VAST SUMS GRANTED FOR THE SERVICES OF THE ENSUING YEAR.
Harley, Foley, and Harcourt, presented to the house a state of the receipts and issues of the revenue, together with two reports from the commissioners of accounts concerning sums issued for secret services, and to members of parliament. This was a discovery of the most scandalous practices in the mystery of corruption, equally exercised on the individuals of both parties, in occasional bounties, grants, places, pensions, equivalents, and additional salaries. The malcontents therefore justly observed, the house of commons was so managed that the king could baffle any bill, quash all grievances, stifle accounts, and rectify the articles of Limerick. When the commons took into consideration the estimates and supplies of the ensuing year, the king demanded forty thousand men for the navy, and above one hundred thousand for the purposes of the land service. Before the house considered these enormous demands, they granted four hundred thousand pounds by way of advance, to quiet the clamours of the seamen, who were become mutinous and desperate for want of pay, upwards of one million being due to them for wages. Then the commons voted the number of men required for the navy; but they were so ashamed of that for the army, that they thought it necessary to act in such a manner as should imply that they still retained some regard for their country. They called for all the treaties subsisting between the king and his allies; they examined the different proportions of the troops furnished by the respective powers; they considered the intended augmentations, and fixed the establishment of the year at four-score and three thousand, one hundred, and twenty-one men, including officers. For the maintenance of these they allotted the sum of two millions, five hundred and thirty thousand, five hundred and nine pounds. They granted two millions for the navy, and about five hundred thousand pounds, to make good the deficiencies of the annuity and poll bills; so that the supplies for the year amounted to about five millions and a half, raised by a land-tax of four shillings in the pound, by two more lives in the annuities, a further excise on beer, a new duty on salt, and a lottery.
Though the malcontents in parliament could not withstand this torrent of profusion, they endeavoured to distress the court interest, by reviving the popular bills of the preceding session; such as that for regulating trials in cases of high treason, the other for the more frequent calling and meeting of parliaments, and that concerning free and impartial proceedings in parliament. The first was neglected in the house of lords; the second was rejected; the third was passed by the commons, on the supposition that it would be defeated in the other house. The lords returned it with certain amendments, to which the commons would not agree: a conference ensued; the peers receded from their corrections, and passed the bill, to which the king however refused his assent. Nothing could be more unpopular and dangerous than such a step at this juncture. The commons, in order to recover some credit with the people, determined to disapprove of his majesty’s conduct. The house formed itself into a committee, to take the state of the kingdom into consideration. They resolved, that whoever advised the king to refuse the royal assent to that bill, was an enemy to their majesties and the kingdom. They likewise presented an address, expressing their concern that he had not given his consent to the bill; and beseeching his majesty to hearken for the future to the advice of his parliament, rather than to the counsels of particular persons, who might have private interests of their own, separate from those of his majesty and his people. The king thanked them for their zeal, professed a warm regard for their constitution, and assured them he would look upon all parties as enemies who should endeavour to lessen the confidence subsisting between the sovereign and the people. The members in the opposition were not at all satisfied with this general reply. A day being appointed to take it into consideration, a warm debate was maintained with equal eloquence and acrimony. At length the question being put that an address should be made for a more explicit answer, it passed in the negative by a great majority.
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE BANK OF ENGLAND.
The city of London petitioned that a parliamentary provision should be made for the orphans, whose fortunes they had scandalously squandered away. Such an application had been made in the preceding session, and rejected with disdain, as an imposition on the public; but now those scruples were removed, and the house passed a bill for this purpose, consisting of many clauses, extending to different charges on the city lands, aqueducts, and personal estates; imposing duties on binding apprentices, constituting freemen, as also upon wines and coals imported into London. On the twenty-third day of March these bills received the royal assent; and the king took that opportunity of recommending despatch, as the season of the year was far advanced, and the enemy diligently employed in making preparations for an early campaign. The scheme of a national bank, like those of Amsterdam and Genoa, had been recommended to the ministry as an excellent institution, as well for the credit and security of the government, as the increase of trade and circulation. One project was invented by Dr. Hugh Chamberlain, proposing the circulation of tickets on land security; but William Paterson was author of that which was carried into execution, by the interest of Michael Godfrey and other active projectors. The scheme was founded on the motion of a transferable fund, and a circulation by bill on the credit of a large capital. Forty merchants subscribed to the amount of five hundred thousand pounds, as a fund of ready money, to circulate one million at eight per cent, to be lent to the government; and even this fund of ready money bore the same interest. When it was properly digested in the cabinet, and a majority in parliament secured for its reception, the undertakers for the court introduced it into the house of commons, and expatiated upon the national advantages that would accrue from such a measure. They said it would rescue the nation out of the hands of extortioners and usurers, lower interest, raise the value of land, revive and establish public credit, extend circulation, consequently improve commerce, facilitate the annual supplies, and connect the people the more closely with the government. The project was violently opposed by a strong party, who affirmed that it would become a monopoly, and engross the whole money of the kingdom; that, as it must infallibly be subservient to government views, it might be employed to the worst purposes of arbitrary power; that instead of assisting it would weaken commerce, by tempting people to withdraw their money from trade and employ it in stock-jobbing; that it would produce a swarm of brokers and jobbers to prey upon their fellow-creatures, encourage fraud and gaming, and further corrupt the morals of the nation. Notwithstanding these objections, the bill made its way through the two houses, establishing the funds for the security and advantage of the subscribers; empowering their majesties to incorporate them by the name of the governor and company of the bank of England, under a proviso, that at any time after the first day of August, in the year one thousand seven hundred and five, upon a year’s notice, and the repayment of the twelve hundred thousand pounds, the said corporation should cease and determine. The bill likewise contained clauses of appropriation for the services of the public. The whole subscription was filled in ten clays after its being opened; and the court of directors completed the payment before the expiration of the time prescribed by the act, although they did not call in more than seven hundred and twenty thousand pounds of the money subscribed. All these funds proving inadequate to the estimates, the commons brought in a bill to impose stamp duties upon all vellum, parchment, and paper, used in almost every kind of intercourse between man and man; and they crowned the oppression of the year with another grievous tax upon carriages, under the name of a bill for licensing and regulating hackney and stage coaches.
EAST INDIA COMPANY’S CHArTER.
The commons, in a clause of the bill for taxing several joint-stocks, provided, that in case of a default in the payment of that tax, within the time limited by the act, the charter of the company so failing should be deemed void and forfeited. The East India company actually neglected their payment, and the public imagined the ministry would seize this opportunity of dissolving a monopoly against which so many complaints had been made; but the directors understood their own strength; and, instead of being broken, obtained the promise of a new charter. This was no sooner known, than the controversy between them and their adversaries was revived with such animosity, that the council thought proper to indulge both parties with a hearing. As this produced no resolution, the merchants who opposed the company petitioned, that, in the meanwhile, the new charter might be suspended. Addresses of the same kind were presented by a great number of clothiers, linen-drapers, and other dealers. To these a written answer was published by the company; the merchants printed a reply, in which they undertook to prove that the company had been guilty of unjust and unwarrantable actions, tending to the scandal of religion, the dishonour of the nation, the reproach of our laws, the oppression of the people, and the ruin of trade. They observed, that two private ships had exported in one year three times as many cloths as the company had exported in three years. They offered to send more cloth and English merchandise to the Indies in one year than the company had exported in five; to furnish the government with five hundred tons of saltpetre for less than one half of the usual price; and they represented, that the company could neither load the ships they petitioned for in England, nor reload them in the East Indies. In spite of all these remonstrances, the new charter passed the great seal; though the grants contained in it were limited in such a manner that they did not amount to an exclusive privilege, and subjected the company to such alterations, restrictions, and qualifications, as the king should direct before the twenty-ninth day of September. This indulgence, and other favours granted to the company, were privately purchased of the ministry, and became productive of a loud outcry against the government. The merchants published a journal of the whole transaction, and petitioned the house of commons that their liberty of trading to the East Indies might be confirmed by parliament. Another petition was presented by the company, praying that their charter might receive a parliamentary sanction. Both parties employed all their address in making private application to the members. The house having examined the different charters, the book of their new subscriptions, and every particular relating to the company, resolved that all the subjects of England had an equal right to trade to the East Indies unless prohibited by act of parliament.
WILLIAM AND MARY, 1688—1701.
GENERAL NATURALIZATION BILL.
But nothing engrossed the attention of the public more than a bill which was brought into the house for a general naturalization of all foreign protestants. The advocates for this measure alleged, That great part of the lands of England lay uncultivated; that the strength of a nation consisted in the number of inhabitants; that the people were thinned by the war and foreign voyages, and required an extraordinary supply; that a great number of protestants, persecuted in France and other countries, would gladly remove to a land of freedom, and bring along with them their wealth and manufactures; that the community had been largely repaid for the protection granted to those refugees who had already settled in the kingdom. They had introduced several new branches of manufacture, promoted industry, and lowered the price of labour; a circumstance of the utmost importance to trade, oppressed as it was with taxes, and exposed to uncommon hazard from the enemy. The opponents of the bill urged with great vehemence, That it would cheapen the birthright of Englishmen; that the want of culture was owing to the oppression of the times; that foreigners being admitted into the privileges of the British trade, would grow wealthy at the expense of their benefactors, and transfer the fortunes they had gained into their native country; that the reduction in the price of labour would be a national grievance, while so many thousands of English manufacturers were starving for want of employment, and the price of provisions continued so high that even those who were employed could scarce supply their families with bread; that the real design of the bill was to make such an accession to the dissenters as would render them an equal match in the body politic for those of the church of England; to create a greater dependence on the crown, and, in a word, to supply a foreign head with foreign members. Sir John Knight, a member of the house, in a speech upon this subject, exaggerated the bad consequences that would attend such a bill, with all the wit and virulence of satire: it was printed and dispersed through the kingdom, and raised such a flame among the people as had not appeared since the revolution. They exclaimed, that all offices would be conferred upon Dutchmen, who would become lord-danes, and prescribe the modes of religion and government; and they extolled sir John Knight as the saviour of the nation. The courtiers, incensed at the progress of this clamour, complained in the house of the speech which had been printed; and sir John was threatened with expulsion and imprisonment. He therefore thought proper to disown the paper, which was burned by the hands of the common hangman. This sacrifice served only to increase the popular disturbance, which rose to such a height of violence, that the court party began to tremble; and the bill was dropped for the present.
Lord Coningsby and Mr. Porter had committed the most flagrant acts of oppression in Ireland. These had been explained during the last session by the gentlemen who appealed against the administration of lord Sidney, but they were screened by the ministry; and therefore the earl of Bellamont now impeached them in the house of commons, of which he and they were members. After an examination of the articles exhibited against them, the commons, who were by this time at the devotion of the court, declared, that, considering the state of affairs in Ireland, they did not think them fit grounds for an impeachment.—In the course of this session, the nation sustained another misfortune in the fate of sir Francis Wheeler, who had been appointed commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean squadron. He received instructions to take under his convoy the merchant ships bound to Turkey, Spain, and Italy; to cruise thirty days in a certain latitude for the protection of the Spanish plate-fleet homeward bound; to leave part of his squadron at Cadiz as convoy to the trade for England; to proceed with the rest to the Mediterranean; to join the Spanish fleet in his return; and to act in concert with them, until he should be joined by the fleet from Turkey and the Straits, and accompany them back to England. About the latter end of October he set sail from Saint Helen’s, and in January arrived at Cadiz with the ships under his convoy. There leaving rear-admiral Hopson, he proceeded for the Mediterranean. In the bay of Gibraltar he was overtaken by a dreadful tempest, under a lee-shore, which he could not possibly weather, and where the ground was so foul that no anchor would hold. This expedient however was tried. A great number of ships were driven ashore, and many perished. The admiral’s ship foundered at sea, and he and all his crew were buried in the deep, except two Moors who were miraculously preserved. Two other ships of the line, three ketches, and six merchant ships were lost. The remains of the fleet were so much shattered, that, instead of prosecuting their voyage, they returned to Cadiz in order to be refitted, and sheltered from the attempts of the French squadrons, which were still at sea under the command of Chateau-Renaud and Cabaret. On the twenty-fifth day of April, the king-closed the session with a speech in the usual style, and the parliament was prorogued to the eighteenth day of September. 053 [See note K, at the end of this Vol.]
THE ENGLISH ATTEMPT TO MAKE A DESCENT IN CAMARET-BAY.
Louis of France being tired of the war, which had impoverished his country, continued to tamper with the duke of Savoy, and, by the canal of the pope, made some offers to the king of Spain, which were rejected. Meanwhile he resolved to stand upon the defensive during the ensuing campaign, in every part but Catalonia, where his whole naval force might co-operate with the count de Noailles, who commanded the land army. King William having received intelligence of the design upon Barcelona, endeavoured to prevent the junction of the Brest and Toulon squadrons, by sending Russel to sea as early as the fleet could be in a condition to sail; but before he arrived at Portsmouth, the Brest squadron had quitted that harbour. On the third day of May the admiral sailed from St. Helen’s with the combined squadrons of England and Holland, amounting to ninety ships of the line, besides frigates, fire-ships, and tenders. He detached captain Pritchard of the Monmouth with two fire-ships, to destroy a fleet of French merchant ships near Conquet-bay; and this service being performed, he returned to St. Helen’s, where he had left Adm. Cloudesley Shovel with a squadron, to take on board a body of land forces intended for a descent upon the coast of France. These being embarked under the command of general Ptolemache, the whole fleet sailed again on the twenty-ninth of May. The land and sea officers, in a council of war, agreed that part of the fleet designed for this expedition should separate from the rest and proceed to Camaret-bay, where the forces should be landed. On the fifth day of June, lord Berkeley, who commanded this squadron, parted with the grand fleet, and on the seventh anchored between the bays of Camaret and Bertaume. Next day the marquis of Carmarthen, afterwards duke of Leeds, who served under Berkeley as rear-admiral of the blue, entered Camaret-bay with two large ships and six frigates, to cover the troops in landing. The French had received intelligence of the design, and taken such precautions, under the conduct of the celebrated engineer Vauban, that the English were exposed to a terrible fire from new erected batteries, as well as from a strong body of troops, and though the ships cannonaded them with great vigour, the soldiers could not maintain any regularity in landing. A good number were killed in the open boats before they reached the shore; and those who landed were soon repulsed, in spite of all the endeavours of general Ptolemache, who received a wound in the thigh, which proved mortal. Seven hundred soldiers are said to have been lost on this occasion, besides those who were killed on board of the ships. The Monk ship of war was towed off with great difficulty; but a Dutch frigate of thirty guns fell into the hands of the enemy.
After this unfortunate attempt, lord Berkeley, with the advice of a council of war, sailed back for England, and at St. Helen’s received orders from the queen to call a council, and deliberate in what manner the ships and forces might be best employed. They agreed to make some attempt upon the coast of Normandy. With this view they set sail on the fifth day of July. They bombarded Dieppe, and reduced the greatest part of the town to ashes. Thence they steered to Havre-de-Grace, which met with the same fate. They harassed the French troops who marched after them along shore. They alarmed the whole coast, and filled every town with such consternation that they would have been abandoned by the inhabitants had not they been detained by military force. On the twenty-sixth of July, lord Berkeley returned to St. Helen’s, where he quitted the fleet, and the command devolved upon sir Cloudesley Shovel. This officer having received instructions to make an attempt upon Dunkirk, sailed round to the Downs, where he was joined by M. Meesters, with six-and-twenty Dutch pilots. On the twelfth of September he appeared before Dunkirk; and next day sent in the Charles galley, with two bomb-ketches, and as many of the machines called infernals. These were set on fire without effect, and the design miscarried; then Shovel steered to Calais, which having bombarded with little success, he returned to the coast of England; and the bomb-ketches and machines were sent into the river Thames.
ADMIRAL RUSSEL RELIEVES BARCELONA.
During these transactions, admiral Russel with the grand fleet sailed for the Mediterranean; and being joined by rear-admiral Neville from Cadiz, together with Callemberg and Evertzen, he steered towards Barcelona, which was besieged by the French fleet and army. At his approach, Tourville retired with precipitation into the harbour of Toulon; and Noailles abandoned his enterprise. The Spanish affairs were in such a deplorable condition, that without this timely assistance the kingdom must have been undone. While he continued in the Mediterranean, the French admiral durst not venture to appear at sea, and all his projects were disconcerted. After having asserted the honour of the British flag in those seas during the whole summer, he sailed in the beginning of November to Cadiz, where, by an express order of the king, he passed the winter, during which he took such precautions for preventing Tourville from passing the Straits, that he did not think proper to risk the passage.
CAMPAIGN IN FLANDERS.
It will now be necessary to describe the operations on the continent. In the middle of May king William arrived in Holland, where he consulted with the states-general. On the third day of June he repaired to Beth-lem-abbey near Louvain, the place appointed for the rendezvous of the army; and there he was met by the electors of Bavaria and Cologn. In a few days a numerous army was assembled, and every thing seemed to promise an active campaign. On the third day of June the dauphin assumed the command of the French forces, with which Luxembourg had taken post between Mons and Maubeuge; and passing the Sambre, encamped at Fleuras, but on the eighteenth he removed from thence, and took up his quarters between St. Tron and Wanheim; while the confederates lay at Roosbeck. On the eleventh of July, the dauphin marched in four columns to Oerle upon the Jaar, where he pitched his camp. On the twenty-second the confederates marched to Romale; then the dauphin took the route to Vignamont, where he secured his army by entrenchments, as his forces were inferior in number to those of the allies; and as he had been directed by his father to avoid an engagement. In this situation both armies remained till the fifteenth day of August, when king William sent the heavy baggage to Louvain; and on the eighteenth made a motion to Sombref. This was no sooner known to the enemy than they decamped; and having marched all night, posted themselves between Temploux and Masy, within a league and a half of the confederates. The king of England resolved to pass the Scheld, and with this view marched by the way of Nivelle and Soignes to Chievres; from thence he detached the duke of Wirtemberg, with a strong body of horse and foot, to pass the river at Oudenarde, while the elector of Bavaria advanced with another detachment to pass it at Pont de Espieres. Notwithstanding all the expedition they could make, their purpose was anticipated by Luxembourg, who being apprised of their route had detached four thousand horse, with each a foot soldier behind the trooper, to reinforce M. de Valette who commanded that part of the French line. These were sustained by a choice body of men, who travelled with great expedition without observing the formalities of a march. Mareschal de Villeroy followed the same route with all the cavalry of the right wing, the household troops, and twenty field-pieces; and the rest of the army was brought up by the dauphin in person. They marched with such incredible diligence, that the elector of Bavaria could scarce believe his own eyes when he arrived in sight of the Scheld and saw them intrenching themselves on the other side of the river. King William having reconnoitred their disposition, thought it impracticable to pass at that place; and therefore marched down the river to Oudenarde, where a passage had been already effected by the duke of Wirtemberg. Here the confederates passed the Scheld on the twenty-seventh day of the month; and the king fixed his head-quarters at Wanneghem. His intention was to have taken possession of Courtray, and established winter-quarters for a considerable part of his army in that district; but Luxembourg having posted himself between that place and Menin, extended his lines in such a manner that the confederates could not attempt to force them, nor even hinder him from subsisting his army at the enginse (expense ?) of the castellany of Courtray, during the remainder of the campaign. This surprising march was of such importance to the French king, that he wrote with his own hand a letter of thanks to his army; and ordered that it should be read to every particular squadron and battalion.
THE ALLIES REDUCE HUY.
The king of England, though disappointed in his scheme upon Courtray, found means to make some advantage of his superiority in number. He drafted troops from the garrison of Liege and Maestricht; and on the third day of September reinforced his body with a large detachment from his own camp, conferring the command upon the duke of Holstein-Ploen, with orders to undertake the siege of Huy. Next day the whole confederate forces passed the Lys, and encamped at Wouterghem. From thence the king with a part of the army marched to Roselsær; this diversion obliged the dauphin to make considerable detachments for the security of Ypres and Menin on the one side, and to cover Furnes and Dunkirk on the other. At this juncture, a Frenchman, being seized in the very act of setting fire to one of the ammunition waggons in the allied army, confessed he had been employed for this purpose by some of the French generals, and suffered death as a traitor. On the sixteenth day of the month the duke of Holstein-Ploen invested Huy, and earned on the siege with such vigour that in ten days the garrison capitulated. The king ordered Dixmuyde, Deynse, Ninove, and Tirelemont, to be secured for winter quarters to part of the army; the dauphin returned to Versailles; William quitted the camp on the last day of September; and both armies broke up about the middle of October.
The operations on the Rhine were preconcerted between king William and the prince of Baden, who had visited London in the winter. The dispute between the emperor and the elector of Saxony was compromised; and this young prince dying during the negotiation, the treaty was perfected by his brother and successor, who engaged to furnish twelve thousand men yearly, in consideration of a subsidy from the court of Vienna. In the beginning of June, mareschal de Lorges passed the Rhine at Philipsburgh, in order to give battle to the imperialists encamped at Halibron. The prince of Baden, who was not yet joined by the Saxons, Hessians, nor by the troops of Munster and Paderborn, dispatched couriers to quicken the march of these auxiliaries, and advanced to Eppingen, where he proposed to wait till they should come up; but on the fifteenth, receiving undoubted intelligence that the enemy were in motion towards him, he advanced to meet them in order of battle. De Lorges concluded that this was a desperate effort, and immediately halted to make the necessary preparations for an engagement. This pause enabled prince Louis to take possession of a strong pass near Sintzheim, from which he could not easily be dislodged. Then the mareschal proceeded to Viseloch, and ravaged the adjacent country, in hopes of drawing the imperialists from their intrenchments. The prince being joined by the Hessians, resolved to beat up the quarters of the enemy; and the French general being apprised of his design, retreated at midnight with the utmost precipitation. Having posted himself at Ruth, he sent his heavy baggage to Philipsburgh; then he moved to Gonsbergh in the neighbourhood of Manheim, repassed the Rhine, and encamped between Spires and Worms. The prince of Baden being joined by the allies, passed the river by a bridge of boats near Hagenbach, in the middle of September; and laid the country of Alsace under contribution. Considering the advanced season of the year this was a rash undertaking; and the French general resolved to profit by his enemy’s temerity. He forthwith advanced against the imperialists, foreseeing that should they be worsted in battle, their whole army would be ruined. Prince Louis, informed of his intention, immediately passed the Rhine; and this retreat was no sooner effected than the river swelled to such a degree that the island in the middle, and a great part of the camp he had occupied, was overflowed. Soon after this incident both armies retired into winter-quarters. The campaign in Hungary produced no event of importance. It was opened by the new vizier, who arrived at Belgrade in the middle of August: and about the same time Caprara assembled the imperial army in the neighbourhood of Peterwaraden. The Turks passed the Saave in order to attack their camp, and carried on their approaches with five hundred pieces of cannon; but made very little progress. The imperialists received reinforcements; the season wasted away; a feud arose between the vizier and the chain of the Tartars; and the Danube being swelled by heavy rains, so as to interrupt the operations of the Turks, their general decamped in the night of the first of October. They afterwards made an unsuccessful attempt upon Titul, while the imperial general made himself master of Giula. In the course of this summer the Venetians, who were also at war with the Turks, reduced Cyclut, a place of importance on the river Naranta, and made a conquest of the island of Scio in the Archipelago.
PROGRESS OF THE FRENCH.
We have already observed that the French king had determined to act vigorously in Catalonia. In the beginning of May, the duke de Noailles advanced at the head of eight and twenty thousand men to the river Ter, on the opposite bank of which the viceroy of Catalonia was encamped with sixteen thousand Spaniards. The French general passed the river in the face of this army, and attacked their intrenchments with such impetuosity, that in less than an hour they were totally defeated. Then he marched to Palamos, and undertook the siege of that place, while at the same time it was blocked up by the combined squadrons of Brest and Toulon. Though the besieged made an obstinate defence, the town was taken by storm, the houses were pillaged, and the people put to the sword, without distinction of age, sex, or condition. Then he invested Gironne, which in a few days capitulated. Ostalric met with the same fate, and Noailles was created viceroy of Catalonia by the French king. In the beginning of August he distributed his forces into quarters of refreshment along the river Ter-dore, resolving to undertake the siege of Barcelona, which was saved by the arrival of admiral Russel. The war languished in Piedmont, on account of a secret negotiation between the king of France and the duke of Savoy; notwithstanding the remonstrances of Rouvigny earl of Galway, who had succeeded the duke of Schomberg in the command of the British forces in that country. Casal was closely blocked up by the reduction of Fort St. George, and the Vaudois gained the advantage in some skirmishes in the valley of Ragclas; but no design of importance was executed.*
* In the course of this year, M. du Casse, governor of St. Domingo, made an unsuccessful attempt upon the Island of Jamaica; and M. St. Clair, with four men of war, formed a design against St. John’s, Newfoundland; but he was repulsed with loss by the valour of the inhabitants.
England had continued very quiet under the queen’s administration, if we except some little commotions occasioned by the practices, or pretended practices, of the Jacobites. Prosecutions were revived against certain gentlemen of Lancashire and Cheshire, for having been concerned in the conspiracy formed in favour of the late king’s projected invasion from Normandy. These steps were owing to the suggestions of infamous informers, whom the ministry countenanced. Colonel Parker and one Crosby were imprisoned, and bills of treason found against them; but Parker made his escape from the Tower, and was never retaken, though a reward of four hundred pounds was set upon his head. The king having settled the affairs of the confederacy at the Hague, embarked for England on the eighth of November, and next day landed at Margate. On the twelfth he opened the session of parliament with a speech, in which he observed that the posture of affairs was improved both by sea and land since they last parted; in particular, that a stop was put to the progress of the French arms. He desired they would continue the act of tonnage and poundage, which would expire at Christmas; he reminded them of the debt for the transport ships employed in the reduction of Ireland; and exhorted them to prepare some good bill for the encouragement of seamen. A majority in both houses was already secured; and in all probability he bargained for their condescension by agreeing to the bill for triennial parliaments. This Mr. Harley brought in by order of the lower house immediately after their first adjournment; and it kept pace with the consideration of the supplies. The commons having examined the estimates and accounts, voted four millions, seven hundred sixty-four thousand, seven hundred and twelve pounds, for the service of the army and navy. In order to raise this sum they continued the land tax; they renewed the subsidy of tonnage and poundage for five years, and imposed new duties on different commodities.* The triennial bill enacted, that a parliament should be held once within three years at least; that within three years at farthest after the dissolution of the parliament then subsisting, and so from time to time for ever after, legal writs under the great seal should be issued by the direction of the crown for calling, assembling, and holding another new parliament; that no parliament should continue longer than three years at farthest, to be accounted from the first day of the first session; and that the parliament then subsisting should cease and determine on the first day of November next following, unless their majesties should think fit to dissolve it sooner. The duke of Devonshire, the marquis of Halifax, the earls of Weymouth and Aylesbury, protested against this bill, because it tended to the continuance of the present parliament longer than, as they apprehended, was agreeable to the constitution of England.
* They imposed certain rates and duties upon marriages, births, and burials, bachelors, and widows. They passed an act for laying additional duties upon coffee, tea, and chocolate, towards paying the debt due for the transport ships: and another, imposing duties on glass ware, stone, and earthen bottles, coal, and culm.
DEATH OF ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON AND OF QUEEN MARY
While this bill was depending, Dr. John Tillotson, archbishop of Canterbury, was seized with a fit of the dead palsy in the chapel of Whitehall, and died on the twenty-second day of November, deeply regretted by the king and queen, who shed tears of sorrow at his decease; and sincerely lamented by the public, as a pattern of elegance, ingenuity, meekness, charity, and moderation. These qualities he must be allowed to have possessed, notwithstanding the invectives of his enemies, who accused him of puritanism, flattery, and ambition; and charged him with having conduced to a dangerous schism in the church, by accepting the archbishopric during the life of the deprived Sancroft. He was succeeded in the metropolitan See by Dr. Tennison, bishop of Lincoln, recommended by the whig-party which now predominated in the cabinet. The queen did not long survive her favourite prelate. In about a month after his decease she was taken ill of the smallpox, and the symptoms proving dangerous, she prepared herself for death with great composure. She spent some time in exercises of devotion and private conversation with the new archbishop; she received the sacrament with all the bishops who were in attendance; and expired on the twenty-eighth day of December, in the thirty-third year of her age, and in the sixth of her reign, to the inexpressible grief of the king, who for some weeks after her death could neither see company nor attend to the business of state. Mary was in her person tall and well-proportioned, with an oval visage, lively eyes, agreeable features, a mild aspect, and an air of dignity. Her apprehension was clear, her memory tenacious, and her judgment solid. She was a zealous protestant, scrupulously exact in all the duties of devotion, of an even temper, and of a calm and mild conversation. She was ruffled by no passion, and seems to have been a stranger to the emotions of natural affection; for she ascended without compunction the throne from which her father had been deposed, and treated her sister as an alien to her blood. In a word, Mary seems to have imbibed the cold disposition and apathy of her husband; and to have centered all her ambition in deserving the epithet of an humble and obedient wife. 056 [See note L, at the end of this Vol.]
RECONCILIATION BETWEEN THE KING AND THE PRINCESS OF DENMARK.
The princess Anne being informed of the queen’s dangerous indisposition, sent a lady of her bed-chamber to desire she might be admitted to her majesty; but this request was not granted. She was thanked for her expression of concern; and given to understand, that the physicians had directed that the queen should be kept as quiet as possible. Before her death, however, she sent a forgiving message to her sister; and after her decease, the earl of Sunderland effected a reconciliation between the king and the princess, who visited him at Kensington, where she was received with uncommon civility. He appointed the palace of St. James for her residence, and presented her with the greater part of the queen’s jewels. But a mutual jealousy and disgust subsisted under these exteriors of friendship and esteem. The two houses of parliament waited on the king at Kensington, with consolatory addresses on the death of his consort; their example was followed by the regency of Scotland, the city and clergy of London, the dissenting ministers, and almost all the great corporations in England.*
* The earls of Rochester and Nottingham are said to have started a doubt, whether the parliament was not dissolved by the queen’s death; but this dangerous motion met with no countenance.
CHAPTER V. WILLIAM.
Account of the Lancashire Plot..... The Commons inquire into the Abuses which had crept into the Army..... They expel and prosecute some of their own Members for Corruption in the Affair of the East India Company..... Examination of Cooke, Acton, and others..... The Commons impeach the Duke of Leeds..... The Parliament is prorogued..... Session of the Scottish Parliament..... They inquire into the Massacre of Glencoe..... They pass an Act for erecting a Trading Company to Africa and the Indies..... Proceedings in the Parliament of Ireland..... Disposition of the Armies in Flanders..... King William undertakes the Siege of Namur..... Famous Retreat of Prince Vaudemont..... Brussels is bombarded by Villeroy..... Progress of the Siege of Namur..... Villeroy attempts to relieve it..... The Besiegers make a desperate Assault..... The Place capitulates..... Boufflers is arrested by order of King William..... Campaign on the Rhine and in Hungary..... The Duke of Savoy takes Casal..... Transactions in Catalonia..... The English Fleet bombard’s St. Maloes and other places on the Coast of France..... Wilmot’s expedition to the West Indies..... A new Parliament..... They pass the Bill for regulating Trials in Cases of High Treason..... Resolutions with respect to the new Coinage..... The Commons address the King to recall a Grant he had made to the Earl of Portland..... Another against the new Scottish Company..... Intrigues of the Jacobites..... Conspiracy against the life of William..... Design of an Invasion defeated..... The two Houses engage in an Association for the Defence of his Majesty..... Establishment of a Land Bank..... Trial of the Conspirators..... The Allies burn the Magazine at Civet..... Louis the Fourteenth makes Advances towards a Peace with Holland..... He detaches the Duke of Savoy from the Confederacy..... Naval Transactions..... Proceedings in the Parliaments of Scotland and Ireland..... Zeal of the English Commons in their Affection to the King..... Resolutions touching the Coin and the support of Public Credit..... Enormous Impositions..... Sir John Fen- wick is apprehended..... A Bill of Attainder being brought into the House against him produces violent Debates..... His Defence..... The Bill passes..... Sir John Fenwick is beheaded..... The Earl of Monmouth sent to the Tower..... Inquiry into Miscarriages by Sea..... Negotiations at Ryswick..... The French take Barcelona..... Fruitless Expedition of Admiral Neville to the West Indies..... The Elector of Saxony is chosen King of Poland..... Peter the Czar of Muscovy travels in Disguise with his own Ambassadors ..... Proceedings in the Congress at Ryswick..... The Ambassadors of England, Spain, and Holland, sign the Treaty..... A general Pacification.
WILLIAM, 1688—1701.
ACCOUNT OF THE LANCASHIRE PLOT.
THE kingdom now resounded with the complaints of the papists and malcontents, who taxed the ministry with subornation of perjury in the case of the Lancashire gentlemen who had been persecuted for the conspiracy. One Lunt, an Irishman, had informed sir John Trench-ard, secretary of state, that he had been sent from Ireland with commissions from king James to divers gentlemen in Lancashire and Cheshire; that he had assisted in buying arms and enlisting men to serve that king in his projected invasion of England; that he had been twice despatched by those gentlemen to the court of St. Germain’s, assisted many Jacobites in repairing to France, helped to conceal others that came from that kingdom; and that all those persons told him they were furnished with money by sir John Friend, to defray the expense of their expeditions. His testimony was confirmed by other infamous emissaries, who received but too much countenance from the government. Blank warrants were issued, and filled up occasionally with such names as the informers suggested. These were delivered to Aaron Smith, solicitor to the treasury, who with messengers accompanied Lunt and his associates to Lancashire, under the protection of a party of Dutch horse-guards commanded by one captain Baker. They were empowered to break open houses, seize papers, and apprehend persons, according to their pleasure; and they committed many acts of violence and oppression. The persons against whom these measures were taken, being apprized of the impending danger, generally retired from their own habitations. Some, however, were taken and imprisoned; a few arms were secured; and in the house of Mr. Standish, at Standish-hall, they found the draft of a declaration to be published by king James at his landing. As this prosecution seemed calculated to revive the honour of a stale conspiracy, and the evidences were persons of abandoned characters, the friends of those who were persecuted found no great difficulty in rendering the scheme odious to the nation. They even employed the pen of Ferguson, who had been concerned in every plot that was hatched since the Rye-house conspiracy. This veteran, though appointed housekeeper to the excise-office, thought himself poorly recompensed for the part he had acted in the revolution, became dissatisfied, and upon this occasion published a letter to sir John Trenchard on the abuse of power. It was replete with the most bitter invectives against the ministry, and contained a great number of flagrant instances in which the court had countenanced the vilest corruption, perfidy, and oppression. This production was in every body’s hand, and had such an effect upon the people, that when the prisoners were brought to trial at Manchester, the populace would have put the witnesses to death had they not been prevented by the interposition of those who were friends of the accused persons, and had already taken effectual measures for their safety. Lunt’s chief associate in the mystery of information was one Taaffe, a wretch of the most profligate principles, who, finding himself disappointed in his hope of reward from the ministry, was privately gained over by the agents for the prisoners. Lunt, when desired in court to point out the persons whom he had accused, committed such a mistake as greatly invalidated his testimony; and Taaffe declared before the bench, that the pretended plot was no other than a contrivance between himself and Lunt in order to procure money from the government. The prisoners were immediately acquitted, and the ministry incurred a heavy load of popular odium, as the authors or abettors of knavish contrivances to insnare the innocent. The government, with a view to evince their abhorrence of such practices, ordered the witnesses to be prosecuted for a conspiracy against the lives and estates of the gentlemen who had been accused; and at last the affair was brought into the house of commons. The Jacobites triumphed in their victory. They even turned the battery of corruption upon the evidence for the crown, not without making a considerable impression. But the cause was now debated before judges who were not at all propitious to their views. The commons having set on foot an inquiry, and examined all the papers and circumstances relating to the pretended plot, resolved that there was sufficient ground for the prosecution and trials of the gentlemen at Manchester; and that there was a dangerous conspiracy against the king and government. They issued an order for taking Mr. Standish into custody; and the messenger reporting that he was not to be found, they presented an address to the king, desiring a proclamation might be published offering a reward for apprehending his person. The peers concurred with the commons in their sentiments of this affair; for complaints having been laid before their house also by the persons who thought themselves aggrieved, the question was put whether the government had cause to prosecute them, and carried in the affirmative, though a protest was entered against this vote by the earls of Rochester and Nottingham. Notwithstanding these decisions, the accused gentlemen prosecuted Lunt and two of his accomplices for perjury at the Lancaster assizes, and all three were found guilty. They were immediately indicted by the crown for a conspiracy against the lives and liberties of the persons they had accused. The intention of the ministry in laying this indictment was to seize the opportunity of punishing some of the witnesses for the gentlemen who had prevaricated in giving their testimony; but their design being discovered, the Lancashire men refused to produce their evidence against the informers; the prosecution dropped of consequence, and the prisoners were discharged.
WILLIAM, 1688—1701.