remained among us, we were ready, little as he deserved our love, to die at his feet. Had he, when he quitted us, appointed a regency to govern us with vicarious authority during his absence, to that regency alone should we have looked for direction. But he has disappeared, having made no provision for the preservation of order or the administration of justice. With him, and with his great seal, has vanished the whole machinery by which a murderer can be punished, by which the right to an estate can be decided, by which the effects of a bankrupt can be distributed. His last act has been to free thousands of armed men from the restraints of military discipline, and to place them in such a situation that they must plunder or starve. Yet a few hours, and every man's hand will be against his neighbor. Life, property, female honor, will be at the mercy of every lawless spirit. lawless spirit. We are at this moment actually in that state of nature about which theorists have written so much; and in that state we have been placed, not by our fault, but by the voluntary defection of him who ought to have been our protector. His defection may be justly called voluntary, for neither his life nor his liberty was in danger. His enemies had just consented to treat with him on a basis proposed by himself, and had offered immediately to suspend all hostile operations, on conditions which he could not deny to be liberal. In such circumstances it is that he has abandoned his trust. We retract nothing. We are in nothing inconsistent. still assert our old doctrines without qualification. still hold that it is in all cases sinful to resist the magistrate; but we say that there is no longer any magistrate to resist. He who was the magistrate, after long abusing his powers, has at last abdicated them. The abuse did not give us a right to depose him, but the abdication gives us a right to consider how we may best supply his place.

We

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It was on these grounds that the prince's party was now swollen by many adherents who had previously stood aloof from it. Never, within the memory of man, had there been so near an approach to entire concord among

all intelligent Englishmen as at this conjuncture, and never had concord been more needed. Legitimate authority there was none. All those evil passions which it is the office of government to restrain, and which the best governments restrain but imperfectly, were on a sudden emancipated from control: avarice, licentiousness, revenge, the hatred of sect to sect, the hatred of nation to nation. On such occasions it will ever be found that the human vermin which, neglected by ministers of state and ministers of religion, barbarous in the midst of civilization, heathen in the midst of Christianity, burrows, among all physical and all moral pollution, in the cellars and garrets of great cities, will at once rise into a terrible importance. So it was no y in London. When the night, the longest night, as it chanced, of the year, approached, forth came from every den of vice, from the bear-garden at Hockley, and from the labyrinth of tippling-houses and brothels in the Friars, thousands of housebreakers and highwaymen, cut-purses and ring-droppers. With these were mingled thousands of idle apprentices, who wished merely for the excitement of a riot. Even men of peaceable and honest habits were impelled by religious animosity to join the lawless part of the population; for the cry of No Popery, a cry which has more than once endangered the existence of London, was the signal for outrage and rapine. First the rabble fell on the Roman Catholic places of worship. The buildings were demolished. Benches, pulpits, confessionals, breviaries were heaped up and set on fire. A great mountain of books and furniture blazed on the site of the convent at Clerkenwell. Another pile was kindled before the ruins of the Franciscan house in Lincoln's Inn Fields. The chapel in Lyme Street, the chapel in Bucklersbury, were pulled down. The pictures, images, and crucifixes were carried along the streets in triumph, amid lighted tapers torn from the altars. The procession bristled thick with swords and staves, and on the point of every sword and of every staff was an orange. The king's printing house, whence had issued, during the pre

ceding three years, innumerable tracts in defense of papal supremacy, image worship, and monastio vows, was, to use a coarse metaphor which then, for the first time, came into use, completely gutted. The vast stock of paper, much of which was still unpolluted by types, furnished an immense bonfire. From monasteries, temples, and public offices, the fury of the multitude turned to private dwellings. Several houses were pillaged and destroyed; but the smallness of the booty disappointed the plunderers; and soon a rumor was spread that the most valuable effects of the papists had been placed under the care of the foreign embassadors. To the savage and ignorant populace, the law of nations and the risk of bringing on their country the just vengeance of all Europe were as nothing. The houses of the embassadors were besieged. A great crowd assembled before Barillon's door in St. James's Square. He, however, fared better than might have been expected; for, though the government which he represented was held in abhorrence, his liberal housekeeping and punctual payments had made him personally popular. Moreover, he had taken the precaution of asking for a guard of soldiers; and, as several men of rank, who lived near him, had done the same, a considerable force was collected in the square. The rioters, therefore, when they were assured that no arms or priests were concealed under his roof, left him unmolested. The Venetian envoy was protected by a detachment of troops, but the mansions occupied by the ministers of the Elector Palatine and of the Grand-duke of Tuscany were destroyed. One precious box the Tuscan minister was able to save from the marauders. It contained nine volumes of memoirs, written in the hand of James himself. These volumes reach. ed France in safety, and, after the lapse of more than a century, perished there in the havoc of a revolution far more terrible than that from which they had escaped. But some fragments still remain, and, though grievously mutilated and imbedded in great masses of childish fiction, well deserve to be attentively studied.

The rich plate of the Chapel Royal had been deposited at Wild House, near Lincoln's Inn Fields, the residence of the Spanish embassador Ronquillo. Ronquillo, conscious that he and his court had not deserved ill of the English nation, had thought it unnecessary to ask for soldiers; but the mob was not in a mood to make nice distinctions. The name of Spain had long been associated in the public mind with the Inquisition and the Armada, with the cruelties of Mary and the plots against Elizabeth. Ronquillo had also made himself many enemies among the common people by availing himself of his privilege to avoid the necessity of paying his debts. His house was therefore sacked without mercy; and a noble library, which he had collected, perished in the flames. His only comfort was that the host in his chapel was rescued from the same fate.*

The morning of the twelfth of December rose on a ghastly sight. The capital in many places presented the aspect of a city taken by storm. The Lords met at Whitehall, and exerted themselves to restore tranquillity. The train-bands were ordered under arms. A body of cavalry was kept in readiness to disperse tumultuous assemblages. Such atonement as was at that moment possible was made for the gross insults which had been offered to foreign governments. A reward was promised for the discovery of the property taken from Wild House; and Ronquillo, who had not a bed or an ounce of plate left, was splendidly lodged in the deserted palace of the kings of England. A sumptuous table was kept for him, and the yeomen of the guard were ordered to wait in his ante-chamber with the same observance which they were in the habit of paying to the sovereign. These marks of

201

London Gazette, Dec. 13, 1688; Barillon, Dec. 1; Citters, same date; Luttrell's Diary; Clarke's Life of James, ii., 256, Orig. Mem.; Ellis Correspondence, Dec. 13; Consultation of the Spanish Council of State, Jan. 18, 1689. It appears that Ronquillo complained bitterly to his government of his losses: "Sirviendole solo de consuelo el haber tenido prevencion de poder consumir El Santisimo."

respect soothed even the punctilious pride of the Spanish court, and averted all danger of a rupture.*

In spite, however, of the well-meant efforts of the provisional government, the agitation grew hourly more formidable. It was heightened by an event which, even at this distance of time, can hardly be related without a feeling of vindictive pleasure. A scrivener who lived at Wapping, and whose trade was to furnish the sea-faring men there with money at high interest, had some time before lent a sum on bottomry. The debtor applied to equity for relief against his own bond, and the case came before Jeffreys. The counsel for the borrower, having little else to say, said that the lender was a Trimmer. The chancellor instantly fired. "A Trimmer! where is he? Let me see him. I have heard of that kind of monster. What is it made like ?" The unfortunate creditor was forced to stand forth. The chancellor glared fiercely on him, stormed at him, and sent him away half dead with fright. "While I live," the poor man said, as he tottered out of the court, "I shall never forget that terrible countenance." And now the day of retribution had arrived. The Trimmer was walking through Wapping, when he saw a wellknown face looking out of the window of an ale-house. He could not be deceived. The eye-brows, indeed, had been shaved away. The dress was that of a common sailor from Newcastle, and was black with coal dust; but there was no mistaking the savage mouth and eye of Jeffreys. The alarm was given. In a moment the house was surrounded by hundreds of people shaking bludgeons and bellowing curses. The fugitive's life was saved by a company of the train-bands, and he was carried before the lord mayor. The mayor was a simple man who had pass

* London Gazette, Dec. 13, 1688; Luttrell's Diary; Mulgrave's Account of the Revolution; Consultation of the Spanish Council of State, Jan. 18, 1689. Something was said about reprisals; but the Spanish council treated the suggestion with contempt: Habiendo sido este hecho por un furor de pueblo, sin consentimiento del gobierno, y antes contra su voluntad, como lo ha mostrado la satisfaccion que le han dado y le han prometido, parece que no hay juicio humano que puede aconsejar que se pase á semejante remedio."