Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/320

306 of the peace, Robinson, bishop of Bristol, and lord privy seal, was advanced to the see of London, vacant by the death of the stout old militant bishop Compton, and Atterbury, the defender of Sacheverel, another strong tory divine, not to say strong Jacobite, was made bishop of Rochester in place of a poor poet and diligent time-server. Nor did Sacheverel himself go without his honour and reward. His term of three years' suspension had expired in March, and on the very first Sunday of his again taking possession of his pulpit at St. Saviour's, he preached a sermon from the text, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do;" in which he almost blasphemously drew a comparison betwixt his own sufferings and those of the Redeemer. There were great rejoicings on account of his restoration to his clerical functions; the house of commons appointed him to preach before them on the anniversary of the restoration, and the crown conferred on him the rich living of St. Andrew's, Holborn. Yet all the tory interest could not procure even a decent reception to the French ambassador, the duke D'Aumont, who now came over. He was insulted by the populace, scurrilous ballads in both French and English were published about him, and he received many threatening letters, informing him that if he did not withdraw himself, his house should be burnt over his head; and this base threat was actually carried into effect.



The magistrates of Dunkirk sent over a deputation praying the queen to spare the harbour and defences of Dunkirk, and representing that they would be just as useful to her as they had been to France; but their arguments were answered by Addison, Steele, and Mainwaring, commissioners were sent over to see the fortifications razed, and the port filled up, which was done. D'Aumont, the ambassador, quitted his uneasy post in England in November. Whilst, however, the queen had been firm in seeing the terms of the treaty observed, she had not hesitated to remonstrate with Louis on the barbarous severity shown by him to the protestants of his own kingdom, thousands of whom were languishing in prison, and other thousands enduring the worst of slavery in the galleys. At her urgent request a hundred and thirty-six of these wretched protestants of the Cevennes were liberated from the galleys, and afterwards, on her representation that she understood yet more were in a similar condition, there was another liberation; but after all thousands remained under the pitiless endurance of the bigoted cruelty of the much-lauded but monstrous sovereign.

The elections were now carried on with all the fire and zeal of the two parties. The tories boasted of their successful efforts to stem the tide of expenditure for the war, to stanch the flow of blood, and restore all the blessings of peace. The whigs, on the contrary, made the most of their opposition to the treaty of commerce, which they represented as designed to sacrifice our trade to the insane regard now shown to the French. To show their interest in trade, they wore locks of wool in their hats, and the tories, to show their attachment to the restoration and the crown, wore green twigs of oak. Never was shown more completely the want of logical reason in the populace, for