ay most properly be reckoned is the
day of the meeting of the Parliament after the general election of 1695.
That election had taken place at a time when peril and distress had
called forth all the best qualities of the nation. The hearts of men
were in the struggle against France for independence, for liberty, and
for the Protestant religion. Everybody knew that such a struggle could
not be carried on without large establishments and heavy taxes. The
government therefore could hardly ask for more than the country was
ready to give. A House of Commons was chosen in which the Whig party had
a decided preponderance. The leaders of that party had presently been
raised, one by one, to the highest executive offices. The majority,
therefore, readily arranged itself in admirable order under the
ministers, and during three sessions gave them on almost every occasion
a cordial support. The consequence was that the country was rescued
from its dangerous position, and, when that Parliament had lived out
its three years, enjoyed prosperity after a terrible commercial crisis,
peace after a long and sanguinary war, and liberty united with order
after civil troubles which had lasted during two generations, and
in which sometimes order and sometimes liberty had been in danger of
perishing.

Such were the fruits of the general election of 1695. The ministers had
flattered themselves that the general election of 1698 would be equally
favourable to them, and that in the new Parliament the old Parliament
would revive. Nor is it strange that they should have indulged such a
hope. Since they had been called to the direction of affairs every thing
had been changed, changed for the better, and changed chiefly by their
wise and resolute policy, and by the firmness with which their party
had stood by them. There was peace abroad and at home. The sentinels had
ceased to watch by the beacons of Dorsetshire and Sussex. The merchant
ships went forth without fear from the Thames and the Avon. Soldiers had
been disbanded by tens of thousands. Taxes had been remitted. The value
of all public and private securities had risen. Trade had never been
so brisk. Credit had never been so solid. All over the kingdom the
shopkeepers and the farmers, the artisans and the ploughmen, relieved,
beyond all hope, from the daily and hourly misery of the clipped silver,
were blessing the broad faces of the new shillings and half crowns. The
statesmen whose administratio