38

HISTORY 03? ENGLAND.

W I

' Hi!

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chap.

XI.

Mutiny atIpswich.

midable rivals, excited some murmurs out of doors, and was,during many years, a favourite subject of sarcasm with Torypamphleteers.* The liberality of the House admits however ofan easy explanation. On the very day on which the subject wasunder consideration, alarming news arrived at Westminster,and convinced many, who would at another time have beendisposed to scrutinise severely any account sent in by theDutch, that our country could not yet dispense with the servicesof the foreign troops.

France had declared war against the States General; andthe States General had consequently demanded from the Kingof England those succours which he was bound by the treaty ofNimeguen to furnish.** He had ordered some battalions tomarch to Harwich, that they might he in readiness to cross tothe Continent. The old soldiers of James were generally in avery bad temper; and this order did not produce a soothingeffect. The discontent was greatest in the regiment which nowranks as the first of the line. Though borne on the Englishestablishment, that regiment, from the time when it first foughtunder the great Gustavus, had been almost exclusively com-posed of Scotchmen; and Scotchmen have never, in any regionto which their adventurous and aspiring temper has led them,failed to note and to resent every slight offered to Scotland.Officers and men muttered that a vote of a foreign assemblywas nothing to them. If they could be absolved from their al-legiance to King James the Seventh, it must be by the Estatesat Edinburgh, and not by the Convention at Westminster.Their ill humour increased when they heard that Schomberghad been appointed their colonel. They ought perhaps to have

* Commons’ Journals, March 15. 1G8§. So late as 3713, Arbnthnot,‘inthe fifth part of John Bull, alluded to this transaction -with much plea-santry. “As to your Venire Facias,” says John to Nick Frog, “I havepaid you for one already."

** Wagenaar, lxi.