of Denmark informed the allies that he was endeavouring to prevail on France not to insist on the restoration of James as an indispensable condition of peace, but did not say that his endeavours had as yet been successful.  Meanwhile Avaux, who was now Ambassador at Stockholm, informed the King of Sweden, that, as the dignity of all crowned heads had been outraged in the person of James, the Most Christian King felt assured that not only neutral powers, but even the Emperor, would try to find some expedient which might remove so grave a cause of quarrel.  The expedient at which Avaux hinted doubtless was that James should waive his rights, and that the Prince of Wales should be sent to England, bred a Protestant, adopted by William and Mary, and declared their heir.  To such an arrangement William would probably have had no personal objection.  But we may be assured that he never would have consented to make it a condition of peace with France.  Who should reign in England was a question to be decided by England alone.469

It might well be suspected that a negotiation conducted in this manner was merely meant to divide the confederates.  William understood the whole importance of the conjuncture.  He had not, it may be, the eye of a great captain for all the turns of a battle.  But he had, in the highest perfection, the eye of a great statesman for all the turns of a war.  That France had at length made overtures to him was a sufficient proof that she felt herself spent and sinking.  That those overtures were made with extreme reluctance and hesitation proved that she had not yet come to a temper in which it was possible to have peace with her on fair terms.  He saw that the enemy was beginning to give ground, and that this was the time to assume the offensive, to push forward, to bring up every reserve.  But whether the opportunity should be seized or lost it did not belong to him to decide.  The King of France might levy troops and exact taxes without any limit save that which the laws of nature impose on despotism.  But the King of England could do nothing without the support of the House of Commons; and the House of Commons, though it had hitherto supported him zealously and liberally, was not a body on which he could rely.  It had indeed got into a state which perplexed and alarmed all the most sagacious politicians of that age.  There was something appalling in the union of such boundless power and such boundless caprice.  The fate of the whole civilised world depended on the votes of the representatives of the English people; and there was no public man who could venture to say with confidence what those representatives might not be induced to vote within twenty-four hours.470 William painfully felt that it was scarcely possible for a prince dependent on an assembly so violent at one time, so languid at another, to effect any thing great.  Indeed, though no sovereign did so much to secure and to extend the power of the House of Commons, no sovereign