JAMES THE SECOND.

S27

convoked, and that Commissioners liad been named to treat c 1 ^ap.with the Prince of Orange. The joy was clamorous through- ——out the fleet. An address, warmly thanking the King forthese gracious concessions to public feeling, was drawn upon board of the flag ship. The Admiral signed first. Thirty-eight Captains wrote their names under his. This paper onits way to "Whitehall crossed the messenger who brought toPortsmouth the order that the Prince of Wales should in-stantly be conveyed to France. Dartmouth learned, withbitter grief and resentment, that the free Parliament, thegeneral amnesty, the negotiation, were all parts of a greatfraud on the nation, and that in this fraud he was expected tobe an accomplice. In a pathetic and manly letter he declared ®” l t j ire _that he had already carried his obedience to the farthest fuses topoint to which a Protestant and an Englishman could go.

To put the heir apparent of the British crown into the hands Walesof Lewis would be nothing less than treason against the mo- Franca,narcliy. The nation, already too much alienated from theSovereign, would be roused to madness. The Prince ofWales would either not return at all, or would return attendedby a French army. If His Royal Highness remained in theisland, the worst that could be apprehended was that hewould be brought up a member of the national Church; andthat he might be so brought up ought to be the prayer of everyloyal subject. Dartmouth concluded by declaring that hewould risk his life in defence of the throne, but that he wouldbe no party to the transporting of the Prince into France.*

This letter deranged all the projects of James. He learnedtoo that he could not on this occasion expect from his Admiraleven passive obedience. For Dartmouth had gone so far asto station several sloops at the mouth of the harbour of Ports-mouth with orders to suffer no vessel to pass out unexamined.

* Second Collection of Papers, 1C88; Dartmouth’s Letter, datedDecember 3.1C88, will be found in Dalrymple; Clarke’s Life of James,ii. 233. Orig. Mem. James accuses Dartmouth of having got up anaddress from the fleet demanding a Parliament. This is a mere ca-lumny. The address is one of thanks to the King for having calleda Parliament, and was framed before Dartmouth had the least suspicionthat His Majesty was deceiving tho nation.