long as the Princess of Orange was certain of
succeeding to the crown on her father's death, William hesitated
to join in an attempt that might possibly have failed and lost
her her inheritance. But the birth of a son, which, in giving
James a male heir, destroyed all hope of redress for the kingdom,
decided the wavering, and rendered the determined desperate.
The prince chose the time for his enterprise with the sagacity,
arranged its plan with the prudence, and put it into execution
with the vigor, which were habitual qualities of his mind.

Louis XIV., menaced by the League of Augsburg, had resolved to
strike the first blow against the allies. He invaded Germany; so
that the Dutch preparations seemed in the first instance intended
as measures of defence against the progress of the French. But
Louis's envoy at The Hague could not be long deceived. He gave
notice to his master, who in his turn warned James. But that
infatuated monarch not only doubted the intelligence, but refused
the French king's offers of assistance and co-operation. On the
21st of October, the Prince of Orange, with an army of fourteen
thousand men, and a fleet of five hundred vessels of all kinds,
set sail from Helvoetsluys; and after some delays from bad weather,
he safely landed his army in Torbay, on the 5th of November, 1688.
The desertion of James's best friends; his own consternation,
flight, seizure, and second escape; and the solemn act by which he
was deposed; were the rapid occurrences of a few weeks: and thus
the grandest revolution that England had ever seen was happily
consummated. Without entering here on legislative reasonings or
party sophisms, it is enough to record the act itself; and to
say, in reference to our more immediate subject, that without
the assistance of Holland and her glorious chief, England might
have still remained enslaved, or have had to purchase liberty
by oceans of blood. By the bill of settlement, the crown was
conveyed jointly to the Prince and Princess of Orange, the sole
administration of government to remain in the prince; and the
new sovereigns were proclaimed on the 23d of February, 1689.
The convention, which had arranged this important point, annexed
to the settlement a declaration of rights, by which the powers
of royal prerogative and the extent of popular privilege were
defined and guaranteed.

William, now become king of England, still preserved his title
of stadtholder of Holland; and presen