By ANDREW C. GOW, R.A. From the Painting in the National Gallery of British Art.

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THE FRENCH RETREATING FROM TORBAY. (See p. [434].)

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We must now take notice of what had been passing in England and Scotland during William's campaign in Ireland. Immediately after his departure the traitor Crone was brought to the bar, and, after a full and fair trial, convicted and condemned to death. Pardon, however, was offered him on condition of his revealing what he knew of the Jacobite machinations. After a violent struggle with himself, and after two respites, he complied, and gave important information to the Privy Council. The evidences of an active conspiracy of the Jacobites were too prominent to be overlooked. Tourville, the French admiral, was hovering on the coasts of Devon and Dorsetshire, and the Jacobites, as expecting a descent of a French force, were all in a state of the greatest excitement. It was deemed necessary to arrest a number of the most dangerous conspirators, amongst whom was Clarendon, the queen's uncle; and he and the rest were committed to the Tower. Torrington was ordered to join the fleet in the Downs, and chase the French admiral from the coast. At St. Helens he was joined by a powerful Dutch squadron, under the command of Admiral Evertsen, and they lay off Ventnor, whilst Tourville with his fleet lay off the Needles. An engagement was expected every hour, when Torrington was seen to draw off from the coast of the Isle of Wight, and retreat before the French admiral towards the Strait of Dover. The alarm in London became excessive. The scheme of the Jacobites, as it was revealed to the Council, was to enter the Thames; the Jacobites in London had agreed to rise and seize the queen, and proclaim James. James himself had engaged to leave Ireland to Lauzun and Tyrconnel, and throw himself once more amongst his adherents in England. Another squadron of the French was to land at Torbay; and the country once in their possession, the united French fleet was to cut off the return of William from Ireland. With a knowledge of these plans, and the doubtful conduct of Torrington, the Privy Council was in a state of great agitation. Caermarthen was for the most decisive measures, in which he was energetically supported by Monmouth. They proposed that Russell, who was not only a first-rate officer, but a determined one, should be sent over to the fleet, and Monmouth, at his own request, as a military officer, was sent with him. A dispatch, however, was sent before them, ordering Torrington to come to an engagement at all hazards, and this compelled him to act before Russell and Monmouth could get on board. On the 30th of June, the day before the battle of the Boyne, he felt himself compelled to come to an engagement with Tourville off Beachy Head. Tourville had eighty-two men-of-war; the united fleet of England and Holland did not exceed sixty; but a Blake or Russell would have thought little of the difference. Torrington, as had been too plainly evident in the affair of Bantry Bay, was a man of very different stuff. When compelled to fight, he determined that the Dutch should bear the brunt of it. He therefore placed the Dutch vessels in the van, and gave the signal to engage. The Dutch fought with their usual bravery, and for many hours sustained almost the whole fury of the battle, little supported by the English. Torrington showed no inclination to engage, but appeared rather disposed to see the Dutch, whom he hated, annihilated. A few of the English captains did their duty gallantly; but, so far as Torrington was concerned, had it not been for the Dutch, the French might have ascended the Thames, as Van Tromp formerly did, and insulted the whole seaboard of the country at their pleasure. When the Dutch had lost two admirals and many other officers they drew off, their ships being in a terribly shattered condition. One of their dismantled ships fell into the hands of the French, the others Torrington ordered to be either burnt or towed away; and, ignominiously retiring into the Thames, he pulled up the buoys, to prevent the French from following. Tourville, however, had suffered so much from the Dutch, that he drew off towards his own coast, and left the Londoners to suffer all the alarms without the danger of invasion. London, indeed, was in the same state of terror as in the time of the Dutch invasion of the Thames. The wildest rumours were every hour arriving. The confidence in Torrington was gone, and he was generally denounced as being a traitor to the Government. Either he was a most incompetent commander or his heart was not in the cause: and the latter was no doubt the fact; for, though his treason was not patent at this time, it afterwards became certain enough that he maintained a close correspondence with the Courts of both St. Germains and Versailles. But, whether traitor or imbecile, London was in no degree confident of his being able to repel the French. It was believed by numbers that the dockyards at Chatham would be destroyed, the ships in the Thames under protection of the Tower be set fire to, and the Tower itself be cannonaded. To add to the gloom and affright, the news of the defeat of Count Waldeck at Fleurus, in the Netherlands, by Luxemburg, Louis's general, just then arrived. Paris was ablaze with fireworks and rejoicings; London was all gloom and panic.

And truly there were menacing circumstances. Tourville was bearding the English on their own coasts; Torrington dared not or would not go to encounter him; and Marshal Humières lay with a strong force on the opposite shores, not far from Dunkirk, in readiness, it was believed, to go on board Tourville's fleet and make a descent on England, where the Jacobites were prepared to join the invaders. But on the fourth day after the battle of Beachy Head arrived the news of William's splendid victory on the Boyne, and the spirit of the nation rose at once. It was felt that the ascendency of James was over, and the news of his ignominious flight, which soon followed, completely extinguished the hopes of his partisans, and gave stability to the throne of William and Mary.

And this was soon strikingly demonstrated. Tourville triumphantly ranged along the English coasts, after his victory at Beachy Head, without opposition, and he now imagined that nothing was necessary to the restoration of James but a descent on England with a tolerable force, which was certain to be welcomed by the expectant Jacobites. Accordingly Tourville took on board a considerable body of soldiers, and made for the coast of Devon. His fleet numbered a hundred and eleven sail, but of these a large number were mere Mediterranean galleys, rowed by slaves, and sent as transports to carry over the troops. On the 22nd of July he landed at Torbay, where William himself had landed; but, instead of finding the gentry or the people ready to join him in support of King James, the whole west rose as one man at the glare of the beacon signals which blazed on the hill-tops. Messengers were spurring from place to place all night to carry the exact intelligence to the authorities; and the next morning all Devonshire appeared to be marching for Torbay. Tourville speedily beheld numbers of armed horsemen, the gentry and yeomanry of the neighbourhood, assembled on the hills, and everything warned him to embark again as quickly as possible. But he would not retire without leaving some trace of his visit. He despatched a number of his galleys to Teignmouth, where the French landed, set fire to the town, burned down a hundred houses, destroyed the fishing-boats in the harbour, killed or drove away all the live stock they could find, and demolished the interior of the churches, the pulpits, the communion-tables, and the Bibles and Prayer-books, which they tore up and trampled under foot in their hatred of Protestantism. This specimen of what England was to expect if she received back James at the point of French bayonets produced the most salutary effects on the whole nation.

Mary showed herself equal to the emergency in the absence of her husband. She applied to the Lord Mayor to know what state of defence the City was in, and received the most prompt and satisfactory answer. His lordship assured her that the City would stand by her to a man; that it had ten thousand men, well armed and disciplined, prepared to march, if necessary, at an hour's notice; that it would raise six regiments of foot and two regiments of horse at its own cost, and pay besides into the royal treasury a hundred thousand pounds. The country everywhere displayed the same loyalty. The yeoman cavalry of the different counties assembled in arms; those of Suffolk, Essex, Hertford, and Buckingham, marched to Hounslow Heath, where Mary received them amid acclamations of loyalty; she received the cavalry troops of Kent and Surrey on Blackheath. The militia was called out; noblemen hurried to their counties to take command of the forces there; and others, amongst whom was the lately recreant Shrewsbury, flocked to Whitehall to offer their lives and fortunes for the defence of the throne. The miners of Cornwall appeared, ten thousand in number, armed as best they might be, ready to expel the invaders. Those of the Jacobites who stubbornly retained their faith in James, who still designated him as the "stone which the builders had foolishly rejected," and who by their secret press urged the people to the assassination of William, and to vengeance on his Protestant supporters, slunk into hiding-places and remained prudently quiet. Even the non-juring clergy and bishops excited the indignation of the masses as men who encouraged by their conduct the hopes of the Papists; and the Bishop of Norwich was attacked in his palace, and was only rescued by the prompt measures of the authorities. The non-jurors were suspected of leaning not only to James, but to Popery; and a new liturgy, which had been printed and industriously circulated, praying, in no ambiguous words, for the restoration of James by a foreign invasion, and for the murder of William, was widely believed to proceed from them, although they strenuously denied it.