Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/121

] inquiry. Shrewsbury alone seemed dismayed and overcome by it. He wrote to William, admitting that lord Middleton, James's secretary, had been over several times, and had visited him, but that he attributed to their nearness of kinship. He said—"One night at supper, when he was pretty well in drink, he told me he intended to go beyond seas, and asked me if I could command him no service. I then told him, by the course he was taking, it would never be in his power to do himself or his friends service; and if the time should come that he expected, I looked upon myself as an offender not to be forgiven." Shrewsbury added that perhaps these accusations "might render him incapable of serving William"—meaning that he might not think him fit to retain the seals under such a suspicion by the public, but that, if he could not answer for the generality of the world, yet the noble and frank manner in which his majesty had used him on that occasion would ever be acknowledged by him with all the gratitude in his power.

Fenwick, perceiving the fatal blunder that he had made, sent in a second confession; but this appeared rather to absolve James and his adherents from any knowledge of the baser plan of assassination, and from having sanctioned Crosley's scheme of seizing William's person, than to throw any new light on the real workers in the treason. Things were in this position when William returned on the 6th of October. The courtiers flocked to Kensington to pay their respects to his majesty, and amongst them the noblemen who had been so deeply accused by Fenwick, with the single exception of Shrewsbury. William received them all most graciously, and asked where Shrewsbury was. He was informed that he was ill, and the next day the duke himself wrote to say that he had had a fall from his horse, had received considerable injury, and was incapable of travelling. Both the king and the other ministers well knew that the real cause was his extreme sensitiveness, which made him ashamed to face his sovereign after his knowledge of his delinquency; and both they and William wrote to urge his appearance at court as soon as possible. William said—"You are much wanted here. I am impatient to embrace you, and to assure you that my esteem for you is undiminished." Somers wrote him that unless he appeared in his place at court it would convince the public that he felt the justice of Fenwick's charge.

But Shrewsbury, whose mind so readily preyed on itself, could not bring himself to face the king, and sent to request leave to resign the seals. With a magnanimity wonderfully different to that of Henry VIII., who would have had all these nobles' heads off in a few days, William would not hear of his resignation, telling the duke that it would bring the worst suspicions on him; and, more on Shrewsbury's account than his own, he insisted on his keeping the seals. At length he consented, but still dared not go to town, but remained in the seclusion of his home amongst the wilds of Gloucestershire.

On the 20th of October William opened the session of parliament with a speech in which he took a bold review of the troubles and difficulties of the past year. He admitted the distress which the endeavours to restore the coinage to a healthy state had occasioned; the pressure which yet remained from the coinage being only partly effected. He avowed that the liberal funds voted in the last session had fallen far short, and that the civil list could not be maintained without further aid; but, notwithstanding these drawbacks, he contended that they had many causes of congratulation. Abroad the enemy had obtained no advantage, and at home the fortitude and temper with which the nation had struggled through the hardships attending the re-coinage, and the fears or selfishness of those who had added to them by hoarding their money, were admirable. A little time must bear them through this, and he had to inform them that he had received overtures of peace from France. He should be prepared to accept proper terms, but that the way to obtain them was to treat sword in hand. He therefore recommended them to be at once liberal and prompt in their voting the supplies. He recommended to their sympathy the French protestants, who were in a most miserable condition, and he trusted to their taking efficient measures for the maintenance of the public credit.

The commons, on retiring to their house, at the instance of Montague, the chancellor of the exchequer, passed three resolutions, which demonstrated the confidence of the country in the government, and constituted in themselves the most absolute defeat of all the grumblers and malcontents possible. Montague had advocated the bank of England; that had succeeded. He had denounced the scheme of the land-bank; that had proved, as he declared it to be, a delusion, and had brought ruin on its projectors. He had carried the plans of government for the restoration of the coinage stoutly through the most unexampled crises. When the paper of the bank of England was fluctuating in value, the enemies of government casting suspicion on it, so that it would occasionally sink one-fourth of its value in the course of a single day; when both the allies and the enemies of England fancied that her credit was gone and her resources exhausted, Montague knew better, and by his spirit and eloquence kept the machine of government going, and now he reached a point of unquestionable triumph. The credit of the country was no longer falling, but rising; the coinage was fast assuming a position which it had never enjoyed for ages and the confidence of parliament displayed itself in its votes. The three resolutions, which confounded all the adversaries of William's government, and which have often been referred to as motives for encouragement in periods of governmental distress, were these:—First, that the commons would support the king against all foreign and domestic enemies. Secondly, that the standard of gold and silver should not be altered. Thirdly, that they would make good all parliamentary funds established since the king's succession.

An address was passed on the basis of these resolutions, which was followed by another from the lords, and the commons proceeded in the same spirit to vote six millions for the current expenses of the year. They noticed that this was the eighth year in which they had granted his majesty unexampled supplies to carry on the war, but that they regarded all the cost of blood and treasure which the war had occasioned as well spent for the civil and religious liberty which they had obtained, and they proceeded to vote taxes for the raising of the supplies which would have astonished the Stuarts, and which showed that the best way to a nation's purse is sincerely to study its public advantage.