Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/565

] Twenty-four additional ships of war were fitted out for service, and anus and accoutrements were in busy preparation in every manufactory in Holland. He had saved up unusual funds for him, and had money also pouring in from Englaud and from the refugee Huguenots, who hoped much from his enterprise in favour of protestantism. It was impossible that all this preparation could escape the attention of other nations, and especially of the quick-sighted Louis XIV. of France. But William had a ready answer—that he wanted an extra squadron to go in pursuit of a number of Algerine corsairs which had made their appearance off the Dutch coasts. The military preparations were not so easily explained; but though Louis was satisfied that they were intended against England, James, blind to his danger, as strongly suspected that they were meant to operate against France. The only enemies which William had to really dread were Louis and the council of Amsterdam, which Louis had so long influenced to hostility to William, and without whose consent no expedition could be permitted. But the ambition and the persecuting bigotry of Louis removed this only difficulty out of William's way in a manner which looked like the actual work of Providence. The two points on which Amsterdam was preeminently sensitive were trade and protestantism. Louis contrived to incense them on both these heads. His unrelenting persecution of the Huguenots, including also Hutch protestants who had settled in France, raised an intense feeling in Amsterdam, stimulated by the outcries and representations of their relatives there. To all representations for tolerance and mercy Louis was utterly deaf; and whilst this feeling was at its height, he imposed a heavy duty on the importation of herrings from Holland into France. Sixty thousand persons in Holland depended on this trade, and the effect was, therefore, disastrous. In vain did the French envoy, Avaux, represent these things; Louis continued haughty and inexorable.

These circumstances, in which the pride and bigotry of Louis got the better of his worldly policy, completed the triumph of William of Orange. He seized on them to effect a removal of the long-continued jealousies of the council of Amsterdam against him. He entered into negotiations with the leading members of the council through his trusty friends Bentinck and Dykvelt, and as they were in the worst of hmuours with Louis, the old animosities against William were suffered to sleep, and he obtained the sanction of the States-general to his proposed expedition for the release of England from the French and catholic influences, and its reception into the confederation of protestant nations. Another circumstance just at this crisis occurred to strengthen all these feelings in Hollaud and Germany, and to account for any amount of troops collected at Nimeguen. The aggressions of Louis had raised and combined all Europe against him. Powers both catholic and protestant had felt themselves compelled to unite in order to repress his attempts at universal dominion. The king of Spain, the emperor of Germany, the king of Sweden had entered into the league of Augsburg to defend the empire; and to these were added various Italian princes, with the pope Innocent XI. himself at their head. Louis had not hesitated to insult the pope on various occasions, and now he saw the pontiff in close coalition with heretic princes to repel his schemes.

In May of this year died Ferdinand of Bavaria, the elector of Cologne. Besides Cologne, the elector possessed the bishoprics of Liege, Munster, and Hildesheim. In 1672 Louis had endeavoured to secure a successor to the elector in the French interest. He therefore proposed as his coadjutor the cardinal Fustemberg, bishop of Strasburg; and he would have succeeded, but it was necessary in order to his election of coadjutor, that Furstemberg should first resign his bishopric; to this the pope, in his hostility to Louis, would not consent; he refused his dispensation. But now, the elector dying, the contest was renewed. Louis again proposed the cardinal; the allies of the league of Augsburg nominated the prince Clement of Bavaria, who was elected and confirmed by the pope, though a youth of only seventeen years of age. The allies were equally successful in the bishoprics of Liege, Munster, and Hildesheim; but the principal fortresses, Bonn, Neutz, Keiserswertch, and Rhinsberg, were held by the troops of Furstemberg, and therefore were at the service of France. Louis was, however, exasperated at the partial defeat of his plans, and complained loudly of the partiality of the pope, and began to march troops to the support of Fustemberg.

But whilst Louis was actually planning a sweeping descent on the German empire, in which William of Orange lay pre-eminently in his way, he was at the same time in danger of a more momentous occurrence—that of William leaving the way open by sailing for England. If William should succeed in placing himself on the throne of England, he would be able to raise a far more formidable opposition to his plans of aggrandisement than he had yet ever done. Even with his small resources he had proved a terrible enemy, and had arrayed all Europe against him; what would he do if he could bring all the powers of England by land and sea to co-operate with Holland, Spain, Austria, Sweden, and the Netherlands? The stupidity of James and the offended pride of Louis saved William in this dilemma, and led Louis to commit on this occasion the cardinal blunder of his reign. It was impossible that Louis could be ignorant of what William was doing. The preparations of ships and troops were indications of a contemplated attack somewhere. It might be directed to resist the French on the side of Germany; but other facts equally noticeable demonstrated that, the object was England. Avaux, the French envoy at the Hague, in the absence of Abville, who was on a visit to England, noticed, in the months of April and May, a swift sailing boat, which made rapid and frequent passage betwixt England and Rotterdam; and he noticed that, after every arrival from England, there were closetings of William and the English whig leaders at the Hague, especially Russell. After the birth of the heir-apparent of England, William dispatched Zulestein to London with his professedly warm, though they could not be very sincere, congratulations on the event; but soon after, on the escape to the Hague of vice-admiral Herbert, who was supposed to carry the invitation of the leading whigs to William, the prince omitted the child's name in the prayers for the royal family of England, and openly expressed his doubts of his being the real child of the queen.

These circumstances, the continued activity of the military preparations, the constant sailings of this mysterious boat,