s for going so far to meet his wishes,
and that they should be at the same time frowned upon at Kensington for
not going farther. The King was not to be moved. He had been too great
to sink into littleness without a struggle. He had been the soul of
two great coalitions, the dread of France, the hope of all oppressed
nations. And was he to be degraded into a mere puppet of the Harleys
and the Hooves, a petty prince who could neither help nor hurt, a less
formidable enemy and less valuable ally than the Elector of Brandenburg
or the Duke of Savoy? His spirit, quite as arbitrary and as impatient
of control as that of any of his predecessors, Stuart, Tudor or
Plantagenet, swelled high against this ignominious bondage. It was well
known at Versailles that he was cruelly mortified and incensed; and,
during a short time, a strange hope was cherished there that, in the
heat of his resentment, he might be induced to imitate his uncles,
Charles and James, to conclude another treaty of Dover, and to sell
himself into vassalage for a subsidy which might make him independent of
his niggardly and mutinous Parliament. Such a subsidy, it was thought,
might be disguised under the name of a compensation for the little
principality of Orange, which Lewis had long been desirous to purchase
even at a fancy price. A despatch was drawn up containing a paragraph by
which Tallard was to be apprised of his master's views, and instructed
not to hazard any distinct proposition, but to try the effect of
cautious and delicate insinuations, and, if possible, to draw William on
to speak first. This paragraph was, on second thoughts, cancelled;
but that it should ever have been written must be considered a most
significant circumstance.

It may with confidence be affirmed that William would never have stooped
to be the pensioner of France; but it was with difficulty that he
was, at this conjuncture, dissuaded from throwing up the government of
England. When first he threw out hints about retiring to the Continent,
his ministers imagined that he was only trying to frighten them into
making a desperate effort to obtain for him an efficient army. But
they soon saw reason to believe that he was in earnest. That he was in
earnest, indeed, can hardly be doubted. For, in a confidential letter to
Heinsius, whom he could have no motive for deceiving, he intimated his
intention very clearly. "I foresee," he writes, "that I shall be driven
to take an extreme cou