That great man rose at once to the full dignity of his part, and approved himself a worthy descendant of the line of heroes who had vindicated the liberties of Europe against the house of Austria.  Nothing could shake his fidelity to his country, not his close connection with the royal family of England, not the most earnest solicitations, not the most tempting offers.  The spirit of the nation, that spirit which had maintained the great conflict against the gigantic power of Philip, revived in all its strength.  Counsels, such as are inspired by a generous despair, and are almost always followed by a speedy dawn of hope, were gravely concerted by the statesmen of Holland.  To open their dykes, to man their ships, to leave their country, with all its miracles of art and industry, its cities, its canals, its villas, its pastures, and its tulip gardens, buried under the waves of the German ocean, to bear to a distant climate their Calvinistic faith and their old Batavian liberties, to fix, perhaps with happier auspices, the new Stadthouse of their Commonwealth, under other stars, and amidst a strange vegetation, in the Spice Islands of the Eastern seas; such were the plans which they had the spirit to form; and it is seldom that men who have the spirit to form such plans are reduced to the necessity of executing them.

The Allies had, during a short period, obtained success beyond their hopes.  This was their auspicious moment.  They neglected to improve it.  It passed away; and it returned no more.  The Prince of Orange arrested the progress of the French armies.  Lewis returned to be amused and flattered at Versailles.  The country was under water.  The winter approached.  The weather became stormy.  The fleets of the combined kings could no longer keep the sea.  The republic had obtained a respite; and the circumstances were such that a respite was, in a military view, important, in a political view almost decisive.

The alliance against Holland, formidable as it was, was yet of such a nature that it could not succeed at all, unless it succeeded at once.  The English Ministers could not carry on the war without money.  They could legally obtain money only from the Parliament and they were most unwilling to call the Parliament together.  The measures which Charles had adopted at home were even more unpopular than his foreign policy.  He had bound himself by a treaty with Lewis to re-establish the Catholic religion in England; and, in pursuance of this design, he had entered on the same path which his brother afterwards trod with greater obstinacy to a more fatal end.  The King had annulled, by his own sole authority, the laws against Catholics and other dissenters.  The matter of the Declaration of Indulgence exasperated one-half of his subjects, and the manner the other half.  Liberal men would have rejoiced to see a toleration granted, at least to all Protestant sects.  Many High Churchmen had no objection to the King’s