reclaimed, so much constitutional right restored! The Bill of Rights, passed a few months later, was a noble response to these noble demands. The point aimed at with so much steadiness and vigor in the Petition of Right, in the early days of Charles I., was to be secured by the Bill of Rights, on the accession of William III.

When we reach this issue of the struggle between law and prerogative, liberty and oppression, and call to mind how much some men had generously endured, and how much others had as bravely dared, with a view to such a consummation, we are disposed to look toward the statesmen of 1688 with feelings of admiration and envy. It was their happy distinction to survive where many had fallen. To them it was permitted to see that victory at their feet, which some of the noblest spirits in their departing moments could only descry obscurely in the distance. The hope so long deferred to others, gave place to fruition with them. Surely, we are ready to say, their worship at the shrine of liberty must have been pure and impassioned, contending as in the sight of such examples, and realizing such rare felicity and honor in its cause! But, for the most part, it was not so. Speaking generally of the statesmen of 1688, it may be said, that they gathered where they had not strawed, and reaped where better-far better men had sown. We have all the feeling of a humiliating and painful transition, when we pass from the contemplation of the many great principles which acquired a new stability in our constitutional history from the revolution of 1688, to observe the character of the men by whose agency Providence wrought this great work in our behalf. We wonder, in the main, what such men had to do with such principles at all, and much more that these should have been the parties to give to them a new ascendency and power in our history. No doubt we owe these persons a measure of praise, but the more potent causes of the course of events will be found in the extreme folly of the enemies of liberty, and in that real, though often latent sympathy with it, which had long since pervaded, if not the majority, certainly the more intelligent and influential portion of the English people. The popular feeling on this subject had betrayed only too many signs of feebleness, being driven to and fro much too easily by the changing winds that fell upon it. But during the reign of James II., this feeling took the better course, and the men of the revolution moved on upon this wave, and were strong in its strength. The issue, however, toward which it pointed, was hardly realized when the old tendency to reaction became visible.

The Jacobite faction may be said to have commenced with the return of James after his first flight from the capital. The

fallen greatness of kings must always be a dangerous spectacle to pass before the eyes of any people. In this case it disturbed the better exercise of reason, disposed men to look with less sternness to their principles, and afforded the slaves of the doctrine of legitimacy an opportunity to awaken and augment a feeling of disaffection to the new order of things. In the mean time all the late advocates of the doctrine of passive obedience, especially among the clergy, began to feel the inconvenience of their new position, in having to yield allegiance to a king who had become such in clear violation of that doctrine; and while not a few of the Tories, when the flush of feeling in favour of liberalism, which recent events had served to excite, had subsided, relapsed into their old notions, it was found enough to cause jealousy and dissension among the Whigs, that their unreasonable expectations were not always to be accomplished, and that William endeavored to conciliate the Tories by bestowing some of his favors upon them. The cause of good government made progress during the whole reign of William III., but the struggles of faction soon regained their old ascendency, and with them came the usual amount of violence, intrigue, and corruption, extending alike to the government, the court, and the nation. In short, into so bad a mood did this nation contrive to work itself, that William III., though more eminently entitled to the admiration and gratitude of the English people than any one of our sovereigns since the days of Alfred, is nevertheless a prince who has his place among the least popular of our monarchs. The abuse heaped upon him, and upon his pious and amiable consort, by the Jacobite and extreme Tory factions, was just of that mendacious, malignant, and cowardly complexion, which, judging from what we still find about us, would seem to be the inalienable heritage of Toryism.

Of the reign thus characterized, the 'Letters' of Vernon to the Duke of Shrewsbury, now first published, afford much and valuable illustration. Vernon was a person of respectable family, who obtained, at an early period, an appointment in the office of secretary of state. His subsequent history is briefly given in the following passage from Mr. James's introduction.

'He proceeded slowly, and apparently without acquiring any great distinction, till after the famous revolution of 1688. His perfect knowledge of business and active habits, however, had made themselves conspicuous by that time: and it would appear that he had attracted the attention of the king and the Earl of Shrewsbury. But those were days of doubt and suspicion, and the enemies-perhaps the rivals of Vernon, took care to insinuate that he was not to be trusted. When Shrewsbury, in the autumn of 1689, showed a desire to resign his post, on account of ill health (as he himself declared), it would seem that Portland was directed by the king to confer with him regarding the nomination of some person to relieve him from a part of the toils of office, either as under-secretary of state, or in some similar capacity. Vernon was then spoken of, but objected to by the king, in whose reasons for excluding him we find Shrewsbury coinciding in the following strong terms:- Upon discourse with my Lord Portland,' he says, in his letter to William, of the date 11th of September, 1689, '1 find what your Majesty had already hinted to me concerning Mr. Vernon, to be thought by many, only with this aggravation, that whereas people have an ill opinion of Dr. Wynn, as suspecting his disaffection only to this government, they have a prejudice to the other's morals in general, and think this was not observed when he was under Mr. Fenton. But he can be faithful to none now, it seems.' Not long after this letter was written Shrewsbury found additional motives for urging the king to accept his resignation, and finally sent the seals to William, by the Earl of Portland, on the 2nd June, 1690. He was prevailed upon with the greatest difficulty to return to office, in the spring of 1694, and I am not aware that in this interval Vernon received any promotion. The opinion of the Duke of Shrewsbury, however, must have greatly changed since he wrote the letter above cited, as very shortly after, having again accepted the seals as Secretary of State, that minister engaged Mr. Vernon as his private secretary. After this he was employed in various important affairs, but still, as is too often the case, his merits and his claims, apparently undervalued by others, so that, in the year 1697, even after he had conducted, with the greatest skill and wisdom, the unfortunate affair of Sir John Fenwick to a close, we find him likely to be left utterly unprovided for, having lost a place in the Prize Office by the peace, and having no longer a post in the Secretary of State's office. Thus, at the close of that year, though Vernon was an able and useful member of the House of Commons, Shrewsbury himself, on the eve of retiring from office for ever, was only bold enough to ask the king for a small colonial appointment, for a man who had served him so faithfully. He thus writes to William, who was then in Holland, on the 6th October, o.s., 1697: 'Having a very great compassion for Mr. Vernon's circumstances, who has a numerous family and has lost his place in the Prize Office by the peace, and will now be out of employment in Secretary of State's office, I have writ to him upon it, and find his modesty is such as he would be satisfied with Blancard's place in Jamaica, which I hope your majesty will please to grant him, for I am sure you have not a more faithful, and not many more capable servants in the kingdom.'

Yet, strange to say, the complicated state of political intrigue existing at that moment, was likely to elevate the very object of the duke's compassion to the high office he was going to resign; and by some of Vernon's own letters, it is made evident that that Lord Sunderland, the chamberlain, if not the king himself, had determined, should Shrewsbury persist in resigning suddenly, to place Vernon at once in the office, rather than allow the more zealous Whigs to seize upon it for the benefit of Wharton, who was personally obnoxious to the king. Such was probably the result, had not the sudden and unexpected resignation of Sir William Trumbull left another office of equal importance vacant. It is evident that the resignation of Trumbull, who had been long on ill terms with the rest of the ministers, was urged on by the intrigues of some of the Whig leaders, in order to thrust Lord Wharton into the office thus left free; though if such were the case it is to be supposed from his letters that the lord keeper Somers was not aware of the manœuvre. No sooner however was the resignation of the secretary of state known, than his successor was determined upon by the king and the Earl of Sunderland. In order not to offend Lord Wharton or Lord Tankerville, who were both put forward as aspirants to office, the reason assigned for the king's decision in favour of Vernon was the service he might render the state in the House of Commons, of which he was a member of some distinction; and on the 2nd of December, A. D. 1697, Mr. Vernon was appointed secretary of state. He showed considerable diffidence in accepting the office, but the course of his life after this period, at which time he was about the age of fifty-four, as well as the minute particulars of almost all the great events occurring in England during the subsequent ten years, are to be found recorded in the letters that follow, and therefore they do not require to be enlarged on in this place.'-pp. iv.-ix.

In the letters of such a man, our readers will not expect to find any marked indications of genius or profound thought. As they are letters also to a superior, and from one who is never for a moment unmindful of that fact, they have little of the free and lighter qualities of composition, which often give so much charm to productions of this nature, touching upon all sorts of occurrences as they arose. In short, Vernon's letters are uniformly the grave communications of the assiduous, discreet man of business, omitting mention of nothing affecting the state of parties or of the government at the time, but touching upon them all with a modesty and brevity which the reader may sometimes wish had been a little dispensed with. The 'Correspondence' of the Duke of Shrewsbury was published some time since. The letters of Vernon should have their place with that publication, and should be consulted carefully by every reader who would possess more than a superficial acquaintance with the reign of William III. A few extracts will serve, perhaps, better than any description we may give, to convey a just idea of these papers. The following account of a Westminster election, will show that things were done in that quarter in 1701, much as we know them to have been done a century later.

'I have not seen the king since, being engaged to a Westminster election, which happily ended in a much shorter time than it used to do. The poll only lasted three days, by reason it was taken in Covent Garden church porch, and many desks were employed, so that six or

VOL. IX.

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seven could poll at a time, and every body that came was presently dispatched.

Sir John Leveson Gower was set up against me, upon a very plausible pretence. He having brought in the bill that takes away the privilege of parliament in cases of debt, which several tradesmen have found a benefit by, and great use was made of it to recommend him to all the rest. In probability the argument would have prevailed more if he had not been liable to exceptions by his warm behaviour in the House upon other points, which made the Whigs in general great sticklers against him, and engaged them for Sir Harry Colt.

'I was over persuaded by some, whom I thought leading men, to join with Cross, who served for Westminster in the last parliament. When I did it, I did not know that Sir Harry was such a favorite, the turn being made of a sudden; nor could I imagine that Cross was so obnoxious as I found afterwards. I am still ignorant how he voted last session, but the cry ran that he herded among the Tories. However, having given him my word, I would not be persuaded to separate from him; I thought that too mean and infamous.

The event has justified it, since I maintained my integrity without losing the election. I only lost my solicitations on his behalf, people being obstinately averse to him, which I was so just as to tell him as soon as I perceived it.

At the conclusion of our poll the votes stood thus: for

Sir Harry Colt
The Secretary

3013 Mr. Cross

1649

2997 Sir John Leveson Gower 1633

Lord Somers, Lord Orford, and Lord Halifax, espoused Sir Harry's interest very warmly, when they declared for him, which was not till four or five days after the dissolution; and when they saw Sir John Leveson Gower resolved to stand there, which kept them two from joining, they sent me word they did not intend me any prejudice by it. I do not know how many votes they made me, but I think they took none from me.