was peculiarly unfortunate. The difaffected clergy; who endeavored to establish the distinction of a king de jure and a king de facto, boasted, with some appearance of reason, that they were fully justified in this diftinction-for even. the parliament itself would not venture to declare the king a rightful and lawful fovereign. As to the latter claufe, the tories would only confent to enact, that the laws passed in the laft parliament fhould be good for the time to comeabfolutely refusing to declare them valid for that which was paft. After a vehement debate the bill was committed: but the declaratory clause was loft on the report by fix voices; which gave rife to one of the most able and decifive protests recorded on the journals of the house of peers; at the conclusion of which the protesting lords thus exprefs themfelves: "If the laft was no parliament, and their Acts no Law, the nation is engaged in a war without the consent of parliament, the old oaths of fupremacy and allegiance remain in force, and the nation forced under color of law to fwear fidelity to king William. The peers and commons. now assembled are under a perpetual disability; and the nation is involved in endless doubts and confufions, without any legal fettlement, or poffibility to arrive at it, unless a parliament be fummoned by king James's writ, and the oaths of allegiance taken to him." In confequence of this seasonable and vigorous exertion the claufe was ultimately restored; upon which the tory lords, headed by the earl of Nottingham, figned a proteft in their turn; in which they affirm, that the declaring of laws to be good which were paffed in a parliament not called by writ in due form of law, is destructive of the legal conftitution of the monarchy. This proteft gave fuch offence, that the whigs moved, and triumphantly carried, a refolution for expunging it from the journals of the house. On the transmission of this bill to the commons, the tories thought it expedient to decline the contest. And when a folitary member on that side prefumed to question the legality of the convention, as not fummoned

fummoned by writ, Somers the folicitor-general answered with great warmth and spirit," that if the convention parliament was not a legal parliament, they who were then met and who had taken the oaths enacted by that parliament, were guilty of high treason-the laws repealed by it were ftill in force-they must therefore return to their allegiance to king James. All the moneys levied, collected and paid by virtue of the acts of that parliament, made every one concerned in the execution of fuch acts highly criminal.” Struck with the irrefiftible force of these arguments, the houfe paffed the bill without further debate; and thus, as it has been remarked, "the tories themselves gave the laft hand to that fettlement which they had hitherto affected both to confider and represent as illegal."

The intemperate violence of the whigs led them to another measure still more obnoxious to the tories than the former. This was a bill requiring from all persons holding offices, ecclefiaftical, civil or military, an oath abjuring the late king James and his title. The reigning monarch, guided by the rectitude of his understanding and the moderation of his temper, entirely disapproved this bill, of which he caused an intimation to be given to the house of commons, recommending to them "to go to other matters that were more preffing; and on a divifion it was rejected by a majority of 192 to 165 voices.

A bill for reverfing the judgment on a Quo Warranto against the city of London, for reftoring it to its antient rights and privileges, and declaring the charters granted fince the late judgment null and void, paffed, with a provifo, that the act should not extend to discharge any of those persons who had acted as magiftrates in virtue of those charters without the legal qualifications. Another bill, the counterpart of the former, foon followed, ordering the 500l. forfeitures, to which those perfons were liable who had acted in any civil or military capacity in the late reign, in violation of the teft laws, to be paid into the Exchequer; fo that, notwithstanding

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standing the clamorous oppofition of the whigs, the highchurch party were to be screened, and the diffenters punifhed, for offences precifely fimilar.

The feffion concluded May 21, 1690, with the Act of Grace announced by the king, which passed without debate, divifion or amendment in either house-the whigs, as it fhould feem, being wearied with fruitlefs oppofition, and not choosing longer to thwart the king's inclination on this favorite point. On the first reading of the bill, April 26, in the upper houfe, and while they voted, all the lords ftood up uncovered. Some of the more remarkable exceptions in the Act of Grace were, the marquis of Powis; the earls of Sunderland, Melfort, Huntingdon, and Castlemain; lord chief juftice Herbert; the bishops of Durham and St. David's; the judges Withers, Jenner, and Holloway, &c. in all about thirty; and of thefe it does not appear that any were profecuted to conviction, excepting fuch as were afterwards concerned in plots against the government. The light in which this extraordinary and indeed too indifcriminate lenity appeared to the zealous whigs, ftrikingly appears from a paffage in a famous political tract of those times, written by lord Delamere : « May I not reckon as treacheries," fays his lordship, "the advices and folicitations to our king, to fend a general Bill of Grace and free Pardon, and without regard to exemplary justice, for thofe treafons and murders and other high crimes committed before his coming hither?-The exception made of a few, fuch as they are, without naming or diftinguishing their crimes, without enacting any course for their prosecution, and without exemption from common pardons at pleasure, could amount to no more than to make the people hope in vain for fome vindication of public juftice. Time has fhewn the craft of this contrivance, by the indemnity of all the perfons excepted that are not fince in rebellion against our king. No process has issued against any of them; not a penny of their eftates, nor one hair of their heads hath been touched,

touched, and several of them have ever fince fat in the house of lords as our legislators."

The earl of Shrewsbury was fo highly disgusted at the turn things had now taken, that he determined upon refigning the feals as fecretary of ftate, not yielding even to the preffing entreaties of the king to retain poffeffion of them till his return from Ireland. Affairs were now entirely in the hands of Carmarthen and Nottingham, who were regarded as the heads of the high-church and tory party, who hated the whigs as republicans and levellers, and by whom they were equally and reciprocally detested as men of intolerant, arbitrary and defpotic principles.

On the 4th of June, 1690, the king fet out for Ireland, attended by the prince of Denmark, the duke of Ormond, and many other noblemen and gentlemen, and on the 14th arrived at Belfast, where he was met by marechal Schomberg. That general had obtained feveral advantages during the winter campaign. Colonel Wolfeley, at the head of a detachment of 700 infantry and 300 cavalry, had charged fword in hand and totally routed a body of 7 or 8000 Irish -an exploit which did not tend to remove the opinion previously entertained of the too great caution of the commander in chief. The important post of Charlemont was reduced, and several others lefs confiderable; fo that, upon the whole, the province of Ulfter was nearly recovered. Advice of a prudential nature, conformably to the flow and dilatory fyftem on which the war had been hitherto conducted, being offered again in council refpecting the future operations of the army, the king declared “that he did not come to Ireland to let the grafs grow under his feet." On a general review of the troops on the arrival of all the reinforcements, they were found to amount to no lefs than 36,000 effective men, English and foreigners. The king immediately began his march to Dundalk, afterwards advancing to Ardee; which the Irish with the late king at their head quitted upon his approach, and repaffed

the

advantageous fituation The Irish army was by

the Boyne, encamping in a very on the fouthern banks of the river. no means equal even in numbers, and much lefs in courage or difcipline, to that of the English. But James, contrary to the advice of his officers, who propofed ftrengthening their garrisons and retiring beyond the Shannon, was determined to rifque a general engagement on this spot. The river was deep, and rose high with the tide; and his front being farther secured by a morafs and rising ground, he could not be attacked without manifeft disadvantage; fo that he expreffed much confidence of fuccefs, and declared "the fatisfaction he felt in this opportunity of fighting one fair battle for his crown.' On the 30th of June king William encamped at break-of-day with his whole army on the northern fide of the Boyne, with a full refolution, notwithstanding the remonftrances of marechal Schomberg, to pass the river and attack the enemy on the next day. Upon reconnoitring the enemy's camp, the king made at one place fo long a stop, that it was perceived by a party of horse on the opposite side; who bringing a couple of fieldpieces to bear upon him, at the first discharge killed a man and two horses very near to his person, and by the second the king himself was flightly wounded, the ball grazing his right shoulder. This William treated as a trifle, but it occafioned great confufion amongst his attendants; and the report of his death flew rapidly to Dublin, and even to Paris, where it was celebrated with bonfires and illuminations. The king rode through the ranks by torch-light, previous to his retiring to his tent, in order by ocular demonftration to excite the most perfect conviction of his fafety. The plan of the battle, without any previous communication, being tranfmitted by the king to marechal Schomberg late in the evening, that general received it with marks of diffatisfaction and discontent-declaring that it was the first which had ever been so sent to him.

Early in the morning of the 1st of July, 1690, the army paffed in three bodies at Sloane to the westward, Old Bridge

in