short delay: but minutes were
precious; the order was repeated in more peremptory terms; and he
unwillingly set off for Dover. That no mark of contempt and defiance
might be omitted, he was escorted to the coast by one of his Protestant
countrymen whom persecution had driven into exile. So bitter was the
resentment excited by the French ambition and arrogance that even those
Englishmen who were not generally disposed to take a favourable view of
William's conduct loudly applauded him for retorting with so much spirit
the insolence with which Lewis had, during many years, treated every
court in Europe. [615]

On Monday the Lords met again. Halifax was chosen to preside. The
Primate was absent, the Royalists sad and gloomy, the Whigs eager and in
high spirits. It was known that James had left a letter behind him. Some
of his friends moved that it might be produced, in the faint hope that
it might contain propositions which might furnish a basis for a happy
settlement. On this motion the previous question was put and carried.
Godolphin, who was known not to be unfriendly to his old master, uttered
a few words which were decisive. "I have seen the paper," he said;
"and I grieve to say that there is nothing in it which will give your
Lordships any satisfaction." In truth it contained no expression of
regret for pass errors; it held out no hope that those errors would for
the future be avoided; and it threw the blame of all that had happened
on the malice of William and on the blindness of a nation deluded by the
specious names of religion and property. None ventured to propose that
a negotiation should be opened with a prince whom the most rigid
discipline of adversity seemed only to have made more obstinate in
wrong. Something was said about inquiring into the birth of the Prince
of Wales: but the Whig peers treated the suggestion with disdain. "I did
not expect, my Lords," exclaimed Philip Lord Wharton, an old Roundhead,
who had commanded a regiment against Charles the First at Edgehill, "I
did not expect to hear anybody at this time of day mention the child who
was called Prince of Wales; and I hope that we have now heard the last
of him." After long discussion it was resolved that two addresses should
be presented to William. One address requested him to take on
himself provisionally the administration of the government; the other
recommended that he should, by circular letters subscribed with his
own hand, invite all th