44

HISTORY OP ENGLAND.

CHAP.

xxv.

J700.

ceived. There can be little doubt that a compromisewould have been willingly accepted twelve months earlier.But the report had made all compromise impossible. Wil-liam, however, was bent on trying the experiment; andVernon consented to go on what he considered as a forlornhope. He made his speech and his motion: but the re-ception which he met with was such that he did not ven-ture to demand a division. This feeble attempt at ob-struction only made the impetuous current chafe the more.Howe immediately moved two resolutions: one attributingthe load of debts and taxes which lay on the nation to theIrish grants; the other censuring all who had been con-cerned in advising or passing those grants. Nobody wasnamed; not because the majority was inclined to showany tenderness to the Whig ministers, but because someof the most objectionable grants had been sanctioned bythe Board of Treasury when Godolphin and Seymour, whohad great influence with the country party, sate at thatboard.

Howe’s two resolutions were laid before the King bythe Speaker, in whose train all the leaders of the oppo-sition appeared at Kensington. Even Seymour, withcharacteristic effrontery, showed himself there as one ofthe chief authors of a vote which pronounced him guiltyof a breach of duty. William’s answer was that he hadthought himself bound to reward out of the forfeited pro-perty those who had served him well, and especially thosewho had borne a principal part in the reduction of Ireland.