CHAP.

IX.

His military and naval preparations.

threatened by French ambition, and the necessity of rescuing
England from vassalage and of uniting her to the European
confederacy. He disclaimed, and with truth, all bigotry.
The real enemy, he said, of the British Roman Catholics was
that shortsighted and headstrong monarch who, when he
might easily have obtained for them a legal toleration, had
trampled on law, liberty, property, in order to raise them to
an odious and precarious ascendency. If the misgovernment
of James were suffered to continue, it must produce, at no
remote time, a popular outbreak, which might be followed by
a barbarous persecution of the Papists. The Prince declared
that to avert the horrors of such a persecution was one of his
chief objects. If he succeeded in his design, he would use the
power which he must then possess, as head of the Protestant |
interest, to protect the members of the Church of Rome.
Perhaps the passions excited by the tyranny of James might
make it impossible to efface the penal laws from the statute
book: but those laws should be mitigated by a lenient ad-
ministration. No class would really gain more by the proposed
expedition than those peaceable and unambitious Roman
Catholics who merely wished to follow their callings and to
worship their Maker without molestation. The only losers
would be the Tyrconnels, the Dovers, the Albevilles, and
other political adventurers who, in return for flattery and
evil counsel, had obtained from their credulous master go-
vernments, regiments, and embassies.

While William exerted himself to enlist on his side the sympathies both of Protestants and of Roman Catholics, he exerted himself with not less vigour and prudence to provide the military means which his undertaking required. He could not make a descent on England without the sanction of the United Provinces. If he asked for that sanction before his design was ripe for execution, his intentions might possibly be thwarted by the faction hostile to his house, and would certainly be divulged to the whole world. He therefore determined to make his preparations with all speed, and, when they were complete, to seize some favourable moment for re

For the consummate dexterity with which he exhibited two different views of his policy to two different parties he was afterwards bitterly reviled by the Court of Saint Germain's. "Licet Faderatis publicus ille prædo haud aliud aperte proponat nisi ut Gallici imperii exuberans amputetur potestas, veruntamen sibi et suis ex hæretica fæce compli

cibus, ut pro comperto habemus, longe aliud promittit, nempe ut, exciso vel enervato Francorum regno, ubi Catholicarum partium summum jam robur situm est, hæretica ipsorum pravitas per orbem Christianum universum prævaleat."Letter of James to the Pope, written in 1689.

questing the consent of the federation. It was observed by the agents of France that he was more busy than they had ever known him. Not a day passed on which he was not seen spurring from his villa to the Hague. He was perpetually closeted with his most distinguished adherents. Twentyfour ships of war were fitted out for sea in addition to the ordinary force which the commonwealth maintained. There was, as it chanced, an excellent pretence for making this addition to the marine: for some Algerine corsairs had recently dared to show themselves in the German Ocean. A camp was formed near Nimeguen. Many thousands of troops were assembled there. In order to strengthen this army the garrisons were withdrawn from the strongholds in Dutch Brabant. Even the renowned fortress of Bergopzoom was left almost defenceless. Field pieces, bombs, and tumbrels from all the magazines of the United Provinces were collected at the head quarters. All the bakers of Rotterdam toiled day and night to make biscuit. All the gunmakers of Utrecht were found too few to execute the orders for pistols and muskets. All the saddlers of Amsterdam were hard at work on harness and holsters. Six thousand sailors were added to the naval establishment. Seven thousand new soldiers were raised. They could not, indeed, be formally enlisted without the sanction of the federation: but they were well drilled, and kept in such a state of discipline that they might without difficulty be distributed into regiments within twenty-four hours after that sanction should be obtained. These preparations required ready money: but William had, by strict economy, laid up against a great emergency a treasure amounting to about two hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling. What more was wanting was supplied by the zeal of his partisans. Great quantities of gold, not less, it was said, than a hundred thousand guineas, came to him from England. The Huguenots, who had carried with them into exile large quantities of the precious metals, were eager to lend him all that they possessed; for they fondly hoped that, if he succeeded, they should be restored to the country of their birth; and they feared that, if he failed, they should scarcely be safe even in the country of their adoption.*

Through the latter part of July and the whole of August the preparations went on rapidly, yet too slowly for the vehe

CHAP.

IX.

CHAP.
IX.

He receives

numerous

England.

ment spirit of William. Meanwhile the intercourse between England and Holland was active. The ordinary modes of conveying intelligence and passengers were no longer thought safe. A light bark of marvellous speed constantly ran backassurances ward and forward between Schevening and the eastern coast of support of our island.* By this vessel William received a succession from of letters from persons of high note in the Church, the state, and the army. Two of the seven prelates who had signed the memorable petition, Lloyd, Bishop of Saint Asaph, and Trelawney, Bishop of Bristol, had, during their residence in the Tower, reconsidered the doctrine of nonresistance, and were ready to welcome an armed deliverer. A brother of the Bishop of Bristol, Colonel Charles Trelawney, who commanded one of the Tangier regiments, now known as the Fourth of the Line, signified his readiness to draw his sword for the Protestant religion. Similar assurances arrived from the savage Kirke. Churchill, in a letter written with a certain elevation of language, which was the sure mark that he was going to commit a baseness, declared that he was determined to perform his duty to heaven and to his country, and that he put his honour absolutely into the hands of the Prince of Orange. William doubtless read these words with one of those bitter and cynical smiles which gave his face its least pleasing expression. It was not his business to take care of the honour of other men; nor had the most rigid casuists pronounced it unlawful in a general to invite, to use, and to reward the services of deserters whom he could not but despise.†

Churchill's letter was brought by Sidney, whose situation in England had become hazardous, and who, having taken many precautions to hide his track, had passed over to Holland about the middle of August.‡ About the same time Shrewsbury and Edward Russell crossed the German Ocean in a boat which they had hired with great secrecy, and appeared at the Hague. Shrewsbury brought with him twelve thousand pounds, which he had raised by a mortgage on his estates, and which he lodged in the Bank of Amsterdam.§ Devonshire, Danby, and Lumley remained in England, where they undertook to rise in arms as soon as the Prince should set foot on the island.

* Avaux Neg. September. 1688.
Burnet, i. 765.; Churchill's letter

bears date Aug. 4. 1688.

William to Bentinck, Aug. 17. 1688. Memoirs of the Duke of Shrewsbury, 1718.

land.

IX.

There is reason to believe that, at this conjuncture, William CHAP. first received assurances of support from a very different quarter. Part of the history of Sunderland's intrigues is Sundercovered with an obscurity which it is not probable that any enquirer will ever succeed in penetrating: but, though it is impossible to discover the whole truth, it is easy to detect some palpable fictions. The Jacobites, for obvious reasons, affirmed that the revolution of 1688 was the result of a plot concerted long before. Sunderland they represented as the chief conspirator. He had, they averred, in pursuance of his great design, incited his too confiding master to dispense with statutes, to create an illegal tribunal, to confiscate freehold property, and to send the fathers of the Established Church to a prison. This romance rests on no evidence, and, though it has been repeated down to our time, seems hardly to deserve confutation. No fact is more certain than that Sunderland opposed some of the most imprudent steps which James took, and in particular the prosecution of the Bishops, which really brought on the decisive crisis. But, even if this fact were not established, there would still remain one argument sufficient to decide the controversy. What conceivable motive had Sunderland to wish for a revolution? Under the existing system he was at the height of dignity and prosperity. As President of the Council he took precedence of the whole temporal peerage. As Principal Secretary of State he was the most active and powerful member of the cabinet. He might look forward to a dukedom. He had obtained the garter lately worn by the brilliant and versatile Buckingham, who, having squandered away a princely fortune and a vigorous intellect, had sunk into the grave deserted, contemned, and brokenhearted.* Money, which Sunderland valued more than honours, poured in upon him in such abundance that, with ordinary management, he might hope to become, in a few years, one of the wealthiest subjects in Europe. The direct emolument of his posts, though considerable, was a very small part of what he received. From France alone he drew a regular stipend of near six thousand pounds a year, besides large occasional gratuities. He had bargained with Tyrconnel for five thousand a year, or fifty thousand pounds down, from Ireland. What sums he made. by selling places, titles, and pardons can only be conjectured, but must have been enormous. James seemed to take a plea

* London Gazette, April 25. 28. 1687.

CHAP.
IX.

sure in loading with wealth one whom he regarded as his own convert. All fines, all forfeitures, went to Sunderland. On every grant toll was paid to him. If any suitor ventured to ask any favour directly from the King, the answer was, "Have you spoken to my Lord President?" One bold màn ventured to say that the Lord President got all the money of the court. "Well," replied His Majesty; "he deserves it all."* We shall scarcely overrate the amount of the minister's gains, if we put them at thirty thousand pounds a year: and it must be remembered that fortunes of thirty thousand pounds a year were in his time rarer than fortunes of a hundred thousand pounds a year now are. It is probable that there was then not one peer of the realm whose private income equalled Sunderland's official income.

What chance was there that, in a new order of things, a man so deeply implicated in illegal and unpopular acts, a member of the High Commission, a renegade whom the multitude, in places of general resort, pursued with the cry of Popish dog, would be greater and richer? What chance that he would even be able to escape condign punishment?

He had undoubtedly been long in the habit of looking forward to the time when William and Mary might be, in the ordinary course of nature and law, at the head of the English government, and had probably attempted to make for himself an interest in their favour, by promises and services which, if discovered, would not have raised his credit at Whitehall. But it may with confidence be affirmed that he had no wish to see them raised to power by a revolution, and that he did not at all foresee such a revolution when, towards the close of June 1688, he solemnly joined the communion of the Church of Rome.

Scarcely however had he, by that inexpiable crime, made himself an object of hatred and contempt to the whole nation, when he learned that the civil and ecclesiastical polity of England would shortly be vindicated by foreign and domestic From that moment all his plans seem to have undergone a change. Fear bowed down his whole soul, and was so written in his face that all who saw him could read.† It

arms.

* Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland. This account is strongly confirmed by what Bonrepaux wrote to Seignelay, Sept. 2. 1687. "Il (Sunderland) amassera beaucoup d'argent, le roi son maître lui donnant la plus grande

partie de celui qui provient des confiscations ou des accommodemens que ceux qui ont encouru des peines font pour obtenir leur grâce."

Adda says that Sunderland's terror was visible. 1688.

Oct. 26.

Nov. 5.