378

HISTORY OP ENGLAND.

ciup. office in the province of Babylon. Daniel was minister sue,-• )68 ' 8 ; ~ cessively of the Assyrian who subjugated. Judah, and of thePersian who subjugated Assyria. Nay, Jesus himself, whowas, according to thellesli, a prince of the house of David,had, by commanding his countrymen to pay tribute to Catsar,pronounced that foreign conquest annuls hereditary right andis a legitimate title to dominion. It was therefore probablethat great numbers of Tories, though they could not, with aclear conscience, choose a King for themselves, would ac-cept, without hesitation, a King given to them by the eventof war. *

On the other side, however, there were reasons whichgreatly preponderated. The Prince could not claim thecrown as won by his sword without a gross violation of faith.In his Declaration he had protested that he had no design ofconquering England; that those who imputed to him such adesign foully calumniated, not only himself, but the patrioticnoblemen and gentlemen who had invited him over; that theforce which he brought with him was evidently inadequate toan enterprise so arduous ; and that it was his full resolution torefer all the public grievances, and all his own pretensions, toa free Parliament. For no earthly object could it be right orwise that he should forfeit his word so solemnly pledged in theface of all Europe. Nor was it certain that, by calling himselfa conqueror, he would have removed the scruples which maderigid Churchmen unwilling to acknowledge him as King. For,call himself what he might, all the world knew that he was notreally a conqueror. It was notoriously a mere fiction to saythat this great kingdom, with a mighty fleet on the sea, with aregular army of forty thousand men, and with a militia of ahundred aud thirty thousand men, had been, without onesiege or battle, reduced to the state of a province by fifteenthousand invaders. Such a fiction was not likely to quietconsciences really sensitive: but it could scarcely fail to gallthe national pride, already sore and irritable. The Englishsoldiers were in a temper which required the most delicatemanagement. They were conscious that, in the late cam-* Burnet, i. 803.