The Dutch Guards immediately began to march to the coast.  After all the clamour which had been raised against them, the populace witnessed their departure rather with sorrow than with triumph.  They had been long domiciled here; they had been honest and inoffensive; and many of them were accompanied by English wives and by young children who talked no language but English.  As they traversed the capital, not a single shout of exultation was raised; and they were almost everywhere greeted with kindness.  One rude spectator, indeed, was heard to remark that Hans made a much better figure, now that he had been living ten years on the fat of the land, than when he first came.  “A pretty figure you would have made,” said a Dutch soldier, “if we had not come.”  And the retort was generally applauded.  It would not, however, be reasonable to infer from the signs of public sympathy and good will with which the foreigners were dismissed that the nation wished them to remain.  It was probably because they were going that they were regarded with favour by many who would never have seen them relieve guard at St. James’s without black looks and muttered curses.

Side by side with the discussion about the land force had been proceeding a discussion, scarcely less animated, about the naval administration.  The chief minister of marine was a man whom it had once been useless and even perilous to attack in the Commons.  It was to no purpose that, in 1693, grave charges, resting on grave evidence, had been brought against the Russell who had conquered at La Hogue.  The name of Russell acted as a spell on all who loved English freedom.  The name of La Hogue acted as a spell on all who were proud of the glory of the English arms.  The accusations, unexamined and unrefuted, were contemptuously flung aside; and the thanks of the House were voted to the accused commander without one dissentient voice.  But times had changed.  The Admiral still had zealous partisans; but the fame of his exploits had lost their gloss; people in general were quick to discern his faults; and his faults were but too discernible.  That he had carried on a traitorous correspondence with Saint Germains had not been proved, and had been pronounced by the representatives of the people to be a foul calumny.  Yet the imputation had left a stain on his name.  His arrogant, insolent and quarrelsome temper made him an object of hatred.  His vast and growing wealth made him an object of envy.  What his official merits and demerits really were it is not easy to discover through the mist made up of factious abuse and factious panegyric.  One set of writers described him as the most ravenous of all the plunderers of the poor overtaxed nation.  Another set asserted that under him the ships were better built and rigged, the crews were better disciplined and better tempered, the biscuit was better, the beer was better, the slops were better, than under any of his predecessors; and yet that the charge to the