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farther assistance in the settlement of the nation, but would return to his own country, satisfied with his aims to secure the freedom of theirs. This declaration produced the intended effect. After a long debate in both houses, a new sovereign was preferred to a regent, by a majority of two voices. It was agreed that the prince and princess of Orange should reign jointly as king and queen of England, while the administration should be placed in the hands of the prince only. The marquis of Halifax, as speaker of the house of lords, made a solemn tender of the crown to their highnesses, in the name of the peers and commons of England. The prince accepted the offer in terms of acknowledgment; and that very day William and Mary were proclaimed king and queen of England.

CHAPTER XVII.

WILLIAM III.

A. D. 1689-1702.

THE Constitution, upon the accession of William to the crown, took a different form from what it had before. As his right to the crown was wholly derived from the choice of the people, they chose to load the benefit with whatever stipulations they thought requisite for their own security. His power was limited on every side; and the jealousy which his new subjects entertained of foreigners still farther obstructed the exercise of his authority. The power of the crown was acknowledged to flow from no other fountain than that of a contract with the people. The representatives of the nation made a regular claim of rights in behalf of their constituents,

which, previous to his coronation, William was obliged to confirm.

This declaration of rights maintained that the suspending and dispensing powers, as exercised by king James, were unconstitutional; that all courts of ecclesiastical commission, the levying money, or maintaining a standing army in times of peace, without consent of parliament, grants of fines and forfeitures before conviction, and juries of persons not qualified or not fairly chosen, or (in trials for treason) who were not freeholders, were unlawful. It asserted the freedom of election to parliament, the freedom of speech in parliament, and the right of the subject to bear arms, and to petition his sovereign. It provided, that excessive bails should not be required, nor excessive fines be imposed; nor cruel and unusual punishments be inflicted; and it concluded with an injunction that parliaments should be frequently assembled. Such was the bill of rights, calculated to secure the liberties of the people; but, having been drawn up in a ferment, it bears all the marks of haste, insufficiency, and inattention.

William was no sooner elected to the throne, than he began to experience the difficulty of governing a people who were more ready to examine the commands of their superiors than to obey them. From the peaceful and tractable disposition of his own countrymen, he expected a similar disposition among the English; he hoped to find them ready and willing to second his ambition in humbling France, but he found them more apt to fear for the invasion of their domestic liberties.

His reign commenced with an attempt similar to that which had been the principal cause of all the disturbances in the preceding reign, and which had excluded the monarch from the throne. William was a Calvin

ist, and consequently averse to persecution; he therefore began by attempting to repeal those laws that enjoined uniformity of worship; and, though he could not entirely succeed in his design, a toleration was granted to such dissenters as should take the oaths of allegiance, and hold no private conventicles. The papists themselves, who had every thing to fear, experienced the lenity of his government; and, though the laws against them were unrepealed, yet they were seldom put into rigorous execution. Thus, what was criminal in James became virtuous in his successor, as James wanted to introduce persecution by pretending to disown it, while William had no other view than to make religious freedom the test of civil security.

Though William was acknowledged king in England, Scotland and Ireland were still undetermined. The revolution in England had been brought about by a coalition of Whigs and Tories; but in Scotland it was effected by the Whigs almost alone. They soon came to a resolution, that king James had, to use their own expression, forfaulted his right to the crown, a term which, in the law-language of that country, excluded not only him, but all his posterity. They therefore quickly recognised the authority of William, and took that opportunity to abolish episcopacy, which had long been disagreeable to the nation.

Nothing now remained to the deposed king, of all his former possessions, but Ireland; and he had some hopes of maintaining his ground there, by the assistance which was promised to him from France. Louis XIV. had long been at variance with William, and took every opportunity to form confederacies against him, and to obstruct his government. On the present occasion, being either touched with compassion at the sufferings of James, or willing to weaken a rival king

dom, by promoting its internal dissensions, he granted the deposed monarch a fleet and some troops, to assert his pretensions in Ireland, the only part of his dominions that had not openly declared against him.

On the other hand, William was not backward in warding off the threatened blow. He was pleased with an opportunity of gratifying his natural hatred against France; and he hoped to purchase domestic quiet to himself, by turning the spirit of the nation upon the continual object of its aversion and jealousy. The parliament, though divided in all things else, was unanimous in conspiring with him in this; a war was declared against France, and measures were pursued for driving James from Ireland were he had landed, assisted rather by money than by forces granted him from the French king.

That unhappy prince, having embarked at Brest, arrived at Kinsale in March, and soon after made his public entry into Dublin, amidst the acclamations of the inhabitants. He found the appearances of things in that country equal to his most sanguine expectations. Tyrconnel, the lord-lieutenant, was devoted to his interests; his whole army was steady, and a new one raised, amounting together to near forty thousand men. The protestants over the greatest part of Ireland were disarmed; the province of Ulster alone denied his authority; while the papists, confident of success, received him with shouts of joy, and with superstitious processions, which gave him still greater pleasure.

In this situation, the protestants of Ireland underwent the most oppressive and cruel indignities. Most of those who were attached to the revolution were obliged to retire into Scotland and England, or hid themselves, or accepted written protections from their enemies. The bravest of them, however, to the number of ten

thousand men, gathered round Londonderry, resolved to make their last stand at that place for their religion and liberty. A few also rallied themselves at Enniskillen, and, after the first panic was over, became more numerous by the junction of others.

James continued for some time irresolute what course to pursue; but, as soon as the spring would permit, he went to lay siege to Londonderry, a town of small importance in itself, but rendered famous by the stand which it made on this occasion. Colonel Lundie had been appointed governor of the town by William, but was secretly attached to king James; and, at a council of war, prevailed upon the officers and townsmen to send messengers to the besiegers with an offer of surrender the day following. But the inhabitants, being apprised of his intention, and crying out that they were betrayed, rose in a fury against the governor and council, shot one of the officers whom they suspected, and boldly resolved to maintain the town, though destitute of leaders.

The town was weak in its fortifications, having only a wall eight or nine feet thick, and weaker still in its artillery, there being not above twenty serviceable guns upon the works. The new-made garrison, however, made up every deficiency by courage; one Walker, a dissenting minister, and major Baker, put themselves at the head of these resolute men; and, thus abandoned to their fate, they prepared for a vigorous resistance. The batteries of the besiegers soon began to play upon the town with great fury; and several attacks were made, but always repulsed with resolution. All the success that valour could promise, was on the side of the besieged; but they, after some time, found themselves exhausted by continual fatigue: they were afflicted also with a contagious distemper, which thinned their num

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