a man of undoubted courage and capacity,
but of loose principles and turbulent temper. He was a sailor, had
distinguished himself in his profession, and had in the late reign held
an office in the palace. But all the ties which bound him to the royal
family had been sundered by the death of his cousin William. The daring,
unquiet, and vindictive seaman now sate in the councils called by the
Dutch envoy as the representative of the boldest and most eager section
of the opposition, of those men who, under the names of Roundheads,
Exclusionists, and Whigs, had maintained with various fortune a contest
of five and forty years against three successive Kings. This party,
lately prostrate and almost extinct, but now again full of life and
rapidly rising to ascendency, was troubled by none of the scruples which
still impeded the movements of Tories and Trimmers, and was prepared to
draw the sword against the tyrant on the first day on which the sword
could be drawn with reasonable hope of success.

Three men are yet to be mentioned with whom Dykvelt was in confidential
communication, and by whose help he hoped to secure the good will of
three great professions. Bishop Compton was the agent employed to manage
the clergy: Admiral Herbert undertook to exert all his influence
over the navy; and an interest was established in the army by the
instrumentality of Churchill.

The conduct of Compton and Herbert requires no explanation. Having, in
all things secular, served the crown with zeal and fidelity, they had
incurred the royal displeasure by refusing to be employed as tools
for the destruction of their own religion. Both of them had learned
by experience how soon James forgot obligations, and how bitterly he
remembered what it pleased him to consider as wrongs. The Bishop had
by an illegal sentence been suspended from his episcopal functions.
The Admiral had in one hour been reduced from opulence to penury. The
situation of Churchill was widely different. He had been raised by the
royal bounty from obscurity to eminence, and from poverty to wealth.
Having started in life a needy ensign, he was now, in his thirty-seventh
year, a Major General, a peer of Scotland, a peer of England: he
commanded a troop of Life Guards: he had been appointed to several
honourable and lucrative offices; and as yet there was no sign that he
had lost any part of the favour to which he owed so much. He was bound
to James, not only by the common obligat