The History of England from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 3, Thomas Babington Macaulay [best novels to read for students TXT] 📗

the head of affairs. It should seem that, at this time, his influence in the royal closet was not quite what it had been. Godolphin, whom he did not love, and could not control, but whose financial skill had been greatly missed during the summer, was brought back to the Treasury, and made First Commissioner. Lowther, who was the Lord President's own man, still sate at the board, but no longer presided there. It is true that there was not then such a difference as there now is between the First Lord and his colleagues. Still the change was important and significant. Marlborough, whom Caermarthen disliked, was, in military affairs, not less trusted than Godolphin in financial affairs. The seals which Shrewsbury had resigned in the summer had ever since been lying in William's secret drawer. The Lord President probably expected that he should be consulted before they were given away; but he was disappointed. Sidney was sent for from Ireland; and the seals were delivered to him. The first intimation which the Lord President received of this important appointment was not made in a manner likely to soothe his feelings. "Did you meet the new Secretary of State going out?" said William. "No, Sir," answered the Lord President; "I met nobody but my Lord Sidney." "He is the new Secretary," said William. "He will do till I find a fit man; and he will be quite willing to resign as soon as I find a fit man. Any other person that I could put in would think himself ill used if I were to put him out." If William had said all that was in his mind, he would probably have added that Sidney, though not a great orator or statesman, was one of the very few English politicians who could be as entirely trusted as Bentinck or Zulestein. Caermarthen listened with a bitter smile. It was new, he afterwards said, to see a nobleman placed in the Secretary's office, as a footman was placed in a box at the theatre, merely in order to keep a seat till his betters came. But this jest was a cover for serious mortification and alarm. The situation of the prime minister was unpleasant and even perilous; and the duration of his power would probably have been short, had not fortune, just at this moment, put it in his power to confound his adversaries by rendering a great service to the state.808

The Jacobites had seemed in August to be completely crushed. The victory of the Boyne, and the irresistible explosion of patriotic feeling produced by the appearance of Tourville's fleet on the coast of Devonshire, had cowed the boldest champions of hereditary right. Most of the chief plotters passed some weeks in confinement or in concealment. But, widely as the ramifications of the conspiracy had extended, only one traitor suffered the punishment of his crime. This was a man named Godfrey Cross, who kept an inn on the beach near Rye, and who, when the French fleet was on the coast of Sussex, had given information to Tourville. When it appeared that this solitary example was thought sufficient, when the danger of invasion was over, when the popular enthusiasm excited by that danger had subsided, when the lenity of the government had permitted some conspirators to leave their prisons and had encouraged others to venture out of their hidingplaces, the faction which had been prostrated and stunned began to give signs of returning animation. The old traitors again mustered at the old haunts, exchanged significant looks and eager whispers, and drew from their pockets libels on the Court of Kensington, and letters in milk and lemon juice from the Court of Saint Germains. Preston, Dartmouth, Clarendon, Penn, were among the most busy. With them, was leagued the nonjuring Bishop of Ely, who was still permitted by the government to reside in the palace, now no longer his own, and who had, but a short time before, called heaven to witness that he detested the thought of inviting foreigners to invade England. One good opportunity had been lost; but another was at hand, and must not be suffered to escape. The usurper would soon be again out of England. The administration would soon be again confided to a weak woman and a divided council. The year which was closing had certainly been unlucky; but that which was about to commence might be more auspicious.

In December a meeting of the leading Jacobites was held.809 The sense of the assembly, which consisted exclusively of Protestants, was that something ought to be attempted, but that the difficulties were great. None ventured to recommend that James should come over unaccompanied by regular troops. Yet all, taught by the experience of the preceding summer, dreaded the effect which might be produced by the sight of French uniforms and standards on English ground. A paper was drawn up which would, it was hoped, convince both James and Lewis that a restoration could not be effected without the cordial concurrence of the nation. France,-such was the substance of this remarkable document,-might possibly make the island a heap of ruins, but never a subject province. It was hardly possible for any person, who had not had an opportunity of observing the temper of the public mind, to imagine the savage and dogged determination with which men of all classes, sects and factions were prepared to resist any foreign potentate who should attempt to conquer the kingdom by force of arms. Nor could England be governed as a Roman Catholic country. There were five millions of Protestants in the realm: there were not a hundred thousand Papists: that such a minority should keep down such a majority was physically impossible; and to physical impossibility all other considerations must give way. James would therefore do well to take without delay such measures as might indicate his resolution to protect the established religion. Unhappily every letter which arrived from France contained something tending to irritate feelings which it was most desirable to soothe. Stories were every where current of slights offered at Saint Germains to Protestants who had given the highest proof of loyalty by following into banishment a master zealous for a faith which was not their own. The edicts which had been issued against the Huguenots might perhaps have been justified by the anarchical opinions and practices of those sectaries; but it was the height of injustice and of inhospitality to put those edicts in force against men who had been driven from their country solely on account of their attachment to a Roman Catholic King. Surely sons of the Anglican Church, who had, in obedience to her teaching, sacrificed all that they most prized on earth to the royal cause, ought not to be any longer interdicted from assembling in some modest edifice to celebrate her rites and to receive her consolations. An announcement that Lewis had, at the request of James, permitted the English exiles to worship God according to their national forms would be the best prelude to the great attempt. That attempt ought to be made early in the spring. A French force must undoubtedly accompany His Majesty. But he must declare that he brought that force only for the defence of his person and for the protection of his loving subjects, and that, as soon as the foreign oppressors had been expelled, the foreign deliverers should be dismissed. He must also promise to govern according to law, and must refer all the points which had been in dispute between him and his people to the decision of a Parliament.

It was determined that Preston should carry to Saint Germains the resolutions and suggestions of the conspirators, John Ashton, a person who had been clerk of the closet to Mary of Modena when she was on the throne, and who was entirely devoted to the interests of the exiled family, undertook to procure the means of conveyance, and for this purpose engaged the cooperation of a hotheaded young Jacobite named Elliot, who only knew in general that a service of some hazard was to be rendered to the good cause.

It was easy to find in the port of London a vessel the owner of which was not scrupulous about the use for which it might be wanted. Ashton and Elliot were introduced to the master of a smack named the James and Elizabeth. The Jacobite agents pretended to be smugglers, and talked of the thousands of pounds which might be got by a single lucky trip to France and back again. A bargain was struck: a sixpence was broken; and all the arrangements were made for the voyage.

Preston was charged by his friends with a packet containing several important papers. Among these was a list of the English fleet furnished by Dartmouth, who was in communication with some of his old companions in arms, a minute of the resolutions which had been adopted at the meeting of the conspirators, and the Heads of a Declaration which it was thought desirable that James should publish at the moment of his landing. There were also six or seven letters from persons of note in the Jacobite party. Most of these letters were parables, but parables which it was not difficult to unriddle. One plotter used the cant of the law. There was hope that Mr. Jackson would soon recover his estate. The new landlord was a hard man, and had set the freeholders against him. A little matter would redeem the whole property. The opinions of the best counsel were in Mr. Jackson's favour. All that was necessary was that he should himself appear in Westminster Hall. The final hearing ought to be before the close of Easter Term. Other writers affected the style of the Royal Exchange. There was a great demand for a cargo of the right sort. There was reason to hope that the old firm would soon form profitable connections with houses with which it had hitherto had no dealings. This was evidently an allusion to the discontented Whigs. But, it was added, the shipments must not be delayed. Nothing was so dangerous as to overstay the market. If the expected goods did not arrive by the tenth of March, the whole profit of the year would be lost. As to details, entire reliance might be placed on the excellent factor who was going over. Clarendon assumed the character of a matchmaker. There was great hope that the business which he had been negotiating would be brought to bear, and that the marriage portion would be well secured. "Your relations," he wrote, in allusion to his recent confinement, "have been very hard on me this last summer. Yet, as soon as I could go safely abroad, I pursued the business." Catharine Sedley entrusted Preston with a letter in which, without allegory or circumlocution, she complained that her lover had left her a daughter to support, and begged very hard for money. But the two most important despatches were from Bishop Turner. They were directed to Mr. and Mrs. Redding: but the language was such as it would be thought abject in any gentleman to hold except to royalty. The Bishop assured their Majesties that he was devoted to their cause, that he earnestly wished for a great occasion to prove his zeal, and that he would no more swerve from his duty to them than renounce his hope of heaven. He added, in phraseology metaphorical indeed, but perfectly intelligible, that he was the mouthpiece of several of the nonjuring prelates, and especially of Sancroft. "Sir, I speak in the plural,"-these are the words of the letter to James,- "because I write my elder brother's sentiments as well as my own, and the rest of our family." The letter to Mary of Modena is to the same effect. "I say this in behalf of my elder brother, and