on of
rumours fabricated some by Jacobites and some by stockjobbers. Early one
morning it was confidently averred that there had been a battle, that
the allies had been beaten, that the King had been killed, that the
siege had been raised. The Exchange, as soon as it was opened, was
filled to overflowing by people who came to learn whether the bad news
was true. The streets were stopped up all day by groups of talkers and
listeners. In the afternoon the Gazette, which had been impatiently
expected, and which was eagerly read by thousands, calmed the
excitement, but not completely; for it was known that the Jacobites
sometimes received, by the agency of privateers and smugglers who put to
sea in all weathers, intelligence earlier than that which came through
regular channels to the Secretary of State at Whitehall. Before night,
however, the agitation had altogether subsided; but it was suddenly
revived by a bold imposture. A horseman in the uniform of the Guards
spurred through the City, announcing that the King had been killed. He
would probably have raised a serious tumult, had not some apprentices,
zealous for the Revolution and the Protestant religion, knocked him down
and carried him to Newgate. The confidential correspondent of the
States General informed them that, in spite of all the stories which the
disaffected party invented and circulated, the general persuasion was
that the allies would be successful. The touchstone of sincerity in
England, he said, was the betting. The Jacobites were ready enough
to prove that William must be defeated, or to assert that he had been
defeated; but they would not give the odds, and could hardly be induced
to take any moderate odds. The Whigs, on the other hand, were ready to
stake thousands of guineas on the conduct and good fortune of the King.
[611]

The event justified the confidence of the Whigs and the backwardness of
the Jacobites. On the sixteenth, the seventeenth, and the eighteenth
of August the army of Villeroy and the army of William confronted each
other. It was fully expected that the nineteenth would be the decisive
day. The allies were under arms before dawn. At four William mounted,
and continued till eight at night to ride from post to post, disposing
his own troops and watching the movements of the enemy. The enemy
approached his lines in several places, near enough to see that it would
not be easy to dislodge him; but there was no fighting. He lay down to
r