WILLIAM AND MA11Y.

125

tactician, he did not rank high; and of his many campaigns chap.only two were decidedly successful. In the talents of a ne-gotiator, on the other hand, he has never been surpassed.

Of the interests and the tempers of the continental courts heknew more than all his Privy Council together. Some of hisministers were doubtless men of great ability, excellent oratorsin the House of Lords, and versed in our insular politics. But,in the deliberations of the Congress, Caermarthen and Not-tingham would have been found as far inferior to him as hewould have been found inferior to them in a parliamentarydebate on a question purely English. The coalition againstFrance was his work. He alone had joined together the partsof that great whole; and he alone could keep them together.

If he had trusted that vast and complicated machine in thehands of any of his subjects, it would instantly have fallen topieces.

Some things indeed were to be done which none of his sub-jects would have ventured to do. Pope Alexander was really,though not in name, one of the allies: it was of the highest im-portance to have him for a friend; and yet such was the temperof the English nation that an English minister might well shrinkfrom having any dealings, direct or indirect, with the Vatican.

The Secretaries of State were glad to leave a matter so delicateand so full of risk to their master, and to he able to protestwith truth that not a line to which the most intolerantProtestantcould object had ever gone out of then’ offices.

It must not be supposed however that William ever forgotthat his especial, his hereditary, mission was to protect the 5 .°^™“°“Reformed Faith. His influence with Roman Catholic princes Wai-

1 ^ leases

was constantly and strenuously exerted for the benefit of theirProtestant subjects. In the spring of 1691, the Waldensianshepherds, long and cruelly persecuted, and weary of theirlives, were surprised by glad tidings. Those who had been in