This account is more probably true, than the former; when it is considered, that by sending the earl to Tangier[2], a scheme was laid for destroying him, and all the crew aboard the same vessel. For the ship which was appointed to carry the general of the forces, was in such a condition, that the captain of her declared, he was afraid to make the voyage. Upon this representation, lord Mulgrave applied both to the lord admiral, and the king himself: The first said, the ship was safe enough, and no other could be then procured. The king answered him coldly, that he hoped it would do, and that he should give himself no trouble about it. His lordship was reduced to the extremity either of going in a leaky ship, or absolutely refusing; which he knew his enemies would impute to cowardice, and as he abhorred the imputation, he resolved, in opposition to the advice of his friends, to hazard all; but at the same time advised several volunteers of quality, not to accompany him in the expedition, as their honour was not so much engaged as his; some of whom wisely took his advice, but the earl of Plymouth, natural son of the king, piqued himself in running the same danger with a man who went to serve his father, and yet was used so strangely by the ill-offices of his ministers.
Providence, however defeated the ministerial scheme of assassination, by giving them the finest weather during the voyage, which held three weeks, and by pumping all the time, they landed safe at last at Tangier, where they met with admiral Herbert, afterwards earl of Torrington, who could not but express his admiration, at their having performed such a voyage in a ship he had sent home as unfit for service; but such was the undisturbed tranquility and native firmness of the earl of Mulgrave's mind, that in this hazardous voyage, he composed the Poem, part of which we have quoted.
Had the earl of Mulgrave been guilty of any offence, capital, or otherwise, the ministry might have called him to account for it; but their contriving, and the king's consenting to so bloody a purpose, is methinks such a stain upon them, as can never be wiped off; and had that nobleman and the ship's crew perished, they would have added actual murther, to concerted baseness.
Upon the approach of his lordship's forces, the Moors retired, and the result of this expedition was, the blowing up of Tangier. Some time after the king was appeased, the earl forgot the ill offices, that had been done him; and enjoyed his majesty's favour to the last. He continued in several great ports during the short reign of king James the IId, till that prince abdicated the throne. As the earl constantly and zealously advised him against several imprudent measures, which were taken by the court, the king, some months before the revolution, began to grow cooler towards him; but yet was so equitable as not to remove him from his preferments: And after the king lost his crown, he had the inward satisfaction, to be conscious, that his councils had not contributed to that prince's misfortunes; and that himself, in any manner, had not forfeited his honour and integrity.
That his lordship was no violent friend to, or promoter of, the revolution, seems to appear from his conduct during that remarkable æra: and particularly from the unfinished relation he left concerning it, which was suppressed some years ago, by order of the government.
In a passage in his lordship's writings, it appears he was unwilling that king James should leave England[3]. Just as the king was stepping into bed the night before his going away, the earl of Mulgrave came into the bed-chamber, which, being at so late an hour, might possibly give the king some apprehensions of that lord's suspecting his design, with which he was resolved not to trust him, nor any protestant: He therefore stopped short, and turned about to whisper him in the ear, that his commissioners had newly sent him a very hopeful account of some accommodation with the Prince of Orange; to which that lord only replied with a question, asking him if the Prince's army halted, or approached nearer to London? the King owned they still marched on; at which the earl shook his head, and said no more, only made him a low bow, with a dejected countenance, humbly to make him understand that he gave no credit to what the King's hard circumstances at that time obliged him to dissemble. It also appears that the earl of Mulgrave was one of those lords, who, immediately after the King's departure, sent letters to the fleet, to the abandoned army of King James, and to all the considerable garrisons in England, which kept them in order and subjection, not only to the present authority, but that which should be settled afterwards.
To his lordship's humanity was owing the protection King James obtained from the Lords in London, upon his being seized, and insulted by the populace at Feversham in Kent; before which time, says he, 'the Peers sat daily in the council chamber in Whitehall, where the lord Mulgrave one morning happened to be advertised privately that the King had been seized by the angry rabble at Feversham, and had sent a poor countryman with the news, in order to procure his rescue, which was like to come too late, since the messenger had waited long at the council door, without any body's being willing to take notice of him. This sad account moved him with great compassion at so extraordinary an instance of worldly uncertainty; and no cautions of offending the prevailing party were able to restrain him from shewing a little indignation at so mean a proceeding in the council; upon which, their new president, the marquis of Hallifax, would have adjourned it hastily, in order to prevent him. But the lord Mulgrave earnestly conjured them all to sit down again, that he might acquaint them with a matter that admitted no delay, and was of the highest importance imaginable.
Accordingly the Lords, who knew nothing of the business, could not but hearken to it; and those few that guessed it, and saw the consequence, yet wanted time enough for concerting together about so nice, and very important a matter, as saving, or losing a King's life. The Lords then sat down again, and he represented to them what barbarity it would be, for such an assembly's conniving at the rabble's tearing to pieces, even any private gentleman, much more a great Prince, who, with all his popery, was still their Sovereign; so that mere shame obliged them to suspend their politics awhile, and call in the messenger, who told them with tears, how the King had engaged him to deliver a letter from him to any persons he could find willing to save him from so imminent a danger. The letter had no superscription, and was to this effect;
'To acquaint the reader of it, that he had been discovered in his retreat by some fishermen of Kent, and secured at first there by the gentry, who were afterwards forced to resign him into the hands of an insolent rabble.
Upon so pressing an occasion, and now so very publickly made known, the council was surprized, and under some difficulty, for as there was danger of displeasing by doing their duty, so there was no less by omitting it, since the Law makes it highly criminal in such an extremity; besides that most of them as yet unacquainted with the Prince of Orange, imagined him prudent, and consequently capable of punishing so base a desertion, either out of generosity, or policy. These found afterwards their caution needless, but at present it influenced the council to send 200 of the life guards under their captain the earl of Feversham; first to rescue the King from all danger of the common people, and afterwards to attend him toward the sea side; if he continued his resolution of retiring, which they thought it more decent to connive at, than to detain him here by force.'