The negotiations were carried on in England in closest secrecy between William and Tallard, William entering into engagements which most momentously affected England as well as all Europe, without taking a particle of advice from his Council, much less seeking the advice of Parliament—a proceeding which we should now consider unconstitutional, but which was then by no means unusual. When he quitted England after the dissolution of Parliament, it was only the more unobservedly to complete this extraordinary business. Tallard followed him to Loo, and they were soon after joined by Portland. It was now about the middle of August, and William wrote to Somers, desiring him to send him full powers under the Great Seal to complete the negotiation, leaving the names in blanks. He said he had ordered Portland to write to Vernon, the Secretary of State, to draw out the commission with his own hand, so that no creature should know anything of it except Somers and one or two of the other most trusted Ministers. He told Somers that it was confidently believed that the King of Spain could not outlive the month of October—might die much sooner, and, therefore, not a moment was to be lost.
In consequence of this communication, Somers, who was seeking health at Tunbridge Wells, immediately called into his counsels Russell (now Lord Orford), Montague, and Shrewsbury. He informed William that Montague and Secretary Vernon had come down to him at Tunbridge; they had seriously discussed this very momentous question, and that it seemed to them that it might be attended with very many ill consequences if the French did not act a sincere part; that the people of England would undoubtedly resent being drawn into any fresh war; and that it required deep consideration what would be the condition of Europe should this proposed partition be carried out. To them it seemed that if Sicily were in French hands, they would become entire masters of the Levant trade; that if they obtained any of the Spanish ports on the Tuscan coast, Milan would be so entirely shut in from independent intercourse or commerce by sea and land that it would be utterly powerless; that if France had Guipuzcoa and the other Spanish places on the French side of the Pyrenees, the rest of Spain would be as completely open to French invasion as Catalonia now was; and, finally, if this negotiation was concluded, what guarantee had William for the king of France's faithful execution of it? Were England and Holland to sit still and see France enforce this partition? "If that be so," says Somers, "what security ought we to expect from the French that, while we are neuter, they will confine themselves to the terms of the treaty, and not attempt to take further advantage?" These considerations were sound, but William had certainly chosen the lesser of two evils, for the placing of the French candidate on the throne of Spain would have entirely overturned the European balance.
In obedience to the king's orders, Somers sent the carte blanche with the Great Seal affixed; but he had failed in inducing Vernon to give him a warrant for affixing the Seal. The Secretary was too well aware of the unconstitutional character of this proceeding to issue such a warrant, and Somers was obliged to content himself with keeping the king's letter as his authority for the act. Undeterred by the plain suggestions of Somers and the other Ministers as to the total want of security which he had for Louis's observance of this treaty, and the dangerous power it conferred on France, William was in such haste to conclude the treaty, that the Earl of Portland and Sir Joseph Williamson had signed a rough draft before Somers's carte blanche arrived; and on the 11th of October, or about six weeks after its receipt, the formal treaty was signed by Portland, Williamson, Tallard, and Heinsius.
William returned to England in the beginning of December. He arrived on the 4th, and opened his new Parliament on the 6th. It had been obliged to be prorogued owing to his prolonged stay, having been called for August. The Ministers in William's absence had not taken much pains to influence the elections, and it soon appeared that a very independent body of gentlemen had been sent up. Not only had the electors put forward men of free principles, but the press had warmly urged the selection of a Liberal Speaker as essential to the full exercise of Parliamentary freedom. There were three candidates for the Speakership more particularly in view—Sir Edward Seymour, Sir Thomas Littleton, and Harley, the one supported by the Tories.
A paper on the choice of a Speaker had been actively circulated, which said that the great Lord Burleigh declared "that England could never be undone except by a Parliament," and that whenever we were enslaved like our Continental neighbours, it would be by the joint influence of a corrupt Parliament and a standing army. It cried down Seymour as a man who had constantly been bargaining with the Court since the days of the Pension Parliament of Charles II.; and it declared that men holding office under the Crown were most unfit for the office of Speaker. This was aimed at Littleton, which seemed a good omen for the Court, but, as it soon appeared, was no sound indication, for Harley was not elected, but Littleton.
In his opening speech William told the Commons that, notwithstanding the state of peace, it would be necessary for them to consider well the strength which they ought to maintain both at sea and on land; that the honour and even safety of the nation depended on not stripping it too much of its forces in the eyes of foreign nations. It was necessary, he contended, that Europe should be impressed with the idea that they would not be wanting to themselves. They had acquired a great position among the nations, and it was their duty to preserve it. He recommended them to make some progress in the discharge of the debts incurred in this long and expensive war, for an English Parliament could never, he imagined, neglect the sacred obligations which it had assumed. He also suggested to them some measures for the improvement of trade and for the discouragement of profaneness, and he begged them to act with unanimity.
The remarks on the necessity of maintaining more troops than the last Parliament had determined on, and on defraying the debts incurred by the war, seemed to rouse an extraordinary spirit of anger and disrespect in the new House. It neglected the ordinary courtesy of an Address. Before leaving for Holland in the summer, William left a sealed paper, ordering Ministers not to reduce the army in compliance to less than sixteen thousand men. Probably this was become known, and there had got abroad a persuasion that the king meant to resist the will of the Parliament in this respect; no other cause appeared sufficient to explain the animus which now manifested itself. The House resounded with speeches against standing armies, and on the waste of the people's substance on foreign wars, and it resolved that all the land forces of England in English pay should not exceed seven thousand, and that these should all be natural-born subjects; that not more than twelve thousand should be maintained in Ireland—these, too, all natural-born subjects, and to be supported by the revenue of Ireland. The Ministers had told the king before the meeting of Parliament that they thought they could obtain a grant of ten or twelve thousand in England, and William had replied that they might as well leave none as so few. But now that this storm broke out, the Ministers, seeing no possibility of carrying the number they had hoped for, sat silent, to the great disgust of the king.
This resolution went to strip William of his Dutch Guards whom he had brought with him, and who had attended him in so many actions, and of the brave Huguenots, who had done such signal service in Ireland. The spirit of the Commons, instead of being merely economical, was in this instance petty and miserable. It was neither grateful nor becoming to its dignity, to make so sweeping a reduction of the army, to begrudge the king who had rescued them from the miserable race of the Stuarts, and had so nobly acquiesced in everything which regarded their liberties, the small satisfaction of a few Dutch and Huguenot troops. The Huguenots especially, it might have been expected, would have experienced some sympathy from the Parliament, not only in return for their own gallant services, but because their friends and fellow-religionists were at this moment suffering the severest persecution. But a deep dislike of foreigners had seized the nation, and this had been rendered the more intense from the lavish wealth which William heaped on Portland and others, and from his retiring every year to spend the summer months in Holland. They had never been accustomed to have their monarch passing a large portion of his time abroad, and they regarded it as an evidence that he only had any regard for the Dutch. The Commons, without considering his feelings, introduced a Bill founded on their resolution, carried it briskly through the House, and sent it up to the Lords, where it also passed.
Deeply annoyed, William is said to have walked to and fro on learning that the Commons insisted on his dismissing the Dutch Guards, and to have muttered, "By God, if I had a son, these Guards should not quit me." He wrote to Lord Galway, one of his foreign friends, "There is a spirit of ignorance and malice prevails here beyond conception." To Heinsius he wrote in a similar strain, "that he was so chagrined at the conduct of the Commons, that he was scarcely master of his thoughts, and hinted at coming to extremities, and being in Holland sooner than he had thought." In fact, he was so much excited as to menace again throwing up the government. He sat down and penned a speech which he proposed to address to the two Houses; it is still preserved in the British Museum. It ran:—"My Lords and Gentlemen,—I came into this kingdom, at the desire of the nation, to save it from ruin, and to preserve your religion, laws, and liberties; and for this object I have been obliged to sustain a long and burthensome war for this kingdom, which, by the grace of God and the bravery of this nation, is at present terminated by a good peace; in which you may live happily and in repose if you would contribute to your own security, as I recommended at the opening of the Session. But seeing, on the contrary, that you have so little regard for my advice, and take so very little care of your own safety, and that you expose yourselves to evident ruin in depriving yourselves of the only means for your defence, it would neither be just nor reasonable for me to be witness of your ruin, not being able on my part to avoid it, being in no condition to defend and protect you, which was the only view I had in coming to this country." And it then went on to desire them to name proper persons to take charge of the government, promising, however, to come again whenever they would put him in his proper place, with proper power to defend them. The entreaties of Somers, however, induced him to abandon his purpose.
The mischief which the Whigs had done themselves by granting a charter to the new East India Company, in violation of the existing charter of the old Company, merely because the former Company had offered them a large money bait, encouraged the Tories greatly in their endeavours to regain power. They exhorted the old Company to petition that means should be taken to enable it to maintain its trade and property against the new Company for the remaining portion of the twenty-one years of its charter; and there were not wanting some in the House who declared that the new charter, granted in violation of an existing one, and from such corrupt motives, should be abolished. Montague, however, who had passed the Act for this charter, was able to protect it, but not to prevent fresh onslaughts on the unpopular Whigs. They were charged with gross corruption, and with embezzlement of the public revenue, for the purchase of great estates for themselves, and the grievous burthen of the people by taxation. Russell, Earl of Orford, was specially singled out by the Commons. He was both First Lord of the Admiralty and Treasurer of the Navy, as well as Admiral, and assumed great authority, forgetful of the humble station from which he had risen. He was charged with keeping large sums of public money for his own private use, instead of paying the officers and seamen when their pay was due. They called for his accounts, and there appeared to be four hundred and sixty thousand pounds in his hands. In his defence he represented that this was actually in course of payment, and that part of the sum was yet in tallies, which must be converted into cash before it could be distributed. But this did not satisfy the Commons. They voted an address to the king, complaining of the impropriety of one and the same person being Lord High Admiral, Chief Commissioner of the Board of Admiralty, and Treasurer; of gross misapplication of the public money; of many unnecessary changes introduced into the navy; of delays in granting convoys; and of favouritism to particular officers. Orford was prudent enough to retire from his offices before the storm which was gathering burst in all its fury upon him. The Tories, elated by this success, endeavoured to get Sir George Rooke put into Orford's place; but the Whigs were yet strong enough and imprudent enough to get the Earl of Bridgewater named First Lord of the Admiralty—a man almost wholly unacquainted with naval affairs; and Lord Haversham, another of the "land admirals," as the sailors called these unprofessional men, succeeded to Priestman, one of the Junior Lords, who retired.