Page:History of England (Macaulay) Vol 5.djvu/381

 mortified and incensed; and, during a short time, a strange hope was cherished there that, in the heat of his resentment, he might be induced to imitate his uncles, Charles and James, to conclude another treaty of Dover, and to sell himself into vassalage for a subsidy which might make him independent of his niggardly and mutinous Parliament. Such a subsidy, it was thought, might be disguised under the name of a compensation for the little principality of Orange, which Lewis had long been desirous to purchase even at a fancy price. A despatch was drawn up containing a paragraph by which Tallard was to be apprised of his master's views, and instructed not to hazard any distinct proposition, but to try the effect of cautious and delicate insinuations, and, if possible, to draw William on to speak first. This paragraph was, on second thoughts, cancelled; but that it should ever have been written must be considered a most significant circumstance.

It may with confidence be affirmed that William would never have stooped to be the pensioner of France; but it was with difficulty that he was, at this conjuncture, dissuaded from throwing up the government of England. When first he threw out hints about retiring to the Continent, his ministers imagined that he was only trying to frighten them into making a desperate effort to obtain for him an efficient army. But they soon saw reason to believe that he was in earnest. That he was in earnest, indeed, can hardly be doubted. For, in a confidential letter to Heinsius, whom he could have no motive for deceiving, he intimated his intention very clearly. "I foresee," he writes, "that I shall be driven to take an extreme course, and that I shall see you again in Holland sooner than I had imagined."[16] In fact he had resolved to go down to the Lords, to send for the Commons, and to make his last speech from the throne. That speech he actually prepared and had it translated. He meant to tell his hearers that he had come to England to rescue their religion and their liberties; that, for that end, he had been under the necessity of waging a long and cruel war; that the war had, by the blessing of God, ended in an honourable