was named. In order that there might
be no want either of seamen or of vessels for the intended expedition,
all maritime trade, all privateering was, for a time, interdicted by a
royal mandate. [249] Three hundred transports were collected near the
spot where the troops were to embark. It was hoped that all would be
ready early in the spring, before the English ships were half rigged or
half manned, and before a single Dutch man of war was in the Channel.
[250]

James had indeed persuaded himself that, even if the English fleet
should fall in with him, it would not oppose him. He imagined that
he was personally a favourite with the mariners of all ranks. His
emissaries had been busy among the naval officers, and had found some
who remembered him with kindness, and others who were out of humour
with the men now in power. All the wild talk of a class of people not
distinguished by taciturnity or discretion was reported to him with
exaggeration, till he was deluded into a belief that he had more friends
than enemies on board of the vessels which guarded our coasts. Yet he
should have known that a rough sailor, who thought himself ill used by
the Admiralty, might, after the third bottle, when drawn on by artful
companions, express his regret for the good old times, curse the new
government, and curse himself for being such a fool as to fight for
that government, and yet might be by no means prepared to go over to the
French on the day of battle. Of the malecontent officers, who, as James
believed, were impatient to desert, the great majority had probably
given no pledge of their attachment to him except an idle word
hiccoughed out when they were drunk, and forgotten when they were sober.
One those from whom he expected support, Rear Admiral Carter, had indeed
heard and perfectly understood what the Jacobite agents had to say, had
given them fair words, and had reported the whole to the Queen and her
ministers. [251]

But the chief dependence of James was on Russell. That false, arrogant
and wayward politician was to command the Channel Fleet. He had never
ceased to assure the Jacobite emissaries that he was bent on effecting
a Restoration. Those emissaries fully reckoned, if not on his entire
cooperation, yet at least on his connivance; and there could be no doubt
that, with his connivance, a French fleet might easily convoy an army to
our shores. James flattered himself that, as soon as he had landed, he
should be maste