which must
soon be brought to an issue on the Continent. If they were refractory,
he must relinquish all thought of arbitrating between contending
nations, must again implore French assistance, must again submit to
French dictation, must sink into a potentate of the third or fourth
class, and must indemnify himself for the contempt with which he would
be regarded abroad by triumphs over law and public opinion at home. [1]

It seemed, indeed, that it would not be easy for him to demand more than
the Commons were disposed to give. Already they had abundantly proved
that they were desirous to maintain his prerogatives unimpaired, and
that they were by no means extreme to mark his encroachments on the
rights of the people. Indeed, eleven twelfths of the members were either
dependents of the court, or zealous Cavaliers from the country. There
were few things which such an assembly could pertinaciously refuse to
the Sovereign; and, happily for the nation, those few things were the
very things on which James had set his heart.

One of his objects was to obtain a repeal of the Habeas Corpus Act,
which he hated, as it was natural that a tyrant should hate the most
stringent curb that ever legislation imposed on tyranny. This feeling
remained deeply fixed in his mind to the last, and appears in the
instructions which he drew up, in exile, for the guidance of his son.
[2] But the Habeas Corpus Act, though passed during the ascendency of
the Whigs, was not more dear to the Whigs than to the Tories. It is
indeed not wonderful that this great law should be highly prized by all
Englishmen without distinction of party: for it is a law which, not by
circuitous, but by direct operation, adds to the security and happiness
of every inhabitant of the realm. [3]

James had yet another design, odious to the party which had set him on
the throne and which had upheld him there. He wished to form a great
standing army. He had taken advantage of the late insurrection to make
large additions to the military force which his brother had left. The
bodies now designated as the first six regiments of dragoon guards,
the third and fourth regiments of dragoons, and the nine regiments of
infantry of the line, from the seventh to the fifteenth inclusive, had
just been raised. [4] The effect of these augmentations, and of the
recall of the garrison of Tangier, was that the number of regular troops
in England had, in a few months, been increased from six t