deprived her, for a time, of the power of hurting them. But the ignorance of mankind continued their fears: the apprehensions of Europe remained: and Lewis derived more glory from his imaginary than from his real force.

These apprehensions were very great in England. In parliament they were made subservient to the purposes of ambition and faction, as well as of patriotism; and they awakened dangerous discontents among the people. Murmurs were heard from all ranks of men. Willing to put an end to dissatisfactions that disturbed his repose, Charles made a new attempt to gain the confidence of his people. His brother's bigoted attachment to popery, and his own unhappy connexions with France, he was sensible, had chiefly occasioned the loss of his popularity. To afford the prospect of a Protestant succession to the throne, and procure a general peace to Europe, could not therefore fail, he thought, of quieting the minds of his subjects. He accordingly encouraged proposals of marriage from the prince of Orange to the lady Mary, his brother's eldest daughter, and presumptive heiress to the crown, the duke of York having then no male issue, and the king no legitimate offspring. By so tempting a match, he hoped to engage the prince entirely in his interests; and to sanctify with William's approbation such a peace as would satisfy France, and tend to perpetuate his own connexions with Lewis.

William came over to England at the close of the campaign; and whatever might be his motives for such a conduct, he acted a part highly deserving of applause, whether we examine it by the rules of prudence or delicacy. He refused to enter upon business before he had been introduced to the lady Mary; declaring that, as he placed great part of his happiness in domestic satisfaction, no consideration of interest or policy could ever induce him to marry a person who was not perfectly agreeable to him. The lady Mary, whom he found in the bloom of youth, and very amiable both in mind and person, exceeded his highest hopes; but he still refused to concert any measures for the general peace, until his marriage should be concluded. His allies, who, as things stood, were likely to have hard terms, would otherwise, he said, be apt to suspect that he had made this match at their cost. "And I am determined," added he," it shall never be said, that I sold my honour for a wife!"(1) Charles, who affected to smile at these punctilios, persisted in his resolution of making the peace precede the marriage; but finding the prince inflexible, he at last consented to the nuptials, which were celebrated at St. James's, to the inexpressible joy of the nation.

This matrimonial alliance gave great alarm to the king of France. A junction of England with the confederates, he concluded, would be the immediate consequence of so important a step, taken not only without his consent, but without his knowledge or participation. Charles, however, endeavoured to quiet his apprehensions, by adjourning the parliament from the third of December to the fourth of next April; a term late for granting supplies, or forming preparations for war. (2) In the mean time, the king, the prince of Orange, the lord-treasurer Danby, and sir William Temple, held consultations relative to a general peace; and the earl of Feversham was despatched to France with conditions sufficiently favourable to the allies, and yet not dishonourable to Lewis.

66

Two days only were allowed the French monarch for the acceptance or refusal of the peace, and the English ambassador had no power to negotiate. But he was prevailed on to stay some days longer, and returned at last without any positive answer. My ambassador at London," said Lewis, "shall have full powers to finish the treaty to the satisfaction of the king. And I hope my brother will not break with me for one or two towns."(3) The French ambassador declared, that he had leave to yield all the towns required, except Tournay; and feven to treat of some equivalent for that, if the king thought fit. Charles was softened by the moderation of Lewis. The prince of Orange, who had given vigour to the English councils, was gone; and

(1) Temple's Mem. part ii. chap. iii.

(3) Temple's.Mem. part ii. chap. iii.

10

(2) Dalrymple's Append.

delay succeeded delay in the negotiations, until the French monarch, having taken the field early, made himself master of Ghent and Ypres, after having threatened Mons and Namur.(1)

These conquests, which completed the triumph of France, filled the Dutch with terror, and the English with indignation. But Lewis managed matters so artfully in both nations, that neither proved a bar in the way of his ambition. Through his intrigues with the remains of the Louvestein party in Holland, he increased the general desire of peace, by awakening a jealousy of the designs of the prince of Orange on account of his eagerness for continuing the war. In England, he not only maintained his connexions with Charles, but gained to his interest many of the popular members in both houses of parliament, who were less afraid of the conquest of Flanders than of trusting the king with an army to defend it. So great, however, was the ardour of the people of England for war, that both the king and parliament were obliged to give way to it. An army of twenty thousand men, to the astonishment of Europe, was completed in a few weeks; and part of it was sent over, under the duke of Monmouth, to secure Ostend. Meanwhile, Charles, in consideration of the sum of three hundred thousand pounds, secretly engaged to disband his army, and to permit Lewis to make his own terms with the confederates; and the commons also, swayed by French influence, but ignorant of the king's engagements, and ever desirous to thwart his measures, voted that the army should be disbanded!(2) Baseness so complicated, in men of the most exalted stations, makes us almost hate human nature, and the generous mind, in contemplating such a motley group, without regard to imposing names, beholds with equal indignation the pensioned king and the hireling patriot.(3)

Having nothing now to dread from the only two powers that could set bounds to his empire, Lewis assumed the style of a conqueror; and, instead of yielding to the terms offered by Charles, he himself dictated the articles of a peace, which, by placing all the barrier towns of Flanders in his hands, left that country open to his future inroads. This imperious proceeding, and other aggravating circumstances, occasioned great murmurs in England, and the king seemed at length disposed to enter heartily into the war. But the confederates had been too often deceived, to trust any longer to the fluctuating counsels of Charles. Negotiations for a general peace advanced "towards a conclusion at Nimeguen; and as the emperor and Spain, though least able to continue the war, seemed resolved to stand out, Van Beverning, the Dutch ambassador, more prudently than honourably signed a separate treaty with France.(4) That treaty, which occasioned much clamour among the confederates, was ratified by the states; and all the other powers were at last obliged to accept the terms prescribed by the French monarch.

The principal of these terms were, that Lewis, besides Franche Compté, which he had twice conquered, should retain possession of Cambray, Aire, St. Omer, Valenciennes, Tournay, Ypres, Bouchain, Cassel, Charlemont, and other places; that he should restore Maestricht to the states, the only place belonging to the United Provinces which he now retained; that Spain should be again put in possession of Charleroy, Oudenarde, Aeth, Ghent, and Limburg; that the emperor should give up Friburg to France, and retain Philipsburg; that the elector of Brandenburg should restore to Sweden his conquests in Pomerania, and that the treaty of Westphalia

(1) Temple's Mem. part ii. chap. iii. Voltaire, Siècle, chap. xii.

(2) Temple's Mem, part ii. chap. iii. Dalrymple's Appendix, p. 157. 159.

(3) That some of the popular members in both houses of parliament received money from the court of France, is a truth too notorious to be denied, though painful to relate. And to say they abetted no measure which they did not believe to be for the good of their country, is but a poor apology for their venality. A senator who can be prevailed on to accept a bribe, it is to be feared, will readily persuade himself of the rectitude of any measure, for the support of which that bribe is offered. Of this lord Russel seems to have been fully convinced; for although willing to co-operate with France, in order to prevent Charles II from becoming absolute (as soon as informed that Lewis XIV. began to discover that such a change in the English government would be against his interest), he was startled when told by Barillon, that he had "a considerable sum to distribute in parliament to obstruct the vote of supply."-"I should be sorry," said he, "to have any communication with men who can be gained by money." Dalrymple's Append. (4) Temple's Mem. part ii. chap. iii.

should remain in full force over Germany and the north.(1) The duke of Lorrain was the only prince who refused to be included in the peace of Nimeguen: he chose rather to become a soldier of fortune, and to command the imperial armies, than to accept his dominions on the conditions proposed by Lewis.

The prince of Orange was so much enraged at this peace, that he took a very unwarrantable step to break it. He attacked the quarters of the duke of Luxemburg at St. Denis near Mons, after the treaty was signed, and when the duke reposed on the faith of it, in hopes of cutting off the whole French army.(2) But he gained no decided advantage; and this bold violation of the laws of humanity, if not of those of nations, was attended with no other consequence than the loss of many lives on both sides.

The king of England also, disgusted with Lewis, and ashamed of having been so long the tool of a monarch to whose ambition he might have given law, endeavoured to persuade the states to disavow their ambassador, and refuse to ratify the peace. But the Dutch had made too good terms for themselves to think of immediately renewing the war; and Charles, though denied the stipulated bribe for his ignominious neutrality, soon returned to his former connexions with France.(3)

Thus, my dear Philip, was Lewis XIV. highly exalted above every other European potentate. He had greatly extended his dominions, in defiance of a powerful confederacy; and he had secured very important conquests, by treaty. His ministers, in negotiating, had appeared as much superior to those of other nations, as his generals in the field. He had given law to Spain, Holland, and the empire: his arms had humbled his most formidable neighbours, and his ambition threatened the independency of all. farther progress of that ambition we shall afterward have occasion to trace. In the mean time, we must carry forward the domestic history of Great Britain.

The

LETTER XIV.

England, from the Popish Plot, in 1678, to the Death of Charles II., with a retrospective View of the Affairs of Scotland.

NOTWITHSTANDING the seeming eagerness of Charles II. for war, towards the conclusion of the peace of Nimeguen, he was never believed to be sincere. So utterly had he lost the confidence of his people, that his best measures were supposed to proceed from bad motives: nay, the more popular any measure appeared, the more it was suspected of some dangerous purpose. A general terror prevailed of popery and arbitrary power: dark surmises were propagated; and the king and the duke of York, in conjunction with France, were justly considered as the great enemies of the civil and religious liberties of the nation..

These apprehensions, inflamed by the violence of faction, and turned upon a particular object by the forgeries of artful men, gave birth to the famous imposture known by the name of the POPISH PLOT; the most extraordinary example of phrensy and delusion that ever distracted an unhappy people. But before we enter on that mysterious business, I must carry forward the affairs of Scotland, with which it was intimately connected.

Soon after the suppression of the insurrection in the west of Scotland, in 1666, and the severe punishment of the fanatical insurgents, the king was advised to try milder methods for bringing the people over to episcopacy. With this view, he intrusted the government to the earl of Tweedale, and sir Robert Murray, men of prudence and moderation. In order to compose

(1) Henault, an. 1678. Mem. de Brandenburg. Voltaire, Siècle, chap. xii.
(2) Voltaire, ubi sup Burnet book i
(3) Dalrymole's Append.

the religious differences, which still ran high, these ministers adopted a scheme of comprehension; by which it was proposed to diminish the authority of the bishops, to abolish their negative voice in the ecclesiastical courts, and to leave them little more than the right of precedency among the presbyters.(1) But this scheme alarmed the jealousy of the zealous teachers of those times. They chose rather to deliver their wild harangues, at the hazard of their lives, to conventicles in woods and mountains, than have any communication with antichristian institutions, which they esteemed dangerous and criminal. "Touch not! taste not! handle not!" was their common cry; and the king's ministers, perceiving that advances to such men could only serve to debase the dignity of government, by being contemptuously rejected, gave up the project of comprehension, and adopted that of indulgence.

In the prosecution of this new scheme, they proceeded with great temper and judgment. Some of the most enlightened of the presbyterian teachers were settled in vacant churches, without being obliged to conform to the established religion; and salaries of twenty pounds a year were offered to the rest, till they should be otherwise provided for, on condition that they behaved themselves with decency and moderation. This offer was universally rejected, as the king's bribe for silence; and those teachers who were settled in the vacant churches soon found their popularity decline, when they delivered only the simple doctrines of Christianity. By ceasing to rail against the church and state, called preaching to the times, they got the name of dumb dogs, who were supposed to be afraid to bark.(2) The churches were again deserted, for the more vehement and inflammatory discourses of the field: preachers and conventicles multiplied daily in the west; where the people, as formerly, came armed to their places of worship.

When this fanaticism was at its height, Lauderdale was appointed commissioner to the Scottish parliament, which met on the 19th of October. The zealous presbyterians, the chief asserters of liberty, were unable to oppose the measures of the court; so that the tide ran strongly towards monarchy, if not despotism. By one act it was declared, that the right of governing the church was inherent in the king; and by another, the number of the militia (established by the undue influence of the crown about two years before) was settled at twenty-two thousand men; who were to be constantly armed, regularly disciplined, and held in readiness to march to any part of his majesty's dominions, where their service might be required, for the support of his authority, power, or greatness. (3) Thus was Charles invested with absolute sway in Scotland, and even furnished with the means of becoming formidable to his English subjects, whose liberties he wished to

subdue.

A severe act against conventicles followed these arbitrary laws, on which Lauderdale highly valued himself, and which induced the king to make him sole minister for Scotland. Ruinous fines were imposed on the presbyterians, who met to worship in houses, and field preachers and their hearers were to be punished with death. But laws that are too severe defeat their own end. The rigours exercised against conventicles in Scotland, instead of breaking the spirit of the fanatics, served only to render them more obstinate; to increase the fervour of their zeal, to bind them more closely together, and to inflame them against the established religion. The commonalty every where in the low country, but more especially in the western counties, frequented conventicles without reserve; and although the gentry themselves seldom visited those illegal places of worship, they took no measures to repress that irregularity in their inferiors, whose liberty they seemed to envy. In order to prevent this connivance, a bond or contract was tendered to the landlords in the west, by which they were to engage for the good behaviour of their tenants; and in case any tenant frequented a conventicle, the landlord was

to subject himself to the same fine that could by law be exacted from the offender.(1)

But it was ridiculous to give sanction to laws by voluntary contracts; it was iniquitous to make one man answerable for the conduct of another, and it was illegal to impose such hard conditions upon men who had no way offended. (2) For these reasons the greater part of the gentry refused to sign the bonds required; and Lauderdale, enraged at such firmness, endeavoured to break their spirit by an expedient truly tyrannical. Because the western counties abound in conventicles, though otherwise in a state of profound peace, he pretended that they were in a state of actual rebellion. He made, therefore, an agreement with some Highland chiefs to call out their followers to the number of eight thousand, who, in conjunction with the guards, and the militia of Angus, were sent to live at free quarter upon the lands of such gentlemen as had rejected the bonds.

As the western counties were the most populous, and the most industrious in Scotland, and the Highlanders the men least civilized, it is more easy to imagine than to describe the havoc that ensued. An army of barbarians, trained up in rapine and violence, unaccustomed to discipline, and averse from the restraints of law, was let loose among a set of people, whom they were taught to regard as the enemies of their prince and their religion. Nothing escaped their ravenous hands: neither age, nor sex, nor innocence afforded protection. And lest the cry of an oppressed people should reach the throne, the council forebade, under severe penalties, all noblemen and gentlemen of landed property to leave the kingdom.(3)

Notwithstanding this severe edict, the duke of Hamilton, with ten other noblemen, and about fifty gentlemen of distinction, went to London, and laid their complaints before the king. Charles was shocked at their narrative, but he took no effectual means to remedy the grievances of which they complained. "According to your representation," said he, "Lauderdale has been guilty of many bad things in the government of Scotland; but I cannot find that he has, in any thing, acted contrary to my interest." What must the interests of a king be, when they are unconnected with the welfare of his people!

Meanwhile, Lauderdale ordered home the Highlanders; and taking advantage of the absence of the dissatisfied noblemen and gentlemen, he summoned a convention of estates at Edinburgh. And this assembly, to the eternal disgrace of the nation, sent up an address to the king, approving of Lauderdale's government. But as the means by which that address was procured were well known, it served only to render both the king and his minister more odious in Scotland, and to spread universal alarm in England; where all men concluded, that as, in the neighbouring kingdom, the very voice of liberty was totally suppressed, and grievances so riveted, that it was become dangerous even to mention them, every thing was to be feared from the arbitrary disposition of Charles. If, by a Protestant church, persecution could be carried to such extremes, what, it was asked, might not be dreaded from the violence of popery, with which the kingdom was threatened ?—and what from the full establishment of absolute power, if its approaches were so tyrannical?-Such were the reasonings of men, and such their apprehensions in England, when the rumour of a popish plot threw the whole nation into a panic.

The chief actor in this horrid imposture, which occasioned the loss of much innocent blood, was a needy adventurer, named Titus Oates, one of the more profligate of mankind. Being bred to the church, he obtained a small living, which he was obliged to abandon on account of a prosecution for perjury. He was afterward chaplain on board a man of war, but was dismissed for an unnatural crime.(4) In his necessity, he came to London, the former scene of his debaucheries, where he got acquainted with Dr. Tongue, a city divine, who for some time fed and clothed him. Tongue himself was no perfect character, being a man of a credulous temper, and of an intriguing disposition. (1) Burnet, vol. ii. (2) Hume, vol. viii. (3) Burnet, vol. ii. (4) Id. ibid.