Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/83

A.D.1693] would have caused a dissolution in the then existing parliament—a matter of much inconvenience to him, as he was anxious to prosecute the war without the necessary interruptions of such a change.

The opening of 1693 was distinguished by a warm debate on the liberty of the press. The licensing, which was about to expire, was proposed for renewal. The eloquent appeal of Milton, in his "Areopagitica," that all books which bore the names of the author or publisher should be exempt from the power of the licensers, had hitherto produced no effect; but now circumstances occurred which drew the subject into notice, and raised many other voices in favour of such exemption. In the lords, Halifax, Mulgrave, and Shrewsbury warmly advocated the principles of Milton; and though the bill passed, it was only by a slight majority, and with a protest against it, signed by eleven peers; nor was it to pass for more than two years. The circumstance which roused this strong feeling were, that Burnet had published a pastoral letter to the clergy of his diocese, recommending them to take the oaths to William and Mary, in which, amongst their claims to the throne, he had unfortunately mentioned that of conquest. This had escaped general attention till the royal licenser, Edmund Bohun, a high tory, who had taken the oaths on that very plea—that the king and queen had won the throne by conquest—fell into the trap of one Blount, whose works he had refused to license. This man wrote an anonymous pamphlet with the title "King William and Queen Mary Conquerors." The unlucky censor fell into the trap, and licensed it. Then the storm of whig indignation broke over his head. He was summoned before parliament and committed to custody. The book was ordered to be burnt by the hangman, and the house unanimously passed a resolution praying his majesty to dismiss him from his office. The unfortunate licenser was then discharged on his own petition, after having been reprimanded on his knees by the speaker. Burnet's pastoral letter was likewise ordered to be burnt by the hangman, much to the bishop's shame and mortification. But the liberty of the press was achieved. When the two years' act maintaining the censorship expired, the commons refused to renew it.

Before the sessions closed, a deputation arrived from Ireland with heavy complaints regarding the administration of affairs in that country. Sir Francis Brewster, Sir William Gore, Sir John Margill, lieutenant Stafford, and others, appeared at the bars of both houses, and deposed that great abuses had been made in disposing of the forfeited estates; that protections had been granted to papists not included in the treaty of Limerick, and, as it was suspected, through gross bribery; that the quarters of the army had not been paid according to the provision made by parliament; that a mayor had been imposed on Dublin two years successively, contrary to its charter; that several people accused of murder had been executed without proof, and one Sweetman, really guilty, discharged without prosecution. They made extraordinary statements of the embezzlement of military stores, of effects belonging to forfeited estates, and that lords Sidney, Athlone (Ginckell), and Coningsby were deep in these malpractices.

It appeared clearly that Coningsby had shown himself a most greedy and unprincipled man; that he had embezzled stores, sold exemptions to numbers whose estates were forfeited, and extorted enormous sums under threats of confiscation. These proceedings were bad enough, but, in the eyes of the embittered protestants, they were intolerable, because they operated in favour of the Irish, towards whom they felt only vengeance.

William had listened to these complaints against Coningsby, and had removed him, and sent Sidney in his stead. But Sidney was too mild for the fiery protestants, who could not bear to see any clemency shown to the native Irish. He called together the Irish parliament to endeavour to reduce the disordered affairs of the country to some more tolerable condition; but he found it occupy itself chiefly with complaints of the too easy treatment of the natives, and he dismissed it. This, however, only increased the resentment of the protestant party, and William recalled Sidney, and intrusted the government of Ireland to lords-justices, at the head of whom was Sir Henry Copal, a strict whig, and not likely to be too indulgent to papists. But William took no pains to inquire into the peculations of his friend Ginckell, and, therefore, both himself and Coningsby escaped.

William now prorogued parliament on the 14th of March, and prepared to set out for the continental campaign. Before departing, however, he made some considerable changes in his ministry. He appointed Sidney master of the ordnance; he removed Russell from the chief command at sea, and gave him a lucrative post in the household. In his place he gave the principal naval command to Delaval and Killigrew—appointments of very doubtful wisdom, for both, though brave officers, were certainly in league with king James. Sir George Rooke, the gallant hero of La Hogue, was made vice-admiral of the red, and Sir Cloudesley Shovel, an honest man, was placed at the head of the admiralty. Equally extraordinary was his appointment of Sir John Trenchard as assistant secretary of state, Nottingham retaining the principal secretaryship. Trenchard had all his life been an extreme whig and agitator. He had voted for the exclusion bill, had turned out with Monmouth in his rebellion, and had fled to France. It now looked as if these were the rewards for his hostility to James; and what was more marked was, that Trenchard was brother-in-law to the unprincipled agitator Hugh Speke, who, by his trumped-up lies, had occasioned the Irish night, and other horrors; and was a close friend of Aaron Smith, the solicitor of the treasury, who was notorious for dirty practices. A very different choice was that of the eloquent and honourable Sir John Somers as lord keeper.

Before going, too, William gave orders that a Scotch parliament should be summoned; but, as it proved a most obsequious one, and distinguished itself by nothing but professions of loyalty and obedience, we may here take all notice of it that it deserves. No mention whatever was made of the massacre of Glencoe. The Macdonalds were, with the highland clans in general, too little accustomed to see justice from southern parliaments to bring their grievances there, and the lowland Scotch were too much accustomed to look on the highlanders as wild caterans and cattle-stealers to trouble themselves about the extermination of a horde of them. In this parliament the noisy Sir