Page:History of England (Macaulay) Vol 2.djvu/532

 pride, already sore and irritable. The English soldiers were in a temper which required the most delicate management. They were conscious that, in the late campaign, their part had not been brilliant. Captains and privates were alike impatient to prove that they had not given way before an inferior force from want of courage. Some Dutch officers had been indiscreet enough to boast, at a tavern over their wine, that they had driven the King's army before them. This insult had raised among the English troops a ferment which, but for the Prince's prompt interference, would probably have ended in a terrible slaughter. What, in such circumstances, was likely to be the effect of a proclamation announcing that the commander of the foreigners considered the whole island as lawful prize of war?

It was also to be remembered that, by putting forth such a proclamation, the Prince would at once abrogate all the rights of which he had declared himself the champion. For the authority of a foreign conqueror is not circumscribed by the customs and statutes of the conquered nation, but is, by its own nature, despotic. Either, therefore, it was not competent to William to declare himself King, or it was competent to him to declare the Great Charter and the Petition of Right nullities, to abolish trial by jury, and to raise taxes without the consent of Parliament. He might, indeed, reestablish the ancient constitution of the realm. But, if he did so, he did so in the exercise of an arbitrary discretion. English liberty would thenceforth be held by a base tenure. It would be, not, as heretofore, an immemorial inheritance, but a recent gift which the generous master who had bestowed it might, if such had been his pleasure, have withheld.

William therefore righteously and prudently determined to observe the promises contained in his Declaration, and to leave to the legislature the office of settling the government. So carefully did he avoid whatever looked like usurpation that he would not, without some semblance of parliamentary authority, take upon himself even to convoke the Estates of the Realm,