20

HISTORY OP ENGLAND.

chap, had opened under the fairest auspices burdensome to himself——— an( p almost useless to his country.

1G89. . J . _

Theifoard The naval administration and the financial administrationraityf 01 * - were confided to Boards. Herbert was First Commissionerof the Admiralty. He had in the late reign given up wealth anddignities when he found that he could not retain them withhonour and with a good conscience. He had carried the me-morable invitation to the Hague. He had commanded theDutch fleet during the voyage from Ilelvoetsluys to Torbay.His character for courage and professional skill stood high.That he had had his follies and vices was well known. But hisrecent conduct in the time of severe trial had atoned for all, andseemed to warrant the hope that his future career would heglorious. Among the commissioners who sate with him at theAdmiralty were two distinguished members of the House ofCommons, AVilliam Sacheverell, a veteran Whig, who hadgreat authority in his party, and Sir John Lowther, an honestand very moderate Tory, who in fortune and parliamentary in-terest was among the first of the English gentry.*

TheBoarti Mordaunt, one of the most vehement of the Whigs, was"ury^ ta placed at the head of the Treasury; why, it is difficult to say.His romantic courage, his flighty wit, his eccentric invention,his love of desperate risks and startling .effects, were notqualities likely to be of much use to him in financial calculationsand negotiations. Delamere, a more vehement Whig, if pos-sible, than Mordaunt, sate second at the board, and wasChancellor of the Exchequer. Two Whig members of the Houseof Commons were in the Commission, Sir Henry Capel, brotherof that Earl of. Essex who died by his own hand in the Tower,and Bichard Hampden, son of the great leader of the LongParliament. But the Commissioner on whom the chief weight

* London Gazette, March 11. 168J.