softened down; some courtly phrases were inserted; but the House refused to omit one sentence which almost reproachfully reminded the king that in his memorable dec laration of 1688 he had promised to send back all the foreign forces as soon as he had effected the deliverance of this country. The division was, however, very close. There were one hundred and fifty-seven votes for omitting this passage, and one hundred and sixty-three for retaining it.*

The address was presented by the whole House. William's answer was as good as it was possible for him, in the unfortunate position in which he had placed himself, to return. It showed that he was deeply hurt; but it was temperate and dignified. Those who saw him in private knew that his feelings had been cruelly lacerated. His body sympathized with his mind. His sleep was broken. His headaches tormented him more than ever. From those whom he had been in the habit of considering as his friends, and who had failed him in the recent struggle, he did not attempt to conceal his displeasure. The lucrative see of Worcester was vacant, and some powerful Whigs of the cider country wished to obtain it for John Hall, Bishop of Bristol. One of the Foleys, a family zealous for the Revolution, but hostile to standing armies, spoke to the king on the subject. "I will pay as much respect to your wishes," said William, and yours have paid to mine." Lloyd, of St. Asaph, was translated to Worcester.

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as you

The Dutch Guards immediately began to march to the coast. After all the clamor which had been raised against them, the populace witnessed their departure rather with sorrow than with triumph. They had been long domiciled here; they had been honest and inoffensive; and many of them were accompanied by English wives and by young children who talked no language but English. As they traversed the capital, not a single shout of exultation was

*I doubt whether there be extant a sentence of worse English than that on which the House divided. It is not merely inelegant and ungrammatical, but is evidently the work of a man of puzzled understanding, probably of Harley. "It is, sir, to your loyal Commons an unspeakable grief that any thing should be asked by your majesty's message to which they can not consent without doing violence to that Constitu. tion your majesty came over to restore and preserve; and did, at that time, your gracious declaration, promise that all those foreign forces which came over with you should be sent back."

raised; and they were almost everywhere greeted with kindness. One rude specta tor, indeed, was heard to remark that Hans made a much be ter figure, now that he had been living ten years on the fat of the land, than when he first came. "A pretty figure you would have made,” said a Dutch soldier, "if we had not come." And the retort was generally applauded. It would not, however, be reasonable to infer from the signs of public sympathy and good-will with which the foreigners were dismissed that the nation wished them to remain. It was probably because they were going that they were regarded with favor by many who would never have seen them relieve guard at St. James's without black looks and muttered curses.

Side by side with the discussion about the land force had been proceeding a discussion, scarcely less animated, about the naval administration. The chief minister of marine was a man whom it had once been useless and even perilous to attack in the Commons. It was to no purpose that, in 1693, grave charges, resting on grave evidence, had been brought against the Russell who had conquered at La Hogue. The name of Russell acted as a spell on all who loved English freedom. The name of La Hogue acted as a spell on all who were proud of the glory of the English arms. The accusations, unexamined and unrefuted, were contemptuously flung aside, and the thanks of the House were voted to the accused commander without one dissentient voice. But times had changed. The admiral still had zealous partisans; but the fame of his exploits had lost their gloss; people in general were quick to discern his faults, and his faults were but too discernible. That be had carried on a traitorous correspondence with Saint Germains had not been proved, and had been pronounced by the representatives of the people to be a foul calumny. Yet the imputation had left a stain on his name. His arrogant, insolent, and quarrelsome temper made him an object of hatred. His vast and growing wealth made him an object of envy. What his official merits and demerits really were it is not easy to discover through the mist made up of factious abuse and factious panegyric. One set of writers described him as the most ravenous of all the plunderers of the poor overtaxed nation. Another set asserted that under him the ships were better built and rigged, the crews were better disciplined and better tempered, the

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biscuit was better, the beer was better, the slops were better, than under any of his predecessors; and yet that the charge to the public was less than it had been when the vessels were unseaworthy, when the sailors were riotous, when the food was alive with vermin, when the drink tasted like tan-pickle, and when the clothes and hammocks were rotten. It may, however, be observed that these two representations are not inconsistent with each other, and there is strong reason to believe that both are, to a great extent, true. Orford was covetous and unprincipled, but he had great professional skill and knowledge, great industry, and a strong will. was therefore a useful servant of the state when the interests of the state were not opposed to his own, and this was more than could be said of some who had preceded him. He was, for example, an incomparably better administrator than Torrington, for Torrington's weakness and negligence caused ten times as much mischief as his rapacity. But, when Orford had nothing to gain by doing what was wrong, he did what was right, and did it ably and diligently. Whatever Torrington did not embezzle he wasted. Orford may have embezzled as much as Torrington, but he wasted nothing.

Early in the session, the House of Commons resolved itself into a committee on the state of the navy. This committee sat at intervals during more than three months. Orford's administration underwent a close scrutiny, and very narrowly escaped a severe censure. A resolution condemning the manner in which his accounts had been kept was lost by only one vote. There were a hundred and forty against him, and a hundred and forty-one for him. When the report was presented to the House, another attempt was made to put a stigma upon him. It was moved that the king should be requested to place the direction of maritime affairs in other hands. There were a hundred and sixty ayes to a hundred and sixty-four noes. With this victory, a victory hardly to be distinguished from a defeat, his friends were forced to be content. An address setting forth some of the abuses in the naval department, and beseeching King William to correct them, was voted without a division. In one of those abuses Orford was deeply interested. He was first Lord of the Admiralty; and he had held, ever since the Revolution, the lucrative place of Treasurer of the Navy. It was evidently improper

that two offices, one of which was meant to be a check on the other, should be united in the same person; and this the Commons represented to the king.

Questions relating to the military and naval establishments occupied the attention of the Commons so much during the session that, until the prorogation was at hand, little was said about the resumption of the crown grants. But, just before the Land Tax Bill was sent up to the Lords, a clause was added to it by which seven commissioners were empowered to take account of the property forfeited in Ireland during the late troubles. The selection of those commissioners the House reserved to itself. Every member was directed to bring a list containing the names of seven persons who were not members, and the seven names which appeared in the greatest number of lists were inserted in the bill. The result of the ballot was unfavorable to the government. Four of the seven on whom the choice fell were connected with the opposition; and one of them, Trenchard, was the most conspicuous of the pamphleteers who had been during many months employed in raising a cry against the army.

act.

The Land Tax Bill, with this clause tacked to it, was carried to the Upper House. The Peers complained, and not without reason, of this mode of proceeding. It may, they said, be very proper that commissioners should be appointed by act of Parliament to take account of the forfeited property in Ireland, but they should be appointed by a separate Then we should be able to make amendments, to ask for conferences, to give and receive explanations. The Land Tax Bill we cannot amend. We may indeed reject it; but we cannot reject it without shaking public credit, without leaving the kingdom defenceless, without raising a mutiny in the navy. The Lords yielded, but not without a protest, which was signed by some strong Whigs and some strong Tories. The king was even more displeased than the Peers. "This commission," he said, in one of his private letters, "will give plenty of trouble next winter." It did indeed give more trouble than he at all anticipated, and brought the nation nearer than it has ever since been to the verge of another revolution.

And now the supplies had been voted. The spring was brightening and blooming into summer. The lords and equires were sick of London, and the king was sick of Eng

land. On the fourth day of May he prorogued the houses with a speech very different from the speeches with which he had been in the habit of dismissing the preceding Parliament. He uttered not one word of thanks or praise. He expressed a hope that, when they should meet again, they would make effectual provision for the public safety. "I wish," these were his concluding words, no mischief may happen in the mean time." The gentlemen who thronged the bar withdrew in wrath, and, as they could not take immediate vengeance, laid up his reproaches in their hearts against the beginning of the next session.

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The houses had broken up; but there was still much te be done before the king could set out for Loo. He did not yet perceive that the true way to escape from his difficulties was to form an entirely new ministry possessing the confidence of the majority which had, in the late session, been found so unmanageable. But some partial changes he could not help making. The recent votes of the Commons forced him seriously to consider the state of the Board of Admiralty. It was impossible that Orford could continue to preside at that board and to be at the same time Treasurer of the Navy. He was offered his option. His own wish was to keep the treasurership, which was both the more lucrative and the more secure of his two places. But it was so strongly represented to him that he would disgrace himself by giving up great power for the sake of gains which, rich and childless as he was, ought to have been beneath his consideration, that he determined to remain at the Admiralty. He seems to have thought that the sacrifice which he had made entitled him to govern despotically the department at which he had been persuaded to remain. But he soon found that the king was determined to keep in his own hands the power of appointing and removing the junior lords. One of these lords, especially, the first commissioner hated, and was bent on ejecting, Sir George Rooke, who was member of Parliament for Portsmouth. Rooke was a brave and skilful officer, and had, therefore, though a Tory in politics, been suffered to keep his place during the ascendency of the Whig Junto. Orford now complained to the king that Rooke had been in correspondence with the factious opposition which had given so much trouble, and had lent the weight of his professional and official authority to the accusations