III. 1692. CHAP. to thwart the duke's measures. Some Protestant princes opposed him from motives of jealousy, and the French king used all his artifice and influence to prevent the elevation of the house of Hanover. When the duke had surmounted all this opposition, so far as to gain over a majority of the electors, new objections were started. The emperor suggested that another popish electorate should be created, to balance the advantage which the Lutherans would reap from that of Hanover; and he proposed that Austria should be raised to the same dignity but violent opposition was made to this expedient, which would have vested the emperor with a double vote in the electoral college. At length, after a tedious negotiation, the Duke of Hanover, on the nineteenth day of December, was honoured with the investiture, as Elector of Brunswick; created great marshal of the empire, and did homage to the emperor: nevertheless, he was not yet admitted into the college, because he had not been able to procure the unanimous consent of all the electors'. t In the beginning of September the shock of an earthquake was felt in London, and many other parts of England, as well as in France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Violent agitations of the same kind had happened about two months before in Sicily and Malta; and the town of Port-Royal, in Jamaica, was almost totally ruined by an earthquake; the place was so suddenly overflowed, that about fifteen hundred persons perished. CHAPTER IV. FALSE INFORMATION AGAINST THE EARL OF MARLBOROUGH, THE BISHOP OF RO- TWEEN THE QUEEN AND THE PRINCESS ANNE OF DENMARK. THE HOUSE OF -WHO ARE LORDS VINDICATE THEIR PRIVILEGES IN BEHALF OF THEIR IMPRISONED MEMBERS. WHILE King William seemed wholly engrossed by the CHAP. affairs of the continent, England was distracted by domes IV. 1692. IV. 1692. False in CHAP. tic dissension, and overspread with vice, corruption, and profaneness. Over and above the Jacobites, there was a set of malecontents, whose number daily increased. They formation not only murmured at the grievances of the nation, but against the composed and published elaborate dissertations upon the same subject. These made such impressions upon the Bishop of people, already irritated by heavy burdens, distressed in Rochester, their trade, and disappointed in their sanguine expectaand others. tions, that the queen thought it necessary to check the Earl of Marlborough, the progress of those writers, by issuing out a proclamation, offering a reward to such as would discover seditious libellers. The Earl of Marlborough had been committed to the Tower, on the information of one Robert Young, a prisoner in Newgate, who had forged that nobleman's hand-writing, and contrived the scheme of an association in favour of King James, to which he affixed the names of the Earls of Marlborough and Salisbury, Sprat, bishop of Rochester, the Lord Cornbury, and Sir Basil Firebrace. One of his emissaries had found means to conceal this paper in a certain part of the bishop's house, at Bromley in Kent, where it was found by the king's messengers, who secured the prelate in consequence of Young's information. But he vindicated himself to the satisfaction of the whole council; and the forgery of the informer was detected by the confession of his accomplice. The bishop obtained his release immediately, and the Earl of Marlborough was admitted to bail in the court of King'sBench. Sources of So many persons of character and distinction had been discontent. imprisoned during this reign, upon the slightest suspi national cion, that the discontented part of the nation had some reason to insinuate, they had only exchanged one tyrant for another. They affirmed, that the habeas-corpus act was either insufficient to protect the subject from false imprisonment, or had been shamefully misused. They expatiated upon the loss of ships, which had lately fallen a prey to the enemy; the consumption of seamen; the neglect of the fisheries; the interruption of commerce, in which the nation was supplanted by her allies, as well as invaded by her enemies; the low ebb of the kingdom's treasure, exhausted in hiring foreign bottoms, and paying foreign troops to fight foreign quarrels; and the slaugh IV. 1692. ter of the best and bravest of their countrymen, whose CHAP. blood had been lavishly spilt in support of connexions with which they ought to have had no concern. They demonstrated the mischiefs that necessarily arose from the unsettled state of the nation. They observed, that the government could not be duly established, until a solemn declaration should confirm the legality of that tenure by which their majesties possessed the throne; that the structure of Parliaments was deficient in point of solidity, as they existed entirely at the pleasure of the crown, which would use them no longer than they should be found necessary in raising supplies for the use of the government. They exclaimed against the practice of quartering soldiers in private houses, contrary to the ancient laws of the land, the petition of rights, and the subsequent act on that subject, passed in the reign of the second Charles. They enumerated among their grievances the violation of property, by pressing transport ships into the service, without settling any fund of payment for the owners; the condition of the militia, which was equally burdensome and useless; the flagrant partiality in favour of allies, who carried on an open commerce with France, and supplied the enemy with necessaries, while the English laboured under the severest prohibitions, and were, in effect, the dupes of those very powers whom they protected. They dwelt upon the ministry's want of conduct, foresight, and intelligence, and inveighed against their ignorance, insolence, and neglect, which were as pernicious to the nation as if they had formed a design of reducing it to the lowest ebb of disgrace and destruction. By this time, indeed, public virtue was become the object of ridicule, and the whole kingdom was overspread with immorality and corruption; towards the increase of which, many concurring circumstances happened to contribute. The people were divided into three parties, namely, the Williamites, the Jacobites, and the discontented Revolutioners: these factions took all opportunities to thwart, to expose, and to ridicule the measures and principles of each other: so that patriotism was laughed out of doors, as an hypocritical pretence. This contention established a belief that every man consulted his own private interest at the expense of the public: a VOL. I. L IV. CHAP. belief that soon grew into a maxim almost universally adopted. The practice of bribing a majority in Parlia1692. ment had a pernicious influence upon the morals of all ranks of people, from the candidate to the lowest boroughelector. The expedient of establishing funds of credit for raising supplies to defray the expenses of government, threw large premiums and sums of money into the hands of low, sordid usurers, brokers, and jobbers, who distinguished themselves by the name of the monied-interest. Intoxicated by this flow of wealth, they affected to rival the luxury and magnificence of their superiors; but being destitute of sentiment and taste, to conduct them in their new career, they ran into the most absurd and illiberal extravagancies. They laid aside all decorum; became lewd, insolent, intemperate, and riotous. Their example was caught by the vulgar. All principle, and even decency, was gradually banished; talent lay uncultivated, and the land was deluged with a tide of ignorance and profligacy. Dissension between the queen King William having ascertained the winter quarters of the army, and concerted the operations of the ensuing and the campaign with the States-General and the ministers of Anne of the allies, set sail for England on the fifteenth day of Denmark. October: on the eighteenth landed at Yarmouth, was Princess met by the queen at Newhall, and passed through the city of London to Kensington, amidst the acclamations of the populace. He received a congratulatory address from the Lord-mayor and aldermen, with whom he dined in public by invitation. A day of thanksgiving was appointed for the victory obtained at sea. The lutestring company was established by patent, and the Parliament met on the fourth day of November. The House of Lords was deeply infected with discontent, which in some measure proceeded from the dissension between the queen and her sister, the Princess of Denmark, which last underwent every mortification that the court could inflict. Her guards were taken away: all honours which had been paid to her rank by the magistrates of Bath, where she sometimes resided, and even by the ministers of the church where she attended at divine service, were discontinued by the express order of his majesty. Her cause was naturally espoused by those noblemen who had |