without any amendment.

William had to consider whether he would give or withhold his assent.
The commercial towns of the kingdom, and among them the City of London,
which had always stood firmly by him, and which had extricated him
many times from great embarrassments, implored his protection. It was
represented to him that the Commons were far indeed from being unanimous
on this subject; that, in the last stage, the majority had been only
twenty-three in a full House; that the motion to except the Universities
had been lost by a majority of only eight. On full consideration he
resolved not to pass the bill. Nobody, he said, could accuse him of
acting selfishly on this occasion; his prerogative was not concerned in
the matter; and he could have no objection to the proposed law except
that it would be mischievous to his people.

On the tenth of April 1696, therefore, the Clerk of the Parliament was
commanded to inform the Houses that the King would consider of the Bill
for the further Regulation of Elections. Some violent Tories in the
House of Commons flattered themselves that they might be able to carry
a resolution reflecting on the King. They moved that whoever had advised
His Majesty to refuse his assent to their bill was an enemy to him and
to the nation. Never was a greater blunder committed. The temper of
the House was very different from what it had been on the day when the
address against Portland's grant had been voted by acclamation. The
detection of a murderous conspiracy, the apprehension of a French
invasion, had changed every thing. The King was popular. Every day ten
or twelve bales of parchment covered with the signatures of associators
were laid at his feet. Nothing could be more imprudent than to propose,
at such a time, a thinly disguised vote of censure on him. The
moderate Tories accordingly separated themselves from their angry
and unreasonable brethren. The motion was rejected by two hundred and
nineteen votes to seventy; and the House ordered the question and the
numbers on both sides to be published, in order that the world might
know how completely the attempt to produce a quarrel between the King
and the Parliament had failed. [690]

The country gentlemen might perhaps have been more inclined to resent
the loss of their bill, had they not been put into high goodhumour by
another bill which they considered as even more important. The project
of a Land Bank had been revived; not in the form