arms to defend his family against the barbarous Irish; but the next morning, when it was discovered that there was not the least ground for these rumours, the mob, ashamed of their ridiculous fears, and suddenly running to the opposite extreme, demolished and plundered several chapels and houses of the Roman catholics in London, particularly those of the Spanish and Florentine ambassadors. The chancellor Jefferies was taken in disguise at Wapping, and after receiving many severe or rather brutal blows, he was sent prisoner to the tower, where he died soon after. The prince having issued an order for reassembling the disbanded troops under their proper officers, came to Windsor.

In the mean time the king, who had been stopped at Feversham by contrary winds, was seized there by the populace as he was making his escape in disguise, and was much abused till he was known. The gentry then interposed and protected him, though they still refused to consent to his escape. The prince no sooner received the news, than he sent Zuylestein with orders that the king should approach no nearer than Rochester. But the message came too late; the king was already arrived in London, where the populace, actuated either by compassion for his misfortunes, or by their own levity, received him with shouts and acclamations, and by the invitation of the lords at London, he returned to Whitehall. The same day he published an order of council against tumults, and the demolishing or plundering of houses. This was the last regal act he executed in England. James sent soon after lord Feversham on a civil message to the prince, desiring a conference for an accommodation. That nobleman was put in arrest under pretence of his coming without a passport. The Dutch guards were ordered to take possession of all the posts about White

hall and St. James's palace, and to displace the English guards. At midnight, Halifax, Shrewsbury, and Delamere brought a message from the prince to the king, signed by the prince of Orange, and stating that he would positively have the king go to Ham next morning before ten, with what servants he would, and the guards that the prince would send. The necessity of these measures was inferred from what had been attempted in the Strand against the duke of Grafton, by an Irish officer, who rode up to him and fired his pistol at him, for which the assassin was shot dead on the place; and a similar attempt against the prince himself was apprehended from some of the king's guards. The king, however, would most probably have considerably embarrassed the prince, had a proper sense of his dignity induced him to reject that demand; but he confined himself in desiring permission, which was easily granted, of retiring to Rochester, a town near the sea coast, where he was attended by one hundred of the prince's guards.

James having, however, lingered some days at Rochester, waiting in vain for an invitation still to keep possession of the throne; and at last, being urged by earnest letters from the queen, he, attended by the duke of Berwick, his natural son, and several of his servants, embarked on board a smack, and arrived safely at Ambleteuse in Picardy, whence he hastened to St. Germain. Lewis received him with the high generosity of a great king, and the tender benevolence of a sympathising brother. St. Germain-palace, lately the favourite residence of the French monarch, became the noble asylum of the English royal family.

James had left a paper on his table at Rochester, dated the 22d of December, and containing the reasons of his withdrawing: "The world," he said, "could not wonder at it, after the prince of Orange

"had made the earl of Feversham prisoner, though "sent to treat with him in a friendly manner, and "had commanded his own guards to take possession "of Whitehall at eleven o'clock at night, and sent. "him an order at midnight when he was in bed, <6 to be gone. After this he had little to hope for "from one who had invaded his kingdoms, and "called the legitimacy of his son in question;

appealing to all who knew him, even to the "prince himself, if they could believe him guilty "of so unnatural a villainy. I was born free,' added he," and desire to continue so. On several "occasions, I frankly ventured my life for the

good and honour of my country, and I hope I "shall yet do the same as old as I am, to redeem it "from the slavery that threatens it; but I must "not expose myself to be so secured as not to be

at liberty to effect it. Though I am obliged to "withdraw, it will be within call, whensoever the "nation's eyes shall be opened, so as to see how

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they have been imposed upon by the specious "pretences of religion and liberty. I hope it will "please God to touch their hearts in his infinite "mercy, and bring them to such a temper, that a legal parliament may be called, and that they "will agree to grant liberty of conscience to all protestant dissenters, and that those of my own "persuasion may be so far considered, and have "such a share of it, as they may live peaceably and "quietly, as Englishmen and christians ought to "do, and not be obliged to transplant themselves. "I could add much more to confirm what I have said, but now is not a proper time, &c. &c."

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Thus, after three years, ten months, and seventeen days, ended the short reign of James, which, had it lasted some years longer, would most probably have deformed, if not utterly destroyed, both

the constitution and the protestant religion in England. On all other respects, however, James, though with middling talents, was endowed with such virtues as might have rendered his reign equally happy and honourable. During his brother's reign, indeed, he too much participated in the profligacy of the court, as it is proved by the number of natural children he got both by lady Arabella Churchill, sister to colonel Churchill, afterwards duke of Marlborough, and by Mrs. Sedley; but he dismissed the latter as soon as he ascended the throne, and created her countess of Dorchester. From that time his conduct in private life is intitled to approbation. As a prince, his steadiness and diligence in his schemes, as well as the skill and bravery he displayed at the head of the English fleets, against the most renowned admirals in Europe, turned no less to the advantage than to the glory of his country. As a king, his careful management of public money was almost unprecedented among his predecessors; his application to business exemplary; to naval affairs, and encouragement of the trade, successful; his jealousy of national honour unalterable; and it remained so ever after his being divested of royalty, though he had betrayed a very improper sense of his own dignity as a king of Great Britain, by submitting himself to the absolute sway of a foreign power, and by begging so eagerly, and so greedily accepting those subsidies he frequently received from the king of France, whose omnipotence he was unfortunately inclined to emu late. Thence, indulging himself with those lofty ideas he had inherited from his father and grandfather about royal authority, and encouraged to persevere in them by the political suggestions and influence of Lewis XIV. he openly aimed at reducing his subjects to no other right to liberty but what was depending on his sovereign will. In the

mean time, his zeal for the catholic religion, equally promoted by Lewis, was carried to such a degree of blindness, that, contrary to his coronation oath, and repeated promises of preserving the established church, he, under colour of procuring only to his catholic subjects a toleration and an equality of privileges, really forwarded as much as he could the total subversion of the protestant religion. If, instead of hurrying at once two enterprises of such magnitude and difficulty, he had at first confined himself in his endeavours to render gradually his power absolute, and in consolidating it, it is the more probable that he would have succeeded in this attempt, as he would have been supported by the tories; whereas he rallied all parties against him by his hasty and imprudent measures in favour of a religion which at last would have prevailed by itself, or rather by the powerful influence of his example, as the natural and constant propensity of men in all countries has ever been, and ever will be, to do any thing which they think may be agreeable to an absolute sovereign.

As soon as the king's departure was known, the lords spiritual and temporal, assembled to the number of ninety, made an address to the prince of Orange, desiring him to assume the management of public affairs, and to summon a convention, a new word, used for the first time in England on the restoration of Charles II. and meaning a parliament assembled without the usual forms. In the mean time they ordered all papists to depart the city of London, and not to remove above five miles from their homes.

The prince, unwilling to act upon an authority which might be deemed insufficient, judiciously thought that the sense of the nation would be known with more certainty and regularity by applying to all the members who had sat in the house of com