Chapter XIII: William and Mary (2)

At eleven o'clock the French admiral opened fire on part of the English fleet, the rest not being able to get up from the wind being contrary. The spirit with which the English received him at once dissipated Tourville's hopes of defection amongst them. The conflict continued with uncommon fury till one o'clock, when Russell was compelled to allow his flag-ship, the _Rising Sun_, carrying a hundred and four guns, to be towed out of the line from the damage she had received. But the fight continued furiously till three o'clock, when a fog parted the enemies. Soon after, however, a wind favourable to the English sprang up, and, at the same time, dispersed the fog. Fresh ships of the English came up, and the conflict continued to rage till eight in the evening. During this time Carter, who had been one of the most deeply pledged to James, but who had fought like a lion, fell mortally wounded, but as he was carried down to his cabin, he cried to his men to fight the ship as long as she could swim. Tourville, who was now contending hopelessly against numbers, drew off, but was closely pursued, and the most terrible carnage was made of the men on board his great ship, the _Royal Sun_, the pride of the French navy. He fought, however, stoutly so long as the light continued; and then the whole French fleet made all sail for the French ports.

The next morning the English gave chase, and Russell's vessel was retarded for some time by the falling of her topmast, but soon they were once more in full pursuit. About twenty of the French ships escaped through the perilous Race of Alderney, between that island and the coast of Cotentin, where the English dared not pursue them; and these vessels, by their desperate courage, escaped to St. Malo. Tourville had shifted his flag to the _Ambitious_, and the _Royal Sun_, battered and drenched in blood, made its way, and, with the _Admiral_ and the _Conquerant_, managed to reach Cherbourg, whither Delaval pursued and burnt them, with several other vessels. Tourville himself and the rest of the fleet escaped into the harbour of La Hogue, where they drew themselves up in shallow water, close under the guns of the Forts De Lisset and St. Vaast.

Here they flattered themselves that they were in safety. The army destined to invade England lay close at hand, and James, his son the Duke of Berwick, the Marshal Bellefond, and other great officers, were in the forts. But Sir George Rooke, by the orders of Russell, embarked his men in all the light frigates and open boats that could be procured, and advanced boldly upon the French men-of-war as they lay drawn up upon the beach. Regardless of the fire from the forts and the ships, the English rushed to the attack with loud hurrahs, proud to beard the French under the eyes of the very army of French and renegade Irish which dared to dream of invading England. The daring of the deed struck such a panic into the French sailors, that they quickly abandoned the vessels which lay under Fort Lisset. The fort and batteries seemed paralysed by the same event, and the English set fire to the vessels. In vain Tourville manned his boats, and attempted to drive back the English sailors; his mariners jumped to land again. In vain the soldiers ashore hurried down and poured in a volley on the British seamen; they successfully burnt all the six vessels lying under Lisset, and returned to their ships without the loss of a man.

The next morning Rooke was again afloat with the tide, and leading his fleet of boats and his brave sailors against the vessels lying under the Fort St. Vaast. The fort did more execution than the other fort the day before; but all was in vain. The British sailors climbed up the vessels; the French fled precipitately out of them, and they were all burnt to the water's edge, except a few smaller ones, which were towed away to the English fleet. When James saw these surprising acts he is said to have involuntarily exclaimed, "See my brave English sailors." But guns of the exploding vessels going off killed some of the people standing near him, and he then, coming to a more sober reflection, said, "Heaven fights against me," and retired. There was an end of all hope of ever invading England, and he hastened back to St. Germains in deep dejection.

The news of this most brilliant and most important battle, which gave such a blow to the power and _prestige_ of Louis, was received in London with transports of delight. England was once more safe; France was humbled; invasion at an end. Sixteen of the finest ships of France had been destroyed, and on the part of England only one fire-ship. The glory was England's, for, though the Dutch had fought well, it was the English who had borne the brunt and done the miracles of bravery at La Hogue. The tidings were borne to William's camp at Grammont, and set all the cannon roaring the exultation into the ears of Luxemburg and his army.

At home there was now time to inquire into the particulars of the plot for which Marlborough and others had been detained. Luckily for them there was found to have been a sham conspiracy got up by one Young, a debauched clergyman, who had been imprisoned for bigamy and for many other crimes. Like Oates and his compeers, and the more recent Fuller, he hoped to make money, and, therefore, had accused Marlborough, Sprat the Bishop of Rochester, and the rest, of being in it. On examination, the plot was found to be a mere barefaced forgery, got up by Young and another miscreant named Blackhead. They had written an engagement to bring in King James, and seize William, and forged to it the names of Marlborough, Cornbury, Sancroft the ex-Primate, and Sprat, Bishop of Rochester. This document they had contrived to hide in a flower-pot at the bishop's house at Bromley. The bishop was arrested, but denied all knowledge of the plot, and then Blackhead confessed. Young, however, feigned another plot, and endeavoured to inveigle into it a poor man of the name of Holland, who also informed the Earl of Nottingham. Young was imprisoned and pilloried, and ministers were glad to admit the accused to bail. For Marlborough and others this false plot was a genuine godsend. They were deep in real treason, and this sham treason screened their reputations just at the moment when the power of James was being annihilated, and that of William rising in fresh vigour.

But the Government was not satisfied with the success of the battle of La Hogue. It was too decisive to be left, they thought, in barren glory; it ought to be followed up by a more severe blow to France. Amid the public rejoicings, Sidney, Portland, and Rochester went down to Portsmouth to congratulate the fleet on its success. They distributed twenty-seven thousand pounds amongst the seamen, and gold medals were bestowed on the officers; and, to mark the sense of the king and queen of this great achievement of the sailors, it was announced that the wounded should be tended at the public charge in the hospitals of St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew; and, still more, that the palace of Greenwich, begun by Charles II., should be finished and appropriated for ever as the home of superannuated sailors. Thus originated this noble institution, this home for maimed and declining mariners.

But for this honour conferred on the fleet fresh exploits were demanded of it--that it should sail to St. Malo, bombard the town, and destroy the remainder of Tourville's fleet, which had taken shelter there. Accordingly, Rooke was dispatched to take soundings on the dangerous shores of Brittany, and Russell mustered his fleet, which, having taken on board transports of fourteen thousand troops under young Schomberg--now Duke of Leinster--accompanied by Ruvigny--now Earl of Galway--and his Huguenots, and the Earl of Argyll, with his regiment, part of which had committed the melancholy massacre of Glencoe, stood out to sea. Off Portland, however, a council of war was called, and it was contended, by a majority of both naval and military officers, that it was too late in the season--it was only the 28th of July--to attempt such an enterprise amid the dangerous rocks and under the guns of the forts and batteries of St. Malo. The fleet, therefore, returned to St. Helens, much to the astonishment and disgust of the whole nation. High words arose between the Earl of Nottingham, First Lord of the Admiralty, and Russell. The Minister accused the Admiral of cowardice and breach of duty in thus tamely giving up the enterprise against France.

Nottingham's hands were wonderfully strengthened by the deep discontent of the merchants, who complained that they were almost ruined by the so-much-vaunted victory of La Hogue; that before, we had a fleet in the Mediterranean and another out in the Channel protecting the traders; but that now the fleet had been concentrated to fight Tourville, and then, instead of taking up proper positions to check the French ships of war and privateers, had contemptibly returned to port; that the French, embittered by the defeat of La Hogue, had now sent out their men-of-war in every direction, and, finding our merchantmen defenceless, had committed the most awful havoc amongst them. Fifty vessels alone, belonging to London and Bristol, had been taken by them. More than a hundred of our trading vessels had been carried into St. Malo, which Russell, by destroying that port, could have prevented or avenged; while Bart, of Dunkirk, had scoured the Baltic and the northern coasts of Britain, and Trouin had actually ascended the Shannon, and committed frightful mischief in Clare.

Amid such expressions of discontent King William returned from Holland to England. He landed on the 18th of October. He had had little success in his campaign; La Hogue was the only bright spot of the year, and the scene which now met him on his return was lowering and depressing. There had been an earthquake in Jamaica, which, in three minutes, had converted Port Royal, the most flourishing city of the West Indies, into a heap of ruins, burying one thousand five hundred of the inhabitants, and extending the calamity to the merchants of London and Bristol. The distress in England itself was general and severe. A rainy season had ruined the harvest, and reduced the people to a state of extreme misery. Bread riots were frequent, and the complaints of the excessive burthen of taxation were loud and general. Burglaries and highway robberies were of the most audacious kind. William, however, was not a man to sit and brood over such things. He at once sent out parties of cavalry into the districts where the robberies were frequent, and, by bribing some of the thieves, got information of the rest, whom his police hunted out industriously. Their chief captain, one Whitney, was taken and hanged, and the highways and domestic hearths were soon as secure as ever.

He called together Parliament on the 4th of November, where there was every reason to expect no little faction and difficulties. Parliament was not merely divided into Ministerialists and Opposition, it was broken into sundry parties, all exasperated by one cause or another. The Whigs were sore with their loss of office to a great extent; the Lords were nettled at the Commons refusing their claims put forward in the Lord High Steward's Court Bill, and were urged to contention by Marlborough and the other lords who had been imprisoned, and who were loud in denouncing the proceeding as a breach of their privileges. There was a great jealousy of William's employment of so many Dutch in preference to Englishmen, and the Commons were discontented with the manner in which public business was conducted.

William was aware of the difficult part he had to play, and in his opening speech he took care to put La Hogue in the foreground, and to congratulate them on this glorious victory gained by Englishmen. He confessed that the success of the campaign on land had been but moderate, but he praised in the highest terms the valour of the British soldiers. He expatiated on the power and the designs of France, told them that the cause of Protestantism was the cause of England, that Louis must be humbled, and that for that purpose there must be still liberal supplies. He threw out a hint of carrying the war into France itself, and assured them that his own aims were identical with theirs, and that he would willingly sacrifice his life for the honour and welfare of the nation. To conciliate both Houses, he condescended to ask their advice and assistance in putting the national affairs into the best possible condition--a piece of candour of which he speedily found reason to repent. Both Houses voted him thanks for his gracious speech, and, immediately seizing on his request for advice, began to offer it in good earnest.

The Lords at once took up the case of Marlborough, Huntingdon, and Scarsdale. They complained that in ungratefully persecuting Marlborough the Court had gone the full length of treating the Princess of Denmark with severity and indignity. Her guards had been taken away; when she went to Bath, the magistrates had orders to omit the honours due to royalty, and the Church to omit her name in the prayers; and this simply because she had shown her attachment to the Countess of Marlborough. Marlborough, thus supported by the Lords, who had their own cause of pique about the Lord High Steward's Court Bill, and by the disrespect shown to the Princess, was loud in his complaints of the harshness with which he had been treated, and of being kept in prison with his friends in defiance of Habeas Corpus. The Earl of Shrewsbury, the Marquis of Halifax, the Earls of Mulgrave, Devonshire, Montague, Bradford, Stamford, Monmouth, and Warrington, supported him from various motives, many of them being Whigs; and the Jacobites fanned the flame, hoping for a rupture. Lord Lucas, Constable of the Tower, was ordered to produce the warrants of commitment, and the Clerk of the King's Bench to lay before them the affidavit of Aaron Smith, the Solicitor of the Treasury, on which they had been remanded; and Smith was sharply cross-examined. The judges were ordered to attend, and the Lords passed a resolution that the law had been violated in the case of the noble prisoners. They then consulted on the best mode of fully discharging them. The debate was so violent that the Ministers were alarmed, and proposed to the King to adjourn Parliament till the 17th of the month, and in the meanwhile to liberate the noblemen from their bail. Accordingly, on the reassembling of the Lords, they were informed that the King had discharged the recognisances of the accused nobles, and the Lords sullenly dropped the question.

But though disappointed here, the Lords immediately fastened on the king's request of advice. They moved that a committee of both Houses should be appointed for preparing this advice. The motion, however, was rejected by a majority of twelve. Nevertheless, they determined to give the king advice themselves. They agreed to an Address, praying his Majesty to appoint an Englishman commander of the forces, and that English officers should take precedence of all in the confederate army, except the officers of Crowned heads. This was meant to affect the Dutch, who were only the subjects of a Stadtholder. They also desired that the forces left in England should be all English, commanded by an English general; that such officers as pressed men for the fleet should be cashiered, and that no foreigner should sit at the Board of Ordnance. All those matters, aimed at the king's favoured countrymen, William received coldly, returning only short and dry answers.

The Lords next attacked Russell for his neglect to make the descent intended on the coast of France. They ordered books and papers concerning that matter to be laid before them. A committee was appointed, and the substance of the charge was communicated to the Commons as concerning a member of that House.

The Commons on their part took up the charge against Russell as a charge against themselves. They informed the Lords that they found that Russell had conducted himself at the head of the fleet with fidelity, courage, and ability. Russell made his defence, and accused Nottingham of being the cause of the non-descent. He declared that above twenty days had elapsed between his writing to Nottingham and receiving an answer; that therefore the expedition had become abortive from not receiving timely and necessary information and orders. Nottingham's friends in the Commons warmly took up his defence; the Lords demanded a conference; the Commons refused it, and, amid this noise and animosity, the important subject was left undecided.

The Commons then proceeded to give the King the advice and the assistance which he had so unluckily asked. They demanded that books and papers should be laid before them necessary to enable them to inquire into the management of the Government offices; but they soon came to a stand, for, inquiring into the abuses of the Admiralty, the merits or demerits of Nottingham and Russell came again into question. One or both of them had been guilty of gross mismanagement, but each House defended its own member, and the only result was a motion in the Commons, which, whilst it acquitted Russell, seemed to reflect on Nottingham. The Lords resenting, made severe reprisals on the character and conduct of Russell, and then the incident ended.

The Commons were more generally united in condemning the failure of the battle of Steinkirk and the conduct of Solmes. Some officers in the House, however, defended the behaviour of the Dutch officers on that occasion, and especially of Overkirk in bringing the remains of Mackay's troops out of the battle. But they said not a word in vindication of Solmes, and William, to his disgrace, still continued this insolent foreigner, who had wilfully sacrificed the lives of the brave English soldiers, in his command.

The Commons now went into the question of supplies. They were fully prepared to sustain the king in his exertions to check the arms of France, though they protested against a fact which they had discovered by examinations of the treaty between the Allies, that the English paid two-thirds of the expense of the war. After grumbling, however, they voted fifty-four thousand men for the army, twenty thousand of them to remain at home, and thirty-three thousand men for the navy. They voted two millions for the army, and two millions for the navy, besides seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds to supply the deficiency of the quarterly poll. Still there was likely to be a deficiency. Notwithstanding the large grants of the previous year, the expenditure had far exceeded them; it was, therefore, proposed to resort to a land tax--the first imposed since the Restoration, and the grand transfer of taxation from the aristocracy to the nation at large. The Peers made a violent opposition, not to the tax, but to their estates being valued and assessed by any but commissioners of their own body. But they finally gave way, and a land tax of four shillings in the pound was carried. When Louis heard of these unusual supplies, he could not restrain his amazement. "My little cousin, the Prince of Orange," he said, "seems to be firm in the saddle; but no matter, the last louis d'or must carry it."

Little did Louis know the condition of England when he said that. If the last piece of gold was to carry it, the chance lay much on the side of England. Whilst France was fast sinking in exhaustion from his enormous wars and lavish luxury, whilst his people were sunk in destitution, and trade and agriculture were languishing, England was fast rising in wealth from commerce, colonies, and internal industry, and was capable of maintaining the struggle for an indefinite period.

Yet it was at this moment that the National Debt assumed its determinate shape. It had existed, indeed, since the fraud of Charles I. on the London merchants by the shutting of the exchequer. It was now said to be suggested by Burnet that there were heaps of money hidden away in chests and behind wainscots for want of safe and convenient public security, and that, by Government giving that security at a fixed percentage, it might command any amount of money by incurring only a slight increase of annual taxation for the interest. The idea itself, however, was familiar to William, for the Dutch had long had a debt of five million pounds, which was regarded by the people as the very best security for their money. Accordingly, a Bill was passed on the 3rd of January, 1693, for raising a million by loan, and another million by annuities, which were to be paid by a new duty on beer and other liquors; and thus, with a formal establishment of the National Debt, closed the year 1692.

The opening of 1693 was distinguished by a warm debate on the liberty of the press. The licensing, which was about to expire, was proposed for renewal. The eloquent appeal of Milton, in his "Areopagitica," that all books which bore the names of the author or publisher should be exempt from the power of the licensers, had hitherto produced no effect; but now circumstances occurred which drew the subject into notice, and raised many other voices in favour of such exemption. In the Lords, Halifax, Mulgrave, and Shrewsbury warmly advocated the principles of Milton; but though the Bill passed, it was only by a slight majority, and with a protest against it, signed by eleven peers; nor was it to pass for more than two years. The circumstance which roused this strong feeling was, that Burnet had published a pastoral letter to the clergy of his diocese, recommending them to take the oaths to William and Mary, in which, amongst their claims to the throne, he had unfortunately mentioned that of conquest. This had escaped general attention till the Royal Licenser, Edmund Bohun, a high Tory, who had taken the oaths on this very plea that the king and queen had won the throne by conquest, fell into the trap of one Blount, whose works he had refused to license. This man wrote an anonymous pamphlet with the title, "King William and Queen Mary Conquerors." The unlucky censor fell into the trap, and licensed it. Then the storm of Whig indignation broke over his head. He was summoned before Parliament and committed to custody. The book was ordered to be burnt by the hangman, and the House unanimously passed a resolution praying his Majesty to dismiss him from his office. The unfortunate licenser was then discharged on his own petition, after having been reprimanded on his knees by the Speaker. Burnet's pastoral letter was likewise ordered to be burnt by the hangman, much to the bishop's shame and mortification. But the liberty of the press was achieved. When the Two Years Act maintaining the censorship expired, the Commons refused to renew it. William prorogued Parliament on the 14th of March, and prepared to set out for the Continental campaign.

William, on his part, had more than his usual difficulty in bringing his Allies into the field. Indeed, they were far more occupied in their petty feuds than thinking of presenting a sufficient front to the great enemy who, if successful, would tread them all down in their own territories as Buonaparte afterwards crushed their posterity. The Courts of Baden, of Saxony, of Austria, and of the lesser Powers, were all quarrelling amongst themselves. The Northern Powers were still trying to weaken the Allies, and so form a third party; and on the side of Italy, Savoy was menaced by numerous forces of France, and ill-supported by Austria. The Prince of Hesse had neglected to furnish his quota, and yet wanted a chief command. The Prince of Baden and the Elector of Saxony were at strife for the command of the army of the Rhine. When William had brought all these wretched and provoking Allies into some degree of order, he mustered seventy thousand men in the field, and Louis came against him with a hundred and twenty thousand.

Louis marched himself with his army with all the pomp and splendour that he could assume. He brought all his Court with him, as if his officers should be stimulated to the utmost by having to fight under the very eyes of their king and the courtiers and ladies, Madame de Maintenon amongst them. Louis's plan of action was precisely what it had been in the two previous campaigns. As he had suddenly invested Mons and Namur by overwhelming forces, before his enemy could approach, he now proposed to surprise and take Brussels or Liége, and so carry off the glory of the exploit both from the Allies and his own general, Luxemburg. This was a cheap and easy way of securing fame without danger; but this time William was too quick for him. Louis arrived at the commencement of June at Namur, where his ladies held a brilliant court. But William had taken up a strong position at Parke, near Louvain, and thrown reinforcements into Maestricht, Huy, and Charleroi. Louis perceived that he was checkmated, and his desire of acquiring still more martial honours suddenly evaporated. Nothing but hard fighting could make an impression on his stubborn antagonist, and for that Louis had no fancy. He determined, therefore, to return to Versailles with his ladies and his Court, and leave Luxemburg to fight it out. The alarm at this proposal in the camp was intense. Luxemburg represented to Louis that it would have the certain effect of damping the spirits of the soldiers, and raise those of the enemy. He reminded him that now he had nothing to do but to bear down upon the Allies with all his powers, and sweep them away by mere momentum, and put an end to the war. But all his entreaties were lost on the Grand Monarque, who had rather steal a victory than win one. He not only persisted in going, but he weakened the forces of Luxemburg by dispatching the division of Boufflers, amounting to twenty thousand men, which he had taken under his own especial command, under Boufflers and the Dauphin, to join Marshal de Lorges, who had orders again to ravage the Palatinate.

But, in reality, Luxemburg was better without the pompous and voluptuous king. He had no one now to come between himself and his real military genius, in which he infinitely excelled William; and he immediately brought his skill into play. Before attacking the Allies he resolved to divide them on the true Macchiavellian principle, "divide et impera." He therefore made a feint of marching upon Liége. Liége was one of the places that it was expected that the French would aim at securing this campaign, and the inhabitants had very cavalierly declined to take any measures for defending themselves, saying it was the business of the Allies. William, therefore, put his forces in motion to prevent this catastrophe. He had advanced as far as Neer-Hespen; there, however, he heard that Luxemburg had obtained possession of Huy, which had been defended by a body of troops from Liége and Count Tilly, but which, though supported by another division under the Duke of Würtemberg, had been compelled to return to Liége.

William now dispatched twenty thousand men to reinforce Liége, and thus accomplish the very thing at which Luxemburg was aiming. The moment he learnt that William had reduced his force by this detachment, he marched from Huy on the 28th of July, and passed the Jaar near its source with an army exceeding that of the Allies by thirty-five thousand men. William, now aware of Luxemburg's design, committed one of those blunders in strategy, which, except for his indomitable tenacity of purpose, would long ago have ruined him. He could have put the deep river Gerte between him and the enemy; it was just in the rear. His generals strongly urged him to do this, where he might have maintained his position till he had recalled his forces from Liége. But he would not listen to them. He was afraid of having to retreat before Luxemburg, and discouraging his men. He set about, therefore, instantly to strengthen his then position. It was naturally strong; on his right hand lay the village of Neer-Winden amongst a network of hedges, and deep lanes, with a small stream winding through it; on his right lay the village of Romsdorff, on a brook named the Landen, whence the battle took its name. William ordered an entrenchment to be thrown up from one village to the other, and mounted with a formidable rampart of stakes. Batteries were raised along this breastwork, and the two villages were made as strong as the time would allow.

The Allies commenced immediately a cannonade with a hundred pieces of cannon on the ramparts, which did great execution; but the French soon returned the compliment, and about eight o'clock made a furious attack on the villages of Lare and Neer-Winden. These places were several times lost and regained. In one of the assaults the Duke of Berwick was taken prisoner. Perceiving himself surrounded by the English, he plucked off his white cockade, and endeavoured to pass himself off as an English officer. His English tongue might have served him, but he had fallen under the eye of his uncle, Brigadier Churchill, who received him affectionately, and conducted him to William, who addressed him with courtesy, but never saw him again, as he was immediately after the battle exchanged for the Duke of Ormond, who was wounded and taken prisoner in the action. Meanwhile the battle was raging fiercely all along the line. The French repeatedly rushed up to the breastworks, and were as often driven back by the slaughtering fire of the infantry. A fresh attack was made on Neer-Winden, supported by the division under the Duke of Bourbon, but which was repulsed with terrible carnage. Then Luxemburg called together his staff to consult, and it was resolved to try one more assault on Neer-Winden with the famous Household Troops, which had carried the day at Mons and Namur. William met them at the head of several English regiments, which charged the Household Troops with such impetuosity that, for the first time, they were forced to give way. But whilst William was exerting himself on the right, with a desperation and a risking of his person which astonished everyone, the centre had become much weakened, and a murderous fight was going on at Romsdorff, or Neer-Landen, on the left. There the Prince of Conti renewed the flagging contest by bringing up some of the finest regiments of the French infantry, whilst Villeroi there encountered the Bavarian cavalry, under Count D'Arco. In this _mêlée_ the Duke of Chartres narrowly escaped being taken. Whilst the battle was thus obstinately disputed, the Marquis D'Harcourt brought up two-and-twenty fresh squadrons from Huy, which falling on the English, Dutch, and Hanoverians struggling against the united onslaught of Luxemburg, Marsin, and Marshal de Joyeuse, bore them down by actual numbers. The whole line gave way; and now was seen the folly of William leaving the river in his rear instead of having it in front. The confusion became terrible to escape over the bridge, and a frightful carnage must have followed had not William, with the regiments of Wyndham, Lumley, and Galway, borne the brunt of the pursuing host till the rest of his army got over the bridge of Neer-Hespen. As it was, the rout and disorder were dreadful; numbers flung themselves into the river, but found it too deep, and were drowned. The Duke of Ormond was here severely wounded. Here, too, Solmes, mortally wounded, was seized by the enemy. The "English bulldogs" did not mourn his loss. If William by his want of judgment had led his troops into this trap, he did his best to get them out of it. He repeatedly dismounted to encourage his men, inciting them by voice and example to stand up to the enemy. He had two led horses shot close behind him; one bullet passed through his hat, another through his sleeve, and a third carried away the knot of his sash. At length he got his army over the bridge, and encamped on the other bank of the river. The French did not attempt to pursue; they were worn out with their violent exertion, and passed the night on the field of battle amongst the heaps of slain and wounded. The next morning presented the most appalling scene of butchery, unequalled by any battle of that epoch, except that of Malplaquet. Twenty thousand men are said to have perished in this bloody struggle, about an equal number on each side. On the French side fell Count Montchevreuil and the Duke D'Uzes, the premier peer of France. Luxemburg, exhausted with this effort, remained fifteen days at Waren, reorganising his shattered forces; and William employed the time in a similar manner, recalling the troops from Liége and from other places; so that in a short time he was again ready for action, his headquarters being Louvain.

The battle of Landen was the great event of the campaign of 1693. When Luxemburg was rejoined by Boufflers from the Rhine, he invested Charleroi, and that with so much adroitness that William was not able to prevent him. Charleroi capitulated on the 11th of October, and Louis ordered a _Te Deum_ and other rejoicings for this fresh triumph. But though he professed to triumph, he had little cause to do so. He had formerly overrun Holland, Flanders, or Franche-Comté in a single campaign, and sometimes without a battle; now he had beaten the Allies at Fleurus, Steinkirk, and Landen, and yet here they were as ready to fight him as ever. His country was sinking into the very depths of misery and destitution, the campaign had cost him ten thousand men, and though he had taken sixty cannon, nine mortars, and a great number of colours and standards, he could not advance twenty miles in the direction of the United Provinces without running the risk of a similar decimation of his troops. It was a humiliating position, after all. After the surrender of Charleroi both armies went into winter quarters.

If the affairs of England had been unsuccessful by land, they had been most disastrous by sea. Before leaving for Holland William ordered that Killigrew and Delaval should, with their whole fleet, amounting to nearly a hundred sail, get out to sea early, and blockade the French fleets in their ports, so as to allow our merchantmen to pursue their voyages with security. Our ports were crowded with trading vessels, which had long been waiting to sail to the Mediterranean and other seas with cargoes. About the middle of May the admirals united their squadrons at St. Helens, and, being joined by a considerable number of Dutch men-of-war, they took on board five regiments of soldiers, intending to make a descent on Brest. No less than four hundred merchantmen were ready to start, and on the 6th of June the united fleet put out from St. Helens to convoy them so far as to be out of danger of the French fleets, when Sir George Rooke was to take them forward to the Mediterranean under guard of twenty sail. But the French appear to have been perfectly informed of all the intentions of the English Government from the traitors about the Court, and the English to have been perfectly ignorant of the motions of the French. Instead of Tourville allowing himself to be blockaded in Brest, and D'Estrées in Toulon, they were already out and sailing down towards Gibraltar, where they meant to lie in wait for the English.

The united fleet of the Allies having, therefore, accompanied Rooke and the merchantmen about two hundred miles beyond Ushant, returned. Rooke did not think they were by any means certain of their enemies being behind them, and earnestly entreated the admirals to go on farther, but in vain. They not only turned back, but went home, without making the slightest attempt to carry out the attack on Brest. When they reached England it was well known that Tourville had recently quitted Brest, and was pursuing his course south to join D'Estrées. The consternation and indignation were beyond bounds. A swift vessel was despatched to overtake and recall Rooke and the merchant vessels if possible. But it is proverbial that a stern chase is a long chase. It was impossible to come up with Rooke; he had reached Cape St. Vincent, and there learnt that a French fleet was lying in the Bay of Lagos; but, imagining that it was only a detached squadron, he went on, till on the 16th of June he perceived before him the whole French fleet, amounting to eighty vessels.

As to engaging such an unequal force, that would have been a wilful sacrifice of himself and his charge. The Dutch Admiral Vandergoes agreed with him that the best thing was for the merchant vessels to run into the Spanish ports Faro, San Lucar, or Cadiz, as best served them, others were too far out at sea; these he stood out to protect as long as he could, and they made, some for Ireland, some for Corunna and Lisbon. He himself then made all sail for Madeira, which he reached in safety. Two of the Dutch ships, being overtaken by the French, ran in shore, and thus drawing the French after them, helped the others to get off. Captains Schrijver and Vander Poel fought stoutly as long as they could, and then surrendered. The French commander Coetlegon took seven of the Smyrna merchantmen, and sank four under the rocks of Gibraltar. The loss to the merchants was fearful. The news of this great calamity spread a gloom over the City of London, and many were loud in attributing disloyalty to Killigrew and Delaval, probably not without cause, for that they were in correspondence with St. Germains is only too certain.

Sir George Rooke returned from Madeira to Cork, which he reached on the 3rd of August, his ships of war and the traders which had followed him for safety numbering fifty vessels. Leaving the rest of his ships to convoy the merchantmen to Kinsale, he returned to the fleet, which was cruising in the Channel, and which now returned to St. Helens, where they had already landed the soldiers. About the same time a squadron, which had gone out to seize the island of Martinique, under Sir Francis Wheeler, after coasting Newfoundland and Canada, returned totally unsuccessful. The Dutch set sail for Holland on the 19th of September, and thus terminated this inglorious naval campaign.

On the 7th of November Parliament met. William had a poor story of his campaign to relate, but he attributed his defeat to the enormous exertions which Louis had made, and on that plea demanded still greater efforts from England. He asked that the army should be raised to a hundred and ten thousand men, and the navy proportionably augmented. He complained bitterly of the mismanagement of the fleet, and the Commons immediately proceeded to inquire into the cause of it. The Whigs made a vehement charge of treachery and neglect against Delaval and Killigrew; the Tories, to defend them, threw the blame on the Admiralty. Lord Falkland, who was Chief Commissioner, was proved by Rainsford, the Receiver of the Navy, to have embezzled a large sum, and it was moved that he be committed to the Tower. This, however, was overruled, but he was reprimanded in his place. The Lords then took up the same examination, and endeavoured to turn the blame from the Earl of Nottingham to Sir John Trenchard, the Whig secretary. Nottingham declared that early in June he received a list of the French fleet from Paris, and the time of their sailing, and handed it to Trenchard, whose duty it was to send the orders to the admirals. But Trenchard was in his turn screened by the Whigs. The matter was again taken up by the Commons, and Lord Falkland was declared guilty of a high misdemeanour and committed to the Tower, whence, however, in two days he was released on his own petition. Robert Harley--destined to make a great figure in the succeeding reign--Foley, and Harcourt, all of whom from being Whigs had become Tories, presented to the House a statement of the receipts and disbursements of the revenue, which displayed the grossest mismanagement. But the farther the inquiry went, the more flagrant became the discoveries of the corruption of both Ministers and members of Parliament, through bounties, grants, places, pensions, and secret-service money; so that it was clear that Parliament was so managed that Ministers could baffle any Bill, quash any grievance, and prepare any fictitious statement of account. The result was that William was compelled to dismiss Nottingham, and to place Russell at the head of the Admiralty. The seals which Nottingham resigned were offered to Shrewsbury, but were not at once accepted.

Having expressed their feelings on the mismanagement and treachery of the past year, the Commons proceeded to vote the supplies for the next, and in this they showed no want of confidence in the king. They did not, indeed, vote him his hundred and ten thousand troops, but they voted eighty-three thousand one hundred and twenty-one, but not till they had called for the treaties existing between William and his Allies, and the quota which every one was to furnish. To defray the charge, they voted five millions and a half, in nearly equal proportions between the army and the navy, including four hundred thousand pounds to pay the arrears of the Session; and this they ordered to be raised by a land tax of four shillings in the pound, and a further excise on beer, a duty on salt, and a lottery. This was a profusion which would have made the country stand aghast under the abhorrent rule of James, and the force was nearly double that with which Cromwell had made himself the dread of Europe.

FROM THE ORIGINAL DESIGN BY GEORGE HARCOURT FOR THE WALL PANEL IN THE ROYAL EXCHANGE.]

These matters being settled, the Commons considered the popular questions of the Bill for Regulating the Trials for High Treason, the Triennial Bill, and the Place Bill. None of these Bills were made law. The Triennial Bill and the Bill for Regulating the Trials for High Treason were lost; the Place Bill was carried, but William refused to ratify it, under the idea that it was intended to abridge his prerogative. The excitement in the Commons was intense. It was resolved to address his Majesty, and such an address was drawn up and presented by the whole House. William received them very graciously, but conceded nothing, and Harley declared, on returning to the House, that the king's answer was no answer at all. Menaces of showing their power on the next occasion by stopping the supplies were thrown out, and it was proposed to go up to his Majesty again to demand a more explicit answer; but the Whigs represented the danger of thus encouraging the hopes of the Jacobites by the prospect of a breach between King and Parliament, and the matter dropped.

The question of the charter of the East India Company was again warmly debated. The feud between the old and the new Company had grown so violent that the old Company, fearing Government might be induced to grant a charter to the new Company, had put forth all its powers of bribery, and had succeeded. But the former had somehow neglected the payment of the tax on joint-stock companies, by which, according to the terms of the Act, their charter was forfeited. The new Company eagerly seized on this circumstance to prevent a renewal of the charter; but the old Company put nearly one hundred thousand pounds at the disposal of Sir Thomas Cook, one of their members, and also member of Parliament, and by a skilful distribution of this sum amongst the king's Ministers, Caermarthen and Seymour coming in for a large share, they succeeded in getting their charter renewed.

The new Company and the merchants of London were exasperated at this proceeding. They published an account of the whole transaction; they represented that the old Company was guilty of the grossest oppression and the most scandalous acts of violence and injustice in India and its seas; they asserted that two of their own ships had exported in one year more cloths than the old Company had exported in three years; and they offered to send more the next year of both cloths and other merchandise than the Company had sent in five; but the bribes prevailed, and the old Company obtained its charter--not very definite in its terms, however, as regarded its monopoly, and subject to such alterations and restrictions within a given time as the king should see fit. At this juncture the old Company were imprudent enough to obtain an order from the Admiralty to restrain a valuable ship called the _Redbridge_, lying in the Thames, from sailing. Her papers were made out for Alicante, but it was well known that she was bound for the Indies. The owners appealed to Parliament, and Parliament declared the detention of the vessel illegal, and, moreover, that all subjects of England had a right to trade to the Indies, unless prohibited by Act of Parliament. Encouraged by this decision, the new Company prayed the Commons to grant them a direct sanction to trade thither, and the old Company, on their part, prayed for a Parliamentary sanction to their charter; but no decision in either case was come to, and for some years scenes of strange contention continued to be enacted between the rival Companies and free traders in the seas and ports of those distant regions.

The last Act of this Parliamentary session proved the most important of all; it was the establishment of the Bank of England. Banking, now so universal, was but of very recent introduction to England. The Lombard Jews had a bank in Italy as early as 808; Venice had its bank in 1157; Geneva in 1345; Barcelona in 1401. In Genoa, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Hamburg, and Rotterdam there had long been banks, but in England men had continued, till within a very short time previous to this period, to hoard and pay out their own money from their own strong boxes. The goldsmiths of Lombard Street had of late become bankers, and people began to pay by orders on them, and travellers to take orders from them on foreign banks. It was now beginning to be strongly agitated to establish joint-stock banks, and there were various speculative heads at work with plans for them. One Hugh Chamberlayne and his coadjutor, John Briscoe, published a scheme of a land bank, by which gentlemen were to give security for their notes on their land; on the principle that land was as real and substantial property as gold. But the extravagant and unsound views as to the actual value of land which they promulgated ruined their credit. Because an estate was worth twenty thousand pounds at twenty years' purchase, they argued that it was worth that every twenty years, and, therefore, could be immediately convertible at the same rate for any number of years--as if they could put a hundred years' purchase in the first twenty, and raise the hundred years' value, or one hundred thousand pounds, on it at once.

There was, however, a more sober and shrewd projector, William Paterson, a calculating Scotsman, who in 1691 had laid before Government a plan for a national bank on sound and feasible principles. His scheme had received little attention, but now, though a million of money was raised by the lottery, another million was needed, and Paterson secured the attention of Charles Montague, a rising statesman, to his scheme. Paterson represented that the Government might easily relieve itself of the difficulty of raising this money, and of all future similar difficulties, by establishing a national bank, at the same time that it conferred the most important advantages on the public at large. He had already firmly impressed Michael Godfrey, an eminent London merchant, and the brother of the unfortunate Sir Edmundsbury Godfrey, with the immense merits of his scheme. They now submitted these merits, and the particularly attractive one to a young politician of raising himself by a happy mode of serving the Government, and acquiring immediate distinction for practical sagacity. Montague was a young man of high family, but a younger brother's younger son--poor, clever, accomplished, and intensely ambitious. At Cambridge he had distinguished himself as a wit and a versifier; but he was now in the Commons, and had made a rapid reputation as an orator and statesman by his management of the Bill for Regulating the Trials for High Treason. This man--vain, ostentatious, not too nice in his means of climbing, but with talents equal to the most daring enterprise, and who afterwards became better known as the Earl of Halifax--saw the substantial character of Paterson's scheme, and took it up. Whilst he worked the affair in Parliament, Godfrey was to prepare the City for it.

Montague submitted the scheme to the Committee of Ways and Means, and as they were at their wits' end to raise the required million, they caught at it eagerly. The proposed plan was to grant a charter to a company of capitalists, under the name of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England. This company was to have authority to issue promissory notes, discount bills of Exchange, and to deal in bullion and foreign securities. Their first act was to be to lend the Government twelve hundred thousand pounds, at eight per cent., and to receive, as means of repayment, the proceeds of a new duty on tonnage, whence the bank at first received the name of the Tonnage Bank. The Bill for establishing this bank was introduced ostensibly to Parliament as a Bill for imposing this new duty on tonnage; the charter of the proposed bank being granted in consideration of its making an immediate advance on the tonnage duty. In the Commons it underwent many sallies of wit and sarcasm, as one of the thousand speculations of the time; but in the City, where its real character was at once perceived by the Lombard Street money-dealers, it was instantly assailed by a perfect storm of execration. It was declared to be a scheme for enabling the Government to raise money at any moment and to any extent, independently of Parliament, and thus to accomplish all that the Charleses and Jameses had ever aimed at. To silence this suspicion, Montague introduced a clause making it illegal, and amounting to forfeiture of its charter, for the bank to lend any money to Government without the consent of the Parliament. This, however, did not lay the tempest. It was now denounced as a Republican institution borrowed from Holland and Genoa, and meant to undermine the monarchy; it was a great fact, the objectors urged, that banks and kings had never existed together.

Notwithstanding all opposition, however, the Bill passed the Commons; and though it met with fresh and determined opposition in the Lords, where it was declared to be a scheme of the usurers to enrich themselves at the expense of the aristocracy, on Caermarthen coolly asking them, if they threw out this Bill, how they meant to pay the Channel fleet, they passed it; and such was its success in the City, that in less than ten days the whole sum required by Government was subscribed. Such was the origin of that wonderful institution, the Bank of England. One other measure of importance was carried by this Parliament, namely, the Triennial Act, limiting Parliament to three years.

Immediately that the Bank of England Bill had received the royal assent, William prorogued Parliament, and rewarded Montague for his introduction of the scheme of the bank, by making him Chancellor of the Exchequer. Shrewsbury was now induced to accept the Seals. William having shown him that he was aware of his being tampered with by the agents of James, demanded his acceptance of them as a pledge of his fidelity. To secure him effectually--for William knew well that nothing but interest would secure Whigs--he conferred on him the vacant Garter and a dukedom. Seymour was dismissed, and his place as a Lord of the Treasury was given to John Smith, a zealous Whig, so that excepting Caermarthen, Lord President, and Godolphin, First Lord of the Treasury, the Cabinet was purely Whig. The old plan of mixed Ministries was being rapidly abandoned.