148

HESTOKY or ENGLAND.

CHAP.

XII.

Kiss.

they said, had, with cruel and perfidious ingenuity, devisedthis mode of placing the Convention under a species of duress;and the trick had succeeded but too W'ell. The vote whichcalled William to the throne would not have passed so easilybut for the extreme dangers which threatened the state; and itW'as in consequence of his own dishonest inactivity that thosedangers had become extreme.* As this accusation rests on noproof, those who repeat it are at least bound to show that somecourse clearly better than the course which AVilliam took wasopen to him; and this they will find a difficult task. If indeedhe could, ivithin a few'weeks after his arrival in London, havesent a great expedition to Ireland, that kingdom might perhaps,after a short struggle, or without a struggle, have submitted tohis authority; and a long series of crimes and calamities mighthave been averted. .But the factious orators and pamphleteers,who, much at their ease, reproached him for not sending suchan expedition, would have been perplexed if they had been re-quired to find the men, the ships, and the funds. The Englisharmy had lately been arrayed against him: part of it was still illdisposed towards him; and the w'hole was utterly disorganized.Of the army which he had brought from Holland not a regimentcould be spared. He had found the treasury empty and thepay of the navy in arrear. He had no power to hypothecate anypart of the public revenue. Those who lent him money lent iton no security but his bare word. It was only by the patrioticliberality of the merchants of London that he was enabled todefray the ordinary charges of government till the meeting ofthe Convention. It is surely unjust to blame him for not in-stantly fitting out, in such circumstances, an armament suffi-cient to conquer a kingdom.

Perceiving that, till the government of England was settled,

* Burnet, i. 807; and the notes by Swift and Dartmouth. Tutcliin, inthe Observalor, repeats this idle calumny.