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HISTOKY OP ENGLAND.

not the slightest reason to believe that either of these greatnoblemen ever had any dealings, direct or indirect, with SaintGermains. It is not, however, necessary to accuse Penn of de-liberate falsehood. He was credulous and garrulous. The LordSteward and the Lord Chamberlain had shared in the vexationwith which their party had observed the leaning of Williamtowmrds the Tories; and they had probably expressed thatvexation unguardedly. So weak a man as Penn, wishing tofind Jacobites every where, and prone to believe whatever hewished, might easily put an erroneous construction on in-vectives such as the haughty and irritable Devonshire was buttoo ready to utter, and on sarcasms such as, in moments ofspleen, dropped but too easily from the lips of the keenwittedDorset. Caermarthen, a Tory, and a Tory who had been merci-lessly persecuted by the Whigs, was disposed to make the mostof this idle hearsay. But he received no encouragement fromhis master, who, of all the great politicians mentioned inhistory, was the least prone to suspicion. When William re-turned to England, Preston was brought before him, andw'ascommanded to repeat the confession which had already beenmade to the ministers. The King stood behind the Lord Pre-sident’s chair and listened gravely while Clarendon, Dartmouth,Turner and Penn were named. But as soon as the prisoner,passing from what he could himself testify, began to repeat thestories which Penn had told him, William touched Caermarthenon the shoulder and said, “My Lord, we have had too muchof this.”* This judicious magnanimity had its proper reward.Devonshire and Dorset became from that day more zealousthan ever in the cause of the master who, in spite of calumny

* That this account of what passed is true in substance is sufficientlyproved by the Life of James, ii. 443. I have taken one or two slight cir-cumstances from Dalrymple, who, I believe, took them from papers, nowirrecoverably lost, which he had seen in the Scotch College at Paris.