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

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62

The armament which had returned to Portsmouth soon sailed again
for the coast of France, but achieved only exploits worse than
inglorious. An attempt was made to blow up the pier at Dunkirk.
Some towns inhabited by quiet tradesmen and fishermen were
bombarded. In Dieppe scarcely a house was left standing; a third
part of Havre was laid in ashes; and shells were thrown into
Calais which destroyed thirty private dwellings. The French and
the Jacobites loudly exclaimed against the cowardice and
barbarity of making war on an unwarlike population. The English
government vindicated itself by reminding the world of the
sufferings of the thrice wasted Palatinate; and, as against Lewis
and the flatterers of Lewis, the vindication was complete. But
whether it were consistent with humanity and with sound policy to
visit the crimes which an absolute Prince and a ferocious
soldiery had committed in the Palatinate on shopkeepers and
labourers, on women and children, who did not know that the
Palatinate existed, may perhaps be doubted.

Meanwhile Russell's fleet was rendering good service to the
common cause. Adverse winds had impeded his progress through the
Straits so long that he did not reach Carthagena till the middle
of July. By that time the progress of the French arms had spread
terror even to the Escurial. Noailles had, on the banks of the
Tar, routed an army commanded by the Viceroy of Catalonia; and,
on the day on which this victory was won, the Brest squadron had
joined the Toulon squadron in the Bay of Rosas. Palamos, attacked
at once by land and sea, was taken by storm. Gerona capitulated
after a faint show of resistance. Ostalric surrendered at the
first summons. Barcelona would in all probability have fallen,
had not the French Admirals learned that the conquerors of La
Hogue was approaching. They instantly quitted the coast of
Catalonia, and never thought themselves safe till they had taken
shelter under the batteries of Toulon.

The Spanish government expressed warm gratitude for this
seasonable assistance, and presented to the English Admiral a
jewel which was popularly said to be worth near twenty thousand
pounds sterling. There was no difficulty in finding such a jewel
among the hoards of gorgeous trinkets which had been left by
Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second to a degenerate race.
But, in all that constitutes the true wealth of states, Spain was
poor indeed. Her treasury was empty; her arsenals were
unfurnished; her ships were so rotten that they seemed likely to
fly asunder at the discharge of their own guns. Her ragged and
starving soldiers often mingled with the crowd of beggars at the
doors of convents, and battled there for a mess of pottage and a
crust of bread. Russell underwent those trials which no English
commander whose hard fate it has been to cooperate with Spaniards
has escaped. The Viceroy of Catalonia promised much, did nothing,
and expected every thing. He declared that three hundred and
fifty thousand rations were ready to be served out to the fleet
at Carthagena. It turned out that there were not in all the
stores of that port provisions sufficient to victual a single
frigate for a single week. Yet His Excellency thought himself
entitled to complain because England had not sent an army as well
as a fleet, and because the heretic Admiral did not choose to
expose the fleet to utter destruction by attacking the French
under the guns of Toulon. Russell implored the Spanish
authorities to look well to their dockyards, and to try to have,
by the next spring, a small squadron which might at least be able
to float; but he could not prevail on them to careen a single
ship. He could with difficulty obtain, on hard conditions,
permission to send a few of his sick men to marine hospitals on
shore. Yet, in spite of all the trouble given him by the
imbecility and ingratitude of a government which has generally
caused more annoyance to its allies than to its enemies, he
acquitted himself well. It is but just to him to say that, from
the time at which he became First Lord of the Admiralty, there
was a decided improvement in the naval administration. Though he
lay with his fleet many months near an inhospitable shore, and at
a great distance from England, there were no complaints about the
quality or the quantity of provisions. The crews had better food
and drink than they had ever had before; comforts which Spain did
not afford were supplied from home; and yet the charge was not
greater than when, in Torrington's time, the sailor was poisoned
with mouldy biscuit and nauseous beer.

As almost the whole maritime force of France was in the
Mediterranean, and as it seemed likely that an attempt would be
made on Barcelona in the following year, Russell received orders
to winter at Cadiz. In October he sailed to that port; and there
he employed himself in refitting his ships with an activity
unintelligible to the Spanish functionaries, who calmly suffered
the miserable remains of what had once been the greatest navy in
the world to rot under their eyes.535

Along the eastern frontier of France the war during this year
seemed to languish. In Piedmont and on the Rhine the most
important events of the campaign were petty skirmishes and
predatory incursions. Lewis remained at Versailles, and sent his
son, the Dauphin, to represent him in the Netherlands; but the
Dauphin was placed under the tutelage of Luxemburg, and proved a
most submissive pupil. During several months the hostile armies
observed each other. The allies made one bold push with the
intention of carrying the war into the French territory; but
Luxemburg, by a forced march, which excited the admiration of
persons versed in the military art, frustrated the design.
William on the other hand succeeded in taking Huy, then a
fortress of the third rank. No battle was fought; no important
town was besieged; but the confederates were satisfied with their
campaign. Of the four previous years every one had been marked by
some great disaster. In 1690 Waldeck had been defeated at
Fleurus. In 1691 Mons had fallen. In 1692 Namur had been taken in
sight of the allied army; and this calamity had been speedily
followed by the defeat of Steinkirk. In 1693 the battle of Landen
had been lost; and Charleroy had submitted to the conqueror. At
length in 1694 the tide had begun to turn. The French arms had
made no progress. What had been gained by the allies was indeed
not much; but the smallest gain was welcome to those whom a long
run of evil fortune had discouraged.

In England, the general opinion was that, notwithstanding the
disaster in Camaret Bay, the war was on the whole proceeding
satisfactorily both by land and by sea. But some parts of the
internal administration excited, during this autumn, much
discontent.

Since Trenchard had been appointed Secretary of State, the
Jacobite agitators had found their situation much more unpleasant
than before. Sidney had been too indulgent and too fond of
pleasure to give them much trouble. Nottingham was a diligent and
honest minister; but he was as high a Tory as a faithful subject
of William and Mary could be; he loved and esteemed many of the
nonjurors; and, though he might force himself to be severe when
nothing but severity could save the State, he was not extreme to
mark the transgressions of his old friends; nor did he encourage
talebearers to come to Whitehall with reports of conspiracies.
But Trenchard was both an active public servant and an earnest
Whig. Even if he had himself been inclined to lenity, he would
have been urged to severity by those who surrounded him. He had
constantly at his side Hugh Speke and Aaron Smith, men to whom a
hunt after a Jacobite was the most exciting of all sports. The
cry of the malecontents was that Nottingham had kept his
bloodhounds in the leash, but that Trenchard had let them slip.
Every honest gentleman who loved the Church and hated the Dutch
went in danger of his life. There was a constant bustle at the
Secretary's Office, a constant stream of informers coming in, and
of messengers with warrants going out. It was said too, that the
warrants were often irregularly drawn, that they did not specify
the person, that they did not specify the crime, and yet that,
under the authority of such instruments as these, houses were
entered, desks and cabinets searched, valuable papers carried
away, and men of good birth and breeding flung into gaol among
felons.536 The minister and his agents answered that Westminster
Hall was open; that, if any man had been illegally imprisoned, he
had only to bring his action; that juries were quite sufficiently
disposed to listen to any person who pretended to have been
oppressed by cruel and griping men in power, and that, as none of
the prisoners whose wrongs were so pathetically described had
ventured to resort to this obvious and easy mode of obtaining
redress, it might fairly be inferred that nothing had been done
which could not be justified. The clamour of the malecontents
however made a considerable impression on the public mind; and at
length, a transaction in which Trenchard was more unlucky than
culpable, brought on him and on the government with which he was
connected much temporary obloquy.

Among the informers who haunted his office was an Irish vagabond
who had borne more than one name and had professed more than one
religion. He now called himself Taaffe. He had been a priest of
the Roman Catholic Church, and secretary to Adda the Papal
Nuncio, but had since the Revolution turned Protestant, had taken
a wife, and had distinguished himself by his activity in
discovering the concealed property of those Jesuits and
Benedictines who, during the late reign, had been quartered in
London. The ministers despised him; but they trusted him. They
thought that he had, by his apostasy, and by the part which he
had borne in the spoliation of the religious orders, cut himself
off from all retreat, and that, having nothing but a halter to
expect from King James, he must be true to King William.537

This man fell in with a Jacobite agent named Lunt, who had, since
the Revolution, been repeatedly employed among the discontented
gentry of Cheshire and Lancashire, and who had been privy to
those plans of insurrection which had been disconcerted by the
battle of the Boyne in 1690, and by the battle of La Hogue in
1692. Lunt had once been arrested on suspicion of treason, but
had been discharged for want of legal proof of his guilt. He was
a mere hireling, and was, without much difficulty, induced by
Taaffe to turn approver. The pair went to Trenchard. Lunt told
his story, mentioned the names of some Cheshire and Lancashire
squires to whom he had, as he affirmed, carried commissions from
Saint Germains, and of others, who had, to his knowledge, formed
secret hoards of arms and ammunition. His simple oath would not
have been sufficient to support a charge of high treason; but he
produced another witness whose evidence seemed to make the case
complete. The narrative was plausible and coherent; and indeed,
though it may have been embellished by fictions, there can be
little doubt that it was in substance true.538 Messengers and
search warrants were sent down to Lancashire. Aaron Smith himself
went thither; and Taaffe went with him. The alarm had been given
by some of the numerous traitors who ate the bread of William.
Some of the accused persons had fled; and others had buried their
sabres and muskets and burned their papers. Nevertheless,
discoveries were made which confirmed Lunt's depositions. Behind
the wainscot of the old mansion of one Roman Catholic family was
discovered a commission signed by James. Another house, of which
the master had absconded, was strictly searched, in spite of the
solemn asseverations of his wife and his servants that no arms
were concealed there. While the lady, with her hand on her heart,
was protesting on her honour that her husband was falsely
accused, the messengers observed that the back of the chimney did
not seem to be firmly fixed. It was removed, and a heap of blades
such as were used by horse soldiers tumbled out. In one of the
garrets were found, carefully bricked up, thirty saddles for
troopers, as many breastplates, and sixty cavalry swords.
Trenchard and Aaron Smith thought the case complete; and it was
determined that those culprits who had been apprehended should be
tried by a special commission.539

Taaffe now confidently expected to be recompensed for his
services; but he found a cold reception at the Treasury. He had
gone down to Lancashire chiefly in order that he might, under the
protection of a search warrant, pilfer trinkets and broad pieces
from secret drawers. His sleight of hand however had not
altogether escaped the observation of his companions. They
discovered that he had made free with the communion plate of the
Popish families, whose private hoards he had assisted in
ransacking. When therefore he applied for reward, he was
dismissed, not merely with a refusal, but with a stern reprimand.
He went away mad with greediness and spite. There was yet one way
in which he might obtain both money and revenge; and that way he
took. He made overtures to the friends of the prisoners. He and
he alone could undo what he had done, could save the accused from
the gallows, could cover the accusers with infamy, could drive
from office the Secretary and the Solicitor who were the dread of
all the friends of King James. Loathsome as Taaffe was to the
Jacobites, his offer was not to be slighted. He received a sum in
hand; he was assured that a comfortable annuity for life should
be settled on him when the business was done; and he was sent
down into the country, and kept in strict seclusion against the
day of trial.540

Meanwhile unlicensed pamphlets, in which the Lancashire plot was
classed with Oates's plot, with Dangerfield's plot, with Fuller's
plot, with Young's plot, with Whitney's plot, were circulated all
over the kingdom, and especially in the county which was to
furnish the jury. Of these pamphlets the longest, the ablest, and
the bitterest, entitled a Letter to Secretary Trenchard, was
commonly ascribed to Ferguson. It is not improbable that Ferguson
may have furnished some of the materials, and may have conveyed
the manuscript to the press. But many passages are written with
an art and a vigour which assuredly did not belong to him. Those
who judge by internal evidence may perhaps think that, in some
parts of this remarkable tract, they can discern the last gleam
of the malignant genius of Montgomery. A few weeks after the
appearance of the Letter he sank, unhonoured and unlamented, into
the grave.541

There were then no printed newspapers except the London Gazette.
But since the Revolution the newsletter had become a more
important political engine than it had previously been. The
newsletters of one writer named Dyer were widely circulated in
manuscript. He affected to be a Tory and a High Churchman, and
was consequently regarded by the foxhunting lords of manors, all
over the kingdom, as an oracle. He had already been twice in
prison; but his gains had more than compensated for his
sufferings, and he still persisted in seasoning his intelligence
to suit the taste of the country gentlemen. He now turned the
Lancashire plot into ridicule, declared that the guns which had
been found were old fowling pieces, that the saddles were meant
only for hunting, and that the swords were rusty reliques of Edge
Hill and Marston Moor.542 The effect produced by all this
invective and sarcasm on the public mind seems to have been
great. Even at the Dutch Embassy, where assuredly there was no
leaning towards Jacobitism, there was a strong impression that it
would be unwise to bring the prisoners to trial. In Lancashire
and Cheshire the prevailing sentiments were pity for the accused
and hatred of the prosecutors. The government however persevered.
In October four Judges went down to Manchester. At present the
population of that town is made up of persons born in every part
of the British Isles, and consequently has no especial sympathy
with the landowners, the farmers and the agricultural labourers
of the neighbouring districts. But in the seventeenth century the
Manchester man was a Lancashire man. His politics were those of
his county. For the old Cavalier families of his county he felt a
great respect; and he was furious when he thought that some of
the best blood of his county was about to be shed by a knot of
Roundhead pettifoggers from London. Multitudes of people from the
neighbouring villages filled the streets of the town, and saw
with grief and indignation the array of drawn swords and loaded
carbines which surrounded the culprits. Aaron Smith's
arrangements do not seem to have been skilful. The chief counsel
for the Crown was Sir William Williams, who, though now well
stricken in years and possessed of a great estate, still
continued to practise. One fault had thrown a dark shade over the
latter part of his life. The recollection of that day on which he
had stood up in Westminster Hall, amidst laughter and hooting, to
defend the dispensing power and to attack the right of petition,
had, ever since the Revolution, kept him back from honour. He was
an angry and disappointed man, and was by no means disposed to
incur unpopularity in the cause of a government to which he owed
nothing, and from which he hoped nothing.

Of the trial no detailed report has come down to us; but we have
both a Whig narrative and a Jacobite narrative.543 It seems that
the prisoners who were first arraigned did not sever in their
challenges, and were consequently tried together. Williams
examined or rather crossexamined his own witnesses with a
severity which confused them. The crowd which filled the court
laughed and clamoured. Lunt in particular became completely
bewildered, mistook one person for another, and did not recover
himself till the judges took him out of the hands of the counsel
for the Crown. For some of the prisoners an alibi was set up.
Evidence was also produced to show, what was undoubtedly quite
true, that Lunt was a man of abandoned character. The result
however seemed doubtful till, to the dismay of the prosecutors,
Taaffe entered the box. He swore with unblushing forehead that
the whole story of the plot was a circumstantial lie devised by
himself and Lunt. Williams threw down his brief; and, in truth, a
more honest advocate might well have done the same. The prisoners
who were at the bar were instantly acquitted; those who had not
yet been tried were set at liberty; the witnesses for the
prosecution were pelted out of Manchester; the Clerk of the Crown
narrowly escaped with life; and the judges took their departure
amidst hisses and execrations.

A few days after the close of the trials at Manchester William
returned to England. On the twelfth of November, only forty-eight
hours after his arrival at Kensington, the Houses met. He
congratulated them on the improved aspect of affairs. Both by
land and by sea the events of the year which was about to close
had been, on the whole, favourable to the allies; the French
armies had made no progress; the French fleets had not ventured
to show themselves; nevertheless, a safe and honourable peace
could be obtained only by a vigorous prosecution of the war; and
the war could not be vigorously prosecuted without large
supplies. William then reminded the Commons that the Act by which
they had settled the tonnage and poundage on the Crown for four
years was about to expire, and expressed his hope that it would
be renewed.

After the King had spoken, the Commons, for some reason which no
writer has explained, adjourned for a week. Before they met
again, an event took place which caused great sorrow at the
palace, and through all the ranks of the Low Church party.
Tillotson was taken suddenly ill while attending public worship
in the chapel of Whitehall. Prompt remedies might perhaps have
saved him; but he would not interrupt the prayers; and, before
the service was over, his malady was beyond the reach of
medicine. He was almost speechless; but his friends long
remembered with pleasure a few broken ejaculations which showed
that he enjoyed peace of mind to the last. He was buried in the
church of Saint Lawrence Jewry, near Guildhall. It was there that
he had won his immense oratorical reputation. He had preached
there during the thirty years which preceded his elevation to the
throne of Canterbury. His eloquence had attracted to the heart of
the City crowds of the learned and polite, from the Inns of Court
and from the lordly mansions of Saint James's and Soho. A
considerable part of his congregation had generally consisted of
young clergymen, who came to learn the art of preaching at the
feet of him who was universally considered as the first of
preachers. To this church his remains were now carried through a
mourning population. The hearse was followed by an endless train
of splendid equipages from Lambeth through Southwark and over
London Bridge. Burnet preached the funeral sermon. His kind and
honest heart was overcome by so many tender recollections that,
in the midst of his discourse, he paused and burst into tears,
while a loud moan of sorrow rose from the whole auditory. The
Queen could not speak of her favourite instructor without
weeping. Even William was visibly moved. "I have lost," he said,
"the best friend that I ever had, and the best man that I ever
knew." The only Englishman who is mentioned with tenderness in
any part of the great mass of letters which the King wrote to
Heinsius is Tillotson. The Archbishop had left a widow. To her
William granted a pension of four hundred a year, which he
afterwards increased to six hundred. His anxiety that she should
receive her income regularly and without stoppages was honourable
to him. Every quarterday he ordered the money, without any
deduction, to be brought to himself, and immediately sent it to
her. Tillotson had bequeathed to her no property, except a great
number of manuscript sermons. Such was his fame among his
contemporaries that those sermons were purchased by the
booksellers for the almost incredible sum of two thousand five
hundred guineas, equivalent, in the wretched state in which the
silver coin then was, to at least three thousand six hundred
pounds. Such a price had never before been given in England for
any copyright. About the same time Dryden, whose reputation was
then in the zenith, received thirteen hundred pounds for his
translation of all the works of Virgil, and was thought to have
been splendidly remunerated.544

It was not easy to fill satisfactorily the high place which
Tillotson had left vacant. Mary gave her voice for Stillingfleet,
and pressed his claims as earnestly as she ever ventured to press
any thing. In abilities and attainments he had few superiors
among the clergy. But, though he would probably have been
considered as a Low Churchman by Jane and South, he was too high
a Churchman for William; and Tenison was appointed. The new
primate was not eminently distinguished by eloquence or learning:
but he was honest, prudent, laborious and benevolent; he had been
a good rector of a large parish and a good bishop of a large
diocese; detraction had not yet been busy with his name; and it
might well be thought that a man of plain sense, moderation and
integrity, was more likely than a man of brilliant genius and
lofty spirit to succeed in the arduous task of quieting a
discontented and distracted Church.

Meanwhile the Commons had entered upon business. They cheerfully
voted about two million four hundred thousand pounds for the
army, and as much for the navy. The land tax for the year was
again fixed at four shillings in the pound; the Tonnage Act was
renewed for a term of five years; and a fund was established on
which the government was authorised to borrow two millions and a
half.

Some time was spent by both Houses in discussing the Manchester
trials. If the malecontents had been wise, they would have been
satisfied with the advantage which they had already gained. Their
friends had been set free. The prosecutors had with difficulty
escaped from the hands of an enraged multitude. The character of
the government had been seriously damaged. The ministers were
accused, in prose and in verse, sometimes in earnest and
sometimes in jest, of having hired a gang of ruffians to swear
away the lives of honest gentlemen. Even moderate politicians,
who gave no credit to these foul imputations, owned that
Trenchard ought to have remembered the villanies of Fuller and
Young, and to have been on his guard against such wretches as
Taaffe and Lunt. The unfortunate Secretary's health and spirits
had given way. It was said that he was dying; and it was certain
that he would not long continue to hold the seals. The Tories had
won a great victory; but, in their eagerness to improve it, they
turned it into a defeat.