The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1, Thomas Babington Macaulay [ebook pc reader txt] 📗

would

be necessary to augment the fleet. The Commons fell into the

snare, and voted a grant of eight hundred thousand pounds. The

Parliament was instantly prorogued; and the court, thus

emancipated from control, proceeded to the execution of the great

design.


The financial difficulties however were serious. A war with

Holland could be carried on only at enormous cost. The ordinary

revenue was not more than sufficient to support the government in

time of peace. The eight hundred thousand pounds out of which the

Commons had just been tricked would not defray the naval and

military charge of a single year of hostilities. After the

terrible lesson given by the Long Parliament, even the Cabal did

not venture to recommend benevolences or shipmoney. In this

perplexity Ashley and Clifford proposed a flagitious breach of

public faith. The goldsmiths of London were then not only dealers

in the precious metals, but also bankers, and were in the habit

of advancing large sums of money to the government. In return for

these advances they received assignments on the revenue, and were

repaid with interest as the taxes came in. About thirteen hundred

thousand pounds had been in this way intrusted to the honour of

the state. On a sudden it was announced that it was not

convenient to pay the principal, and that the lenders must

content themselves with interest. They were consequently unable

to meet their own engagements. The Exchange was in an uproar:

several great mercantile houses broke; and dismay and distress

spread through all society. Meanwhile rapid strides were made

towards despotism. Proclamations, dispensing with Acts of

Parliament, or enjoining what only Parliament could lawfully

enjoin, appeared in rapid succession. Of these edicts the most

important was the Declaration of Indulgence. By this instrument

the penal laws against Roman Catholics were set aside; and, that

the real object of the measure might not be perceived, the laws

against Protestant Nonconformists were also suspended.


A few days after the appearance of the Declaration of Indulgence,

war was proclaimed against the United Provinces. By sea the Dutch

maintained the struggle with honour; but on land they were at

first borne down by irresistible force. A great French army

passed the Rhine. Fortress after fortress opened its gates. Three

of the seven provinces of the federation were occupied by the

invaders. The fires of the hostile camp were seen from the top of

the Stadthouse of Amsterdam. The Republic, thus fiercely assailed

from without, was torn at the same time by internal dissensions.

The government was in the hands of a close oligarchy of powerful

burghers. There were numerous selfelected Town Councils, each of

which exercised within its own sphere, many of the rights of

sovereignty. These councils sent delegates to the Provincial

States, and the Provincial States again sent delegates to the

States General. A hereditary first magistrate was no essential

part of this polity. Nevertheless one family, singularly fertile

of great men, had gradually obtained a large and somewhat

indefinite authority. William, first of the name, Prince of

Orange Nassau, and Stadtholder of Holland, had headed the

memorable insurrection against Spain. His son Maurice had been

Captain General and first minister of the States, had, by eminent

abilities and public services, and by some treacherous and cruel

actions, raised himself to almost kingly power, and had

bequeathed a great part of that power to his family. The

influence of the Stadtholders was an object of extreme jealousy

to the municipal oligarchy. But the army, and that great body of

citizens which was excluded from all share in the government,

looked on the Burgomasters and Deputies with a dislike resembling

the dislike with which the legions and the common people of Rome

regarded the Senate, and were as zealous for the House of Orange

as the legions and the common people of Rome for the House of

Caesar. The Stadtholder commanded the forces of the commonwealth,

disposed of all military commands, had a large share of the civil

patronage, and was surrounded by pomp almost regal.


Prince William the Second had been strongly opposed by the

oligarchical party. His life had terminated in the year 1650,

amidst great civil troubles. He died childless: the adherents of

his house were left for a short time without a head; and the

powers which he had exercised were divided among the Town

Councils, the Provincial States, and the States General.


But, a few days after William's death, his widow, Mary, daughter

of Charles the first, King of Great Britain, gave birth to a son,

destined to raise the glory and authority of the House of Nassau

to the highest point, to save the United Provinces from slavery,

to curb the power of France, and to establish the English

constitution on a lasting foundation.


This Prince, named William Henry, was from his birth an object of

serious apprehension to the party now supreme in Holland, and of

loyal attachment to the old friends of his line. He enjoyed high

consideration as the possessor of a splendid fortune, as the

chief of one of the most illustrious houses in Europe, as a

Magnate of the German empire, as a prince of the blood royal of

England, and, above all, as the descendant of the founders of

Batavian liberty. But the high office which had once been

considered as hereditary in his family remained in abeyance; and

the intention of the aristocratical party was that there should

never be another Stadtholder. The want of a first magistrate was,

to a great extent, supplied by the Grand Pensionary of the

Province of Holland, John De Witt, whose abilities, firmness, and

integrity had raised him to unrivalled authority in the councils

of the municipal oligarchy.


The French invasion produced a complete change. The suffering and

terrified people raged fiercely against the government. In their

madness they attacked the bravest captains and the ablest

statesmen of the distressed commonwealth. De Ruyter was insulted

by the rabble. De Witt was torn in pieces before the gate of the

palace of the States General at the Hague. The Prince of Orange,

who had no share in the guilt of the murder, but who, on this

occasion, as on another lamentable occasion twenty years later,

extended to crimes perpetrated in his cause an indulgence which

has left a stain on his glory, became chief of the government

without a rival. Young as he was, his ardent and unconquerable

spirit, though disguised by a cold and sullen manner, soon roused

the courage of his dismayed countrymen. It was in vain that both

his uncle and the French King attempted by splendid offers to

seduce him from the cause of the Republic. To the States General

he spoke a high and inspiriting language. He even ventured to

suggest a scheme which has an aspect of antique heroism, and

which, if it had been accomplished, would have been the noblest

subject for epic song that is to be found in the whole compass of

modern history. He told the deputies that, even if their natal

soil and the marvels with which human industry had covered it

were buried under the ocean, all was not lost. The Hollanders

might survive Holland. Liberty and pure religion, driven by

tyrants and bigots from Europe, might take refuge in the farthest

isles of Asia. The shipping in the ports of the republic would

suffice to carry two hundred thousand emigrants to the Indian

Archipelago. There the Dutch commonwealth might commence a new

and more glorious existence, and might rear, under the Southern

Cross, amidst the sugar canes and nutmeg trees, the Exchange of a

wealthier Amsterdam, and the schools of a more learned Leyden.

The national spirit swelled and rose high. The terms offered by

the allies were firmly rejected. The dykes were opened. The whole

country was turned into one great lake from which the cities,

with their ramparts and steeples, rose like islands. The invaders

were forced to save themselves from destruction by a precipitate

retreat. Lewis, who, though he sometimes thought it necessary to

appear at the head of his troops, greatly preferred a palace to a

camp, had already returned to enjoy the adulation of poets and

the smiles of ladies in the newly planted alleys of Versailles.


And now the tide turned fast. The event of the maritime war had

been doubtful; by land the United Provinces had obtained a

respite; and a respite, though short, was of infinite importance.

Alarmed by the vast designs of Lewis, both the branches of the

great House of Austria sprang to arms. Spain and Holland, divided

by the memory of ancient wrongs and humiliations, were reconciled

by the nearness of the common danger. From every part of Germany

troops poured towards the Rhine. The English government had

already expended all the funds which had been obtained by

pillaging the public creditor. No loan could be expected from the

City. An attempt to raise taxes by the royal authority would have

at once produced a rebellion; and Lewis, who had now to maintain

a contest against half Europe, was in no condition to furnish the

means of coercing the people of England. It was necessary to

convoke the Parliament.


In the spring of 1673, therefore, the Houses reassembled after a

recess of near two years. Clifford, now a peer and Lord

Treasurer, and Ashley, now Earl of Shaftesbury and Lord

Chancellor, were the persons on whom the King principally relied

as Parliamentary managers. The Country Party instantly began to

attack the policy of the Cabal. The attack was made, not in the

way of storm. but by slow and scientific approaches. The Commons

at first held out hopes that they would give support to the

king's foreign policy, but insisted that he should purchase that

support by abandoning his whole system of domestic policy. Their

chief object was to obtain the revocation of the Declaration of

Indulgence. Of all the many unpopular steps taken by the

government the most unpopular was the publishing of this

Declaration. The most opposite sentiments had been shocked by an

act so liberal, done in a manner so despotic. All the enemies of

religious freedom, and all the friends of civil freedom, found

themselves on the same side; and these two classes made up

nineteen twentieths of the nation. The zealous churchman

exclaimed against the favour which had been shown both to the

Papist and to the Puritan. The Puritan, though he might rejoice

in the suspension of the persecution by which he had been

harassed, felt little gratitude for a toleration which he was to

share with Antichrist. And all Englishmen who valued liberty and

law, saw with uneasiness the deep inroad which the prerogative

had made into the province of the legislature.


It must in candour be admitted that the constitutional question

was then not quite free