What

limits

great offices, and all the chief employments of the state; whose revenue exceeds three millions sterling, without reckoning the benefices of the church; who, of course, has immense means of attaching to his person men capable of serving him; the right of making war or peace, of administering justice, or the general government of the kingdom, without being accountable, ought naturally to give umbrage to a people who are excessively jealous of liberty.

But the royal authority has a very strong necessarily counterpoise in the necessity of having recourse it. to parliament for supplies; in that spirit of liberty which is ever watchful over the proceedings of government, and always ready to censure them with freedom; in the empire of the laws, which are infinitely dear and respectable in the eyes of a high spirited people, who make their happiness to depend upon them; in the prevailing opinion, which is capable of setting the whole state in commotion, if the court has the imprudence to thwart it; in the energy of that elevated character and depth of understanding which distinguishes these islanders; and lastly, in the remembrance of those revolutions which have so frequently shaken the throne.

William III.

vexed by his

William, who was more a king in Holland always than in England, experienced, during the whole subjects. of his reign, how difficult it is to govern the English. At first his revenue was granted to him only for a short and limited time; they determined the amount of his household expenses, and resolved that the remainder of the public revenue should be subject to parliamentary in

spection. In one word, he had reason to repent of having been desirous of a crown, which to him was only productive of vexation.

contemp: tible

in France.

We shall see Louis XIV. at war with all Eu- James II. rope, and employing the greatest efforts to restore James II., who appeared no longer any thing but an abject prince, destitute both of courage and prudence, and devoted totally to the Jesuits; even France, the witness of his debasement, deeming him deserving of his misfortunes. While duke of York, he appeared capable of governing; but when king, he seemed to have lost all the merit of the duke of York. So much can misfortune depress the minds of men, to whom power and opposition communicate vigour! so much does piety, calculated to excite men to the discharge of their duty, require understanding in the superior ranks of life, to enable them to distinguish between real duties and the mere forms of devotion!

ERA OF LOUIS XIV.

BOOK III.

FROM THE WAR OF MDCLXXXVIII, TO THE
CONGRESS OF UTRECHT, IN
MDCCXII.

CHAPTER I.

LEAGUE OF AUGSBURG AGAINST LOUIS XIV. HE
MAINTAINS A SUCCESSFUL WAR AGAINST ALMOST

ALL EUROPE.

stirs

against

Or all the enemies whom Louis XIV. had William drawn upon himself, there was not one more up Europe to be dreaded, from his abilities and implacable hatred, than the famous prince of Orange, who was at that time despised, upon too slight grounds, by the French, because he had not been fortunate in war. By exaggerating the ambition of Louis, representing him as aiming at universal monarchy, insisting upon his vio

Attempt to

ally

lent attempts to make the consequences dreaded; he, for a long time, added fuel to that fire which was soon to set all Europe in a flame. By the league of Augsburg in 1680, which was confirmed the next year at Venice, he united the confederates of the last war to maintain the treaties of Munster and Nimeguen. Pope Innocent XI., without having any communication with that heretical prince, seconded his views, and the misunderstanding between the courts of France and Rome daily increased.

Louis was desirous to procure the electorate make an of Cologne to cardinal Furstenberg, bishop of of France Strasburg, who was entirely devoted to his inof Cologne. terests; and, notwithstanding that several of

elector

the canons protested against it, he so far succeeded as to get him chosen coadjutor; but the election was declared void by Innocent. A prince of Bavaria, who was only seventeen years of age, and already bishop of Ratisbon, being provided with a dispensation, for politics are not scrupulous in attending to the canons, was afterwards preferred to the cardinal, with the approbation of the whole empire. To this motive for going to war were added two others; a claim was fruitlessly set up to the real or pretended rights of the duchess of Orleans, the princess Palatine, for the succession of her brother the Elector Palatine; and the empire had refused to change the truce of Ratisbon into a perpetual peace. So much was not necessary to make the king take up arms; who being provoked at the league of Augsburg, and anxious to prevent its designs, broke the truce, and attacked Germany.