was now at
liberty. France, relieved from all apprehension on the side of Savoy,
might spare twenty thousand men for a descent on England; and, if the
misery and discontent here were such as was generally reported, the
nation might be disposed to receive foreign deliverers with open arms.

So gloomy was the prospect which lay before William, when, in the
autumn of 1696, he quitted his camp in the Netherlands for England. His
servants here meanwhile were looking forward to his arrival with very
strong and very various emotions. The whole political world had
been thrown into confusion by a cause which did not at first appear
commensurate to such an effect.

During his absence, the search for the Jacobites who had been concerned
in the plots of the preceding winter had not been intermitted; and of
these Jacobites none was in greater peril than Sir John Fenwick. His
birth, his connections, the high situations which he had filled, the
indefatigable activity with which he had, during several years, laboured
to subvert the government, and the personal insolence with which he had
treated the deceased Queen, marked him out as a man fit to be made an
example. He succeeded, however, in concealing himself from the officers
of justice till the first heat of pursuit was over. In his hiding place
he thought of an ingenious device which might, as he conceived, save him
from the fate of his friends Charnock and Parkyns. Two witnesses were
necessary to convict him. It appeared from what had passed on the trials
of his accomplices, that there were only two witnesses who could prove
his guilt, Porter and Goodman. His life was safe if either of these men
could be persuaded to abscond.

Fenwick was not the only person who had strong reason to wish that
Porter or Goodman, or both, might be induced to leave England. Aylesbury
had been arrested, and committed to the Tower; and he well knew that, if
these men appeared against him, his head would be in serious danger. His
friends and Fenwick's raised what was thought a sufficient sum; and two
Irishmen, or, in the phrase of the newspapers of that day, bogtrotters,
a barber named Clancy, and a disbanded captain named Donelagh, undertook
the work of corruption.

The first attempt was made on Porter. Clancy contrived to fall in with
him at a tavern, threw out significant hints, and, finding that those
hints were favourably received, opened a regular negotiation. The terms
offered were alluring; t