Chapter XV: REIGN OF WILLIAM III. (concluded) (1)

William Meets his Parliament--Reduction of the Standing
Army--Visit of Peter the Great--Schemes of Louis--The East
India Company--Spanish Partition Scheme--Its Inception and
Progress--Somers's Hesitation--The Treaty is Signed--New
Parliament--Tory Reaction--Dismissal of the Dutch
Guards--William forms an Intention of Quitting England--Attack
on the late Ministry--Jobbery in the Admiralty--Paterson's
Darien Scheme--Douglas's Reasons against It--Enthusiasm
of the Scots--Departure of the First Expedition and
its Miserable Failure--The Untimely End of the Second
Expedition--Second Partition Scheme--Double-dealing of the
French--New Parliament--Attack on Somers--Report on the Irish
Grants--Resumption Bill passed--William's Unpopularity--Death of
the Duke of Gloucester--Conclusion of the New Partition Treaty
and its Results--Charles makes over his Dominions to the French
Candidate--His Death--Disgust of William at Louis's Duplicity--Tory
Temper of the House--The Succession Question--Debates on Foreign
Policy--The Succession Act passed--New Negotiations with
France--Attack on the Whig Ministers--Acknowledgment of the Spanish
King--Impeachment of the Whigs--The Kentish Petition--Its Reception
by the House--The Legion Memorial--Panic in the House--Violent
Struggle between the two Houses--The Impeachments dropped--William
goes Abroad--The Grand Alliance and its Objects--Beginning of the
War--Death of James II.--Louis acknowledges the Pretender--Reaction
in England--New Parliament and Ministry--The King's Speech--British
Patriotism is Roused--Voting of Supplies--The Bills of Attainder
and Abjuration--Illness and Death of William--His Character.

William met his Parliament on the 3rd of December. He congratulated it on the achievement of a peace in which the Confederates had accomplished all they had fought for--the repression of the ambitious attempts of France to bring under its yoke the rest of the kingdoms on the Continent. She had been compelled to yield up everything which she had seized from the commencement of the war. But he reminded them that this had not been accomplished except at a heavy cost. They had supported him nobly in furnishing that cost, and he trusted they would not now be less prompt to discharge the remaining unpaid claims, and in taking measures to liquidate by degrees the debts incurred. He expressed his hope that they would provide him for life with a sufficient Civil List to maintain the necessary dignity of the Crown. Though the war was over, he reminded them that there were many reasons why the army and navy should yet be maintained on a respectable footing.

The Commons voted him an address, in which they united in the congratulations on the restoration of peace, but passed over the subject of the army. William noticed the omission, and felt it deeply. Nobody was more aware than himself that, though they had bound France by the treaty of Ryswick, no bonds of that kind ever held Louis XIV. any longer than it suited his necessities or his schemes of aggrandisement. He observed that Louis still kept on foot his large armies, and that he still retained James and his Court at St. Germains, in open violation of the treaty; and the circumstances of Spain, whose king was gradually dying childless, with Louis intently watching to pounce on his dominions, filled him, as it did every far-seeing man, with deep anxiety. Though no king ever less sought to infringe the liberties of his subjects, yet William, naturally fond of an army and of military affairs, was especially anxious at this crisis for the retention of a respectable force. He knew that Europe, though freed from actual war, was, through the restless ambition of Louis, still living only in an armed peace.

The Commons did not leave him long in suspense. In a few days they went into the subject of the proposal to keep up the army. The spirit of the House was high against a standing army. All the old arguments were produced--that a standing army was totally inconsistent with the liberties of the people; that the moment you put the sword into the hands of mercenaries, the king became the master of the rights of the nation, and a despot. They asked, "If a standing army were to be maintained, what should they have gained by the revolution?" The Tories, who were anxious to damage the Whigs, and the Jacobites, who were anxious to damage William's government altogether, were particularly eloquent on these topics. The true patriots, and they were few, were eloquent from principle. It was in vain that the friends of William represented that it was a very different thing to maintain an army in particular circumstances which depended on the will of Parliament, from maintaining one at the sole pleasure of the king. The opponents of a standing army contended that a militia was the natural force for internal defence, which could be brought to nearly as much perfection as regular troops, and could be called out when wanted; and that the navy was our proper army, and that if kept in due efficiency it was able, not only to protect us and our trade, but to render all such assistance to other nations as became a generous and Christian nation. By a division of a hundred and eighty-five votes against a hundred and forty-eight, the House resolved that all the forces raised since 1686 should be disbanded.

FROM THE PAINTING BY DANIEL MACLISE, R.A. IN THE ROYAL HOLLOWAY COLLEGE, EGHAM.]

This fell with an appalling shock on William. All his army of brave mercenaries, his Dutch guards, his Huguenot cavalry, must be sent away. He would, it was found, be left only with about eight thousand regular troops. Never was there such a stripping of a martial monarch, who had figured at the head of upwards of a hundred thousand men against the greatest military power of Europe. He made little remark publicly, but he poured out his grief to his great correspondent the Dutch Grand Pensionary, Heinsius, and to Burnet. To them he said that it would make his alliance of so little value, his state so contemptible, that he did not see how he was to carry on the government; that he never could have imagined, after what he had done for the nation, that they would treat him thus; and that, had he imagined it, he would never have meddled with the affairs of England; that he was weary of governing a country which had rather lay itself open to its enemies than trust him, who had acted all his life so faithfully for them. But it was useless complaining; the country was resolved on having no standing army, and every attempt of Ministers to modify or enlarge the resolution was disregarded. They proposed that the Bill should be committed, because it would leave the king in the hands of the old Tory regiments; and, again, that five hundred thousand pounds per annum should be granted for the maintenance of Guards and garrisons. Both motions were negatived. There was a strong feeling excited against Sunderland, on the supposition that he had encouraged the king in his desire for a large army, because he warmly argued for it; and that minister, equally odious to both parties, felt it safest to retire. He therefore resigned his post of Lord Chamberlain, though William did all he could to dissuade him from doing so, and sought the seclusion of his princely abode of Althorp.

These were the last transactions of the English Government in 1697; but there was at this moment a person residing in England who was destined to produce greater changes in the face of Europe, and in its relations, than any who had gone before him. This was Peter the Czar of Muscovy, who was at this time residing at Sayes Court, a house of the celebrated John Evelyn, at Deptford, and studying the fleet and shipbuilding of England, in order to create a naval power for himself. He was only a youth of five-and-twenty, and was the monarch of a country then sunk in barbarism, which was unrepresented at the Courts of Europe, was little heard of by the rest of the Continent, and whose merchants were forbidden, on pain of death, to trade with other countries. Yet already Peter had raised a regular army, and something of a navy, putting them under the management of Scottish and French officers. By means of these, in 1696, he had besieged and taken Azov. He had put himself through all the ranks of the army, beginning as a common soldier; and he had then determined to see personally the chief maritime nations, Holland and England, and learn what he could of the arts that made them so powerful. He set out with only twelve attendants, amongst whom were his two chief princes, Menschikoff, who had been originally a pieman, and Galitzin. These were to act as his ambassadors to the Courts of Holland and England, he himself remaining _incognito_. He first settled at Zaandam, in Holland, where he lived in a small lodging, dressed and worked with his attendants as ship-carpenters, learning to forge the ironwork of ships, as well as to prepare their woodwork. He had a yacht on the Zuyder Zee, and practised its management, and studied rope-making and sail-making. He found himself too much crowded about and stared at on his removal to London, where he spent his time chiefly in the dockyards of Deptford, Woolwich, and Chatham. William used to go and see him at Sayes Court, and sent the Marquis of Caermarthen to attend upon him, where they are said to have drunk brandy and pepper together during the long winter evenings. In the ensuing April disturbances at home called him away, but not before he had destroyed Evelyn's fine holly hedges by driving over them in the deep snows in his sledge, to Evelyn's great mortification.

At the opening of the year 1698, all appeared peace in Europe, but it was the quiet only which lies in the bosom of a volcano. Enormous expenditure of blood and treasure had been made to repel the unprincipled schemes of Louis XIV. Europe seemed to have triumphed over him. He had suddenly surrendered all that he had striven for, as if he perceived the impossibility of his aspirations. Nothing was less the fact. Never had he been so daring in his plans of aggrandisement as at this moment. Why should he continue to drain his kingdom of its population and its substance to grasp merely at Flanders, when, by exerting the arts of diplomacy, he might possess himself, not only of Flanders, but of all Spain, the north of Italy, the Sicilies, the South American and Indian dependencies? This grand scheme Louis now resolved to compass. He had married, as we have said, the Infanta, Maria Theresa, the sister of Charles II. of Spain, and had children by her. On marrying her he had sworn to renounce all claims to the Spanish throne through her; but this weighed nothing with Louis. He resolved that a son of the Dauphin--that is, his grandson through Maria Theresa--should be put forward as the French candidate in lieu of his father. Against him was the Emperor of Germany, the first cousin of Charles II., but he had resigned his claims in favour of his son by a second marriage--the Archduke Charles. By his first marriage with a younger sister of Charles II. he was the grandfather of the Electoral Prince of Bavaria. But the rights of this claimant, like those of the Dauphin's son Philip, were somewhat discountenanced by the fact that his grandfather's marriage had been accompanied by a renunciation of rights. It will be seen, therefore, that the question was one of some intricacy, and it was complicated by doubts as to the validity of the renunciations. Louis determined that the House of Austria should be set aside, and his own issue occupy the Spanish throne, when France, in fact, stretching from Gibraltar to Flanders, and including a large share of Italy, would be able to give law to the Continent, and swallow up Flanders and Holland, if not Germany too. This was the danger which wrought on the anxious heart of William at this moment.

Montague, in the height of his popularity, undertook and carried a measure which eventually, however, did the Whigs infinite mischief. Ministers had applied to the East India Company for a loan. The Company offered to lend them seven hundred thousand pounds, to be repaid out of the supplies at the convenience of Government. The new Company, which had so long been striving after a charter, hearing of the proposal, immediately outbade the old Company, offering to lend the Government two million pounds at eight per cent. The bait was too tempting to resist; a Bill was brought into the Commons, and passed its first reading by a large majority. The old Company, alarmed, petitioned the House, stating the claims it possessed, from having been encouraged by many royal charters to invest its capital, and to create a trade with India. It begged the House to consider that a thousand families depended on the stock, and that the property of the Company in India, producing an annual revenue of forty-four thousand pounds, would all be destroyed or reduced to trifling value. They deposed that they had expended a million of money in fortifications alone; that during the war they had lost twelve ships and cargoes worth fifteen hundred thousand pounds; that since the last subscription they had paid two hundred and ninety-five thousand pounds for customs, and above eighty-five thousand pounds in taxes. They had furnished ten thousand barrels of gunpowder when the Government was greatly pressed for it, and taken eighty thousand pounds' worth of Exchequer Bills. The House weighed the proposal, but was persuaded by Montague to give the preference to the new Company. On this the old Company offered, notwithstanding their great losses, to advance two millions to Government, on condition that the charter to the new Company was not granted. The offer came too late; the Bill for the new Company was passed, and carried also in the Lords, but with considerable opposition, and a protest from one-and-twenty peers. This Act was, notwithstanding, deemed a very unjust and arbitrary measure; and the arguments of the Whigs for a standing army, and their embezzlements in the Government offices and by most flagrant contracts, seriously affected their popularity.

Towards the end of July William went to Holland, and having addressed the States-General, and given audience to a number of ambassadors at the Hague, he betook himself to his favourite seat at Loo, where, in August, he was joined by Portland, the Pensionary Heinsius, and the Count Tallard, an emissary from Louis XIV. In this retirement they discussed one of the boldest projects which could possibly be entertained by statesmen, namely, a partition of the Spanish dominions. That the scheme was Louis XIV.'s there can be no question, and, daring as it was, served but as the blinding manœuvre which covered still more daring ones. The ultimate object of Louis was the seizure of the crown and territories of Spain, to which we have already alluded, but William, with great address, at once set to work to countermine him.

This plan of dividing the empire of Spain amongst such parties as should suit the views of William and Louis had been suggested by France, apparently very soon after the peace of Ryswick, and had been going on all the spring in England in profound secrecy. One of the motives for sending Portland to Paris in January had been to learn the full particulars of this scheme, which had been somewhat mysteriously opened to William. In writing to Heinsius on the 3rd of January, when Portland was about to start for France, William expressed his surprise as to the real meaning of "something that was proposed to be done by the Republic, France, and England, towards the maintenance of the peace," and imagined it might relate to their position with the Emperor. However, he added, "the earl of Portland will readily be able to get at the bottom of this affair in France, and that is another reason for hastening his departure as much as possible."

Portland was scarcely settled in his diplomatic position in Paris when the scheme was broached to him, but at first cautiously. On the 15th of March he wrote to William that the Ministers Pomponne and De Torcy had communicated to him, but in the profoundest secrecy, that the king their master desired to make him the medium of a most important negotiation with the king of England. The impending death of the king of Spain was likely to throw the whole of Europe into war again, unless this were prevented by engagements entered into by the kings of France and England to prevent it. For if the Emperor were allowed to succeed to Spain with its dependencies, Flanders, Italy, and the colonies, he would become so powerful that he would be dangerous to all Europe. Portland declared that he could give no opinion, nor could the king his master give an answer, so far as he could see, until he had the full views of the king of France on the subject; and that the naval and maritime interests of England and Holland might be greatly affected by any arrangement regarding the succession of the Spanish territories. The French Ministers said it would be easy to order matters regarding the Low Countries to the satisfaction of England and Holland, and that France would guarantee that the crown of Spain should not be annexed to that of France; but as to the Indies, or the security of English trade in the Mediterranean, Portland could draw nothing from them. The views of France were so far not very clear; but Portland added the important piece of information that the Count de Tallard was at that very moment setting out for London, ostensibly to congratulate William, but really to prosecute this negotiation.

Accordingly, Tallard arrived in London on the 19th of March, and he and William, in strict secrecy, admitting no one else to their confidence, discussed this scheme of Louis. This was no other than that the crown of Spain, with the Spanish Netherlands and colonies, should not be allowed to pass to the Emperor, but should be settled on the Electoral Prince of Bavaria, the third claimant; that Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, the province of Guipuzcoa on the French side of the Pyrenees, Fontarabia, San Sebastian, Ferrol, and some towns on the Tuscan coast then owned by Spain, and called Presidii, should be settled by a mutual treaty between them on the Dauphin; and that Milan should be settled on the Archduke Charles, the second son of the Emperor, to whom he had resigned his rights.

The negotiations were carried on in England in closest secrecy between William and Tallard, William entering into engagements which most momentously affected England as well as all Europe, without taking a particle of advice from his Council, much less seeking the advice of Parliament--a proceeding which we should now consider unconstitutional, but which was then by no means unusual. When he quitted England after the dissolution of Parliament, it was only the more unobservedly to complete this extraordinary business. Tallard followed him to Loo, and they were soon after joined by Portland. It was now about the middle of August, and William wrote to Somers, desiring him to send him full powers under the Great Seal to complete the negotiation, leaving the names in blanks. He said he had ordered Portland to write to Vernon, the Secretary of State, to draw out the commission with his own hand, so that no creature should know anything of it except Somers and one or two of the other most trusted Ministers. He told Somers that it was confidently believed that the King of Spain could not outlive the month of October--might die much sooner, and, therefore, not a moment was to be lost.

In consequence of this communication, Somers, who was seeking health at Tunbridge Wells, immediately called into his counsels Russell (now Lord Orford), Montague, and Shrewsbury. He informed William that Montague and Secretary Vernon had come down to him at Tunbridge; they had seriously discussed this very momentous question, and that it seemed to them that it might be attended with very many ill consequences if the French did not act a sincere part; that the people of England would undoubtedly resent being drawn into any fresh war; and that it required deep consideration what would be the condition of Europe should this proposed partition be carried out. To them it seemed that if Sicily were in French hands, they would become entire masters of the Levant trade; that if they obtained any of the Spanish ports on the Tuscan coast, Milan would be so entirely shut in from independent intercourse or commerce by sea and land that it would be utterly powerless; that if France had Guipuzcoa and the other Spanish places on the French side of the Pyrenees, the rest of Spain would be as completely open to French invasion as Catalonia now was; and, finally, if this negotiation was concluded, what guarantee had William for the king of France's faithful execution of it? Were England and Holland to sit still and see France enforce this partition? "If that be so," says Somers, "what security ought we to expect from the French that, while we are neuter, they will confine themselves to the terms of the treaty, and not attempt to take further advantage?" These considerations were sound, but William had certainly chosen the lesser of two evils, for the placing of the French candidate on the throne of Spain would have entirely overturned the European balance.

In obedience to the king's orders, Somers sent the _carte blanche_ with the Great Seal affixed; but he had failed in inducing Vernon to give him a warrant for affixing the Seal. The Secretary was too well aware of the unconstitutional character of this proceeding to issue such a warrant, and Somers was obliged to content himself with keeping the king's letter as his authority for the act. Undeterred by the plain suggestions of Somers and the other Ministers as to the total want of security which he had for Louis's observance of this treaty, and the dangerous power it conferred on France, William was in such haste to conclude the treaty, that the Earl of Portland and Sir Joseph Williamson had signed a rough draft before Somers's _carte blanche_ arrived; and on the 11th of October, or about six weeks after its receipt, the formal treaty was signed by Portland, Williamson, Tallard, and Heinsius.

William returned to England in the beginning of December. He arrived on the 4th, and opened his new Parliament on the 6th. It had been obliged to be prorogued owing to his prolonged stay, having been called for August. The Ministers in William's absence had not taken much pains to influence the elections, and it soon appeared that a very independent body of gentlemen had been sent up. Not only had the electors put forward men of free principles, but the press had warmly urged the selection of a Liberal Speaker as essential to the full exercise of Parliamentary freedom. There were three candidates for the Speakership more particularly in view--Sir Edward Seymour, Sir Thomas Littleton, and Harley, the one supported by the Tories.

A paper on the choice of a Speaker had been actively circulated, which said that the great Lord Burleigh declared "that England could never be undone except by a Parliament," and that whenever we were enslaved like our Continental neighbours, it would be by the joint influence of a corrupt Parliament and a standing army. It cried down Seymour as a man who had constantly been bargaining with the Court since the days of the Pension Parliament of Charles II.; and it declared that men holding office under the Crown were most unfit for the office of Speaker. This was aimed at Littleton, which seemed a good omen for the Court, but, as it soon appeared, was no sound indication, for Harley was not elected, but Littleton.

In his opening speech William told the Commons that, notwithstanding the state of peace, it would be necessary for them to consider well the strength which they ought to maintain both at sea and on land; that the honour and even safety of the nation depended on not stripping it too much of its forces in the eyes of foreign nations. It was necessary, he contended, that Europe should be impressed with the idea that they would not be wanting to themselves. They had acquired a great position among the nations, and it was their duty to preserve it. He recommended them to make some progress in the discharge of the debts incurred in this long and expensive war, for an English Parliament could never, he imagined, neglect the sacred obligations which it had assumed. He also suggested to them some measures for the improvement of trade and for the discouragement of profaneness, and he begged them to act with unanimity.

The remarks on the necessity of maintaining more troops than the last Parliament had determined on, and on defraying the debts incurred by the war, seemed to rouse an extraordinary spirit of anger and disrespect in the new House. It neglected the ordinary courtesy of an Address. Before leaving for Holland in the summer, William left a sealed paper, ordering Ministers not to reduce the army in compliance to less than sixteen thousand men. Probably this was become known, and there had got abroad a persuasion that the king meant to resist the will of the Parliament in this respect; no other cause appeared sufficient to explain the animus which now manifested itself. The House resounded with speeches against standing armies, and on the waste of the people's substance on foreign wars, and it resolved that all the land forces of England in English pay should not exceed seven thousand, and that these should all be natural-born subjects; that not more than twelve thousand should be maintained in Ireland--these, too, all natural-born subjects, and to be supported by the revenue of Ireland. The Ministers had told the king before the meeting of Parliament that they thought they could obtain a grant of ten or twelve thousand in England, and William had replied that they might as well leave none as so few. But now that this storm broke out, the Ministers, seeing no possibility of carrying the number they had hoped for, sat silent, to the great disgust of the king.

This resolution went to strip William of his Dutch Guards whom he had brought with him, and who had attended him in so many actions, and of the brave Huguenots, who had done such signal service in Ireland. The spirit of the Commons, instead of being merely economical, was in this instance petty and miserable. It was neither grateful nor becoming to its dignity, to make so sweeping a reduction of the army, to begrudge the king who had rescued them from the miserable race of the Stuarts, and had so nobly acquiesced in everything which regarded their liberties, the small satisfaction of a few Dutch and Huguenot troops. The Huguenots especially, it might have been expected, would have experienced some sympathy from the Parliament, not only in return for their own gallant services, but because their friends and fellow-religionists were at this moment suffering the severest persecution. But a deep dislike of foreigners had seized the nation, and this had been rendered the more intense from the lavish wealth which William heaped on Portland and others, and from his retiring every year to spend the summer months in Holland. They had never been accustomed to have their monarch passing a large portion of his time abroad, and they regarded it as an evidence that he only had any regard for the Dutch. The Commons, without considering his feelings, introduced a Bill founded on their resolution, carried it briskly through the House, and sent it up to the Lords, where it also passed.

Deeply annoyed, William is said to have walked to and fro on learning that the Commons insisted on his dismissing the Dutch Guards, and to have muttered, "By God, if I had a son, these Guards should not quit me." He wrote to Lord Galway, one of his foreign friends, "There is a spirit of ignorance and malice prevails here beyond conception." To Heinsius he wrote in a similar strain, "that he was so chagrined at the conduct of the Commons, that he was scarcely master of his thoughts, and hinted at coming to extremities, and being in Holland sooner than he had thought." In fact, he was so much excited as to menace again throwing up the government. He sat down and penned a speech which he proposed to address to the two Houses; it is still preserved in the British Museum. It ran:--"My Lords and Gentlemen,--I came into this kingdom, at the desire of the nation, to save it from ruin, and to preserve your religion, laws, and liberties; and for this object I have been obliged to sustain a long and burthensome war for this kingdom, which, by the grace of God and the bravery of this nation, is at present terminated by a good peace; in which you may live happily and in repose if you would contribute to your own security, as I recommended at the opening of the Session. But seeing, on the contrary, that you have so little regard for my advice, and take so very little care of your own safety, and that you expose yourselves to evident ruin in depriving yourselves of the only means for your defence, it would neither be just nor reasonable for me to be witness of your ruin, not being able on my part to avoid it, being in no condition to defend and protect you, which was the only view I had in coming to this country." And it then went on to desire them to name proper persons to take charge of the government, promising, however, to come again whenever they would put him in his proper place, with proper power to defend them. The entreaties of Somers, however, induced him to abandon his purpose.

The mischief which the Whigs had done themselves by granting a charter to the new East India Company, in violation of the existing charter of the old Company, merely because the former Company had offered them a large money bait, encouraged the Tories greatly in their endeavours to regain power. They exhorted the old Company to petition that means should be taken to enable it to maintain its trade and property against the new Company for the remaining portion of the twenty-one years of its charter; and there were not wanting some in the House who declared that the new charter, granted in violation of an existing one, and from such corrupt motives, should be abolished. Montague, however, who had passed the Act for this charter, was able to protect it, but not to prevent fresh onslaughts on the unpopular Whigs. They were charged with gross corruption, and with embezzlement of the public revenue, for the purchase of great estates for themselves, and the grievous burthen of the people by taxation. Russell, Earl of Orford, was specially singled out by the Commons. He was both First Lord of the Admiralty and Treasurer of the Navy, as well as Admiral, and assumed great authority, forgetful of the humble station from which he had risen. He was charged with keeping large sums of public money for his own private use, instead of paying the officers and seamen when their pay was due. They called for his accounts, and there appeared to be four hundred and sixty thousand pounds in his hands. In his defence he represented that this was actually in course of payment, and that part of the sum was yet in tallies, which must be converted into cash before it could be distributed. But this did not satisfy the Commons. They voted an address to the king, complaining of the impropriety of one and the same person being Lord High Admiral, Chief Commissioner of the Board of Admiralty, and Treasurer; of gross misapplication of the public money; of many unnecessary changes introduced into the navy; of delays in granting convoys; and of favouritism to particular officers. Orford was prudent enough to retire from his offices before the storm which was gathering burst in all its fury upon him. The Tories, elated by this success, endeavoured to get Sir George Rooke put into Orford's place; but the Whigs were yet strong enough and imprudent enough to get the Earl of Bridgewater named First Lord of the Admiralty--a man almost wholly unacquainted with naval affairs; and Lord Haversham, another of the "land admirals," as the sailors called these unprofessional men, succeeded to Priestman, one of the Junior Lords, who retired.

Those matters being settled, the House voted fifteen thousand pounds for sailors for the year, the vote expressly stipulating for sailors only, lest the king should include some land forces under the name of marines. They also granted one million four hundred and eighty-four thousand pounds for the service of the year, to be raised by a land and income tax of three shillings in the pound. To this Act, availing themselves of their sole right to introduce money Bills, they also "tacked" a clause appointing commissioners to take an account of the estates forfeited in Ireland by the last rebellion, in order to their being applied in ease of the subjects in England. This was another sharp reminder of the king's proceedings. It had been promised by him that he would not bestow the forfeited estates without the sanction of the House, but in disregard of this he had given large estates to his favourites. William was deeply mortified by this clause, and some of the Lords entered a protest against it, on the ground that the clause was foreign to the contents of the Bill, and was contrary to the practice of Parliament. The king, however, did not venture to refuse his signature to the Act, which he passed on the 4th of May, 1699, and at the same time prorogued the Parliament.

Before quitting England, William was obliged to almost entirely remodel his Ministry. The Duke of Leeds retired from the Presidency of the Council; his influence had expired with the discovery of his bribe from the East India Company. The Earl of Pembroke, a moderate Tory, who performed his official duties with zeal and integrity, was put in his place. Villiers, Earl of Jersey, having returned from his embassy to France, was made Secretary of State in place of the Duke of Shrewsbury, who became Lord Chamberlain. The Earl of Manchester went as ambassador to France in place of Jersey, and Lord Lonsdale, another Tory, obtained the Privy Seal. On the 2nd of June, William, having appointed a regency, embarked for Holland, where he retired to Loo, but not to peace of mind, for he saw events marching to an ominous result. The forces of England and of the Continent were disbanded, except those of Louis, which were rapidly increased; and not only the Spanish monarchy, but all Europe, appeared at his mercy. But before following these movements, we must trace some nearer home.

Ireland was quiet. The Parliament of that kingdom had voted one hundred and twenty thousand pounds for the maintenance of the twelve thousand troops ordered by the English Parliament to be quartered in that country, and the Duke of Bolton and the Earls of Berkeley and Galway were appointed Lords Justices.

In Scotland far different was the state of things. There excitement raged against the Ministry of England, and not the less against the king, who disowned their Company, organised to carry out the Act granted for trading to Africa and the Indies. The charter for this Company was granted by the Scottish Parliament, and ratified by William in 1695. Its professed object was to trade with the East and West Indies and Africa; but there was a plan for carrying out these objects, which does not seem to have been made known to the Government, or made public generally, till after the acquisition of the charter. This was to seize on the Isthmus of Darien, to establish a strong colony there, and not only to grow rich through possession of the gold mines, but to found ports both on the Atlantic and on the Pacific, so that a great carrying trade might be prosecuted between Europe and China and the East Indies by that route.

William Paterson, the projector of this scheme, was the same man who had projected and carried into being, through the influence of Montague, the Bank of England. He has been generally represented as a visionary speculator and schemer, and has not unfrequently been confounded with John Law, of Lauriston, the author of the famous South Sea Bubble and Mississippi Scheme, which spread such ruin through both France and England. Paterson, however, was a very different man. Undoubtedly he was a most speculative genius, but in his speculations there was something grand, substantial, and based, for the most part, on the purest moral principles. The Bank of England is a lasting memorial of his real sagacity and acute talents. It was well devised, and immediately rose to entire success. Through some disagreement in the mode of management Paterson sold out his stock, and proposed the erection of an Orphan Bank, connected with the Orphan Fund established by the Corporation of London already mentioned. This was not entertained, and he then projected his grand scheme for the Scottish Company to trade to the Indies. This scheme, so far from being visionary, had all the elements of a great and far-seeing reality. The unsound portion of Paterson's project was the not sufficiently taking into account these political obstacles:--Spain possessed, or rather claimed to possess, the Isthmus of Darien. Louis of France was contemplating the seizure of Spain, and its American territories. William was under treaty of peace with both Spain and Louis. It was impossible, therefore, to obtain possession of the Isthmus of Darien without producing a fresh European war. To attempt it by treaty was useless, for Spain would never consent to permit England, of which she was in the highest degree jealous, thus to establish a great mercantile colony in the midst of her most valuable Transatlantic colonies, from which she was annually drawing her cargoes of gold and other valuable products. Louis of France, who was resolved to succeed to the Spanish Empire, was as little likely to permit such a thing. To obtain possession of Darien, then, could only be done by invasion, and that invasion must produce immediate war, for which William was not prepared.

But the scheme was got up ostensibly to trade to the East and West Indies and Africa. There was no mention of Panama; and its prospects were so fair that they seized on the imaginations of the English and Scottish public. The Company was to have the monopoly of trade with Asia, Africa, and America for thirty-one years. Paterson had spent ten years in the West Indies, and, as it is supposed, in Panama. At all events, he had the reputation of being intimately acquainted with those regions and their resources. His proposals of the Company were eagerly accepted both in London and Edinburgh. Though it was intended to raise only three hundred and sixty thousand pounds as the original stock for both countries, three hundred thousand pounds were subscribed in London alone in a few days. But this remarkable success excited all the vindictive feelings of Companies whose interests this new league appeared likely to affect. The East India Companies, new and old, immediately were on the alert, and raised such a feeling in the House of Commons that it resolved to impeach Paterson and the bankers, Coutts and Cohen, for the commission of an illegal act in daring to levy money in England without the sanction of the English Legislature. In the meantime a subscription list had been opened at Hamburg, and by this the Dutch East India Company was equally alarmed, and the influence both of the Dutch and of the English Companies was made to bear on the king. William, who had been too much absorbed by his warfare with Louis to perceive the hostile feelings which he was exciting by passing the Scottish Act, now made haste to condemn his own precipitancy. He complained that he had been deceived by the Scottish Government, and at once gave orders to prohibit the scheme, and sent similar orders to his consul at Hamburg to forbid the subscription there. The senate of the city of Hamburg was induced to prohibit the canvassing of the Company's agents; and the English subscribers, alarmed at the menaces of the king and Commons, withdrew their names. Nor were these all the enemies of this scheme. There were Scottish traders united for commerce with India by the ordinary route, and these joined in the cry. One of these, Mr. Robert Douglas, attacked the scheme in a very able letter. In this letter we are first let into the secret that the real destination is not so much the West Indies as Darien, on the mainland. It is not, however, from Paterson having mentioned expressly Darien that Douglas declares it to be that place, but he infers it from the fact that the locality darkly hinted at by Paterson is at once near the Caribbean isles, and at the same time so situated "that it will alter the whole method of trade in Europe, and effectually ruin both the English and Dutch East Indian Companies, because it opens a shorter, safer, and more convenient way to the East Indies by the Pacific from England and Holland."

Douglas then points out that it is not nearer or more convenient than the old way to the western or Bombay coast of the Indian peninsula; that it was then a very dangerous route, because our merchant vessels on that track would have to pass the Dutch, Batavian, and Spice Island settlements, which would show the utmost hostility to such a traffic; but still more, that it was impossible, because this Isthmus of Panama was the track by which Spain conveyed her treasure from Peru to Portobello; that as to the rightful possession of the country by Spain, the city of Darien, called Santa Maria, was one of the first cities built by them on the mainland of America, as the province was the first province possessed by them. These were sound reasons why the king could not consent to any such invasion of the territory of Spain, and why Spain was not likely to concede it by treaty. These reasons should have made Paterson and the Scots pause.

Unwarned by the great outcry, the firm opposition, and insurmountable obstacles, Paterson and the Scots went on. The Scottish people, who conceived the idea of achieving enormous wealth in the golden regions of Central America, regarded themselves as victims of the jealousy of William's favourite Dutch, and of the haughty monopolising spirit of the English, and the whole country was in a ferment. They considered themselves insulted and most perfidiously treated by the king, who had freely sanctioned the Company, and then as unceremoniously disowned and trampled on it. They went on with the subscriptions, and speedily the amount rose to four hundred thousand pounds. The highest and most intelligent of the Scottish nobility, as well as the people generally, were sanguine contributors. Their younger sons saw a new highway to opulence and distinction suddenly opened. Many lords mortgaged all that they could to secure an ample share of the expected benefits. Their tenantry and servants were enthusiastic in their adhesion to it; and the officers whom the peace had left at large, prepared for fresh campaigns and adventures in the golden regions.

The Company had a number of stout ships built in Holland to convey the emigrants and their stores. On the 25th of July, 1698, four of these ships--the _St. Andrew_, the _Unicorn_, the _Caledonia_, and the _Endeavour_--containing one thousand two hundred men, set sail from Leith. Such was the excitement that all Edinburgh seemed to have poured out to see the departure of the colonists, and hundreds of soldiers and sailors who could not be engaged clamoured to be taken on board. Many contrived to get into the vessels and endeavour to conceal themselves in the hold, and when discovered they clung to the timbers and riggings, offering service without pay.

When the vessels had sailed, the Scottish Parliament unanimously addressed the king on behalf of the Company and the validity of the charter. The Lord President, Sir Hugh Dalrymple, the brother of Lord Stair, and Sir James Stuart, the Lord Advocate, also presented memorials defending the rights of the Company. Paterson committed the error of sailing in the fleet as a private individual. He had incurred the resentment of the Company by having remitted twenty thousand pounds to Hamburg for stores, part of which, through no fault of his own, was embezzled by the agent. The Company, therefore, refused to give him the command of the colony, but appointed a council of seven members without a head. This was certain to entail want of unity of purpose, and consequent failure. Paterson was the only man qualified by his abilities, his experience, and his knowledge of the country to take the command. He is said to have seen and conversed with the celebrated buccaneer Dampier and his surgeon Lionel Wafer on the statistics of Darien; and, if the expedition was sent at all, it should have been under his entire control. Nothing, in the political circumstances, could have insured the establishment of the colony; but Paterson's guidance would have prevented the dire calamities which ensued. He was certain that the vessels were not properly furnished with provisions and stores before setting out, and he in vain urged an examination. When out at sea a few days, he was enabled to get an examination, when there was discovered to be a serious deficiency, but then it was too late. They next sailed for Madeira, where their sealed orders were opened, and they then bore away for the West Indies. They put into St. Thomas's, and there might have obtained plenty of provisions from a ship-captain but for the perverseness of the council. The advice of Paterson was uniformly rejected out of jealousy. On the 30th of October they landed in a fine bay on the coast of Darien, capable of holding one thousand ships, and about four miles east of Golden Island.

The incapable council, in spite of Paterson's advice, would plant their new town in a bog, but the effects on their health soon forced them to remove to higher ground. They erected a fort and threw up defences at Acta, which they named New St. Andrews; and on a hill opposite made a signal-station, where they placed a corps of Highlanders to keep a good look-out for the approach of any enemy.

But the miserable management of the council brought speedy misfortune on the infant colony. The people were suffering from want of everything. Paterson soon lost his wife, and numbers sank under disappointment, insufficient food, and the climate. The natives were friendly to them, but wanted them to go and fight the Spaniards. It was soon found that the mountains and forests offered enormous obstacles to a transit to the shores of the Pacific. The different leaders of the expedition fell to quarrelling, and Paterson endeavoured in vain to reconcile them. They sent out vessels to the West Indian islands for provisions. One they lost, and another endeavouring to get to New York, after beating about for a month, was driven back. Amid the rapidly-sinking colonists and the fatal feuds of the leaders, they received on the 18th of May, 1699, the stunning news that the king had issued a proclamation denouncing the act of the colonists as having infringed his treaty with Spain by forcibly entering the Spanish territory of Panama, and forbidding any of the English governors of the West Indian islands to furnish them with provisions or any necessaries.

The moment Louis XIV. heard of their settling in Darien he had offered to the king of Spain to send ships and forces and drive them out for him. The Spanish Minister at London, the Marquis de Canales, on the 3rd of May presented a remonstrance against this breach of the peace with his master. Dalrymple, who has left much information on this expedition in his "Memoirs," says the Dutch and English opponents were at the bottom of this remonstrance; that Spain had let the affair go on a long time without noticing it; and that the rights of the Company had been debated before William, in presence of the Spanish ambassador, before the colony sailed. All this may be true, for the real destination of the expedition was kept secret till the fleet arrived at Madeira, and Spain protested as soon as she discovered whither it had gone. William, who was just now making treaties with Louis, and anxious to be on good terms with Spain, strictly enforced the orders to deprive the suffering colony of all means of remaining. These measures of the king produced the most fatal consequences in the colony. Every one, says Paterson, was in haste to be gone from it. In vain he tried to persuade them to stay for more positive orders. Pennicook, the captain of the fleet, was reported to be intending to steal away with his ship, on the supposition that they had all been proclaimed pirates, and would be hanged. The poor colonists continued to die off rapidly, and news now came that the Spaniards were marching against them with a strong force.

Famine, sickness, and the fear of being massacred in their weakness by the enemy, compelled the colonists to evacuate the place. On the 18th of June, 1699, the _Unicorn_, _St. Andrew_, and _Caledonia_ sailed from Golden Island for New York. On the voyage they met the sloop which they had sent to Jamaica for provisions. It had got none, owing to the royal proclamation, and they all proceeded on their route. They lost one hundred and fifty out of two hundred and fifty of their number on the voyage, and arrived at New York in October, more like skeletons than living men. On the 13th of November Paterson and his companions reached England in the _Caledonia_. The indignation of the Scots at their treatment was beyond bounds, and the more so because, unacquainted with the real facts of the case, they had sent out a second expedition of one thousand three hundred men.

The history of this second expedition was as miserable as that of the first. On arriving, the new adventurers, instead of a flourishing colony, found the place deserted, and only a few miserable Indians to tell them the fate of their predecessors. With this new arrival came four Presbyterian clergymen, who assumed the command, and seemed to think of nothing but establishing a presbytery in all its rigour and uncharitableness. Paterson, like Penn in Pennsylvania, and Lord Baltimore in Baltimore, had proclaimed perfect civil and religious liberty to men of all creeds and nations. This was now reversed; there was nothing but the most harsh and senseless Phariseeism. Instead of a comfort, these men proved one of the worst curses of this unfortunate colony, thwarting and damping the exertions of the people, and continually threatening them with hell fire. Two of these ministers perished.

In the midst of these miseries arrived Captain Campbell, of Ferrol, with a force of his own men. He attacked and dispersed a body of one thousand Spaniards sent against him; but this was only a fresh offence against Spain, and, therefore, against William. They were soon, however, assailed by a more powerful Spanish squadron. Campbell got away to New York, the rest of the colony capitulated, and there was an end of the unhappy expedition to Darien. The Spaniards humanely allowed the remnant of this wretched company to embark in one of their vessels, the _Rising Sun_; but as the British authorities at all the islands refused them any succour or stores whatever, only eighty of them arrived alive in England.

Scotland was in a frenzy of indignation at this cold-blooded conduct of the king, who, if he had visited the projectors with severity, ought to have had some compassion for the poor deluded sufferers. The exasperated Scots called on the king to withdraw his proclamation against a Company which had an undoubted right by charter to trade to the West Indies, if not to the mainland. They demanded that the Scottish Parliament should be summoned; but William only sent evasive answers, and the fury of the people rose to such a height that nothing was talked of but that the king had forfeited his right to the allegiance of Scotland by his conduct, and of war with England.