Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/168

154 for the furtherance of the public business. The whole community were beginning to grow disgusted with the dissensions, which had evidently more of party rancour than patriotism at their bottom. This petition had been got up and signed by grand jurors, magistrates, and freeloaders of the county assembled at Maidstone, and confided to Sir Thomas Hales, one of their members. But Sir Thomas, on looking over it, was so much alarmed, that he handed it to the other member, Mr. Meredith. Meredith, in his turn, was so impressed with the hazardous nature of the petition, that, on presenting it, he informed the house that some of the supporters of it, five gentlemen of fortune and distinction, were in the lobby and ready to attest their signatures. They were called in accordingly, and owned their signatures, when they were ordered to withdraw, and the petition was read. It concluded by saying, "that the experience of all ages made it manifest that no nation can be great or happy without union. We hope that no pretence whatever shall be able to create a misunderstanding amongst ourselves, or the least distrust of his most sacred majesty, whose great actions for this nation are writ in the hearts of his subjects, and can never, without the blackest ingratitude, be forgot. We most humbly implore this honourable house to have regard to the voice of the people, that our religion and safety may be effectually provided for, that your addresses may be turned into bills of supply, and that his most sacred majesty, whose propitious and unblemished reign over us we pray God long to continue, may be able powerfully to assist his allies before it is too late."'

In proportion to the excellence of the advice was the indignation with which it was received by the angry commons. When men are conscious that they are acting from private motives of no very respectable kind under this mask of patriotism, the discovery that they are seen through invariably exasperates them. Accordingly, the house was furious at this very seasonable petition. Some of the members went out to the petitioners, and called upon them to make a proper submission to the affronted house; but they stoutly refused, contending that they had only done their duty; whereupon the house voted that the petition was scandalous, insolent, seditious, and tending to the destruction of the constitution; and they ordered the sergeant-at-arms to take the petitioners into custody. But the stout men of Kent were not secured without a vigorous resistance. They were then sent to the Gate-House; but their treatment only damaged the commons, for the public were greatly of the same opinion. Similar petitions were soon preparing in different quarters, and these gentlemen wore much visited in their confinement, which continued till the prorogation. It was, moreover, much questioned whether the commons had not greatly outstripped their real authority, and infringed the statute of the 13th of Charles II., which guarantees the right of petition.

These angry proceedings were again interrupted by a message from the king, laying before them the critical state of Holland from the unprincipled encroachments of France. He accompanied them with a letter from the States-General, which detailed the French conduct, and then most earnestly implored the assistance of England. They relied, they said, on the treaty made with Charles II. in 1678, and they added—"We will tell you, sir, in what condition France puts itself, and your majesty will judge by that if our fear, which reanimates our demand, be unfounded. France, not contented with having taken possession of all the places in the Netherlands that remain to Spain, has thrown into them, and causes actually every day formidable forces to march thither. They draw a line from the Scheldt, near Antwerp, to the Meuse; they are going to draw such a line, according to our advice, from Antwerp to Ostend; they send a numerous artillery into the places that are nearest to our frontier; they make with great diligence many magazines in Flanders, in Brabant, in Guelderland, and at Namur, which they fill with all sorts of ammunition for war and subsistence, besides the great stores for forage which they gather from all parts. They build forts under the cannon of our places; they have worked, and work still continually, to draw the princes that are our friends from our interests, to make them enter into their alliance, or to engage them to a neutrality at least. In short, by intrigues and divisions in the empire, they make our friends useless, and increase those of France. Thus we are almost surrounded on all sides, except on the side of the sea."

The last observation was meant to imply how completely the Dutch depended on the assistance from England which had been given so preeminently in the last war. But they did not content themselves with implying; they made the most direct and earnest appeals for it. They declared that they were worse off than when in a state of war, because then they could take measures to hinder these attempts. They declared that they were compelled to cut their dykes and overflow their country for protection; and they looked forward with deep alarm to the approaching summer.

This piteous appeal was confirmed by Mr. Stanhope, the English ambassador at the Hague. He complained of the double-dealing of D'Avaux, the French ambassador-extraordinary, and of the numbers of French troops pouring into the Netherlands, and of the transport of vast quantities of cannon, mortars, bombs, and ammunition which were advanced towards the frontiers. It was clear that France, which had always been the restless disturber of Europe, could not long remain quiet. It was not enough that it had obtained the long-desired dominion of Spain and all its dependencies; that acquisition only the more inspired it with the desire to domineer over every people within its reach. To William's great relief the commons, who, however averse to a continental war, were bound by treaties to support Holland, from which they could not at such a juncture recede with honour, took into consideration the papers and messages sent down to them by the king, and resolved to enable him to assist his allies in maintaining the liberties of Europe, and to provide the succors demanded by the States-General. On the heels of this resolution the emperor's ambassador, count Wratislaw, announced to the king his imperial master's determination to assert his rights to Spain and its dependencies in opposition to France. He stated that he was quite aware of the formidable nature of the attempt, but he relied on the support of the kings and princes who had entered into the late confederacy, and first and foremost on the king of England. He assumed that the old confederacy was still in force, and that all the parties