WILLIAM AND MAKY.

127

During the winter and the earlier part of the spring, thepowers hostile to France were gathering their strength for agreat effort, and were in constant communication with one an-other. As the season for military operations approached, thesolemn appeals of injured nations to the God of battles cameforth in rapid succession. The manifesto of the Germanic bodyappeared in February; that of the States General in March;that of the House of Brandenburg in April; and that of Spain inMay.*

Here, as soon as the ceremony of the coronation was over,the House of Commons determined to take into considerationthe late proceedings of the French king.** In the debate, thathatred of the powerful, unscrupulous and imperious Lewis,which had, during twenty years of vassalage, festered in thehearts of Englishmen, broke violently forth. He was calledthe most Christian Turk, the most Christian ravager of Christen-dom, the most Christian barbarian who had perpetrated onChristians outrages of which his infidel allies would havebeen ashamed.*** A committee, consisting chiefly of ardentWhigs, was appointed to prepare an address. John Hampden,the most ardent Whig among them, was put into the chair; andhe produced a composition too long, too rhetorical, and toovituperative to suit the lips of the Speaker or the ears of theKing. Invectives against Lewis might perhaps, in the temperin which the House then was, have passed without censure, ifthey had not been accompanied by severe reflections on the

barbaros usitato abduccrc, denique passim, imprimis vero etiam in Catho-licorum ditionibus, alia horrenda, ct ipsam Turcorum tyrannidcm superan*tia immanitatis et sarviti® cxempla edere pro ludo habent.”

* See the London Gazettes of Feb. 25. March 11. April 22. May 2. andthe Monthly Mercuries. Some of the Declarations will be found inDumont’s Corps Universcl Diplomatique.

** Commons' Journals, April 15. 16. 1689.

*** Oldmixon.

CHAP.XI.1G89.War de-claredagainstFrance.