passed during the usurpation, as the Houses should tender to him for confirmation; that he would waive his right to the chimney money; that he would protect and defend the Established Church in the enjoyment of all her possessions and privileges; that he would not again violate the Test Act; that he would leave it to the legislature to define the extent of his dispensing power; and that he would maintain the Act of Settlement in Ireland. He struggled long and hard. He pleaded his conscience. Could a son of the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church bind himself to protect and defend heresy, and to enforce a law which excluded true believers from office? Some of the ecclesiastics who swarmed in his household told him that he could not without sin give any such pledge as his undutiful subjects demanded. On this point the opinion of Middleton, who was a Protestant, could be of no weight. But Middleton found an ally in one whom he regarded as a rival and an enemy. Melfort, scared by the universal hatred of which he knew himself to be the object, and afraid that he should be held accountable, both in England and in France, for his master's wrongheadedness, submitted the case to several eminent Doctors of the Sorbonne. These learned casuists pronounced the Declaration unobjectionable in a religious point of view. The great Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, who was regarded by the Gallican Church as a father scarcely inferior in authority to Cyprian or Augustin, showed, by powerful arguments, both theological and political, that the scruple which tormented James was precisely of that sort against which a much wiser King had given a caution in the words, "Be not righteous overmuch." *Life of James, ii. 509. Bossuet's opinion will be found in the Appendix to M. Mazure's history. The Bishop sums up his arguments thus: "Je dirai donc volontiers aux Catholiques, s'il y en a qui n'approuvent point la déclaration dont il s'agit The authority of the French divines was supported by the authority of the French government. The language held at Versailles was so strong that James began to be alarmed. What if Lewis should take serious offence, should think his hospitality ungratefully requited, should conclude a peace with the usurpers, and should request his unfortunate guests to seek another asylum? It was necessary to submit. On the seventeenth of April 1693 the Declaration was signed and sealed. The concluding sentence was a prayer. "We come to vindicate our own right, and to establish the liberties of our people; and may God give us success in the prosecution of the one as we sincerely intend the confirmation of the other!"* The prayer was heard. The success of James was strictly proportioned to his sincerity. What his sincerity was we know on the best evidence. Scarcely had he called on heaven to witness the truth of his professions, when he directed Melfort to send a copy of the Declaration to Rome with such explanations as might satisfy the Pope. Melfort's letter ends thus: "After all, the object of this Declaration is only to get us back to England. We shall fight the battle of the Catholics with much greater advantage at Whitehall than at Saint Germains."† Meanwhile the document from which so much was expected had been despatched to London. There it was printed at a secret press in the house of a Quaker: for there was among the Quakers a party, Noli esse justus multum ; neque plus sapias quam necesse est, ne obstupescas." In the Life of James it is asserted that the French Doctors changed their opinion, and that Bossuet, though he held out longer than the rest, saw at last that he had been in error, but did not choose formally tc retract. I think much too highly of Bossuet's understanding to believe this. la *Life of James, ii. 505. "En fin celle cy-j'entends déclaration - n'est que pour rentrer; et l'on peut beaucoup mieux disputer des affaires des Catholiques à Whythall qu'à Saint Germain.”—Mazure, Appendix. small in number, but zealous and active, which ha! imbibed the politics of William Penn.* To circulate such a work was a service of some danger: but agents were found. Several persons were taken up while distributing copies in the streets of the city. A hundred packets were stopped in one day at the Post Office on their way to the fleet. But, after a short time, the government wisely gave up the endeavour to suppress what could not be suppressed, and published the Declaration at full length, accompanied by a severe commentary.t Effect of the new Declaration. The commentary, however, was hardly needed. The Declaration altogether failed to produce the effect which Middleton had anticipated. The truth is that his advice. had not been asked till it mattered not what advice he gave. If James had put forth such a manifesto in January 1689, the throne would probably not have been declared vacant. If he had put forth such a manifesto when he was on the coast of Normandy at the head of an army, he would have conciliated a large part of the nation, and he might possibly have been joined by a large part of the fleet. But both in 1689 and in 1692 he had held the language of an implacable tyrant; and it was now too late to affect tenderness of heart and reverence for the constitution of the realm. The contrast between the new Declaration and the preceding Declaration excited, not without reason, general suspicion and contempt. What confidence could be placed in the word of a Prince so unstable, of a Prince who veered from extreme to extreme? In 1692, nothing would satisfy him but the heads and quarters of hundreds of poor * Baden to the States General, June 1693. Four thousand copies, wet from the press, were found in this house. † Baden's Letters to the States General of May and June 1693; ploughmen and boatmen who had, several years before, taken some rustic liberties with him at which his grandfather Henry the Fourth would have had a hearty laugh. In 1693, the foulest and most un grateful treasons were to be covered with oblivion. Caermarthen expressed the general sentiment. "I do not," he said, "understand all this. Last April I was to be hanged. This April I am to have a free pardon. I cannot imagine what I have done during the past year to deserve such goodness." The general opinion was that a snare was hidden under this unwonted clemency, this unwonted respect for law. The Declaration, it was said, was excellent; and so was the Coronation oath. Every body knew how King James had observed his Coronation oath; and every body might guess how he would observe his Declaration. While grave men reasoned thus, the Whig jesters were not sparing of their pasquinades. Some of the Noncompounders, meantime, uttered indignant murmurs. The King was in bad hands, in the hands of men who hated monarchy. His mercy was cruelty of the worst sort. The general pardon which he had granted to his enemies was in truth a general proscription of his friends. Hitherto the Judges appointed by the usurper had been under a restraint, imperfect indeed, yet not absolutely nugatory. They had known that a day of reckoning might come, and had therefore in general dealt tenderly with the persecuted adherents of the rightful King. That restraint His Majesty had now taken away. He had told Holt and Treby that, till he should land in England, they might hang royalists without the smallest fear of being called to account.* But by no class of people was the Declaration read with so much disgust and indignation as by the * blamed the Declaration of 1693 as too merciful. native aristocracy of Ireland. This then was the reward of their loyalty. This was the faith of kings. When England had cast James out, when Scotland had rejected him, the Irish had still been true to him; and he had, in return, solemnly given his sanction to a law which restored to them an immense domain of which they had been despoiled. Nothing that had happened since that time had diminished their claim to his favour. They had defended his cause to the last: they had fought for him long after he had deserted them: many of them, when unable to contend longer against superior force, had followed him into banishment; and now it appeared that he was desirous to make peace with his deadliest enemies at the expense of his most faithful friends. There was much discontent in the Irish regiments which were dispersed through the Netherlands and along the frontiers of Germany and Italy. Even the Whigs allowed that, for once, the O's and Macs were in the right, and asked triumphantly whether a prince who had broken his word to his devoted servants could be expected to keep it to his foes? * * Among the Nairne Papers is a letter sent on this occasion by Middleton to Macarthy, who was then serving in Germany. Middleton tries to sooth Macarthy and to induce Macarthy to sooth others. Nothing more disingenuous was ever written by a Minister of State. "The King," says the Secretary, "promises in the foresaid Declaration to restore the Settlement, but, at the same time, declares that he will recompense all those who may suffer by it by giving them equivalents." Now James did not declare that he would recompense any body, but merely that he would advise with his Parliament on the subject. He did not declare that he would even advise with his Parliament about recompensing all who might suffer, but merely about recompensing such as had followed him to the last. Finally he said nothing about equivalents. Indeed the notion of giving an equivalent to every body who suffered by the Act of Settlement, in other words, of giving an equivalent for the fee simple of half the soil of Ireland, was obviously absurd. Middleton's letter will be found in Macpherson's collection. I will give a sample of the language held by the Whigs on this occasion. "The Roman Catholics of Ireland," says one writer," although in point of interest and profession different |