reat kingdoms as he long afterwards found it to surprise
Barcelona. William listened, meditated, and replied, in general terms,
that he took a great interest in English affairs, and would keep his
attention fixed on them. [224] Whatever his purpose had been, it is not
likely that he would have chosen a rash and vainglorious knight errant
for his confidant. Between the two men there was nothing in common
except personal courage, which rose in both to the height of fabulous
heroism. Mordaunt wanted merely to enjoy the excitement of conflict, and
to make men stare. William had one great end ever before him. Towards
that end he was impelled by a strong passion which appeared to him under
the guise of a sacred duty. Towards that end he toiled with a patience
resembling, as he once said, the patience with which he had seen a
boatman on a canal, strain against an adverse eddy, often swept back,
but never ceasing to pull, and content if, by the labour of hours, a few
yards could be gained. [225] Exploits which brought the Prince no nearer
to his object, however glorious they might be in the estimation of the
vulgar, were in his judgment boyish vanities, and no part of the real
business of life.

He determined to reject Mordaunt's advice; and there can be no doubt
that the determination was wise. Had William, in 1686, or even in 1687,
attempted to do what he did with such signal success in 1688, it is
probable that many Whigs would have risen in arms at his call. But he
would have found that the nation was not yet prepared to welcome an
armed deliverer from a foreign country, and that the Church had not yet
been provoked and insulted into forgetfulness of the tenet which had
long been her peculiar boast. The old Cavaliers would have flocked to
the royal standard. There would probably have been in all the three
kingdoms a civil war as long and fierce as that of the preceding
generation. While that war was raging in the British Isles, what might
not Lewis attempt on the Continent? And what hope would there be for
Holland, drained of her troops and abandoned by her Stadtholder?

William therefore contented himself for the present with taking measures
to unite and animate that mighty opposition of which he had become
the head. This was not difficult. The fall of the Hydes had excited
throughout England strange alarm and indignation: Men felt that the
question now was, not whether Protestantism should be dominant, but
whether it sho