were of no account; the nobility, engaged by the prospect
or possession of numerous offices, civil and military, were entirely
attached to the court; the ecclesiastics, retained by like motives,
added the sanction of religion to the principles of civil policy: that
in England, a great part of the landed property belonged either to the
yeomanry or middling gentry; the king had few offices to bestow; and
could not himself even subsist, much less maintain an army, except by
the voluntary supplies of his parliament: that if he had an army on
foot, yet, if composed of Englishmen, they would never be prevailed
on to promote ends which the people so much feared and hated: that the
Roman Catholics in England were not the hundredth part of the nation,
and in Scotland not the two hundredth; and it seemed against all common
sense to hope, by one part, to govern ninety-nine, who were of contrary
sentiments and dispositions: and that foreign troops, if few, would tend
only to inflame hatred and discontent; and how to raise and bring over
at once, or to maintain many, it was very difficult to imagine. To these
reasonings Temple added the authority of Gourville, a Frenchman,
for whom he knew the king had entertained a great esteem. "A king of
England," said Gourville, "who will be the man of his people, is the
greatest king in the world; but if he will be any thing more, he is
nothing at all." The king heard at first this discourse with some
impatience; but being a dexterous dissembler, he seemed moved at last,
and laying his hand on Temple's, said, with an appearing cordiality,
"And I will be the man of my people."

Temple, when he went abroad, soon found that the scheme of mediating a
peace was likely to prove abortive. The allies, besides their jealousy
of the king's mediation, expressed a great ardor for the continuance
of war. Holland had stipulated with Spain never to come to an
accommodation, till all things in Flanders were restored to the
condition in which they had been left by the Pyrenean treaty. The
emperor had high pretensions in Alsace; and as the greater part of
the empire joined in the alliance, it was hoped that France, so much
overmatched in force, would soon be obliged to submit to the terms
demanded of her. The Dutch, indeed, oppressed by heavy taxes, as well
as checked in their commerce, were desirous of peace; and had few or no
claims of their own to retard it: but they could not in gratitude, or
even in good po