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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Those French vessels which were too bulky to venture into the
Race of Alderney fled to the havens of the Cotentin. The Royal
Sun and two other three deckers reached Cherburg in safety. The
Ambitious, with twelve other ships, all first rates or second
rates, took refuge in the Bay of La Hogue, close to the
headquarters of the army of James.

The three ships which had fled to Cherburg were closely chased by
an English squadron under the command of Delaval. He found them
hauled up into shoal water where no large man of war could get at
them. He therefore determined to attack them with his fireships
and boats. The service was gallantly and successfully performed.
In a short time the Royal Sun and her two consorts were burned to
ashes. Part of the crews escaped to the shore; and part fell into
the hands of the English.268

Meanwhile Russell with the greater part of his victorious fleet
had blockaded the Bay of La Hogue. Here, as at Cherburg, the
French men of war had been drawn up into shallow water. They lay
close to the camp of the army which was destined for the invasion
of England. Six of them were moored under a fort named Lisset.
The rest lay under the guns of another fort named Saint Vaast,
where James had fixed his headquarters, and where the Union flag,
variegated by the crosses of Saint George and Saint Andrew, hung
by the side of the white flag of France. Marshal Bellefonds had
planted several batteries which, it was thought, would deter the
boldest enemy from approaching either Fort Lisset or Fort Saint
Vaast. James, however, who knew something of English seamen, was
not perfectly at ease, and proposed to send strong bodies of
soldiers on board of the ships. But Tourville would not consent
to put such a slur on his profession.

Russell meanwhile was preparing for an attack. On the afternoon
of the twenty-third of May all was ready. A flotilla consisting
of sloops, of fireships, and of two hundred boats, was entrusted
to the command of Rooke. The whole armament was in the highest
spirits. The rowers, flushed by success, and animated by the
thought that they were going to fight under the eyes of the
French and Irish troops who had been assembled for the purpose of
subjugating England, pulled manfully and with loud huzzas towards
the six huge wooden castles which lay close to Fort Lisset. The
French, though an eminently brave people, have always been more
liable to sudden panics than their phlegmatic neighbours the
English and Germans. On this day there was a panic both in the
fleet and in the army. Tourville ordered his sailors to man their
boats, and would have led them to encounter the enemy in the bay.
But his example and his exhortations were vain. His boats turned
round and fled in confusion. The ships were abandoned. The
cannonade from Fort Lisset was so feeble and ill directed that it
did no execution. The regiments on the beach, after wasting a few
musket shots, drew off. The English boarded the men of war, set
them on fire, and having performed this great service without the
loss of a single life, retreated at a late hour with the
retreating tide. The bay was in a blaze during the night; and now
and then a loud explosion announced that the flames had reached a
powder room or a tier of loaded guns. At eight the next morning
the tide came back strong; and with the tide came back Rooke and
his two hundred boats. The enemy made a faint attempt to defend
the vessels which were near Fort Saint Vaast. During a few
minutes the batteries did some execution among the crews of our
skiffs; but the struggle was soon over. The French poured fast
out of their ships on one side; the English poured in as fast on
the other, and, with loud shouts, turned the captured guns
against the shore. The batteries were speedily silenced. James
and Melfort, Bellefonds and Tourville, looked on in helpless
despondency while the second conflagration proceeded. The
conquerors, leaving the ships of war in flames, made their way
into an inner basin where many transports lay. Eight of these
vessels were set on fire. Several were taken in tow. The rest
would have been either destroyed or carried off, had not the sea
again begun to ebb. It was impossible to do more, and the
victorious flotilla slowly retired, insulting the hostile camp
with a thundering chant of "God save the King."

Thus ended, at noon on the twenty-fourth of May, the great
conflict which had raged during five days over a wide extent of
sea and shore. One English fireship had perished in its calling.
Sixteen French men of war, all noble vessels, and eight of them
three-deckers, had been sunk or burned down to the keel. The
battle is called, from the place where it terminated, the battle
of La Hogue.269

The news was received in London with boundless exultation. In the
fight on the open sea, indeed, the numerical superiority of the
allies had been so great that they had little reason to boast of
their success. But the courage and skill with which the crews of
the English boats had, in a French harbour, in sight of a French
army, and under the fire of French batteries, destroyed a fine
French fleet, amply justified the pride with which our fathers
pronounced the name of La Hogue. That we may fully enter into
their feelings, we must remember that this was the first great
check that had ever been given to the arms of Lewis the
Fourteenth, and the first great victory that the English had
gained over the French since the day of Agincourt. The stain left
on our fame by the shameful defeat of Beachy Head was effaced.
This time the glory was all our own. The Dutch had indeed done
their duty, as they have always done it in maritime war, whether
fighting on our side or against us, whether victorious or
vanquished. But the English had borne the brunt of the fight.
Russell who commanded in chief was an Englishman. Delaval who
directed the attack on Cherburg was an Englishman. Rooke who led
the flotilla into the Bay of La Hogue was an Englishman. The only
two officers of note who had fallen, Admiral Carter and Captain
Hastings of the Sandwich, were Englishmen. Yet the pleasure with
which the good news was received here must not be ascribed solely
or chiefly to national pride. The island was safe. The pleasant
pastures, cornfields and commons of Hampshire and Surrey would
not be the seat of war. The houses and gardens, the kitchens and
dairies, the cellars and plate chests, the wives and daughters of
our gentry and clergy would not be at the mercy of Irish
Rapparees, who had sacked the dwellings and skinned the cattle of
the Englishry of Leinster, or of French dragoons accustomed to
live at free quarters on the Protestants of Auvergne. Whigs and
Tories joined in thanking God for this great deliverance; and the
most respectable nonjurors could not but be glad at heart that
the rightful King was not to be brought back by an army of
foreigners.

The public joy was therefore all but universal. During several
days the bells of London pealed without ceasing. Flags were
flying on all the steeples. Rows of candles were in all the
windows. Bonfires were at all the corners of the streets.270 The
sense which the government entertained of the services of the
navy was promptly, judiciously and gracefully manifested. Sidney
and Portland were sent to meet the fleet at Portsmouth, and were
accompanied by Rochester, as the representative of the Tories.
The three Lords took down with them thirty-seven thousand pounds
in coin, which they were to distribute as a donative among the
sailors.271 Gold medals were given to the officers.272 The
remains of Hastings and Carter were brought on shore with every
mark of honour. Carter was buried at Portsmouth, with a great
display of military pomp.273 The corpse of Hastings was brought
up to London, and laid, with unusual solemnity, under the
pavement of Saint James's Church. The footguards with reversed
arms escorted the hearse. Four royal state carriages, each drawn
by six horses, were in the procession; a crowd of men of quality
in mourning cloaks filled the pews; and the Bishop of Lincoln
preached the funeral sermon.274 While such marks of respect were
paid to the slain, the wounded were not neglected. Fifty
surgeons, plentifully supplied with instruments, bandages, and
drugs, were sent down in all haste from London to Portsmouth.275
It is not easy for us to form a notion of the difficulty which
there then was in providing at short notice commodious shelter
and skilful attendance for hundreds of maimed and lacerated men.
At present every county, every large town, can boast of some
spacious palace in which the poorest labourer who has fractured a
limb may find an excellent bed, an able medical attendant, a
careful nurse, medicines of the best quality, and nourishment
such as an invalid requires. But there was not then, in the whole
realm, a single infirmary supported by voluntary contribution.
Even in the capital the only edifices open to the wounded were
the two ancient hospitals of Saint Thomas and Saint Bartholomew.
The Queen gave orders that in both these hospitals arrangements
should be made at the public charge for the reception of patients
from the fleet.276 At the same time it was announced that a noble
and lasting memorial of the gratitude which England felt for the
courage and patriotism of her sailors would soon rise on a site
eminently appropriate. Among the suburban residences of our
kings, that which stood at Greenwich had long held a
distinguished place. Charles the Second liked the situation, and
determined to rebuild the house and to improve the gardens. Soon
after his Restoration, he began to erect, on a spot almost washed
by the Thames at high tide, a mansion of vast extent and cost.
Behind the palace were planted long avenues of trees which, when
William reigned, were scarcely more than saplings, but which have
now covered with their massy shade the summer rambles of several
generations. On the slope which has long been the scene of the
holiday sports of the Londoners, were constructed flights of
terraces, of which the vestiges may still be discerned. The Queen
now publicly declared, in her husband's name, that the building
commenced by Charles should be completed, and should be a retreat
for seamen disabled in the service of their country.277

One of the happiest effects produced by the good news was the
calming of the public mind. During about a month the nation had
been hourly expecting an invasion and a rising, and had
consequently been in an irritable and suspicious mood. In many
parts of England a nonjuror could not show himself without great
risk of being insulted. A report that arms were hidden in a house
sufficed to bring a furious mob to the door. The mansion of one
Jacobite gentleman in Kent had been attacked, and, after a fight
in which several shots were fired, had been stormed and pulled
down.278 Yet such riots were by no means the worst symptoms of
the fever which had inflamed the whole society. The exposure of
Fuller, in February, had, as it seemed, put an end to the
practices of that vile tribe of which Oates was the patriarch.
During some weeks, indeed, the world was disposed to be
unreasonably incredulous about plots. But in April there was a
reaction. The French and Irish were coming. There was but too
much reason to believe that there were traitors in the island.
Whoever pretended that he could point out those traitors was sure
to be heard with attention; and there was not wanting a false
witness to avail himself of the golden opportunity.

This false witness was named Robert Young. His history was in his
own lifetime so fully investigated, and so much of his
correspondence has been preserved, that the whole man is before
us. His character is indeed a curious study. His birthplace was a
subject of dispute among three nations. The English pronounced
him Irish. The Irish, not being ambitious of the honour of having
him for a countryman, affirmed that he was born in Scotland.
Wherever he may have been born, it is impossible to doubt where
he was bred; for his phraseology is precisely that of the Teagues
who were, in his time, favourite characters on our stage. He
called himself a priest of the Established Church; but he was in
truth only a deacon; and his deacon's orders he had obtained by
producing forged certificates of his learning and moral
character. Long before the Revolution he held curacies in various
parts of Ireland; but he did not remain many days in any spot. He
was driven from one place by the scandal which was the effect of
his lawless amours. He rode away from another place on a borrowed
horse, which he never returned. He settled in a third parish, and
was taken up for bigamy. Some letters which he wrote on this
occasion from the gaol of Cavan have been preserved. He assured
each of his wives, with the most frightful imprecations, that she
alone was the object of his love; and he thus succeeded in
inducing one of them to support him in prison, and the other to
save his life by forswearing herself at the assizes. The only
specimens which remain to us of his method of imparting religious
instruction are to be found in these epistles. He compares
himself to David, the man after God's own heart, who had been
guilty both of adultery and murder. He declares that he repents;
he prays for the forgiveness of the Almighty, and then intreats
his dear honey, for Christ's sake, to perjure herself. Having
narrowly escaped the gallows, he wandered during several years
about Ireland and England, begging, stealing, cheating,
personating, forging, and lay in many prisons under many names. In
1684 he was convicted at Bury of having fraudulently
counterfeited Sancroft's signature, and was sentenced to the
pillory and to imprisonment. From his dungeon he wrote to implore
the Primate's mercy. The letter may still be read with all the
original bad grammar and bad spelling.279 The writer acknowledged
his guilt, wished that his eyes were a fountain of water,
declared that he should never know peace till he had received
episcopal absolution, and professed a mortal hatred of
Dissenters. As all this contrition and all this orthodoxy
produced no effect, the penitent, after swearing bitterly to be
revenged on Sancroft, betook himself to another device. The
Western Insurrection had just broken out. The magistrates all
over the country were but too ready to listen to any accusation
that might be brought against Whigs and Nonconformists. Young
declared on oath that, to his knowledge, a design had been formed
in Suffolk against the life of King James, and named a peer,
several gentlemen, and ten Presbyterian ministers, as parties to
the plot. Some of the accused were brought to trial; and Young
appeared in the witness box; but the story which he told was
proved by overwhelming evidence to be false. Soon after the
Revolution he was again convicted of forgery, pilloried for the
fourth or fifth time, and sent to Newgate. While he lay there, he
determined to try whether he should be more fortunate as an
accuser of Jacobites than he had been as an accuser of Puritans.
He first addressed himself to Tillotson. There was a horrible
plot against their Majesties, a plot as deep as hell; and some of
the first men in England were concerned in it. Tillotson, though
he placed little confidence in information coming from such a
source, thought that the oath which he had taken as a Privy
Councillor made it his duty to mention the subject to William.
William, after his fashion, treated the matter very lightly. "I
am confident," he said, "that this is a villany; and I will have
nobody disturbed on such grounds." After this rebuff, Young
remained some time quiet. But when William was on the Continent,
and when the nation was agitated by the apprehension of a French
invasion and of a Jacobite insurrection, a false accuser might
hope to obtain a favourable audience. The mere oath of a man who
was well known to the turnkeys of twenty gaols was not likely to
injure any body. But Young was master of a weapon which is, of
all weapons, the most formidable to innocence. He had lived
during some years by counterfeiting hands, and had at length
attained such consummate skill in that bad art that even
experienced clerks who were conversant with manuscript could
scarcely, after the most minute comparison, discover any
difference between his imitations and the originals. He had
succeeded in making a collection of papers written by men of note
who were suspected of disaffection. Some autographs he had
stolen; and some he had obtained by writing in feigned names to
ask after the characters of servants or curates. He now drew up a
paper purporting to be an Association for the Restoration of the
banished King. This document set forth that the subscribers bound
themselves in the presence of God to take arms for His Majesty,
and to seize on the Prince of Orange, dead or alive. To the
Association Young appended the names of Marlborough, of Cornbury,
of Salisbury, of Sancroft, and of Sprat, Bishop of Rochester and
Dean of Westminster.

The next thing to be done was to put the paper into some hiding
place in the house of one of the persons whose signatures had
been counterfeited. As Young could not quit Newgate, he was
forced to employ a subordinate agent for this purpose. He
selected a wretch named Blackhead, who had formerly been
convicted of perjury and sentenced to have his ears clipped. The
selection was not happy; for Blackhead had none of the qualities
which the trade of a false witness requires except wickedness.
There was nothing plausible about him. His voice was harsh.
Treachery was written in all the lines of his yellow face. He had
no invention, no presence of mind, and could do little more than
repeat by rote the lies taught him by others.

This man, instructed by his accomplice, repaired to Sprat's
palace at Bromley, introduced himself there as the confidential
servant of an imaginary Doctor of Divinity, delivered to the
Bishop, on bended knee, a letter ingeniously manufactured by
Young, and received, with the semblance of profound reverence,
the episcopal benediction. The servants made the stranger
welcome. He was taken to the cellar, drank their master's health,
and entreated them to let him see the house. They could not
venture to show any of the private apartments. Blackhead,
therefore, after begging importunately, but in vain, to be
suffered to have one look at the study, was forced to content
himself with dropping the Association into a flowerpot which
stood in a parlour near the kitchen.

Every thing having been thus prepared, Young informed the
ministers that he could tell them something of the highest
importance to the welfare of the State, and earnestly begged to
be heard. His request reached them on perhaps the most anxious
day of an anxious month. Tourville had just stood out to sea. The
army of James was embarking. London was agitated by reports about
the disaffection of the naval officers. The Queen was
deliberating whether she should cashier those who were suspected,
or try the effect of an appeal to their honour and patriotism. At
such a moment the ministers could not refuse to listen to any
person who professed himself able to give them valuable
information. Young and his accomplice were brought before the
Privy Council. They there accused Marlborough, Cornbury,
Salisbury, Sancroft and Sprat of high treason. These great men,
Young said, had invited James to invade England, and had promised
to join him. The eloquent and ingenious Bishop of Rochester had
undertaken to draw up a Declaration which would inflame the
nation against the government of King William. The conspirators
were bound together by a written instrument. That instrument,
signed by their own hands, would be found at Bromley if careful
search was made. Young particularly requested that the messengers
might be ordered to examine the Bishop's flowerpots.

The ministers were seriously alarmed. The story was
circumstantial; and part of it was probable. Marlborough's
dealings with Saint Germains were well known to Caermarthen, to
Nottingham, and to Sidney. Cornbury was a tool of Marlborough,
and was the son of a nonjuror and of a notorious plotter.
Salisbury was a Papist. Sancroft had, not many months before,
been, with too much show of reason, suspected of inviting the
French to invade England. Of all the accused persons Sprat was
the most unlikely to be concerned in any hazardous design. He had
neither enthusiasm nor constancy. Both his ambition and his party
spirit had always been effectually kept in order by his love of
ease and his anxiety for his own safety. He had been guilty of
some criminal compliances in the hope of gaining the favour of
James, had sate in the High Commission, had concurred in several
iniquitous decrees pronounced by that court, and had, with
trembling hands and faltering voice, read the Declaration of
Indulgence in the choir of the Abbey. But there he had stopped.
As soon as it began to be whispered that the civil and religious
constitution of England would speedily be vindicated by
extraordinary means, he had resigned the powers which he had
during two years exercised in defiance of law, and had hastened
to make his peace with his clerical brethren. He had in the
Convention voted for a Regency; but he had taken the oaths
without hesitation; he had borne a conspicuous part in the
coronation of the new Sovereigns; and by his skilful hand had
been added to the Form of Prayer used on the fifth of November
those sentences in which the Church expresses her gratitude for
the second great deliverance wrought on that day.280 Such a man,
possessed of a plentiful income, of a seat in the House of Lords,
of one agreeable house among the elms of Bromley, and of another
in the cloisters of Westminster, was very unlikely to run the
risk of martyrdom. He was not, indeed, on perfectly good terms
with the government. For the feeling which, next to solicitude
for his own comfort and repose, seems to have had the greatest
influence on his public conduct, was his dislike of the Puritans;
a dislike which sprang, not from bigotry, but from Epicureanism.
Their austerity was a reproach to his slothful and luxurious
life; their phraseology shocked his fastidious taste; and, where
they were concerned, his ordinary good nature forsook him.
Loathing the nonconformists as he did, he was not likely to be
very zealous for a prince whom the nonconformists regarded as
their protector. But Sprat's faults afforded ample security that
he would never, from spleen against William, engage in any plot
to bring back James. Why Young should have assigned the most
perilous part in an enterprise full of peril to a man singularly
pliant, cautious and selfindulgent, it is difficult to say.

The first step which the ministers took was to send Marlborough
to the Tower. He was by far the most formidable of all the
accused persons; and that he had held a traitorous correspondence
with Saint Germains was a fact which, whether Young were perjured
or not, the Queen and her chief advisers knew to be true. One of
the Clerks of the Council and several messengers were sent down
to Bromley with a warrant from Nottingham. Sprat was taken into
custody. All the apartments in which it could reasonably be
supposed that he would have hidden an important document were
searched, the library, the diningroom, the drawingroom, the
bedchamber, and the adjacent closets. His papers were strictly
examined. Much food prose was found, and probably some bad verse,
but no treason. The messengers pried into every flowerpot that
they could find, but to no purpose. It never occurred to them to
look into the room in which Blackhead had hidden the Association:
for that room was near the offices occupied by the servants, and
was little used by the Bishop and his family. The officers
returned to London with their prisoner, but without the document
which, if it had been found, might have been fatal to him.

Late at night he was brought to Westminster, and was suffered to
sleep at his deanery. All his bookcases and drawers were
examined; and sentinels were posted at the door of his
bedchamber, but with strict orders to behave civilly and not to
disturb the family.

On the following day he was brought before the Council. The
examination was conducted by Nottingham with great humanity and
courtesy. The Bishop, conscious of entire innocence, behaved with
temper and firmness. He made no complaints. "I submit," he said,
"to the necessities of State in such a time of jealousy and
danger as this." He was asked whether he had drawn up a
Declaration for King James, whether he had held any
correspondence with France, whether he had signed any treasonable
association, and whether he knew of any such association. To all
these questions he, with perfect truth, answered in the negative,
on the word of a Christian and a Bishop. He was taken back to his
deanery. He remained there in easy confinement during ten days,
and then, as nothing tending to criminate him had been
discovered, was suffered to return to Bromley.