ossible, still more
clearly, how little he had profited by a sharp experience. In that paper
he set forth the plan according to which he intended to govern when he
should be restored. He laid it down as a rule that one Commissioner of
the Treasury, one of the two Secretaries of State, the Secretary at War,
the majority of the Great Officers of the Household, the majority of
the Lords of the Bedchamber, the majority of the officers of the army,
should always be Roman Catholics. [428]

It was to no purpose that the most eminent Compounders sent from
London letter after letter filled with judicious counsel and earnest
supplication. It was to no purpose that they demonstrated in the
plainest manner the impossibility of establishing Popish ascendancy in
a country where at least forty-nine fiftieths of the population and much
more than forty-nine fiftieths of the wealth and the intelligence were
Protestant. It was to no purpose that they informed their master that
the Declaration of April 1692 had been read with exultation by his
enemies and with deep affliction by his friends, that it had been
printed and circulated by the usurpers, that it had done more than all
the libels of the Whigs to inflame the nation against him, and that it
had furnished those naval officers who had promised him support with a
plausible pretext for breaking faith with him, and for destroying the
fleet which was to have convoyed him back to his kingdom. He continued
to be deaf to the remonstrances of his best friends in England
till those remonstrances began to be echoed at Versailles. All the
information which Lewis and his ministers were able to obtain touching
the state of our island satisfied them that James would never be
restored unless he could bring himself to make large concessions to his
subjects. It was therefore intimated to him, kindly and courteously,
but seriously, that he would do well to change his counsels and his
counsellors. France could not continue the war for the purpose of
forcing a Sovereign on an unwilling nation. She was crushed by public
burdens. Her trade and industry languished. Her harvest and her vintage
had failed. The peasantry were starving. The faint murmurs of the
provincial Estates began to be heard. There was a limit to the amount
of the sacrifices which the most absolute prince could demand from those
whom he ruled. However desirous the Most Christian King might be to
uphold the cause of hereditary monarchy and