ill kept possession of his mind, how little
soever they appeared in his conduct.

The dark counsels of the cabal, though from the first they gave anxiety
to all men of reflection, were not thoroughly known but by the event.
Such seem to have been the views which they, in concurrence with some
Catholic courtiers who had the ear of their sovereign, suggested to the
king and the duke, and which these princes too greedily embraced. They
said, that the parliament, though the spirit of party, for the present,
attached them to the crown, were still more attached to those powers and
privileges which their predecessors had usurped from the sovereign: that
after the first flow of kindness was spent, they had discovered evident
symptoms of discontent; and would be sure to turn against the king all
the authority which they yet retained, and still more those pretensions
which it was easy for them in a moment to revive: that they not only
kept the king in dependence by means of his precarious revenue, but had
never discovered a suitable generosity, even in those temporary supplies
which they granted him: that it was high time for the prince to rouse
himself from his lethargy, and to recover that authority which his
predecessors, during so many ages, had peaceably enjoyed; that the great
error or misfortune of his father was, the not having formed any
close connection with foreign princes, who, on the breaking out of the
rebellion, might have found their interest in supporting him: that the
present alliances, being entered into with so many weaker potentates,
who themselves stood in need of the king's protection, could never serve
to maintain much less augment, the royal authority: that the French
monarch alone, so generous a prince, and by blood so nearly allied to
the king, would be found both able and willing, if gratified in his
ambition, to defend the common cause of kings against usurping subjects:
that a war undertaken against Holland by the united force of two such
mighty potentates, would prove an easy enterprise, and would serve all
the purposes which were aimed at: that, under pretence of that war, it
would not be difficult to levy a military force, without which, during
the prevalence of republican principles among his subjects, the king
would vainly expect to defend his prerogative; that his naval power
might be maintained, partly by the supplies which on other pretences
would previously be obtained from parliament; partly