5.

Opposite sides on political questions on

which the par

ed, similar to what after

ward occur

red.

The opposite principles which animated the contending parties were very similar to those which a century after ranged Europe against France, in the wars of the French Revolution; the great conflict of the ties were rang- eighteenth century was but an extension, to the political and social relations of men, of the religious divisions which distracted the seventeenth. But in one respect the antagonists were on opposite sides. In so far as they were banded together against the ambition of France, the coalition of 1689 was guided by the same princi ples as that of 1793; the armies of Eugene struck for the same cause as those of the Archduke Charles. But in so far as they contended for a moral principle, their relative position was in a great measure reversed: England, in the wars of William and Anne, was on the side of civil and religious freedom; she stood foremost in the contest for liberty of thought and the free choice of worship; she was herself the first and greatest of revolutionary powers: France supported the despotism of the Romish faith, and that system of unity in civil government which aimed at extending claims as strong over the temporal concerns of men. The industry of towns, the wealth of commerce, arrayed a numerous but motley array of many nations around the banner of St. George; the strength of feudal attachment, the loyalty of chivalrous devotion, brought the strength of a gallant people round the oriflamme of St. Denis.

6.

Yet fundamentally the allies and France were in both

Yet, though apparently on opposite, the forces of the Coalition and of France were in reality ranged on the same sides in the War of the Succession as in that of the French Revolution. In both, religion and cases ranged on the same sides. freedom were the principles on which the allies rested, and unity of government and military glory were the moving springs of effort in France. The iron rule of the Convention, the despotism of Napoleon, were essentially identical, though wielded by different hands and in a different name, with the government of Louis XIV. National independence,

religious duty, breathed in the proclamations of Alexander, not less than the daily services amid the tents of Marlborough. It matters not by whom despots are elected, provided they are despots and support power. The absolute nature of a contest is not to be judged of merely by the war-cries which the parties raise, or the banners under which their forces are nominally enrolled. The true test is to be found in the practical tendency and social results of the institutions for which its partisans contend. The cause of real freedom is often advanced by the victories gained by a monarch's armies; the march of practical despotism is never so accelerated as by the triumph of Republican bayonets. William III. was the head of a revolutionary dynasty, but he established the government of Great Britain on a far more aristocratic basis during the succeeding century than it had ever before attained. Louis XIV. was the leader of a crusade of the faithful against the Protestant party, but he bequeathed a century of irreligion to France, which ended in the overthrow of its government. The Committee of Public Salvation, wielding the forces of the Revolution, established a centralized military despotism in France, far exceeding any thing dreamed of by Richelieu or Louvois, and which has never since been shaken off in that country. The spread of political power, the popularization of social institutions, have never been so rapid in Great Britain as during the thirty years which immediately succeeded the glorious termination of the anti-revolutionary war.

7.

Important difference in the parties by whom the war was opposed in the time of Marlborough

But from this ranging of the contending parties, in name at least, on opposite sides, and the important fact of the legitimate dynasty having been displaced by a revolutionary monarch on the throne of England, there arose a most important difference between the respective parties who opposed the war, commencing in 1679, and that which began in 1793. The war which terminated with the Treaty of Ryswick was waged by William, himself the Louis Philippe of the younger branch of the Stuart dynasty; that of the Succession was headed by

and Napoleon.

Anne, his successor on the revolutionary throne. It was car ried on for the freedom of conscience and liberty of worship, and supported by the whole strength of the Whig aristocracy, and the whole vehemence of the Protestant fervor. Hence, the enemies of the war, the opposition to the government, naturally espoused the other side. The Tory and High-Church party gradually became estranged from the government, and at length openly came into hostility with it, in consequence of the continued increase which the prosecution of the war gave to the influence of its opponents, and the dreadful and interminable dangers with which it seemed to threaten the finances of the country. Then the positions of parties became precisely the reverse of what they subsequently were during the war with revolutionary France; and yet both at heart were actuated by the same motives. The Tories opposed the War of the Succession and decried Marlborough's victories as warmly as the Whigs resisted the contest with France, and strove to lessen Wellington's fame, a century later. Both put forth public principle and the interest of the nation as the ostensible grounds of their conduct; but both in secret were actuated, perhaps unconsciously, by different and more pressing motives. The Tories opposed the war with Louis XIV. because it tended to confirm their opponents in power, and postpone, if not destroy, their hopes of restoring the exiled family. The Whigs opposed the war with Napoleon because it was waged against a power which at least began with the principles of democracy, and because they expected its successful issue would, for perhaps more than a generation, confirm the Tories in possession of the reins of government.

8. State of the op

Great Britain

Political parties, and the alliances of cabinets in Europe, had been long actuated and regulated by these posite parties in principles, which had, in an especial manner, besince the Great come predominant since the terrible conflict of the Great Rebellion in England. All the foreign alliances of Charles II. had in secret been suggested by jealousy of the Republican party, from which his family had sustained

Rebellion.

such grievous injuries at home. French mistresses, the charms of the Duchess of Portsmouth, were not disregarded by the amorous monarch; but the chief motive of his conduct was a desire to extinguish the Puritan faction and the Protestant faith in his dominions. It was an article of the secret treaty between Charles and Louis XIV., that the Republican forms of government, as existing in Holland, should be superseded by an hereditary monarchy in the person of the stadtholder and his family; and that the English monarch should, as soon as prudent, do what was possible for the re-establishment of the Roman Catholic religion in Great Britain.* These social and political divisions, naturally arising from the vehement contests of the seventeenth century, derived additional strength from the expulsion of the ancient dynasty, and the successful result of the Revolution of 1688 in Great Britain. Personal animosity and party ambition were immediately added to the flames of political hostility. It was felt by all that the change of dynasty had been brought about by many disgraceful acts of treachery in the leaders of the movement, as well as by the generous indignation of a nation at attempts to enslave them. The bitterness of lost influence, the recollection of shattered power, were added to the broad lines of political distinction; and a cast-down party, which had generous feelings and profound attachments to rest upon, ere long gathered strength from the very circumstances, in the external condition of the nation, which to appearance had established the power of their opponents on an immovable foundation. The Revolution had been brought about by a coalition of parties, arising from the general feeling of unbearable oppression experienced by the nation. The Tories had joined in it as cordially as the Whigs; about the the High-Church party as much as the Dissenters. Revolution. It began with sending the seven bishops to the Tower; it was ended by the cheers of the troops at their acquittal on Hounslow Heath. Bolingbroke has well expressed the views

* CAPEFIGUE, Hist. de Louis XIV., ii., 167.

9.

The union of parties had brought

which induced the Tory party and ancient cavaliers of the realm to take part in this great movement, and there is no reason to believe that he was insincere in what he said. "Many," says he, "of the most distinguished Tories, some of those who carried highest the doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance, were engaged in it, and the whole nation was ripe for it. The Whigs were zealous in the same cause, but their zeal was not such as I think it had been some years before, a zeal without knowledge. I mean, it was better tempered and more prudently conducted. Though the king was not the better for his experience, parties were. Both saw their errors. The Tories stopped short in pursuit of a bad principle; the Whigs reformed the abuse of a good one. Both had sacrificed their country to their party; both, on this occasion, sacrificed their party to their country. The cause of liberty was no longer made the cause of a party, by being set on such a bottom as one party alone approved. The Revolution was plainly designed to restore and secure the government, ecclesiastical and civil, on true foundations; and whatever might happen to the king, there was no room to apprehend any change in the Constitution. The Republican whimsies, indeed, that reigned in the days of usurpation and confusion, still prevailed among some of that party. But this leaven was so near worn out, that it could neither corrupt, nor seem any longer to corrupt, the mass of the Whig party. That party never had been Republicans or Presbyterians any more than they had been Quakers-any more than the Tory party had been Papists when, notwithstanding their aversion to popery, they were undeniably under the accidental influence of popish councils. But even the appearances were now rectified. The Revolution was a fire which purged off the dross of both parties; and the dross being purged off, they appeared to be the same metal, and answered the same standard."* But it is a dangerous thing for the people, even for the bestfounded causes of dissatisfaction, to overturn an established

* A Dissertation on Parties. BOLINGBROKE's Works, iii., 125.