready for action. John, much alarmed, asked what these
preparations meant. Glenlyon was profuse of friendly assurances. "Some
of Glengarry's people have been harrying the country. We are getting
ready to march against them. You are quite safe. Do you think that, if
you were in any danger, I should not have given a hint to your brother
Sandy and his wife? " John's suspicions were quieted. He returned to his
house, and lay down to rest.
It was five in the morning. Hamilton and his men were still some miles
off; and the avenues which they were to have secured were open. But the
orders which Glenlyon had received were precise; and he began to execute
them at the little village where he was himself quartered. His host
Inverriggen and nine other Macdonalds were dragged out of their beds,
bound hand and foot, and murdered. A boy twelve years old clung round
the Captain's legs, and begged hard for life. He would do any thing;
he would go any where; he would follow Glenlyon round the world. Even
Glenlyon, it is said, showed signs of relenting; but a ruffian named
Drummond shot the child dead.
At Auchnaion the tacksman Auchintriater was up early that morning, and
was sitting with eight of his family round the fire, when a volley
of musketry laid him and seven of his companions dead or dying on the
floor. His brother, who alone had escaped unhurt, called to Serjeant
Barbour, who commanded the slayers, and asked as a favour to be allowed
to die in the open air. "Well," said the Serjeant, "I will do you that
favour for the sake of your meat which I have eaten. " The mountaineer,
bold, athletic, and favoured by the darkness, came forth, rushed on the
soldiers who were about to level their pieces at him, flung his plaid
over their faces, and was gone in a moment.
Meanwhile Lindsay had knocked at the door of the old Chief and had asked
for admission in friendly language. The door was opened. Mac Ian,
while putting on his clothes and calling to his servants to bring some
refreshment for his visitors, was shot through the head. Two of his
attendants were slain with him. His wife was already up and dressed in
such finery as the princesses of the rude Highland glens were accustomed
to wear. The assassins pulled off her clothes and trinkets. The rings
were not easily taken from her fingers but a soldier tore them away with
his teeth. She died on the following day.
The statesman, to whom chiefly this great crime is to be ascribed, had
planned it with consummate ability: but the execution was complete in
nothing but in guilt and infamy. A succession of blunders saved three
fourths of the Glencoe men from the fate of their chief. All the moral
qualities which fit men to bear a part in a massacre Hamilton and
Glenlyon possessed in perfection. But neither seems to have had much
professional skill; Hamilton had arranged his plan without making
allowance for bad weather, and this in a country and at a season when
the weather was very likely to be bad. The consequence was that the fox
earths, as he called them, were not stopped in time. Glenlyon and his
men committed the error of despatching their hosts with firearms instead
of using the cold steel. The peal and flash of gun after gun gave
notice, from three different parts of the valley at once; that murder
was doing. From fifty cottages the half naked peasantry fled under cover
of the night to the recesses of their pathless glen. Even the sons of
Mac Ian, who had been especially marked out for destruction, contrived
to escape. They were roused from sleep by faithful servants. John,
who, by the death of his father, had become the patriarch of the tribe,
quitted his dwelling just as twenty soldiers with fixed bayonets marched
up to it. It was broad day long before Hamilton arrived. He found the
work not even half performed. About thirty corpses lay wallowing in
blood on the dunghills before the doors. One or two women were seen
among the number, and, a yet more fearful and piteous sight, a little
hand, which had been lopped in the tumult of the butchery from some
infant. One aged Macdonald was found alive. He was probably too infirm
to fly, and, as he was above seventy, was not included in the orders
under which Glenlyon had acted. Hamilton murdered the old man in cold
blood. The deserted hamlets were then set on fire; and the troops
departed, driving away with them many sheep and goats, nine hundred
kine, and two hundred of the small shaggy ponies of the Highlands.
It is said, and may but too easily be believed, that the sufferings of
the fugitives were terrible. How many old men, how many women with babes
in their arms, sank down and slept their last sleep in the snow; how
many, having crawled, spent with toil and hunger, into nooks among the
precipices, died in those dark holes, and were picked to the bone by the
mountain ravens, can never be known. But it is probable that those who
perished by cold, weariness and want were not less numerous than those
who were slain by the assassins. When the troops had retired, the
Macdonalds crept out of the caverns of Glencoe, ventured back to the
spot where the huts had formerly stood, collected the scorched
corpses from among the smoking ruins, and performed some rude rites of
sepulture. The tradition runs that the hereditary bard of the tribe took
his seat on a rock which overhung the place of slaughter, and poured
forth a long lament over his murdered brethren, and his desolate home.
Eighty years later that sad dirge was still repeated by the population
of the valley. [233]
The survivors might well apprehend that they had escaped the shot
and the sword only to perish by famine. The whole domain was a waste.
Houses, barns, furniture, implements of husbandry, herds, flocks,
horses, were gone. Many months must elapse before the clan would be
able to raise on its own ground the means of supporting even the most
miserable existence. [234]
It may be thought strange that these events should not have been
instantly followed by a burst of execration from every part of the
civilised world. The fact, however, is that years elapsed before the
public indignation was thoroughly awakened, and that months elapsed
before the blackest part of the story found credit even among the
enemies of the government. That the massacre should not have been
mentioned in the London Gazettes, in the Monthly Mercuries which were
scarcely less courtly than the Gazettes, or in pamphlets licensed by
official censors, is perfectly intelligible. But that no allusion to it
should be found in private journals and letters, written by persons free
from all restraint, may seem extraordinary. There is not a word on the
subject in Evelyn's Diary. In Narcissus Luttrell's Diary is a remarkable
entry made five weeks after the butchery. The letters from Scotland, he
says, described that kingdom as perfectly tranquil, except that there
was still some grumbling about ecclesiastical questions. The Dutch
ministers regularly reported all the Scotch news to their government.
They thought it worth while, about this time, to mention that a collier
had been taken by a privateer near Berwick, that the Edinburgh mail had
been robbed, that a whale, with a tongue seventeen feet long and seven
feet broad, had been stranded near Aberdeen. But it is not hinted in
any of their despatches that there was any rumour of any extraordinary
occurrence in the Highlands. Reports that some of the Macdonalds had
been slain did indeed, in about three weeks, travel through Edinburgh up
to London. But these reports were vague and contradictory; and the very
worst of them was far from coming up to the horrible truth. The Whig
version of the story was that the old robber Mac Ian had laid an
ambuscade for the soldiers, that he had been caught in his own snare,
and that he and some of his clan had fallen sword in hand. The Jacobite
version, written at Edinburgh on the twenty-third of March, appeared in
the Paris Gazette of the seventh of April. Glenlyon, it was said, had
been sent with a detachment from Argyle's regiment, under cover of
darkness, to surprise the inhabitants of Glencoe, and had killed
thirty-six men and boys and four women. [235] In this there was nothing
very strange or shocking. A night attack on a gang of freebooters
occupying a strong natural fortress may be a perfectly legitimate
military operation; and, in the obscurity and confusion of such an
attack, the most humane man may be so unfortunate as to shoot a woman
or a child. The circumstances which give a peculiar character to the
slaughter of Glencoe, the breach of faith, the breach of hospitality,
the twelve days of feigned friendship and conviviality, of morning
calls, of social meals, of healthdrinking, of cardplaying, were not
mentioned by the Edinburgh correspondent of the Paris Gazette; and we
may therefore confidently infer that those circumstances were as yet
unknown even to inquisitive and busy malecontents residing in the
Scottish capital within a hundred miles of the spot where the deed had
been done. In the south of the island the matter produced, as far as
can now be judged, scarcely any sensation. To the Londoner of those days
Appin was what Caffraria or Borneo is to us. He was not more moved by
hearing that some Highland thieves had been surprised and killed than we
are by hearing that a band of Amakosah cattle stealers has been cut
off, or that a bark full of Malay pirates has been sunk. He took it for
granted that nothing had been done in Glencoe beyond what was doing in
many other glens. There had been a night brawl, one of a hundred night
brawls, between the Macdonalds and the Campbells; and the Campbells had
knocked the Macdonalds on the head.
By slow degrees the whole truth came out. From a letter written at
Edinburgh about two months after the crime had been committed, it
appears that the horrible story was already current among the Jacobites
of that city. In the summer Argyle's regiment was quartered in the south
of England, and some of the men made strange confessions, over their
ale, about what they had been forced to do in the preceding winter. The
nonjurors soon got hold of the clue, and followed it resolutely; their
secret presses went to work; and at length, near a year after the crime
had been committed, it was published to the world. [236] But the world
was long incredulous. The habitual mendacity of the Jacobite libellers
had brought on them an appropriate punishment. Now, when, for the first
time, they told the truth, they were supposed to be romancing. They
complained bitterly that the story, though perfectly authentic, was
regarded by the public as a factious lie. [237] So late as the year
1695, Hickes, in a tract in which he endeavoured to defend his darling
tale of the Theban legion against the unanswerable argument drawn
from the silence of historians, remarked that it might well be doubted
whether any historian would make mention of the massacre of Glencoe.
There were in England, he said, many thousands of well educated men who
had never heard of that massacre, or who regarded it as a mere fable.
[238]
Nevertheless the punishment of some of the guilty began very early.
Hill, who indeed can hardly be called guilty, was much disturbed.
Breadalbane, hardened as he was, felt the stings of conscience or the
dread of retribution. A few days after the Macdonalds had returned to
their old dwellingplace, his steward visited the ruins of the house of
Glencoe, and endeavoured to persuade the sons of the murdered chief to
sign a paper declaring that they held the Earl guiltless of the blood
which had been shed. They were assured that, if they would do this, all
His Lordship's great influence should be employed to obtain for them
from the Crown a free pardon and a remission of all forfeitures.
[239] Glenlyon did his best to assume an air of unconcern. He made his
appearance in the most fashionable coffeehouse at Edinburgh, and talked
loudly and self-complacently about the important service in which he
had been engaged among the mountains. Some of his soldiers, however, who
observed him closely, whispered that all this bravery was put on. He
was not the man that he had been before that night. The form of his
countenance was changed. In all places, at all hours, whether he waked
or slept, Glencoe was for ever before him. [240]
But, whatever apprehensions might disturb Breadalbane, whatever spectres
might haunt Glenlyon, the Master of Stair had neither fear nor remorse.
He was indeed mortified; but he was mortified only by the blunders of
Hamilton and by the escape of so many of the damnable breed. "Do right,
and fear nobody;" such is the language of his letters. "Can there be
a more sacred duty than to rid the country of thieving? The only thing
that I regret is that any got away. " [241]
On the sixth of March, William, entirely ignorant, in all probability,
of the details of the crime which has cast a dark shade over his glory,
had set out for the Continent, leaving the Queen his viceregent in
England. [242]
He would perhaps have postponed his departure if he had been aware
that the French Government had, during some time, been making great
preparations for a descent on our island. [243] An event had taken place
which had changed the policy of the Court of Versailles. Louvois was
no more. He had been at the head of the military administration of his
country during a quarter of a century; he had borne a chief part in the
direction of two wars which had enlarged the French territory, and had
filled the world with the renown of the French arms; and he had lived
to see the beginning of a third war which tasked his great powers to the
utmost. Between him and the celebrated captains who carried his plans
into execution there was little harmony. His imperious temper and
his confidence in himself impelled him to interfere too much with the
conduct of troops in the field, even when those troops were commanded
by Conde, by Turenne or by Luxemburg. But he was the greatest Adjutant
General, the greatest Quartermaster General, the greatest Commissary
General, that Europe had seen. He may indeed be said to have made a
revolution in the art of disciplining, distributing, equipping and
provisioning armies. In spite, however, of his abilities and of his
services, he had become odious to Lewis and to her who governed Lewis.
On the last occasion on which the King and the minister transacted
business together, the ill humour on both sides broke violently forth.
The servant, in his vexation, dashed his portfolio on the ground. The
master, forgetting, what he seldom forgot, that a King should be a
gentleman, lifted his cane. Fortunately his wife was present. She, with
her usual prudence, caught his arm. She then got Louvois out of the
room, and exhorted him to come back the next day as if nothing had
happened. The next day he came; but with death in his face. The King,
though full of resentment, was touched with pity, and advised Louvois to
go home and take care of himself. That evening the great minister died.
[244]
Louvois had constantly opposed all plans for the invasion of England.
His death was therefore regarded at Saint Germains as a fortunate event.
[245] It was however necessary to look sad, and to send a gentleman
to Versailles with some words of condolence. The messenger found the
gorgeous circle of courtiers assembled round their master on the terrace
above the orangery. "Sir," said Lewis, in a tone so easy and cheerful
that it filled all the bystanders with amazement, "present my
compliments and thanks to the King and Queen of England, and tell them
that neither my affairs nor theirs will go on the worse by what has
happened. " These words were doubtless meant to intimate that the
influence of Louvois had not been exerted in favour of the House of
Stuart. [246] One compliment, however, a compliment which cost France
dear, Lewis thought it right to pay to the memory of his ablest
servant. The Marquess of Barbesieux, son of Louvois, was placed, in his
twenty-fifth year, at the head of the war department. The young man was
by no means deficient in abilities, and had been, during some years,
employed in business of grave importance. But his passions were strong;
his judgment was not ripe; and his sudden elevation turned his head. His
manners gave general disgust. Old officers complained that he kept them
long in his antechamber while he was amusing himself with his spaniels
and his flatterers. Those who were admitted to his presence went away
disgusted by his rudeness and arrogance. As was natural at his age, he
valued power chiefly as the means of procuring pleasure. Millions of
crowns were expended on the luxurious villa where he loved to forget
the cares of office in gay conversation, delicate cookery and foaming
champagne. He often pleaded an attack of fever as an excuse for not
making his appearance at the proper hour in the royal closet, when
in truth he had been playing truant among his boon companions and
mistresses. "The French King," said William, "has an odd taste.
He chooses an old woman for his mistress, and a young man for his
minister. " [247]
There can be little doubt that Louvois, by pursuing that course which
had made him odious to the inmates of Saint Germains, had deserved well
of his country. He was not maddened by Jacobite enthusiasm. He well knew
that exiles are the worst of all advisers. He had excellent information;
he had excellent judgment; he calculated the chances; and he saw that a
descent was likely to fail, and to fail disastrously and disgracefully.
James might well be impatient to try the experiment, though the odds
should be ten to one against him. He might gain; and he could not lose.
His folly and obstinacy had left him nothing to risk. His food, his
drink, his lodging, his clothes, he owed to charity. Nothing could be
more natural than that, for the very smallest chance of recovering the
three kingdoms which he had thrown away, he should be willing to stake
what was not his own, the honour of the French arms, the grandeur and
the safety of the French monarchy. To a French statesman such a wager
might well appear in a different light. But Louvois was gone. His
master yielded to the importunity of James, and determined to send an
expedition against England. [248]
The scheme was, in some respects, well concerted. It was resolved that
a camp should be formed on the coast of Normandy, and that in this
camp all the Irish regiments which were in the French service should be
assembled under their countryman Sarsfield. With them were to be joined
about ten thousand French troops. The whole army was to be commanded by
Marshal Bellefonds.
A noble fleet of about eighty ships of the line was to convoy this
force to the shores of England. In the dockyards both of Brittany and of
Provence immense preparations were made. Four and forty men of war, some
of which were among the finest that had ever been built, were assembled
in the harbour of Brest under Tourville. The Count of Estrees, with
thirty-five more, was to sail from Toulon. Ushant was fixed for the
place of rendezvous. The very day was named. In order that there might
be no want either of seamen or of vessels for the intended expedition,
all maritime trade, all privateering was, for a time, interdicted by a
royal mandate. [249] Three hundred transports were collected near the
spot where the troops were to embark. It was hoped that all would be
ready early in the spring, before the English ships were half rigged or
half manned, and before a single Dutch man of war was in the Channel.
[250]
James had indeed persuaded himself that, even if the English fleet
should fall in with him, it would not oppose him. He imagined that
he was personally a favourite with the mariners of all ranks. His
emissaries had been busy among the naval officers, and had found some
who remembered him with kindness, and others who were out of humour
with the men now in power. All the wild talk of a class of people not
distinguished by taciturnity or discretion was reported to him with
exaggeration, till he was deluded into a belief that he had more friends
than enemies on board of the vessels which guarded our coasts. Yet he
should have known that a rough sailor, who thought himself ill used by
the Admiralty, might, after the third bottle, when drawn on by artful
companions, express his regret for the good old times, curse the new
government, and curse himself for being such a fool as to fight for
that government, and yet might be by no means prepared to go over to the
French on the day of battle. Of the malecontent officers, who, as James
believed, were impatient to desert, the great majority had probably
given no pledge of their attachment to him except an idle word
hiccoughed out when they were drunk, and forgotten when they were sober.
One those from whom he expected support, Rear Admiral Carter, had indeed
heard and perfectly understood what the Jacobite agents had to say, had
given them fair words, and had reported the whole to the Queen and her
ministers. [251]
But the chief dependence of James was on Russell. That false, arrogant
and wayward politician was to command the Channel Fleet. He had never
ceased to assure the Jacobite emissaries that he was bent on effecting
a Restoration. Those emissaries fully reckoned, if not on his entire
cooperation, yet at least on his connivance; and there could be no doubt
that, with his connivance, a French fleet might easily convoy an army to
our shores. James flattered himself that, as soon as he had landed, he
should be master of the island. But in truth, when the voyage had ended,
the difficulties of his enterprise would have been only beginning. Two
years before he had received a lesson by which he should have profited.
He had then deceived himself and others into the belief that the English
were regretting him, were pining for him, were eager to rise in arms
by tens of thousands to welcome him. William was then, as now, at a
distance. Then, as now, the administration was entrusted to a woman.
Then, as now, there were few regular troops in England. Torrington had
then done as much to injure the government which he served as Russell
could now do. The French fleet had then, after riding, during several
weeks, victorious and dominant in the Channel, landed some troops on
the southern coast. The immediate effect had been that whole counties,
without distinction of Tory or Whig, Churchman or Dissenter, had risen
up, as one man, to repel the foreigners, and that the Jacobite party,
which had, a few days before, seemed to be half the nation, had crouched
down in silent terror, and had made itself so small that it had, during
some time, been invisible. What reason was there for believing that
the multitude who had, in 1690, at the first lighting of the beacons,
snatched up firelocks, pikes, scythes, to defend, their native soil
against the French, would now welcome the French as allies? And of the
army by which James was now to be accompanied the French formed the
least odious part. More than half of that army was to consist of Irish
Papists; and the feeling, compounded of hatred and scorn, with which the
Irish Papists had long been regarded by the English Protestants, had
by recent events been stimulated to a vehemence before unknown. The
hereditary slaves, it was said, had been for a moment free; and that
moment had sufficed to prove that they knew neither how to use nor how
to defend their freedom. During their short ascendency they had done
nothing but slay, and burn, and pillage, and demolish, and attaint, and
confiscate. In three years they had committed such waste on their native
land as thirty years of English intelligence and industry would scarcely
repair. They would have maintained their independence against the world,
if they had been as ready to fight as they were to steal.
But they had
retreated ignominiously from the walls of Londonderry. They had fled
like deer before the yeomanry of Enniskillen. The Prince whom they
now presumed to think that they could place, by force of arms, on the
English throne, had himself, on the morning after the rout of the Boyne,
reproached them with their cowardice, and told them that he would never
again trust to their soldiership. On this subject Englishmen were of one
mind. Tories, Nonjurors, even Roman Catholics, were as loud as Whigs in
reviling the ill fated race. It is, therefore, not difficult to guess
what effect would have been produced by the appearance on our soil of
enemies whom, on their own soil, we had vanquished and trampled down.
James, however, in spite of the recent and severe teaching of
experience, believed whatever his correspondents in England told him;
and they told him that the whole nation was impatiently expecting him,
that both the West and the North were ready to rise, that he would
proceed from the place of landing to Whitehall with as little
opposition as when, in old times, he returned from a progress. Ferguson
distinguished himself by the confidence with which he predicted a
complete and bloodless victory. He and his printer, he was absurd enough
to write, would be the two first men in the realm to take horse for His
Majesty. Many other agents were busy up and down the country, during the
winter and the early part of the spring. It does not appear that they
had much success in the counties south of Trent. But in the north,
particularly in Lancashire, where the Roman Catholics were more numerous
and more powerful than in any other part of the kingdom, and where there
seems to have been, even among the Protestant gentry, more than the
ordinary proportion of bigoted Jacobites, some preparations for an
insurrection were made. Arms were privately bought; officers were
appointed; yeomen, small farmers, grooms, huntsmen, were induced to
enlist. Those who gave in their names were distributed into eight
regiments of cavalry and dragoons, and were directed to hold themselves
in readiness to mount at the first signal. [252]
One of the circumstances which filled James, at this time, with
vain hopes, was that his wife was pregnant and near her delivery. He
flattered himself that malice itself would be ashamed to repeat any
longer the story of the warming pan, and that multitudes whom that story
had deceived would instantly return to their allegiance. He took, on
this occasion, all those precautions which, four years before, he had
foolishly and perversely forborne to take. He contrived to transmit to
England letters summoning many Protestant women of quality to assist at
the expected birth; and he promised, in the name of his dear brother the
Most Christian King, that they should be free to come and go in safety.
Had some of these witnesses been invited to Saint James's on the morning
of the tenth of June 1688, the House of Stuart might, perhaps, now be
reigning in our island. But it is easier to keep a crown than to regain
one. It might be true that a calumnious fable had done much to bring
about the Revolution. But it by no means followed that the most complete
refutation of that fable would bring about a Restoration. Not a single
lady crossed the sea in obedience to James's call. His Queen was safely
delivered of a daughter; but this event produced no perceptible effect
on the state of public feeling in England. [253]
Meanwhile the preparations for his expedition were going on fast. He
was on the point of setting out for the place of embarkation before the
English government was at all aware of the danger which was impending.
It had been long known indeed that many thousands of Irish were
assembled in Normandy; but it was supposed that they had been assembled
merely that they might be mustered and drilled before they were sent
to Flanders, Piedmont, and Catalonia. [254] Now, however, intelligence,
arriving from many quarters, left no doubt that an invasion would be
almost immediately attempted. Vigorous preparations for defence were
made. The equipping and manning of the ships was urged forward with
vigour. The regular troops were drawn together between London and the
sea. A great camp was formed on the down which overlooks Portsmouth. The
militia all over the kingdom was called out. Two Westminster regiments
and six City regiments, making up a force of thirteen thousand fighting
men, were arrayed in Hyde Park, and passed in review before the Queen.
The trainbands of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey marched down to the coast.
Watchmen were posted by the beacons. Some nonjurors were imprisoned,
some disarmed, some held to bail. The house of the Earl of Huntingdon, a
noted Jacobite, was searched. He had had time to burn his papers and to
hide his arms; but his stables presented a most suspicious appearance.
Horses enough to mount a whole troop of cavalry were at the mangers;
and this evidence, though not legally sufficient to support a charge of
treason, was thought sufficient, at such a conjuncture, to justify the
Privy Council in sending him to the Tower. [255] Meanwhile James had
gone down to his army, which was encamped round the basin of La
Hogue, on the northern coast of the peninsula known by the name of the
Cotentin. Before he quitted Saint Germains, he held a Chapter of the
Garter for the purpose of admitting his son into the order. Two noblemen
were honoured with the same distinction, Powis, who, among his brother
exiles, was now called a Duke, and Melfort, who had returned from Rome,
and was again James's Prime Minister. [256] Even at this moment, when it
was of the greatest importance to conciliate the members of the Church
of England, none but members of the Church of Rome were thought worthy
of any mark of royal favour. Powis indeed was an eminent member of the
English aristocracy; and his countrymen disliked him as little as they
disliked any conspicuous Papist. But Melfort was not even an Englishman;
he had never held office in England; he had never sate in the English
Parliament; and he had therefore no pretensions to a dignity peculiarly
English. He was moreover hated by all the contending factions of all the
three kingdoms. Royal letters countersigned by him had been sent both to
the Convention at Westminster and to the Convention at Edinburgh; and,
both at Westminster and at Edinburgh, the sight of his odious name and
handwriting had made the most zealous friends of hereditary right hang
down their heads in shame. It seems strange that even James should have
chosen, at such a conjuncture, to proclaim to the world that the men
whom his people most abhorred were the men whom he most delighted to
honour.
Still more injurious to his interests was the Declaration in which he
announced his intentions to his subjects. Of all the State papers
which were put forth even by him it was the most elaborately and
ostentatiously injudicious. When it had disgusted and exasperated all
good Englishmen of all parties, the Papists at Saint Germains pretended
that it had been drawn up by a stanch Protestant, Edward Herbert, who
had been Chief Justice of the Common Pleas before the Revolution, and
who now bore the empty title of Chancellor. [257] But it is certain that
Herbert was never consulted about any matter of importance, and that
the Declaration was the work of Melfort and of Melfort alone. [258]
In truth, those qualities of head and heart which had made Melfort the
favourite of his master shone forth in every sentence. Not a word was
to be found indicating that three years of banishment had made the King
wiser, that he had repented of a single error, that he took to himself
even the smallest part of the blame of that revolution which had
dethroned him, or that he purposed to follow a course in any respect
differing from that which had already been fatal to him. All the
charges which had been brought against him he pronounced to be utterly
unfounded. Wicked men had put forth calumnies. Weak men had believed
those calumnies. He alone had been faultless. He held out no hope that
he would consent to any restriction of that vast dispensing power to
which he had formerly laid claim, that he would not again, in defiance
of the plainest statutes, fill the Privy Council, the bench of justice,
the public offices, the army, the navy, with Papists, that he would not
reestablish the High Commission, that he would not appoint a new set of
regulators to remodel all the constituent bodies of the kingdom. He did
indeed condescend to say that he would maintain the legal rights of the
Church of England; but he had said this before; and all men knew what
those words meant in his mouth. Instead of assuring his people of his
forgiveness, he menaced them with a proscription more terrible than any
which our island had ever seen. He published a list of persons who had
no mercy to expect. Among these were Ormond, Caermarthen, Nottingham,
Tillotson and Burnet. After the roll of those who were doomed to death
by name, came a series of categories. First stood all the crowd
of rustics who had been rude to His Majesty when he was stopped at
Sheerness in his flight. These poor ignorant wretches, some hundreds in
number, were reserved for another bloody circuit. Then came all persons
who had in any manner borne a part in the punishment of any Jacobite
conspirator; judges, counsel, witnesses, grand jurymen, petty jurymen,
sheriffs and undersheriffs, constables and turnkeys, in short, all
the ministers of justice from Holt down to Ketch. Then vengeance was
denounced against all spies and all informers who had divulged to the
usurpers the designs of the Court of Saint Germains. All justices of
the peace who should not declare for their rightful Sovereign the moment
that they heard of his landing, all gaolers who should not instantly set
political prisoners at liberty, were to be left to the extreme rigour of
the law. No exception was made in favour of a justice or of a gaoler
who might be within a hundred yards of one of William's regiments, and
a hundred miles from the nearest place where there was a single Jacobite
in arms.
It might have been expected that James, after thus denouncing vengeance
against large classes of his subjects, would at least have offered a
general amnesty to the rest. But of general amnesty he said not a
word. He did indeed promise that any offender who was not in any of the
categories of proscription, and who should by any eminent service merit
indulgence, should receive a special pardon. But, with this exception,
all the offenders, hundreds of thousands in number, were merely informed
that their fate should be decided in Parliament.
The agents of James speedily dispersed his Declaration over every part
of the kingdom, and by doing so rendered a great service to William.
The general cry was that the banished oppressor had at least given
Englishmen fair warning, and that, if, after such a warning, they
welcomed him home, they would have no pretence for complaining, though
every county town should be polluted by an assize resembling that
which Jeffreys had held at Taunton. That some hundreds of people,--the
Jacobites put the number so low as five hundred,--were to be hanged
without mercy was certain; and nobody who had concurred in the
Revolution, nobody who had fought for the new government by sea or
land, no soldier who had borne a part in the conquest of Ireland, no
Devonshire ploughman or Cornish miner who had taken arms to defend his
wife and children against Tourville, could be certain that he should
not be hanged. How abject too, how spiteful, must be the nature of a man
who, engaged in the most momentous of all undertakings, and aspiring to
the noblest of all prizes, could not refrain from proclaiming that he
thirsted for the blood of a multitude of poor fishermen, because,
more than three years before, they had pulled him about and called him
Hatchetface. If, at the very moment when he had the strongest motives
for trying to conciliate his people by the show of clemency, he could
not bring himself to hold towards them any language but that of an
implacable enemy, what was to be expected from him when he should be
again their master? So savage was his nature that, in a situation
in which all other tyrants have resorted to blandishments and fair
promises, he could utter nothing but reproaches and threats. The only
words in his Declaration which had any show of graciousness were those
in which he promised to send away the foreign troops as soon as his
authority was reestablished; and many said that those words, when
examined, would be found full of sinister meaning. He held out no hope
that he would send away Popish troops who were his own subjects. His
intentions were manifest. The French might go; but the Irish would
remain. The people of England were to be kept down by these thrice
subjugated barbarians. No doubt a Rapparee who had run away at Newton
Butler and the Boyne might find courage enough to guard the scaffolds on
which his conquerors were to die, and to lay waste our country as he had
laid waste his own.
The Queen and her ministers, instead of attempting to suppress James's
manifesto, very wisely reprinted it, and sent it forth licensed by the
Secretary of State, and interspersed with remarks by a shrewd and severe
commentator. It was refuted in many keen pamphlets; it was turned into
doggrel rhymes; and it was left undefended even by the boldest and most
acrimonious libellers among the nonjurors. [259]
Indeed, some of the nonjurors were so much alarmed by observing the
effect which this manifesto produced, that they affected to treat it as
spurious, and published as their master's genuine Declaration a paper
full of gracious professions and promises. They made him offer a free
pardon to all his people with the exception of four great criminals.
They made him hold out hopes of great remissions of taxation. They
made him pledge his word that he would entrust the whole ecclesiastical
administration to the nonjuring bishops. But this forgery imposed on
nobody, and was important only as showing that even the Jacobites were
ashamed of the prince whom they were labouring to restore. [260]
No man read the Declaration with more surprise and anger than Russell.
Bad as he was, he was much under the influence of two feelings, which,
though they cannot be called virtuous, have some affinity to virtue, and
are respectable when compared with mere selfish cupidity. Professional
spirit and party spirit were strong in him. He might be false to his
country, but not to his flag; and, even in becoming a Jacobite, he had
not ceased to be a Whig. In truth, he was a Jacobite only because he was
the most intolerant and acrimonious of Whigs. He thought himself and his
faction ungratefully neglected by William, and was for a time too much
blinded by resentment to perceive that it would be mere madness in the
old Roundheads, the old Exclusionists, to punish William by recalling
James. The near prospect of an invasion, and the Declaration in which
Englishmen were plainly told what they had to expect if that invasion
should be successful, produced, it should seem, a sudden and entire
change in Russell's feelings; and that change he distinctly avowed. "I
wish," he said to Lloyd, "to serve King James. The thing might be done,
if it were not his own fault. But he takes the wrong way with us. Let
him forget all the past; let him grant a general pardon; and then I will
see what I can do for him. " Lloyd hinted something about the honours
and rewards designed for Russell himself. But the Admiral, with a spirit
worthy of a better man, cut him short. "I do not wish to hear anything
on that subject. My solicitude is for the public. And do not think that
I will let the French triumph over us in our own sea. Understand this,
that if I meet them I fight them, ay, though His Majesty himself should
be on board. "
This conversation was truly reported to James; but it does not appear to
have alarmed him. He was, indeed, possessed with a belief that Russell,
even if willing, would not be able to induce the officers and sailors of
the English navy to fight against their old King, who was also their old
Admiral.
The hopes which James felt, he and his favourite Melfort succeeded in
imparting to Lewis and to Lewis's ministers. [261] But for those hopes,
indeed, it is probable that all thoughts of invading England in the
course of that year would have been laid aside. For the extensive plan
which had been formed in the winter had, in the course of the spring,
been disconcerted by a succession of accidents such as are beyond the
control of human wisdom. The time fixed for the assembling of all the
maritime forces of France at Ushant had long elapsed; and not a single
sail had appeared at the place of rendezvous. The Atlantic squadron was
still detained by bad weather in the port of Brest. The Mediterranean
squadron, opposed by a strong west wind, was vainly struggling to pass
the pillars of Hercules. Two fine vessels had gone to pieces on the
rocks of Ceuta. [262] Meanwhile the admiralties of the allied powers
had been active. Before the end of April the English fleet was ready to
sail. Three noble ships, just launched from our dockyards, appeared
for the first time on the water. [263] William had been hastening the
maritime preparations of the United Provinces; and his exertions had
been successful. On the twenty-ninth of April a fine squadron from the
Texel appeared in the Downs. Soon came the North Holland squadron,
the Maes squadron, the Zealand squadron. [264] The whole force of the
confederate powers was assembled at Saint Helen's in the second week
of May, more than ninety sail of the line, manned by between thirty and
forty thousand of the finest seamen of the two great maritime nations.
Russell had the chief command. He was assisted by Sir Ralph Delaval,
Sir John Ashley, Sir Cloudesley Shovel, Rear Admiral Carter, and Rear
Admiral Rooke. Of the Dutch officers Van Almonde was highest in rank.
No mightier armament had ever appeared in the British Channel. There was
little reason for apprehending that such a force could be defeated in a
fair conflict. Nevertheless there was great uneasiness in London. It was
known that there was a Jacobite party in the navy. Alarming rumours had
worked their way round from France. It was said that the enemy reckoned
on the cooperation of some of those officers on whose fidelity, in this
crisis, the safety of the State might depend. Russell, as far as can now
be discovered, was still unsuspected. But others, who were probably less
criminal, had been more indiscreet. At all the coffee houses admirals
and captains were mentioned by name as traitors who ought to be
instantly cashiered, if not shot. It was even confidently affirmed that
some of the guilty had been put under arrest, and others turned out of
the service. The Queen and her counsellors were in a great strait. It
was not easy to say whether the danger of trusting the suspected persons
or the danger of removing them were the greater. Mary, with many painful
misgivings, resolved, and the event proved that she resolved wisely,
to treat the evil reports as calumnious, to make a solemn appeal to the
honour of the accused gentlemen, and then to trust the safety of her
kingdom to their national and professional spirit.
On the fifteenth of May a great assembly of officers was convoked at
Saint Helen's on board the Britannia, a fine three decker, from which
Russell's flag was flying. The Admiral told them that he had received a
despatch which he was charged to read to them. It was from Nottingham.
The Queen, the Secretary wrote, had been informed that stories deeply
affecting the character of the navy were in circulation. It had
even been affirmed that she had found herself under the necessity of
dismissing many officers. But Her Majesty was determined to believe
nothing against those brave servants of the State. The gentlemen who
had been so foully slandered might be assured that she placed entire
reliance on them. This letter was admirably calculated to work on those
to whom it was addressed. Very few of them probably had been guilty of
any worse offence than rash and angry talk over their wine. They were as
yet only grumblers. If they had fancied that they were marked men, they
might in selfdefence have become traitors. They became enthusiastically
loyal as soon as they were assured that the Queen reposed entire
confidence in their loyalty. They eagerly signed an address in
which they entreated her to believe that they would, with the utmost
resolution and alacrity, venture their lives in defence of her rights,
of English freedom and of the Protestant religion, against all foreign
and Popish invaders. "God," they added, "preserve your person, direct
your counsels, and prosper your arms; and let all your people say Amen. "
[265]
The sincerity of these professions was soon brought to the test. A
few hours after the meeting on board of the Britannia the masts
of Tourville's squadron were seen from the cliffs of Portland. One
messenger galloped with the news from Weymouth to London, and roused
Whitehall at three in the morning. Another took the coast road, and
carried the intelligence to Russell. All was ready; and on the morning
of the seventeenth of May the allied fleet stood out to sea. [266]
Tourville had with him only his own squadron, consisting of forty-four
ships of the line. But he had received positive orders to protect the
descent on England, and not to decline a battle. Though these orders had
been given before it was known at Versailles that the Dutch and
English fleets had joined, he was not disposed to take on himself the
responsibility of disobedience. He still remembered with bitterness the
reprimand which his extreme caution had drawn upon him after the fight
of Beachy Head. He would not again be told that he was a timid and
unenterprising commander, that he had no courage but the vulgar courage
of a common sailor. He was also persuaded that the odds against him were
rather apparent than real. He believed, on the authority of James and
Melfort, that the English seamen, from the flag officers down to the
cabin boys, were Jacobites. Those who fought would fight with half
a heart; and there would probably be numerous desertions at the most
critical moment. Animated by such hopes he sailed from Brest, steered
first towards the north east, came in sight of the coast of Dorsetshire,
and then struck across the Channel towards La Hogue, where the army
which he was to convoy to England had already begun to embark on board
of the transports. He was within a few leagues of Barfleur when, before
daybreak, on the morning of the nineteenth of May, he saw the great
armament of the allies stretching along the eastern horizon. He
determined to bear down on them. By eight the two lines of battle were
formed; but it was eleven before the firing began. It soon became plain
that the English, from the Admiral downward, were resolved to do their
duty. Russell had visited all his ships, and exhorted all his crews.
"If your commanders play false," he said, "overboard with them, and
with myself the first. " There was no defection. There was no slackness.
Carter was the first who broke the French line. He was struck by a
splinter of one of his own yard arms, and fell dying on the deck. He
would not be carried below. He would not let go his sword. "Fight the
ship," were his last words: "fight the ship as long as she can swim. "
The battle lasted till four in the afternoon. The roar of the guns
was distinctly heard more than twenty miles off by the army which was
encamped on the coast of Normandy. During the earlier part of the day
the wind was favourable to the French; they were opposed to half of the
allied fleet; and against that half they maintained the conflict with
their usual courage and with more than their usual seamanship. After a
hard and doubtful fight of five hours, Tourville thought that enough had
been done to maintain the honour of the white flag, and began to draw
off. But by this time the wind had veered, and was with the allies. They
were now able to avail themselves of their great superiority of force.
They came on fast. The retreat of the French became a flight. Tourville
fought his own ship desperately. She was named, in allusion to Lewis's
favourite emblem, the Royal Sun, and was widely renowned as the finest
vessel in the world. It was reported among the English sailors that she
was adorned with an image of the Great King, and that he appeared there,
as he appeared in the Place of Victories, with vanquished nations in
chains beneath his feet. The gallant ship, surrounded by enemies, lay
like a great fortress on the sea, scattering death on every side from
her hundred and four portholes. She was so formidably manned that all
attempts to board her failed. Long after sunset, she got clear of her
assailants, and, with all her scuppers spouting blood, made for the
coast of Normandy. She had suffered so much that Tourville hastily
removed his flag to a ship of ninety guns which was named the Ambitious.
By this time his fleet was scattered far over the sea. About twenty of
his smallest ships made their escape by a road which was too perilous
for any courage but the courage of despair.
