The History of England from the Accession of James II, Vol. 4

T >> Thomas Babington Macaulay >> The History of England from the Accession of James II, Vol. 4

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James, however, in spite of the recent and severe teaching of
experience, believed whatever his correspondents in England told
him; and they told him that the whole nation was impatiently
expecting him, that both the West and the North were ready to
rise, that he would proceed from the place of landing to
Whitehall with as little opposition as when, in old times, he
returned from a progress. Ferguson distinguished himself by the
confidence with which he predicted a complete and bloodless
victory. He and his printer, he was absurd enough to write, would
be the two first men in the realm to take horse for His Majesty.
Many other agents were busy up and down the country, during the
winter and the early part of the spring. It does not appear that
they had much success in the counties south of Trent. But in the
north, particularly in Lancashire, where the Roman Catholics were
more numerous and more powerful than in any other part of the
kingdom, and where there seems to have been, even among the
Protestant gentry, more than the ordinary proportion of bigoted
Jacobites, some preparations for an insurrection were made. Arms
were privately bought; officers were appointed; yeomen, small
farmers, grooms, huntsmen, were induced to enlist. Those who gave
in their names were distributed into eight regiments of cavalry
and dragoons, and were directed to hold themselves in readiness
to mount at the first signal.252

One of the circumstances which filled James, at this time, with
vain hopes, was that his wife was pregnant and near her delivery.
He flattered himself that malice itself would be ashamed to
repeat any longer the story of the warming pan, and that
multitudes whom that story had deceived would instantly return to
their allegiance. He took, on this occasion, all those
precautions which, four years before, he had foolishly and
perversely forborne to take. He contrived to transmit to England
letters summoning many Protestant women of quality to assist at
the expected birth; and he promised, in the name of his dear
brother the Most Christian King, that they should be free to come
and go in safety. Had some of these witnesses been invited to
Saint James's on the morning of the tenth of June 1688, the House
of Stuart might, perhaps, now be reigning in our island. But it
is easier to keep a crown than to regain one. It might be true
that a calumnious fable had done much to bring about the
Revolution. But it by no means followed that the most complete
refutation of that fable would bring about a Restoration. Not a
single lady crossed the sea in obedience to James's call. His
Queen was safely delivered of a daughter; but this event produced
no perceptible effect on the state of public feeling in
England.253

Meanwhile the preparations for his expedition were going on fast.
He was on the point of setting out for the place of embarkation
before the English government was at all aware of the danger
which was impending. It had been long known indeed that many
thousands of Irish were assembled in Normandy; but it was
supposed that they had been assembled merely that they might be
mustered and drilled before they were sent to Flanders, Piedmont,
and Catalonia.254 Now, however, intelligence, arriving from many
quarters, left no doubt that an invasion would be almost
immediately attempted. Vigorous preparations for defence were
made. The equipping and manning of the ships was urged forward
with vigour. The regular troops were drawn together between
London and the sea. A great camp was formed on the down which
overlooks Portsmouth. The militia all over the kingdom was called
out. Two Westminster regiments and six City regiments, making up
a force of thirteen thousand fighting men, were arrayed in Hyde
Park, and passed in review before the Queen. The trainbands of
Kent, Sussex, and Surrey marched down to the coast. Watchmen were
posted by the beacons. Some nonjurors were imprisoned, some
disarmed, some held to bail. The house of the Earl of Huntingdon,
a noted Jacobite, was searched. He had had time to burn his
papers and to hide his arms; but his stables presented a most
suspicious appearance. Horses enough to mount a whole troop of
cavalry were at the mangers; and this evidence, though not
legally sufficient to support a charge of treason, was thought
sufficient, at such a conjuncture, to justify the Privy Council
in sending him to the Tower.255 Meanwhile James had gone down to
his army, which was encamped round the basin of La Hogue, on the
northern coast of the peninsula known by the name of the
Cotentin. Before he quitted Saint Germains, he held a Chapter of
the Garter for the purpose of admitting his son into the order.
Two noblemen were honoured with the same distinction, Powis, who,
among his brother exiles, was now called a Duke, and Melfort, who
had returned from Rome, and was again James's Prime Minister.256
Even at this moment, when it was of the greatest importance to
conciliate the members of the Church of England, none but members
of the Church of Rome were thought worthy of any mark of royal
favour. Powis indeed was an eminent member of the English
aristocracy; and his countrymen disliked him as little as they
disliked any conspicuous Papist. But Melfort was not even an
Englishman; he had never held office in England; he had never
sate in the English Parliament; and he had therefore no
pretensions to a dignity peculiarly English. He was moreover
hated by all the contending factions of all the three kingdoms.
Royal letters countersigned by him had been sent both to the
Convention at Westminster and to the Convention at Edinburgh;
and, both at Westminster and at Edinburgh, the sight of his
odious name and handwriting had made the most zealous friends of
hereditary right hang down their heads in shame. It seems strange
that even James should have chosen, at such a conjuncture, to
proclaim to the world that the men whom his people most abhorred
were the men whom he most delighted to honour.

Still more injurious to his interests was the Declaration in
which he announced his intentions to his subjects. Of all the
State papers which were put forth even by him it was the most
elaborately and ostentatiously injudicious. When it had disgusted
and exasperated all good Englishmen of all parties, the Papists
at Saint Germains pretended that it had been drawn up by a stanch
Protestant, Edward Herbert, who had been Chief Justice of the
Common Pleas before the Revolution, and who now bore the empty
title of Chancellor.257 But it is certain that Herbert was never
consulted about any matter of importance, and that the
Declaration was the work of Melfort and of Melfort alone.258 In
truth, those qualities of head and heart which had made Melfort
the favourite of his master shone forth in every sentence. Not a
word was to be found indicating that three years of banishment
had made the King wiser, that he had repented of a single error,
that he took to himself even the smallest part of the blame of
that revolution which had dethroned him, or that he purposed to
follow a course in any respect differing from that which had
already been fatal to him. All the charges which had been brought
against him he pronounced to be utterly unfounded. Wicked men had
put forth calumnies. Weak men had believed those calumnies. He
alone had been faultless. He held out no hope that he would
consent to any restriction of that vast dispensing power to which
he had formerly laid claim, that he would not again, in defiance
of the plainest statutes, fill the Privy Council, the bench of
justice, the public offices, the army, the navy, with Papists,
that he would not reestablish the High Commission, that he would
not appoint a new set of regulators to remodel all the
constituent bodies of the kingdom. He did indeed condescend to
say that he would maintain the legal rights of the Church of
England; but he had said this before; and all men knew what those
words meant in his mouth. Instead of assuring his people of his
forgiveness, he menaced them with a proscription more terrible
than any which our island had ever seen. He published a list of
persons who had no mercy to expect. Among these were Ormond,
Caermarthen, Nottingham, Tillotson and Burnet. After the roll of
those who were doomed to death by name, came a series of
categories. First stood all the crowd of rustics who had been
rude to His Majesty when he was stopped at Sheerness in his
flight. These poor ignorant wretches, some hundreds in number,
were reserved for another bloody circuit. Then came all persons
who had in any manner borne a part in the punishment of any
Jacobite conspirator; judges, counsel, witnesses, grand jurymen,
petty jurymen, sheriffs and undersheriffs, constables and
turnkeys, in short, all the ministers of justice from Holt down
to Ketch. Then vengeance was denounced against all spies and all
informers who had divulged to the usurpers the designs of the
Court of Saint Germains. All justices of the peace who should not
declare for their rightful Sovereign the moment that they heard
of his landing, all gaolers who should not instantly set
political prisoners at liberty, were to be left to the extreme
rigour of the law. No exception was made in favour of a justice
or of a gaoler who might be within a hundred yards of one of
William's regiments, and a hundred miles from the nearest place
where there was a single Jacobite in arms.

It might have been expected that James, after thus denouncing
vengeance against large classes of his subjects, would at least
have offered a general amnesty to the rest. But of general
amnesty he said not a word. He did indeed promise that any
offender who was not in any of the categories of proscription,
and who should by any eminent service merit indulgence, should
receive a special pardon. But, with this exception, all the
offenders, hundreds of thousands in number, were merely informed
that their fate should be decided in Parliament.

The agents of James speedily dispersed his Declaration over every
part of the kingdom, and by doing so rendered a great service to
William. The general cry was that the banished oppressor had at
least given Englishmen fair warning, and that, if, after such a
warning, they welcomed him home, they would have no pretence for
complaining, though every county town should be polluted by an
assize resembling that which Jeffreys had held at Taunton. That
some hundreds of people,--the Jacobites put the number so low as
five hundred,--were to be hanged without mercy was certain; and
nobody who had concurred in the Revolution, nobody who had fought
for the new government by sea or land, no soldier who had borne a
part in the conquest of Ireland, no Devonshire ploughman or
Cornish miner who had taken arms to defend his wife and children
against Tourville, could be certain that he should not be hanged.
How abject too, how spiteful, must be the nature of a man who,
engaged in the most momentous of all undertakings, and aspiring
to the noblest of all prizes, could not refrain from proclaiming
that he thirsted for the blood of a multitude of poor fishermen,
because, more than three years before, they had pulled him about
and called him Hatchetface. If, at the very moment when he had
the strongest motives for trying to conciliate his people by the
show of clemency, he could not bring himself to hold towards them
any language but that of an implacable enemy, what was to be
expected from him when he should be again their master? So savage
was his nature that, in a situation in which all other tyrants
have resorted to blandishments and fair promises, he could utter
nothing but reproaches and threats. The only words in his
Declaration which had any show of graciousness were those in
which he promised to send away the foreign troops as soon as his
authority was reestablished; and many said that those words, when
examined, would be found full of sinister meaning. He held out no
hope that he would send away Popish troops who were his own
subjects. His intentions were manifest. The French might go; but
the Irish would remain. The people of England were to be kept
down by these thrice subjugated barbarians. No doubt a Rapparee
who had run away at Newton Butler and the Boyne might find
courage enough to guard the scaffolds on which his conquerors
were to die, and to lay waste our country as he had laid waste
his own.

The Queen and her ministers, instead of attempting to suppress
James's manifesto, very wisely reprinted it, and sent it forth
licensed by the Secretary of State, and interspersed with remarks
by a shrewd and severe commentator. It was refuted in many keen
pamphlets; it was turned into doggrel rhymes; and it was left
undefended even by the boldest and most acrimonious libellers
among the nonjurors.259

Indeed, some of the nonjurors were so much alarmed by observing
the effect which this manifesto produced, that they affected to
treat it as spurious, and published as their master's genuine
Declaration a paper full of gracious professions and promises.
They made him offer a free pardon to all his people with the
exception of four great criminals. They made him hold out hopes
of great remissions of taxation. They made him pledge his word
that he would entrust the whole ecclesiastical administration to
the nonjuring bishops. But this forgery imposed on nobody, and
was important only as showing that even the Jacobites were
ashamed of the prince whom they were labouring to restore.260

No man read the Declaration with more surprise and anger than
Russell. Bad as he was, he was much under the influence of two
feelings, which, though they cannot be called virtuous, have some
affinity to virtue, and are respectable when compared with mere
selfish cupidity. Professional spirit and party spirit were
strong in him. He might be false to his country, but not to his
flag; and, even in becoming a Jacobite, he had not ceased to be a
Whig. In truth, he was a Jacobite only because he was the most
intolerant and acrimonious of Whigs. He thought himself and his
faction ungratefully neglected by William, and was for a time too
much blinded by resentment to perceive that it would be mere
madness in the old Roundheads, the old Exclusionists, to punish
William by recalling James. The near prospect of an invasion, and
the Declaration in which Englishmen were plainly told what they
had to expect if that invasion should be successful, produced, it
should seem, a sudden and entire change in Russell's feelings;
and that change he distinctly avowed. "I wish," he said to Lloyd,
"to serve King James. The thing might be done, if it were not his
own fault. But he takes the wrong way with us. Let him forget all
the past; let him grant a general pardon; and then I will see
what I can do for him." Lloyd hinted something about the honours
and rewards designed for Russell himself. But the Admiral, with a
spirit worthy of a better man, cut him short. "I do not wish to
hear anything on that subject. My solicitude is for the public.
And do not think that I will let the French triumph over us in
our own sea. Understand this, that if I meet them I fight them,
ay, though His Majesty himself should be on board."

This conversation was truly reported to James; but it does not
appear to have alarmed him. He was, indeed, possessed with a
belief that Russell, even if willing, would not be able to induce
the officers and sailors of the English navy to fight against
their old King, who was also their old Admiral.

The hopes which James felt, he and his favourite Melfort
succeeded in imparting to Lewis and to Lewis's ministers.261 But
for those hopes, indeed, it is probable that all thoughts of
invading England in the course of that year would have been laid
aside. For the extensive plan which had been formed in the winter
had, in the course of the spring, been disconcerted by a
succession of accidents such as are beyond the control of human
wisdom. The time fixed for the assembling of all the maritime
forces of France at Ushant had long elapsed; and not a single
sail had appeared at the place of rendezvous. The Atlantic
squadron was still detained by bad weather in the port of Brest.
The Mediterranean squadron, opposed by a strong west wind, was
vainly struggling to pass the pillars of Hercules. Two fine
vessels had gone to pieces on the rocks of Ceuta.262 Meanwhile
the admiralties of the allied powers had been active. Before the
end of April the English fleet was ready to sail. Three noble
ships, just launched from our dockyards, appeared for the first
time on the water.263 William had been hastening the maritime
preparations of the United Provinces; and his exertions had been
successful. On the twenty-ninth of April a fine squadron from the
Texel appeared in the Downs. Soon came the North Holland
squadron, the Maes squadron, the Zealand squadron.264 The whole
force of the confederate powers was assembled at Saint Helen's in
the second week of May, more than ninety sail of the line, manned
by between thirty and forty thousand of the finest seamen of the
two great maritime nations. Russell had the chief command. He was
assisted by Sir Ralph Delaval, Sir John Ashley, Sir Cloudesley
Shovel, Rear Admiral Carter, and Rear Admiral Rooke. Of the Dutch
officers Van Almonde was highest in rank.

No mightier armament had ever appeared in the British Channel.
There was little reason for apprehending that such a force could
be defeated in a fair conflict. Nevertheless there was great
uneasiness in London. It was known that there was a Jacobite
party in the navy. Alarming rumours had worked their way round
from France. It was said that the enemy reckoned on the
cooperation of some of those officers on whose fidelity, in this
crisis, the safety of the State might depend. Russell, as far as
can now be discovered, was still unsuspected. But others, who
were probably less criminal, had been more indiscreet. At all the
coffee houses admirals and captains were mentioned by name as
traitors who ought to be instantly cashiered, if not shot. It was
even confidently affirmed that some of the guilty had been put
under arrest, and others turned out of the service. The Queen and
her counsellors were in a great strait. It was not easy to say
whether the danger of trusting the suspected persons or the
danger of removing them were the greater. Mary, with many painful
misgivings, resolved, and the event proved that she resolved
wisely, to treat the evil reports as calumnious, to make a solemn
appeal to the honour of the accused gentlemen, and then to trust
the safety of her kingdom to their national and professional
spirit.

On the fifteenth of May a great assembly of officers was convoked
at Saint Helen's on board the Britannia, a fine three decker,
from which Russell's flag was flying. The Admiral told them that
he had received a despatch which he was charged to read to them.
It was from Nottingham. The Queen, the Secretary wrote, had been
informed that stories deeply affecting the character of the navy
were in circulation. It had even been affirmed that she had found
herself under the necessity of dismissing many officers. But Her
Majesty was determined to believe nothing against those brave
servants of the State. The gentlemen who had been so foully
slandered might be assured that she placed entire reliance on
them. This letter was admirably calculated to work on those to
whom it was addressed. Very few of them probably had been guilty
of any worse offence than rash and angry talk over their wine.
They were as yet only grumblers. If they had fancied that they
were marked men, they might in selfdefence have become traitors.
They became enthusiastically loyal as soon as they were assured
that the Queen reposed entire confidence in their loyalty. They
eagerly signed an address in which they entreated her to believe
that they would, with the utmost resolution and alacrity, venture
their lives in defence of her rights, of English freedom and of
the Protestant religion, against all foreign and Popish invaders.
"God," they added, "preserve your person, direct your counsels,
and prosper your arms; and let all your people say Amen."265

The sincerity of these professions was soon brought to the test.
A few hours after the meeting on board of the Britannia the masts
of Tourville's squadron were seen from the cliffs of Portland.
One messenger galloped with the news from Weymouth to London, and
roused Whitehall at three in the morning. Another took the coast
road, and carried the intelligence to Russell. All was ready; and
on the morning of the seventeenth of May the allied fleet stood
out to sea.266

Tourville had with him only his own squadron, consisting of
forty-four ships of the line. But he had received positive orders
to protect the descent on England, and not to decline a battle.
Though these orders had been given before it was known at
Versailles that the Dutch and English fleets had joined, he was
not disposed to take on himself the responsibility of
disobedience. He still remembered with bitterness the reprimand
which his extreme caution had drawn upon him after the fight of
Beachy Head. He would not again be told that he was a timid and
unenterprising commander, that he had no courage but the vulgar
courage of a common sailor. He was also persuaded that the odds
against him were rather apparent than real. He believed, on the
authority of James and Melfort, that the English seamen, from the
flag officers down to the cabin boys, were Jacobites. Those who
fought would fight with half a heart; and there would probably be
numerous desertions at the most critical moment. Animated by such
hopes he sailed from Brest, steered first towards the north east,
came in sight of the coast of Dorsetshire, and then struck across
the Channel towards La Hogue, where the army which he was to
convoy to England had already begun to embark on board of the
transports. He was within a few leagues of Barfleur when, before
daybreak, on the morning of the nineteenth of May, he saw the
great armament of the allies stretching along the eastern
horizon. He determined to bear down on them. By eight the two
lines of battle were formed; but it was eleven before the firing
began. It soon became plain that the English, from the Admiral
downward, were resolved to do their duty. Russell had visited all
his ships, and exhorted all his crews. "If your commanders play
false," he said, "overboard with them, and with myself the
first." There was no defection. There was no slackness. Carter
was the first who broke the French line. He was struck by a
splinter of one of his own yard arms, and fell dying on the deck.
He would not be carried below. He would not let go his sword.
"Fight the ship," were his last words: "fight the ship as long as
she can swim." The battle lasted till four in the afternoon. The
roar of the guns was distinctly heard more than twenty miles off
by the army which was encamped on the coast of Normandy. During
the earlier part of the day the wind was favourable to the
French; they were opposed to half of the allied fleet; and
against that half they maintained the conflict with their usual
courage and with more than their usual seamanship. After a hard
and doubtful fight of five hours, Tourville thought that enough
had been done to maintain the honour of the white flag, and began
to draw off. But by this time the wind had veered, and was with
the allies. They were now able to avail themselves of their great
superiority of force. They came on fast. The retreat of the
French became a flight. Tourville fought his own ship
desperately. She was named, in allusion to Lewis's favourite
emblem, the Royal Sun, and was widely renowned as the finest
vessel in the world. It was reported among the English sailors
that she was adorned with an image of the Great King, and that he
appeared there, as he appeared in the Place of Victories, with
vanquished nations in chains beneath his feet. The gallant ship,
surrounded by enemies, lay like a great fortress on the sea,
scattering death on every side from her hundred and four
portholes. She was so formidably manned that all attempts to
board her failed. Long after sunset, she got clear of her
assailants, and, with all her scuppers spouting blood, made for
the coast of Normandy. She had suffered so much that Tourville
hastily removed his flag to a ship of ninety guns which was named
the Ambitious. By this time his fleet was scattered far over the
sea. About twenty of his smallest ships made their escape by a
road which was too perilous for any courage but the courage of
despair. In the double darkness of night and of a thick sea fog,
they ran, with all their sails spread, through the boiling waves
and treacherous rocks of the Race of Alderney, and, by a strange
good fortune, arrived without a single disaster at Saint Maloes.
The pursuers did not venture to follow the fugitives into that
terrible strait, the place of innumerable shipwrecks.267