PETITION OF KENT.
This faction had, since the beginning of this session, employed their emissaries in exciting a popular aversion to the tory ministers and members, and succeeded so well in their endeavours, that they formed a scheme of obtaining petitions from different counties and corporations that should induce the commons to alter their conduct, on the supposition that it was contrary to the sense of the nation. In execution of this scheme, a petition signed by the deputy-lieutenants, above twenty justices of the peace, the grand jury and freeholders of the county of Kent, had been presented to the house of commons on the eighteenth of May, by five gentlemen of fortune and distinction. The purport of this remonstrance was to recommend union among themselves, and confidence in his majesty, whose great actions for the nation could never be forgotten without the blackest ingratitude; to beg they would have regard to the voice of the people; that their religion and safety might be effectually provided for; that their loyal addresses might be turned into bills of supply; and that his most sacred majesty might be enabled powerfully to assist his allies before it should be too late. The house was so incensed at the petulance of the petition, that they voted it scandalous, insolent, and seditious; and ordered the gentlemen who had presented it to be taken into custody. They were afterwards committed to the Gate-house, where they remained till the prorogation of parliament; but they had no reason to repine at their imprisonment, which recommended them to the notice and esteem of the public. They were visited and caressed by the chiefs of the whig interest, and considered as martyrs to the liberties of the people. Their confinement gave rise to a very extraordinary paper, entitled, “A memorial from the gentlemen, freeholders, and inhabitants of the counties of———, in behalf of themselves and many thousands of the good people of England.” It was signed Legion, and sent to the speaker in a letter, commanding him, in the name of two hundred thousand Englishmen, to deliver it to the house of commons. In this strange expostulation, the house was charged with illegal and unwarrantable practices in fifteen particulars; a new claim of right was ranged under seven heads; and the commons were admonished to act according to their duty, as specified in this memorial, on pain of incurring the resentment of an injured nation. It was concluded in these words—“For Englishmen are no more to be slaves to parliaments than to kings-our name is Legion, and we are many.” The commons were equally provoked and intimidated by this libel, which was the production of one Daniel de Foe, a scurrilous party-writer in very little estimation. They would not, however, deign to take notice of it in the house; but a complaint being made of endeavours to raise tumults and seditions, a committee was appointed to draw up an address to his majesty, informing him of those seditious endeavours, and beseeching him to provide for the public peace and security.
The house, however, perceiving plainly that they had incurred the odium of the nation, which began to clamour for a war with France, and dreading the popular resentment, thought fit to change their measures with respect to this object, and present the address we have already mentioned, in which they promised to support him in the alliances he should contract with the emperor and other states in order to bridle the exorbitant power of France. They likewise proceeded in earnest upon the supply, and voted funds for raising about two millions seven hundred thousand pounds to defray the expense of the ensuing year. They voted thirty thousand seamen, and resolved that ten thousand troops should be transported from Ireland to Holland, as the auxiliaries stipulated in the treaty of 1677 with the states-general. The funds were constituted of a land-tax, certain duties on merchandise, and a weekly deduction from the excise, so as to bring down the civil list to six hundred thousand pounds, as the duke of Gloucester was dead, and James’ queen refused her allowance. They passed a bill for taking away all privileges of parliament in legal prosecutions during the intermediate prorogations; their last struggle with the lords was concerning a bill for appointing commissioners to examine and state the public accounts. The persons nominated for this purpose were extremely obnoxious to the majority of the peers, as violent partizans of the tory faction; when the bill, therefore, was sent up to the lords, they made some amendments which the commons rejected. The former animosity between the two houses began to revive, when the king interrupted their disputes by putting an end to the session on the twenty-fourth day of Juno, after having thanked the parliament for their zeal in the public service, and exhorted them to a discharge of their duties in their several counties. He was, no doubt, extremely pleased with such an issue of a session that had began with a very inauspicious aspect. His health daily declined; but he concealed the decay of his constitution, that his allies might not be discouraged from engaging in a confederacy of which he was deemed the head and chief support. He conferred the command of the ten thousand troops destined for Holland upon the earl of Marlborough, and appointed him at the same time his plenipotentiary to the states-general, a choice that evinced his discernment and discretion; for that nobleman surpassed all his contemporaries both as a general and a politician. He was cool, penetrating, intrepid, and persevering, plausible, insinuating, artful, and dissembling.
PROGRESS OF PRINCE EUGENE.
A regency being established, the king embarked for Holland in the beginning of July. On his arrival at the Hague he assisted at an assembly of the states-general, whom he harangued in very affectionate terms, and was answered with great cordiality; then he made a progress round the frontiers to examine the state of the garrisons, and gave such orders and directions as he judged necessary for the defence of the country. Meanwhile, the French minister D’Avaux, being recalled from the Hague, delivered a letter to the states from the French king, who complained that they had often interrupted the conferences, from which no good fruits were to be expected; but he assured them it wholly depended upon themselves whether they should continue to receive marks of his ancient friendship for their republic. The letter was accompanied by an insolent memorial, to which the states-general returned a very spirited answer. As they expected nothing now but hostilities from France, they redoubled their diligence in making preparations for their own defence. They repaired their fortifications, augmented their army, and hired auxiliaries. King William and they had already engaged in an alliance with the king of Denmark, who undertook to furnish a certain number of troops in consideration of a subsidy; and they endeavoured to mediate a peace between Sweden and Poland; but this they could not effect. France had likewise offered her mediation between those powers in hopes of bringing over Sweden to her interest; and the court of Vienna had tampered with the king of Poland; but he persisted in his resolution to prosecute the war. The Spaniards began to be very uneasy under the dominion of their new master. They were shocked at the insolence of his French ministers and attendants, and much more at the manners and fashions which they introduced. The grandees found themselves very little considered by their sovereign, and resented his economy; for he had endeavoured to retrench the expense of the court, which had used to support their magnificence. Prince Eugene, at the head of the Imperial army, had entered Italy by Vicenza, and passed the Adige near Carpi, where he defeated a body of five thousand French forces. The enemy were commanded by the duke of Savoy, assisted by mareschal Catinat and the prince of Vaudemont, who did not think proper to hazard an engagement; but mareschal Villeroy arriving in the latter end of August with orders to attack the Imperialists, Catinat retired in disgust. The new general marched immediately towards Chiari, where prince Eugene was intrenched, and attacked his camp; but met with such a reception that he was obliged to retire with the loss of five thousand men. Towards the end of the campaign the prince took possession of all the Mantuan territories, except Mantua itself, and Goito, the blockade of which he formed. He reduced all the places on the Oglio, and continued in the field during the whole winter, exhibiting repeated marks of the most invincible courage, indefatigable vigilance, and extensive capacity in the art of war. In January he had well nigh surprised Cremona, by introducing a body of men through an old aqueduct. They forced one of the gates, by which the prince and his followers entered; Villeroy, being awakened by the noise, ran into the street where he was taken; and the town must have been infallibly reduced, had prince Eugene been joined by another body of troops which he had ordered to march from the Parmesan and secure the bridge. These not arriving at the time appointed, an Irish regiment in the French service took possession of the bridge, and the prince was obliged to retire with his prisoner.
WILLIAM, 1688-1701.
SITUATION OF AFFAIRS IN EUROPE.
The French king, alarmed at the activity and military genius of the Imperial general, sent a reinforcement to his army in Italy, and the duke of Vendôme to command his forces in that country; he likewise importuned the duke of Savoy to assist him effectually; but that prince having obtained all he could expect from France, became cold and backward. His second daughter was by this time married to the new king of Spain, who met her at Barcelona, where he found himself involved in disputes with the states of Catalonia, who refused to pay a tax he had imposed until their privileges should be confirmed; and he was obliged to gratify them in this particular. The war continued to rage in the north. The young king of Sweden routed the Saxons upon the river Danu: thence he marched into Courland and took possession of Mittau without opposition; while the king of Poland retired into Lithuania. In Hungary the French emissaries endeavoured to sow the seeds of a new revolt. They exerted themselves with indefatigable industry in almost every court of Christendom. They had already gained over the elector of Bavaria, and his brother the elector of Cologn, together with the dukes of Wolfenbuttle and Saxe-Gotha, who professed neutrality, while they levied troops and made such preparations for war as plainly indicated that they had received subsidies from France. Louis had also extorted a treaty of alliance from the king of Portugal, who was personally attached to the Austrian interest; but this weak prince was a slave to his ministers, whom the French king had corrupted. During this summer, the French coasts were over-awed by the combined fleets of England and Holland under the command of sir George Rooke, who sailed down the channel in the latter end of August, and detached vice-admiral Benbow with a strong squadron to the West Indies. In order to deceive the French king with regard to the destination of this fleet, king William demanded the free use of the Spanish harbours, as if his design had been to send a squadron to the Mediterranean; but he met with a repulse, while the French ships were freely admitted. About this period the king revoked his letters-patent to the commissioners of the admiralty, and constituted the earl of Pembroke lord high-admiral of England, in order to avoid the factions, the disputes, and divided counsels of a board. The earl was no sooner promoted to this office than he sent captain Loades with three frigates to Cadiz, to bring home the sea-stores and effects belonging to the English in that place before the war should commence; and this piece of service was successfully performed. The French king, in order to enjoy all the advantages that could be derived from his union with Spain, established a company to open a trade with Mexico and Peru; and concluded a new Assiento treaty for supplying the Spanish plantations with negroes. At the same time he sent a strong squadron to the port of Cadiz. The French dress was introduced into the court of Spain; and by a formal edict, the grandees of that kingdom and the peers of France were put on a level in each nation. There was no vigour left in the councils of Spain; her finances were exhausted; and her former spirit seemed to be quite extinguished; the nobility were beggars, and the common people overwhelmed with indigence and distress. The condition of France was not much more prosperous. She had been harassed by a long war, and now saw herself on the eve of another, which in all probability would render her completely miserable.