30

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

chap. ag he once said, the patience with which he had seen a boat-■■ 168T ' — man on a canal strain against an adverse eddy, often sweptback, but never ceasing to pull, and content if, by the labourof hours, a few yards could be gained.* Exploits whichbrought the Prince no nearer to his object, however gloriousthey might be in the estimation of the vulgar, were in hisjudgment boyish vanities, and no part of the real businessof life.

He determined to reject Mordaunt’s advice; and therecan be no doubt that the determination was wise. HadWilliam, in 1686, or even in 1687, attempted to do what hedid with such signal success in 1688, it is probable that manyWhigs would have risen in arms at his call. But he wouldhave found that the nation was not yet prepared to welcomean armed deliverer from a foreign country, and that theChurch had not yet been provoked and insulted into forget-fulness of the tenet which had long been her peculiar boast.The old Cavaliers would have flocked to the royal standard.There would probably have been in all the three kingdoms acivil war as long and fierce as that of the preceding genera-tion. While that war was raging in the British Isles, whatmight not Lewis attempt on the Continent? And what hopewould there be for Holland, drained of her troops andabandoned by her Stadtholder?

Discon- William therefore contented himself for the present withEngland taking measures to unite and animate that mighty oppositionafter the 0 f which he had become the head. This was not difficult.Hydes. The fall of theHydes had excited throughout England strangealarm and indignation. Men felt that the question now was,not whether Protestantism should be dominant, but whetherit should be tolerated. The Treasurer had been succeededby a board, of which a Papist was the head. The Privy Sealhad been entrusted to a Papist. The Lord Lieutenant ofIreland had been succeeded by a man who had absolutely noclaim to high place except that he was a Papist. The lastperson whom a government having in view the general in-terests of the empire would have sent to Dublin as Deputy* Temple’s Memoirs.