It may be observed that the ablest and best informed of those who have censured the manner in which the negotiations of that time were conducted are scarcely consistent with themselves.  For, while they blame William for being his own Ambassador Plenipotentiary at the Hague, they praise him for being his own Commander in Chief in Ireland.  Yet where is the distinction in principle between the two cases?  Surely every reason which can be brought to prove that he violated the constitution, when, by his own sole authority, he made compacts with the Emperor and the Elector of Brandenburg, will equally prove that he violated the constitution, when, by his own sole authority, he ordered one column to plunge into the water at Oldbridge and another to cross the bridge of Slane.  If the constitution gave him the command of the forces of the State, the constitution gave him also the direction of the foreign relations of the State.  On what principle then can it be maintained that he was at liberty to exercise the former power without consulting any body, but that he was bound to exercise the latter power in conformity with the advice of a minister?  Will it be said that an error in diplomacy is likely to be more injurious to the country than an error in strategy?  Surely not.  It is hardly conceivable that any blunder which William might have made at the Hague could have been more injurious to the public interests than a defeat at the Boyne.  Or will it be said that there was greater reason for placing confidence in his military than in his diplomatic skill?  Surely not.  In war he showed some great moral and intellectual qualities; but, as a tactician, he did not rank high; and of his many campaigns only two were decidedly successful.  In the talents of a negotiator, on the other hand, he has never been surpassed.  Of the interests and the tempers of the continental courts he knew more than all his Privy Council together.  Some of his ministers were doubtless men of great ability, excellent orators in the House of Lords, and versed in our insular politics.  But, in the deliberations of the Congress, Caermarthen and Nottingham would have been found as far inferior to him as he would have been found inferior to them in a parliamentary debate on a question purely English.  The coalition against France was his work.  He alone had joined together the parts of that great whole; and he alone could keep them together.  If he had trusted that vast and complicated machine in the hands of any of his subjects, it would instantly have fallen to pieces.

Some things indeed were to be done which none of his subjects would have ventured to do.  Pope Alexander was really, though not in name, one of the allies; it was of the highest importance to have him for a friend; and yet such was the temper of the English nation that an English minister might well shrink from having any dealings, direct or indirect, with the Vatican.  The Secretaries of State were glad to leave a matter so delicate and so full of risk to their master, and to be able to protest with truth that not a line to which the most intolerant Protestant could object had ever gone out of their offices.