the former, and partly upon Sunderland's
extraordinary talents for ingratiating himself with persons in power, and
persuading them that he was the fittest instrument for their purposes; a
talent in which he seems to have surpassed all the intriguing statesmen
of his time, or perhaps of any other.

An intimate connection with the court of Versailles being the principal
engine by which the favourite project of absolute monarchy was to be
effected, James, for the purpose of fixing and cementing that connection,
sent for M. de Barillon, the French ambassador, the very day after his
accession, and entered into the most confidential discourse with him. He
explained to him his motives for intending to call a parliament, as well
as his resolution to levy by authority the revenue which his predecessor
had enjoyed in virtue of a grant of parliament which determined with his
life. He made general professions of attachment to Louis, declared that
in all affairs of importance it was his intention to consult that
monarch, and apologised, upon the ground of the urgency of the case, for
acting in the instance mentioned without his advice. Money was not
directly mentioned, owing, perhaps, to some sense of shame upon that
subject, which his brother had never experienced; but lest there should
be a doubt whether that object were implied in the desire of support and
protection, Rochester was directed to explain the matter more fully, and
to give a more distinct interpretation of these general terms.
Accordingly, that minister waited the next morning upon Barillon, and
after having repeated and enlarged upon the reasons for calling a
parliament, stated, as an additional argument in defence of the measure,
that without it his master would become too chargeable to the French
king; adding, however, that the assistance which might be expected from a
parliament, did not exempt him altogether from the necessity of resorting
to that prince for pecuniary aids; for that without such, he would be at
the mercy of his subjects, and that upon this beginning would depend the
whole fortune of the reign. If Rochester actually expressed himself as
Barillon relates, the use intended to be made of parliament cannot but
cause the most lively indignation, while it furnishes a complete answer
to the historians who accuse the parliaments of those days of
unseasonable parsimony in their grants to the Stuart kings; for the
grants of the people of England were no