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126 which these his countrymen had served him. He sent lord Raleigh with a written message to the commons, informing them that he was taking active measures to reduce the army, as they desired, to seven thousand, but would take it as a great personal kindness if they would allow his Dutch guards to remain. But the commons, so far from consenting, seemed to revive all their bitterness. They resolved, by a majority of one hundred and seventy-five to one hundred and fifty-six, that the foreign troops should go, and sent to William a fresh address, expressing "their unspeakable grief that the king should be advised to propose anything to which they could not consent." This was final, and the guards were embarked, and the Huguenots too. A Cromwell would have felt deep sympathy for these brave troops; but though at this moment, Louis having obtained influence again in Savoy, the Waldenses were once more driven from their valleys, not a symptom of pity marked this ungracious parliament. Though they did not care for the persecutions of the papists abroad, they were not, however, quite so indifferent to their prevalence at home. Since the peace of Ryswick the catholic priests had swarmed over, and appeared in all public places in London and Westminster with wonderful assurance. The people began to whisper that there must be some secret article in their favour in the treaty, and the commons requested William to put the laws in force against the papists and non-jurors, and remove them by proclamation from London and its neighbourhood.



The mischief which the whigs had done themselves by granting a charter to the new East India Company, in violation of the existing charter of the old company, merely because the former company had offered them a large money bait, encouraged the tories greatly in their endeavours to regain power. They encouraged the old company to petition that means should be taken to enable it to maintain its trade and property against the new company for the remaining portion of the twenty-one years of its charter; and there were not wanting some in the house who declared that the new charter, granted in violation of an existing one, and from such corrupt motives, should be abolished. Montague, however, who had passed the act for this charter, was able to protect it, but not to prevent fresh onslaughts on the unpopular whigs. They were charged with gross corruption, and with embezzlement of the public revenue, for the purchase of great estates for themselves, and the grievous burden of the people by taxation. Russell, earl of Orford, was especially singled out by the commons. He was both first lord of the admiralty and treasurer of the navy, as well as admiral, and assumed an authority, forgetful of the humble station from