now, though suffering from sea sickness,
refused to go on shore: for he conceived that, by remaining on board,
he should in the most effectual manner notify to Europe that the late
misfortune had only delayed for a very short time the execution of his
purpose. In two or three days the fleet reassembled. One vessel only had
been cast away. Not a single soldier or sailor was missing. Some horses
had perished: but this loss the Prince with great expedition repaired;
and, before the London Gazette had spread the news of his mishap, he was
again ready to sail. [497]

His Declaration preceded him only by a few hours. On the first of
November it began to be mentioned in mysterious whispers by the
politicians of London, was passed secretly from man to man, and was
slipped into the boxes of the post office. One of the agents was
arrested, and the packets of which he was in charge were carried to
Whitehall. The King read, and was greatly troubled. His first impulse
was to bide the paper from all human eyes. He threw into the fire every
copy which had been brought to him, except one; and that one he would
scarcely trust out of his own hands. [498]

The paragraph in the manifesto which disturbed him most was that in
which it was said that some of the Peers, Spiritual and Temporal, had
invited the Prince of Orange to invade England. Halifax, Clarendon, and
Nottingham were then in London. They were immediately summoned to the
palace and interrogated. Halifax, though conscious of innocence, refused
at first to make any answer. "Your Majesty asks me," said he, "whether I
have committed high treason. If I am suspected, let me be brought before
my peers. And how can your Majesty place any dependence on the answer
of a culprit whose life is at stake? Even if I had invited His Highness
over, I should without scruple plead Not Guilty." The King declared that
he did not at all consider Halifax as a culprit, and that he had asked
the question as one gentleman asks another who has been calumniated
whether there be the least foundation for the calumny. "In that case,"
said Halifax, "I have no objection to aver, as a gentleman speaking to a
gentleman, on my honour, which is as sacred as my oath, that I have not
invited the Prince of Orange over." [499] Clarendon and Nottingham said
the same. The King was still more anxious to ascertain the temper of the
Prelates. If they were hostile to him, his throne was indeed in danger.
But it could not be.