able Roman Catholics followed him, in order to implore him, for the sake of their common faith, not to carry the vain contest further.* The advice was good, but James was in no condition to take it. His understanding had always been dull and feeble; and, such as it was, womanish tremors and childish fancies now disabled him from using it. He was aware that his flight was the thing which his adherents most dreaded and which his enemies most desired. Even if there had been serious personal risk in remaining, the occasion was one on which he ought to have thought it infamous to flinch; for the question was whether he and his posterity should reign on an ancestral throne, or should be vagabonds and beggars. But in his mind all other feelings had given place to a craven fear for his life. To the earnest entreaties and unanswerable arguments of the agents whom his friends had sent to Rochester he had only one answer. His head was in danger. In vain he was assured that there was no ground for such an apprehension; that common sense, if not principle, would restrain the Prince of Orange from incurring the guilt and shame of regicide and parricide; and that many, who never would consent to depose their sovereign while he remained on English ground, would think themselves absolved from their allegiance by his desertion. Fright overpowered every other feeling. He determined to depart; and it was easy for him to do so. He was negligently guarded; all persons were suffered to repair to him; vessels ready to put to sea lay at no great distance; and their boats might come close to the garden of the house in which he was lodged. Had he been wise, the pains which his keepers took to facilitate his escape would have sufficed to convince him that he ought to stay where he was. In truth, the snare was so ostentatiously exhibited that it could impose on nothing but folly bewildered by terror. * Clarendon's Diary, Dec. 21, 22, 1688; Clarke's Life of James, ii., 268, 270 Orig. Mem. estant countrymen whom persecution had driven into exile. So bitter was the resentment excited by the French ambition and arrogance, that even those Englishmen who were not generally disposed to take a favorable view of William's conduct loudly applauded him for retorting with so much spirit the insolence with which Louis had, during many years, treated every court in Europe.* On Monday the Lords met again. Halifax was chosen to preside. The primate was absent, the Royalists sad and gloomy, the Whigs eager and in high spirits. It was known that James had left a letter behind him. Some of his friends moved that it might be produced, in the faint hope that it might contain propositions which might furnish a basis for a happy settlement. On this motion the previous question was put and carried. Godolphin, who was known not to be unfriendly to his old master, uttered a few words which were decisive. "I have seen the paper," he said, "and I grieve to say that there is nothing in it which will give your lordships any satisfaction." In truth, it contained no expression of regret for past errors; it held out no hope that those errors would for the future be avoided; and it threw the blame of all that had happened on the malice of William and on the blindness of a nation deluded by the specious names of religion and property. None ventured to propose that a negotiation should be opened with a prince whom the most rigid discipline of adversity seemed only to have made more obstinate in wrong. Something was said about inquiring into the birth of the Prince of Wales; but the Whig peers treated the suggestion with disdain. "I did not expect, my lords," exclaimed Philip Lord Wharton, an old Roundhead, who had commanded a regiment against Charles the First at Edgehill, "I did not expect to hear any body at this time of day mention the child who was called Prince of Wales; and I hope that we have now heard the last of him." After long discussion it was resolved that two addresses should be presented to William. One address requested Citters, Jan., 1689; Witsen MS. quoted by Wagenaar, book lx. him to take on himself provisionally the administration of the government; the other recommended that he should, by circular letters subscribed with his own hand, invite all the constituent bodies of the kingdom to send up representatives to Westminster. At the same time, the peers took upon themselves to issue an order banishing all papists, except a few privileged persons, from London and the vicinity.* The Lords presented their addresses to the prince on the following day, without waiting for the issue of the deliberations of the Commoners whom he had called together. It seems, indeed, that the hereditary nobles were disposed at this moment to be punctilious in asserting their dignity, and were unwilling to recognize a co-ordinate authority in an assembly unknown to the law. They conceived that they were a real House of Lords. The other chamber they despised as only a mock House of Commons. William, however, wisely excused himself from coming to any decision till he had ascertained the sense of the gentlemen who had formerly been honored with the confidence of the counties and towns of England.f The Commoners who had been summoned met in Saint Stephen's Chapel, and formed a numerous assembly. They placed in the chair Henry Powle, who had represented Cirencester in several Parliaments, and had been eminent among the supporters of the Exclusion Bill. Addresses were proposed and adopted similar to those which the Lords had already presented. No difference of opinion appeared on any serious question; and some feeble attempts which were made to raise a debate on points of form were put down by the general contempt. Sir Robert Sawyer declared that he could not conceive how it was possible for the prince to administer the government without some distinguishing title, such as Regent or Protector. Old Maynard, who, as a lawyer, had no equal, and who * Halifax's Notes; Lansdowne MS., 255; Clarendon's Diary, Dec. 24, 1688; † Citters, London Gazette. Dec. 25 1688. instratur at he s band send u e time ་་་ཚ་ག was also a politician versed in the tactics of revolutions, was at no pains to conceal his disdain for so puerile an objection, taken at a moment when union and promptitude were of the highest importance. "We shall sit here very long," he said, "if we sit till Sir Robert can conceive how such a thing is possible ;" and the assembly thought the answer as good as the cavil deserved.* The resolutions of the meeting were communicated to the prince. He forthwith announced his determination to comply with the joint request of the two councils which he had called, to issue letters summoning a convention of the estates of the realm, and, till the Convention should meet, to take on himself the executive administration.† He had undertaken no light task. The whole machine of government was disordered. The justices of the peace had abandoned their functions. The officers of the rev enue had ceased to collect the taxes. The army which Feversham had disbanded was still in confusion, and ready to break out into mutiny. The fleet was in a scarcely less alarming state. Large arrears of pay were due to the civil and military servants of the crown; and only forty thousand pounds remained in the Exchequer. The prince addressed himself with vigor to the work of restoring order. He published a proclamation by which all magistrates were continued in office, and another containing orders for the collection of the revenue.‡ The new modeling of the army went rapidly on; many of the noblemen and gentlemen whom James had removed from the command of the English regiments were reappointed. A way was found of employing the thousands of Irish soldiers whom James had brought into England. They could not safely be suffered to remain in a country where * The objector was designated in cotemporary books and pamphlets only by his initials, and these were sometimes misinterpreted. Eachard attributes the cavil to Sir Robert Southwell; but I have no doubt that Oldmixon is right in putting it into the mouth of Sawyer. History of the Desertion: Life of William, 1703; Citters, t London Gazette, Jan. 3, 7, 1688. Dec. 28 Jan. 7 1688. |