men as cheap as his own. It was but too much the habit, even of the most humane and generous soldiers of that age, to think very lightly of the bloodshed and devastation inseparable from great martial exploits; and the heart of William was steeled, not only by professional insensibility, but by that sterner insensibility which is the effect of a sense of duty. Three great coalitions, three long and bloody wars in which all Europe from the Vistula to the Western Ocean was in arms, are to be ascribed to his unconquerable energy. When, in 1678, the States-General, exhausted and disheartened, were desirous of repose, his voice was still against sheathing the sword. If peace was made, it was made only because he could not breathe into other men a spirit as fierce and determined as his own. At the very last moment, in the hope of breaking off the negotiation which he knew to be all but concluded, he fought one of the most bloody and obstinate battles of that age. From the day on which the treaty of Nimeguen was signed, he began to meditate a second coalition. His contest with Louis, transferred from the field to the cabinet, was soon exasperated by a private feud. In talents, temper, manners, and opinions, the rivals were diametrically opposed to each other. Louis, polite and dignified, profuse and voluptuous, fond of display and averse from danger, a munificent patron of arts and letters, and a cruel persecutor of Calvinists, presented a remarkable contrast to William, simple in tastes, ungracious in demeanor, indefatigable and intrepid in war, regardless of all the ornamental branches of knowledge, and firmly attached to the theology of Geneva. The enemies did not long observe those courtesies which men of their rank, even when opposed to each other at the head of armies, seldom neglect. William, indeed, went through the form of tendering his best services to Louis. But this civility was rated at its true value, and requited with a dry reprimand. The great king affected contempt for the petty prince who was the servant of a confederacy of trading towns; and to every mark of contempt the dauntless stadtholder replied by

a fresh defiance. William took his title, a title which the events of the preceding century had made one of the most illustrious in Europe, from a city which lies on the banks of the Rhone not far from Avignon, and which, like Avign on, though inclosed on every side by the French territory, was properly a fief, not of the French, but of the imperial crown. Louis, with that ostentatious contempt of public law which was characteristic of him, occupied Orange, dismantled the fortifications, and confiscated the revenues. William declared aloud at his table before many persons that he would make the most Christian king repent the outrage, and, when questioned about these words by the Count of Avaux, positively refused either to retract them or to explain them away. The quarrel was carried so far that the French minister could not venture to present himself at the drawing-room of the princess for fear of receiving some affront.*

The feeling with which William regarded France explains the whole of his policy toward England. His public spirit was a European public spirit. The chief object of his care was not our island, not even his native Holland, but the great community of nations threatened with subjugation by one too powerful member. Those who commit the error of considering him as an English statesman must necessarily see his whole life in a false light, and will be unable to discover any principle, good or bad, Whig or Tory, to which his most important acts can be referred; but when we consider him as a man whose especial task was to join a crowd of feeble, divided, and dispirited states in firm and energetic union against a common enemy, when we consider him as a man in whose eyes England was important chiefly because, without her, the great coalition which he projected must be incomplete, we shall be forced to admit that no long career recorded in history has been more uniform from the beginning to the close than that of this great prince.†

* Avaux Negotiations, Aug. 10, Sept. 24 Oct. 8' 14 Sept. 28

Dec., 1682.

I can not deny myself the pleasure of quoting Massillon's unfriendly, yet

The clew of which we are now possessed will enable us to track without difficulty the course, in reality consistent, though in appearance sometimes tortuous, which he pursued toward our domestic factions. He clearly saw what had not escaped persons far inferior to him in sagacity, that the enterprise on which his whole soul was intent would probably be successful if England were on his side, would be of uncertain issue if England were neutral, and would be hopeless if England acted, as she had acted in the days of the Cabal. He saw not less clearly that between the foreign policy and the domestic policy of the English government there was a close connection; that the sovereign of this country, acting in harmony with the Legislature, must always have a great sway in the affairs of Christendom, and must also have an obvious interest in opposing the undue aggrandizement of any continental potentate; that, on the other hand, the sovereign, distrusted and thwarted by the Legislature, could be of little weight in European politics, and that the whole of that little weight would be thrown into the wrong scale. The prince's first wish, therefore, was, that there should be concord between the throne and the Parliament. How that concord should be established, and on which side concessions should be made, were, in his view, questions of secondary importance. He would have been best pleased, no doubt, to see a complete reconciliation effected without the sacrifice of one tittle of the prerogative; for in the integrity of that prerogative he had a reversionary interest, and he was, by nature, at least as covetous of power and as impatient of restraint as any of the Stuarts. But there was no flower of the crown which he was not prepared to sacrifice, discriminating and noble character of William: "Un prince profond dans ses vues; habile à former des ligues et à réunir les esprits; plus heureux à exciter les guerres qu'à combattre; plus à craindre encore dans le secret du cabinet, qu'à la tête des armées; un ennemi que la haine du nom Français avoit rendu capable d'imaginer de grandes choses et de les exécuter; un de ces génies qui semblent être nés pour mouvoir à leur gré les peuples et les souverains; un grand homme, s'il n'avoit jamais voulu être roi.”—Oraison funèbre de M. le Dauphin.

even after the crown had been placed on his own head, if he could only be convinced that such a sacrifice was indispensably necessary to his great design. In the days of the Popish Plot, therefore, though he disapproved of the violence with which the Opposition attacked the royal authority, he exhorted the government to give way. The conduct of the Commons, he said, as respected domestic affairs, was most unreasonable; but while the Commons were discontented, the liberties of Europe could never be safe; and to that paramount consideration every other consideration ought to yield. On these principles he acted when the Exclusion Bill had thrown the nation into convulsions. There is no reason to believe that he encouraged the Opposition to bring forward that bill or to reject the offers of compromise which were repeatedly made from the throne. But when it became clear that, unless that bill were carried, there would be a serious breach between the Commons and the court, he indicated very intelligibly, though with decorous reserve, his opinion that the representatives of the people ought to be conciliated at any price. When a violent and rapid reflux of public feeling had left the Whig party for a time utterly helpless, he attempted to attain his grand object by a new road perhaps more agreeable to his temper than that which he had previously tried. In the altered temper of the nation, there was little chance that any Parliament disposed to cross the wishes of the sovereign would be elected. Charles was for a time master. To gain Charles, therefore, was the prince's first wish. In the summer of 1683, almost at the moment at which the detection of the Rye House Plot made the discomfiture of the Whigs and the triumph of the king complete, events took place elsewhere which William could not behold without extreme anxiety and alarm. The Turkish armies advanced to the suburbs of Vienna. The great Austrian monarchy, on the support of which the prince had reckoned, seemed to be on the point of destruction. Bentinck was therefore sent in haste from the Hague to London, was charged to omit

nothing which might be necessary to conciliate the English court, and was particularly instructed to express in the strongest terms the horror with which his master regarded the Whig conspiracy.

During the eighteen months which followed there was some hope that the influence of Halifax would prevail, and that the court of Whitehall would return to the policy of the Triple Alliance. To that hope William fondly clung. His first object was to propitiate Charles. The hospitality which Monmouth found at the Hague is chiefly to be ascribed to the prince's anxiety to gratify the real wishes of Monmouth's father. As soon as Charles died, William, still adhering unchangeably to his object, again changed his tack. He had sheltered Monmouth to please the late king. That the present king might have no reason to complain, Monmouth was dismissed. We have seen that, when the western insurrection broke out, the British regiments in the Dutch service were, by the active exertions of the prince, sent over to their own country on the first requisition. Indeed, William even offered to command in person against the rebels; and that the offer was made in perfect sincerity can not be doubted by those who have perused his confidential letters to Bentinck.* The prince was evidently at this time inclined to hope that the great plan to which in his mind every thing else was subordinate might obtain the approbation and support of his father-in-law. The high tone which James was then holding toward France, the readiness with which he consented to a defensive alliance with the United Provinces, the inclination which he showed to connect himself with

* For example, "Je crois M. Feversham un très brave et honeste homme. Mais je doute s'il a assez d'expérience à diriger une si grande affaire qu'il a sur le bras. Dieu lui donne un succès prompt et heureux. Mais je ne suis pas hors d'inquiétude.”—July 7, 1685. Again, after he had received the news of the battle of Sedgemoor, "Dieu soit loué du bon succès que les troupes du Roy ont eu contre les rebelles. Je ne doute pas que cette affaire ne soit entièrement assoupie, et que le règne du Roy sera heureux, ce que Dieu veuille.”—July.