munificent
charity. The Foleys were, like their neighbours the Harleys, Whigs and
Puritans. Thomas Foley lived on terms of close intimacy with Baxter, in
whose writings he is mentioned with warm eulogy. The opinions and the
attachments of Paul Foley were at first those of his family. But be,
like Harley, became, merely from the vehemence of his Whiggism, an ally
of the Tories, and might, perhaps, like Harley, have been completely
metamorphosed into a Tory, if the process of transmutation had not been
interrupted by death. Foley's abilities were highly respectable, and had
been improved by education. He was so wealthy that it was unnecessary
for him to follow the law as a profession; but he had studied it
carefully as a science. His morals were without stain; and the greatest
fault which could be imputed to him was that he paraded his independence
and disinterestedness too ostentatiously, and was so much afraid of
being thought to fawn that he was always growling.

Another convert ought to be mentioned. Howe, lately the most virulent
of the Whigs, had been, by the loss of his place, turned into one of the
most virulent of the Tories. The deserter brought to the party which he
had joined no weight of character, no capacity or semblance of capacity
for great affairs, but much parliamentary ability of a low kind, much
spite and much impudence. No speaker of that time seems to have had, in
such large measure, both the power and the inclination to give pain.

The assistance of these men was most welcome to the Tory party; but it
was impossible that they could, as yet, exercise over that party the
entire authority of leaders. For they still called themselves Whigs,
and generally vindicated their Tory votes by arguments grounded on Whig
principles. [487]

From this view of the state of parties in the House of Commons, it
seems clear that Sunderland had good reason for recommending that the
administration should be entrusted to the Whigs. The King, however,
hesitated long before he could bring himself to quit that neutral
position which he had long occupied between the contending parties. If
one of those parties was disposed to question his title, the other
was on principle hostile to his prerogative. He still remembered with
bitterness the unreasonable and vindictive conduct of the Convention
Parliament at the close of 1689 and the beginning of 1690; and he shrank
from the thought of being entirely in the hands of the men who