A.D. 1697.] LOUIS MAKES PROPOSALS OF PEACE. 111 James, and his belief in the right of the prince of Wales cathedral of Warsaw on the occasion. But the emperor of after him. After an abortive attempt to pass a bill establishing a property qualification for the commons, another to put the press again under the licensing system, and another to abolish those dens of protected crime, the Savoy and Whitefriars, parliament was prorogued on the 16th of April. Whilst this desperate conflict had been going on betwixt. wig and tory in England, in Scotland a most useful measure had passed the Scottish parliament, namely, an act establishing a school and schoolmaster in every parish. To this admirable act Scotland owes the superior intelligence of its working classes; and it is a singular fact that England to this hour has not been able to achieve the same privilege. At the same time the rigid bigotry of the clergy perpetrated one of the most revolting acts in history. A youth of eighteen, named Thomas Aikenhead, had picked up some f the sceptical notions of Hobbes and Tindal, and was arrested, tried, and hanged for blasphemy betwixt Leith aal Edinburgh. It was in vain that he expressed the utmost repentance for his errors, the ministers were as impatient for his death as the Jews were for the death of our Saviour, and he died accordingly, to the disgrace of the presbyterian church and the whole country. William embarked for Holland on the 26th of April, having before his departure made several promotions. To the disgust of many, Sunderland was appointed one of the lords-justices and lord chamberlain. The protestants wondered that a man who had apostatised when there was a popish king, should find such favour with a presbyterian one; and the honourable-minded that a man who had stooped to so many dirty acts and arts should be thus exalted by a prince of sober morals. But William's only excuse was that all his ministers were so bad that there was little to choose in their principles, and that he employed them not for their virtues but their abilities. Russell was rewarded for running down Fenwick with the title of earl of Orford; the lord-keeper Somers was elevated to the full dignity of lord chancellor, and created baron Somers of Evesham. Montague was made first lord of the treasury, in place of Godolphin; lord Wharton, in addition to his post of comptroller of the household, was appointed chief justice in Eyre, south of the Trent, and his brother, Godwin Wharton, became a lord of the admiralty. The campaign in Flanders was commenced by the French with an activity apparently intended to impress upon the allies their ample ability to carry on the war, although, in fact, never had France more need of peace. Its finances were exhausted, its people were miserable; but far more than the sufferings of his subjects to Louis were the ambitious projects which he was now particularly cherishing. John Sobieski, the brave deliverer of Vienna from the Turks, the king of Poland, was dead. and Louis was anxious to place the prince of Conti on the throne of that kingdom. There had been, as usual, various competitors for the crown-the duke of Lorraine, the prince of Baden, Don Livio Odeschalchi, nephew to the pope; but the chief candidates were Conti and Augustus, elector of Saxony. French money so far prevailed that Conti was elected, and proclaimed king by the primate of Poland, who had Te Deum sung in the Germany, alarmed at having a French power thus erected in his immediate neighbourhood, brought forward the elector of Saxony, who changed his religion to obtain the crown, and agreed to distribute eight millions of florins amongst the Poles, to confirm their privileges, and to defend their country from attack with his Saxon army. His claims were powerfully supported by Peter, the czar of Muscovy, who had, in return for assistance to John Sobieski against the Turks, obtained from him a great part of the Ukraine, and was quite as unwilling as the emperor to see a French kingdom so near him and his now soaring designs. Augustus was chosen by this party. Peter marched an army to the frontiers of Lithuania, to overawe the partisans of Conti. Louis, however, continued to support the claims of Conti, and sent a fleet with him to Dantzic. Conti landed at Dantzic with a great supply of money, but he met no encouragement either there or at Marienburg, to which place he proceeded, and returned to France with his treasure. This repulse had mortified Louis at the time of the opening of the present campaign; but as the prince of Conti had still a strong party in Poland, and the condition of that country was uncertain, he still cherished his ambitious design of restoring Conti and the French power there, which he might much better effect if relieved from the pressure of this general war. He had, however, a still more weighty motive for peace. The king of Spain, the sickly and imbecile Charles II., was fast hastening to the tomb. The emperor of Germany, as head of the house of Austria, had claims of direct descent on the throne of Spain. Charles II. was childless; no provision was made by the Spanish government for filling the throne, and Louis of France was equally watching for the death of Charles, who was the son of Louis's niece, whilst Louis himself was married to the aunt of the Spanish king; for a man like Louis, ample pretensions to the Spanish crown. Now, if the throne of Spain fell vacant during the alliance, the allies, and William amongst them, would out of policy support the emperor's claims. It was, therefore, equally to the interest of the emperor to prolong the war, and of Louis to be rid of it. Spain and Germany, therefore, were averse to peace. William and Louis were the only parties, each for his own purposes, really anxious for it. Louis, early in the spring, had made overtures to Dykvelt through Caillières, which were really surprising. They were no less than to relinquish all the conquests made by him during the war, to restore Lorraine to its duke, Luxembourg to Spain, Strasburg to the empire, and to acknowledge William's title to the crown of England without condition or reserve. Such terms the allies never could have expected. They were a complete renunciation by the ambitious Louis of all that he had been fighting for so many years-of all that he had drained his kingdom of its life and wealth to accomplish. That he contemplated maintaining the peace any longer than till he had secured Spain and Poland is not to be supposed. If he obtained peace now, these objects were more feasible, and William, his most formidable enemy, he knew would have disbanded his army, and must create a new one and a new alliance before he could take the field again to oppose him. These undoubtedly were Louis's notions, and it was plausibly urged by Spain and Austria that it was better now to press him as he was sinking till he was perfectly prostrate, and then bind him effectually. But, on the other hand, William felt that England and Holland had to bear the brunt of the war; that it was all very well for Spain and Germany to cry Keep on, but the fact was, they did little or nothing towards keeping on. The Germans had no union, and, therefore, no strength. They sent excuses instead of their contingents, and instead of money to pay their share of the cost of the war. When they did rouse, they were nearly always behind their time and divided in their counsels. As for Spain, it literally did nothing to defend its own territories. The whole of Flanders would have been lost but for William and his Dutch and English troops. Catalonia would have been lost but for Russell and his fleet, and it had, without consulting the allies, joined in a treaty with Savoy and France to save its Milanese territory, and to their extreme prejudice, by releasing the French armies from Italy to increase the force in Flanders. William was greatly incensed by the endeavours of these powers to continue the war. and Louis, as the best spur to their backwardness, determined to seize Brussels, and show a mien as if bent on active aggression. Catinat, relieved from his command in Savoy, had now joined Villeroi and Boufflers in Flanders, and these generals determined to surprise Brussels. They first advanced on the little town of Aeth, and William, who was but just recovering from an attack of illness, uniting his forces with those of the elector of Bavaria, endeavoured to prevent them. He was, however, too late; but he marched hastily towards Brussels to defend it against the attack of Villeroi and Boufflers. He passed over the very ground since the site of the battle of Waterloo, and posted himself on the height whence Villeroi had bombarded the city two years before. Neither side, however, were anxious to engage and incur all the losses and miseries of a great battle, with the prospect of a near peace. They therefore entrenched themselves and continued to lie there for the rest of the summer, awaiting the course of Louis, however, attacked the king of Spain in another quarter-Catalonia. There Vendôme attacked the viceroy and defeated him, and invested Barcelona, which, though bravely defended by the prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, was obliged to capitulate. At the same time came the news of another blow. Louis had sent out a squadron under admiral Pointes to attack the Spanish settlements in the West Indies, and he had sacked and plundered the town of Carthagena, and carried home an immense treasure. These disasters made Spain as eager for peace as she had before been averse, and the emperor of Germany was obliged to cease talking of returning to the position of the peace of Westphalia-a state of things totally out of the power of the allies to restore. events. The plenipotentiaries of the different powers now at last were ordered to meet; the only question was, Where? The emperor proposed Aix-la-Chapelle or Frankfort, but Louis objected to any German town, but was willing that the place should be the Hague. It was at length settled to be the Hague. The ambassadors of the allies were to occupy the Hague itself; and the French, Delft, about five miles distant. Midway betwixt these towns lies the village of Ryswick, and close to it a palace belonging then to William, called Neubourg House. There it was determined that the plenipotentiaries should meet for business. The palace was admirably adapted, by its different entrances and alleys, for the approach of the different bodies of diplomatists without any confusion, and there was a fine, large, central hall for their deliberations. There appeared for England the earl of Pembroke, the vis count Villiers, Sir Joseph Williamson, and Matthew Prior, the poet, as their secretary. For the emperor, the gruff Kaunitz, the celebrated imperial minister, was at the head of the German referees. For France came Harlay, Crecy, and Caillières. Don Quiros was the minister of Spain, and there were whole throngs of the representatives of the lesser powers. The minister of Sweden, count Lilienroth, was appointed mediator, and after various arrangements regard ing precedence, on the 9th of May the plenipotentiaries met; but it seemed only to entangle themselves in a multitude of absurd difficulties regarding their respective ranks and titles. The ambassadors of Spain and of the emperor were the most ridiculous in their assumptions and their punctilios. Then came the news of the death of the king of Sweden, and the waiting of the mediator for a renewal of his powers, and for putting himself into mourning, and it was the middle of June before any real business had been transacted. William grew out of patience, and determined to take a shorter cut to the object in view. He empowered Portland to arrange with Boufflers, with whom he had become acquainted at the time of Boufflers' arrest at Namur, the preliminaries of a peace betwixt France, England, and Holland. Portland and Boufflers met at a country house near Hal, about ten miles from Brussels on the road to Mons, and within sight of the hostile armies. The questions to be settled betwixt these two plain and straightforward negotiators were these:-William demanded that Louis should bind himself not to assist James, directly or indirectly, in any attempt on the throne of England, and that James should no longer be permitted to reside in France. These demands being sent by express to Paris, Louis at once agreed to the first requisition, that he should engage never to assist James in any attempt on England; but, as to the second, he replied that he could not, from honour and hospitality, banish James from France, but he would undertake to induce him to remove to Avignon, if he did not voluntarily prefer going to Italy. William accepted this modified acquiescence. On the other hand Louis demanded from William that he should give an amnesty to all the Jacobites, and should allow Mary of Modena her jointure of fifty thousand pounds a year. William peremptorily refused to grant the amnesty—that was an interference with the prerogative of his crown which he could permit to no foreign power. The jointure he was willing to pay, on condition that the money should not be employed in designs against his crown or life, and that James, his queen, and court, should remove to Avignon and continue to reside there. Neither the residence of the exiled family nor the matter of the jointure were to be mentioned in the treaty, but William authorised his plenipotentiaries at the congress to say that Mary of Modena should have everything which on examination should be found to be lawfully her due. This, indeed, may be considered an aga 113 of the the emperor still held out, and a further time was allowed ambiguous phrase, for Mary, as well as James, being deposed, On the 10th the rest of the allies signed the treaty, but all her legal rights connected with the crown had lapsed. William was afterwards much blamed for the non-payment of this jointure; but those who charged him with breach of faith knew very well that the jointure was only conditionally offered, and that those conditions were altogether disregarded. The ceremonious and do-nothing plenipotentiaries were greatly startled by the news that Portland and Boufflers were continually meeting, and were supposed to be actually making a treaty without them. A thing so irregular, so undiplomatic, so contrary to all forms and usages, put them into an agony; but William was a man of business, and, spite of forms and ceremonies, pushed on the treaty and concluded it. Spain, which had concluded a separate treaty in Savoy, was especially scandalised. But still more was king James alarmed and incensed. He addressed two memorials to the princes of the confederacy, one to the catholic princes, entreating them to unite with him against England for his rights, reminding them that his case was theirs, and that the English revolution was setting a fatal precedent for them; another was to the princes at large, warning them against infringing his inalienable rights by entering into any agreement with the usurper to transfer his crown and dignity to him. These producing no effect, he issued a third, protesting against any engagements they might enter into to his prejudice, or the prejudice of his son; and declaring that he should himself never feel bound by any of them. The new treaty produced very different sensations in France and England. In France there was much murmuring. For what, it was asked, had the king been fighting all these years? He had given up everything, and could only have done that under defeat. The court of St. Germains and James's adherents were in despair. In England the most riotous joy broke forth. There were all the usual demonstrations of such occasions-bonfires, drinking, and firing of guns. The bells rung out from every steeple, and the bank of England stocks, which were at twenty per cent. below par, rose to par. The Jacobites cursed Louis for a traitor to the cause of James, and fled to hide themselves. The rejoicings were equally enthusiastic all over the kingdom. If Louis was not moved by his entreaties and remonstrances, it was not likely that the princes who had for eight years been fighting in alliance with his rival would. Perhaps, however, James felt it only his duty to put in his disclaimer. The negotiations went on. Besides the terms offered by France to William and his allies being accepted by all except the emperor, it was agreed that commissioners should meet in London from France to settle the respective pretensions of France and England to the territories of When William entered his capital it was a regular Hudson's Bay. The Dutch made a separate treaty of com- triumph. From Greenwich to Whitehall it was one dense merce with France. Spain got back Gironne, Roser, crowd of hurrahing people; troops of militia and trainBarcelona, Luxembourg, Charleroi, Mons, Courtrai, and all bands, the city authorities attending him in all their parathe towns, territories, and fortresses taken by the French in phernalia, the foot-guards standing under arms at Whitehall, Luxembourg, Namur, Brabant, Hainault, and Flanders, and the windows all the way crowded with handsome or except eighty towns and villages, which the French claimed excited faces. The 2nd of December was appointed as a from longer possession, and the right to which was to be day of public thanksgiving, and the new cathedral of St. determined by commissioners, with a power of appeal to the Paul's was crowded by its first great assemblage on the States-General. A demand of toleration was made on behalf occasion. There were deputations bringing zealous addresses of the French protestants, but was refused on the same to the foot of the throne, and foremost and most loyal in ground as William refused the amnesty to the Jacobites-language amongst them was that of the university of Oxford, interference with the prerogative of Louis. On the 10th of which had so long distinguished itself by its toryism and July the representatives of the emperor were asked by the devotion to the Stuarts. French to sign, but, on declining, the 21st of August was There was cause, indeed, for joy; for the country was for fixed as the last day on which France would be bound by its a time freed from the most exhausting war in which it had offer. William and the rest of the allies were greatly ever been engaged. It had passed through it with credit, exasperated at this refusal of the emperor. The 21st arrived, though its armies and navies were in a great measure comand the commissioners not signing, the representatives of manded by traitors. Its wealth and credit were higher than France declared his most Christian Majesty had now with- ever; and, above all, the tone and temper of the nation were drawn Strasbourg from his offer, and would annex it for ever sure guarantees that the return of James or his son were the to his realm; and moreover, if the treaty was not signed on most impossible of things. Still, had the allies on the conor before the 10th of September, he should not hold himself tinent been true to each other, and to the principles for bound by the rest of his engagements. which they professed to contend, they might have inflicted a far more complete punishment on the heartiess ambition of Louis, and thus prevented the speedy recurrence of the horrors they now hoped were for a long time at an end. CHAPTER IV. THE REIGN OF WILLIAM III. (Continued). State of Parties-Standing Army reduced to Ten Thousand-A Revenue for Charter granted to the New East India Company-Proceedings against Molyneux' Book in Ireland-Portland resigns-William disowns the Scottish Company-Goes to Holland-First Treaty of Partition-Intrigues Life granted to the King-Fraudulent Endorsements of Exchequer Bills of France at Madrid-William obliged to dismiss his Dutch GuardsExpedition to Darien-Spanish Remonstrance against the Treaty of Partition-Inquiries into the Expedition of Captain Kidd, and into the Irish Forfeitures-New Charter of Old East India Company-Dismissal of Somers-Death of the Duke of Gloucester-Expedition to the Baltic Second Treaty of Partition-Death of the King of Spain-France claims Spain on the Authority of the King's Will-Philip, Duke of Anjou, acknowledged King of Spain by the States-General-Commons and Court not friendly-Suceession settled on the Princess Sophia of Hanover William acknowledges the Duke of Anjou King of Spain-Impeachment of Portland, Oxford, Somers, and Halifax - Progress of Prince Eugene in Italy-Treaty of Alliance between the Emperor and the Maritime Powers -Death of King James-Louis acknowledges the Prince of Wales as King of England-Harmony restored betwixt the King and Parliament-Bill of Abjuration-Affairs of Ireland-Proposed Union of Scotland and England -Death of King William. 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 of 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 less prompt to discharge the remaining unpaid claims, and furnishing that cost, and he trusted they would not now be 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, that he still retained the ex-king 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 |