in Europe, and was the
inveterate foe of Louis XIV. When a youth, his country had been
invaded by Louis, and desolated and abandoned to pillage and cruelty.
It was amid unexampled calamities, when the population were every
where flying before triumphant armies, and the dikes of Holland had
been opened for the ravages of the sea in order to avoid the more
cruel ravages of war, that William was called to be at the head of
affairs. He had scarcely emerged from boyhood; but his boyhood was
passed in scenes of danger and trial, and his extraordinary talents
were most precociously developed. His tastes were warlike; but he was
a warrior who fought, not for the love of fighting, not for military
glory, but to rescue his country from a degrading yoke, and to secure
the liberties of Europe from the encroachments of a most ambitious
monarch. Zeal for those liberties was the animating principle of his
existence; and this led him to oppose so perseveringly the policy and
enterprises of the French king, even to the disadvantage of his native
country and the country which adopted him.

William was ambitious, and did not disdain the overtures which the
discontented nobles of England made to him. Besides, his wife, the
Princess Mary, was presumptive heir to the crown before the birth of
the Prince of Wales. The eyes of the English nation had long been
fixed upon him as their deliverer from the tyranny of James. He was a
sincere Protestant, a bold and enterprising genius, and a consummate
statesman. But he delayed taking any decisive measures until affairs
were ripe for his projects--until the misgovernment and encroachments
of James drove the nation to the borders of frenzy. He then obtained
the consent of the States General for the meditated invasion of
England, and made immense preparations, which, however, were carefully
concealed from the spies and agents of James. They did not escape,
however, the scrutinizing and jealous eye of Louis XIV., who
remonstrated with James on his blindness and self-confidence, and
offered to lend him assistance. But the infatuated monarch would not
believe his danger, and rejected the proffered aid of Louis with a
spirit which ill accorded with his former servility and dependence.
Nor was he aroused to a sense of his danger until the Declaration of
William appeared, setting forth the tyrannical acts of James, and
supposed to be written by Bishop Burnet, the intimate friend of the
Prince of Orange. The