een Schevening and the eastern coast of our island.
[455] By this vessel William received a succession of letters from
persons of high note in the Church, the state, and the army. Two of the
seven prelates who had signed the memorable petition, Lloyd, Bishop of
St. Asaph, and Trelawney, Bishop of Bristol, had, during their residence
in the tower, reconsidered the doctrine of nonresistance, and were
ready to welcome an armed deliverer. A brother of the Bishop of Bristol,
Colonel Charles Trelawney, who commanded one of the Tangier regiments,
now known as the Fourth of the Line, signified his readiness to draw his
sword for the Protestant religion. Similar assurances arrived from the
savage Kirke. Churchill, in a letter written with a certain elevation
of language, which was the sure mark that he was going to commit a
baseness, declared that he was determined to perform his duty to heaven
and to his country, and that he put his honour absolutely into the hands
of the Prince of Orange. William doubtless read these words with one of
those bitter and cynical smiles which gave his face its least pleasing
expression. It was not his business to take care of the honour of other
men; nor had the most rigid casuists pronounced it unlawful in a general
to invite, to use, and to reward the services of deserters whom he could
not but despise. [456]

Churchill's letter was brought by Sidney, whose situation in England
had become hazardous, and who, having taken many precautions to hide
his track, had passed over to Holland about the middle of August. [457]
About the same time Shrewsbury and Edward Russell crossed the German
Ocean in a boat which they had hired with great secrecy, and appeared at
the Hague. Shrewsbury brought with him twelve thousand pounds, which he
had raised by a mortgage on his estates, and which he lodged in the bank
of Amsterdam. [458] Devonshire, Danby, and Lumley remained in England,
where they undertook to rise in arms as soon as the Prince should set
foot on the island.

There is reason to believe that, at this conjuncture, William first
received assurances of support from a very different quarter. The
history of Sunderland's intrigues is covered with an obscurity which it
is not probable that any inquirer will ever succeed in penetrating:
but, though it is impossible to discover the whole truth, it is easy
to detect some palpable fictions. The Jacobites, for obvious reasons,
affirmed that the revolution of 1