it in his power to make equal reparation.  If he was sincere, he might doubtless earn the pardon which he so much desired.  But was he sincere?  Had he not been just as loud in professions of loyalty on the very eve of his crime?  It was necessary to put him to the test.  Several tests were applied by Sackville and Lloyd.  Marlborough was required to furnish full information touching the strength and the distribution of all the divisions of the English army; and he complied.  He was required to disclose the whole plan of the approaching campaign; and he did so.  The Jacobite leaders watched carefully for inaccuracies in his reports, but could find none.  It was thought a still stronger proof of his fidelity that he gave valuable intelligence about what was doing in the office of the Secretary of State.  A deposition had been sworn against one zealous royalist.  A warrant was preparing against another.  These intimations saved several of the malecontents from imprisonment, if not from the gallows; and it was impossible for them not to feel some relenting towards the awakened sinner to whom they owed so much.

He however, in his secret conversations with his new allies, laid no claim to merit.  He did not, he said, ask for confidence.  How could he, after the villanies which he had committed against the best of Kings, hope ever to be trusted again?  It was enough for a wretch like him to be permitted to make, at the cost of his life, some poor atonement to the gracious master, whom he had indeed basely injured, but whom he had never ceased to love.  It was not improbable that, in the summer, he might command the English forces in Flanders.  Was it wished that he should bring them over in a body to the French camp?  If such were the royal pleasure, he would undertake that the thing should be done.  But on the whole he thought that it would be better to wait till the next session of Parliament.  And then he hinted at a plan which he afterwards more fully matured, for expelling the usurper by means of the English legislature and the English army.  In the meantime he hoped that James would command Godolphin not to quit the Treasury.  A private man could do little for the good cause.  One who was the director of the national finances, and the depository of the gravest secrets of state, might render inestimable services.

Marlborough’s pretended repentance imposed so completely on those who managed the affairs of James in London that they sent Lloyd to France, with the cheering intelligence that the most depraved of all rebels had been wonderfully transformed into a loyal subject.  The tidings filled James with delight and hope.  Had he been wise, they would have excited in him only aversion and distrust.  It was absurd to imagine that a man really heartbroken by remorse and shame for one act of perfidy would determine to lighten his conscience by committing a second act of perfidy as odious and as disgraceful as the first.  The promised atonement was so wicked and base that