William.—­They might have been happy, but were not.  As soon as I had accomplished their deliverance for them, many of them became my most implacable enemies, and even wished to restore the unforgiving prince whom they had so unanimously and so justly expelled from his kingdom.  Such levity seems incredible.  I could not myself have imagined it possible, in a nation famed for good sense, if I had not had proofs of it beyond contradiction.  They seemed as much to forget what they called me over for as that they had called me over.  The security of their religion, the maintenance of their liberty, were no longer their care.  All was to yield to the incomprehensible doctrine of right divine and passive obedience.  Thus the Tories grew Jacobites, after having renounced both that doctrine and King James, by their opposition to him, by their invitation of me, and by every Act of the Parliament which gave me the Crown.  But the most troublesome of my enemies were a set of Republicans, who violently opposed all my measures, and joined with the Jacobites in disturbing my government, only because it was not a commonwealth.

De Witt.—­They who were Republicans under your government in the Kingdom of England did not love liberty, but aspired to dominion, and wished to throw the nation into a total confusion, that it might give them a chance of working out from that anarchy a better state for themselves.

William.—­Your observation is just.  A proud man thinks himself a lover of liberty when he is only impatient of a power in government above his own, and were he a king, or the first Minister of a king, would be a tyrant.  Nevertheless I will own to you, with the candour which becomes a virtuous prince, that there were in England some Whigs, and even some of the most sober and moderate Tories, who, with very honest intentions, and sometimes with good judgments, proposed new securities to the liberty of the nation, against the prerogative or influence of the Crown and the corruption of Ministers in future times.  To some of these I gave way, being convinced they were right, but others I resisted for fear of weakening too much the royal authority, and breaking that balance in which consists the perfection of a mixed form of government.  I should not, perhaps, have resisted so many if I had not seen in the House of Commons a disposition to rise in their demands on the Crown had they found it more yielding.  The difficulties of my government, upon the whole, were so great that I once had determined, from mere disgust and resentment, to give back to the nation, assembled in Parliament, the crown they had placed on my head, and retire to Holland, where I found more affection and gratitude in the people.  But I was stopped by the earnest supplications of my friends and by an unwillingness to undo the great work I had done, especially as I knew that, if England should return into the hands of King James, it would be impossible in that crisis to preserve the rest of Europe from the dominion of France.