22

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

CFTAP.

XXV.

J699.

Meetingof Parlia-ment.

when his accomplices should return, laden with the spoilsof ruined merchants. It was fortunate for the Chancellorthat the calumnies of which he was the object were tooatrocious to be mischievous.

And now the time had come at which the hoarded ill-humour of six months was at liberty to explode. On thesixteenth of November the Houses met. The King, in hisspeech, assured them in gracious and affectionate languagethat he was determined to do Ins best to merit their loveby constant care to preserve their liberty and their re-ligion, by a pure administration of justice, by countenan-cing virtue, by discouraging vice, by shrinking from nodifficulty or danger when the welfare of the nation was atstake. “These,” he said, “are my resolutions; andlampersuaded that you are come together with purposes onyour part suitable to these on mine. Since then our aimsare only for the general good, let us act with confidencein one another, which will not fail, by God’s blessing, tomake me a happy king, and you a great and flourishingpeople.”

It might have been thought that no words less likelyto give offence had ever been uttered from the Englishthrone. But even in those words the malevolence of fac-tion sought and found matter for a quarrel. The gentleexhortation, “Let us act with confidence in one another,”must mean that such confidence did not now exist, thatthe King distrusted the Parliament, or that the Parlia-ment had shown an unwarrantable distrust of the King.