UNDER CHARLES THE SECOND,

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1786, a minister who enjoyed no common measure of their chap.confidence found it impossible to overcome their aversion to "his scheme of fortifying the coast: nor did they ever lookwith entire complacency on the standing army, till the FrenchRevolution gave a new direction to their apprehensions.

The coalition which had restored the King terminated withthe danger from which it had sprung; and two hostile parties j[' o e nnd _again appeared ready for conflict. Both indeed were agreed headsandas to the propriety of inflicting punishment on some unhappy renewed,men who were, at that moment, objects of almost universalhatred. Cromwell was no more; and those who had fled be-fore him were forced to content themselves with the miserablesatisfaction of digging up, hanging, quartering, and burningthe remains of the greatest prince that has ever ruled England.

Other objects of vengeance, few indeed, yet too many, werefound among the republican chiefc. Soon, however, the con-querors, glutted with the blood of the regicides, turned againsteach other. The Roundheads, while admitting the virtues ofthe late King, and while condemning the sentence passed uponhim by an illegal tribunal, yet maintained that his admi-nistration had been, in many things, unconstitutional, andthat the Houses had taken arms against him from good motivesand on strong grounds. The monarchy, these politicians con-ceived, had no worse enemy than the flatterer who exalted theprerogative above the law, who condemned all opposition toregal encroachments, and who reviled, not only Cromwell and'Harrison, but Pym and Hampden, as traitors. If the Kingwished for a quiet and prosperous reign, he must confide inthose who, though they had drawn the sword in defence of theinvaded privileges of Parliament, had yet exposed themselvesto the rage of the soldiers in order to save his father, and hadtaken the chief part in bringing back the royal family.

The feeling of the Cavaliers was widely different. Duringeighteen years they had, through all vicissitudes, been faithful