correspondence was discovered, and with a pistol at his breast he was forced to write false information which William dictated. Having thus, as he hoped, Battle of Steinkirk. Aug. 4. misdirected the vigilance of his enemy, the King determined upon a surprise. The unexpected difficulties offered by the country prevented its success. Luxemburg got his troops into order with extraordinary rapidity, and the English division under Mackay soon found itself hotly engaged. It was successful in its first efforts, but the household troops of Louis were sent against it, and Count Solmes withheld the supports which should have come to its assistance. The division was nearly destroyed, and the anger of the English blazed up fiercely against the Dutch general, who, set over the head of the English commanders, thus basely deserted their troops.
Discontented Parliament. Nov. 4.
It was thus, with many causes of discontent, that, upon the return of William to England, the Parliament assembled. Mismanagement had neutralized the great victory of La Hogue; the discovery of Preston's plot had not been followed by a single act of justice upon the Jacobites, a sharp quarrel had broken out between the Queen and her sister, which, as Marlborough's treachery was unknown, seemed merely capricious and causeless; the war in the Netherlands had been a mere disastrous repetition of the last year's campaign; William's chief misfortune was commonly attributed to the mismanagement, or perhaps the treachery of the Dutch general; the House of Lords had been alienated by the apprehension of two of its members, who had been put to their recognizances, and no further charge brought against them; the harvest in England had failed, so that corn had doubled its natural price; and the police had grown so lax that highwaymen in gangs of twenty and thirty infested the country, and robbed almost within sight of London. Both Lords and Commons consequently entered warmly upon the consideration of the state of the nation. But the continued jealousy which existed between the two Houses brought their inquiries to nothing. As yet neither Ministry nor Opposition was sufficiently organized to secure the advantages either of stable government or of thorough reform. The administration was carried on as before with all the evils of a Ministry divided against itself, in the presence of a factious and disorganized Opposition.
The Land Tax.
Some important steps were however taken with regard to finance. There was still a tolerably unanimous feeling in favour of the war, and money had to be procured. In the arrangements for supplying the necessary money, the financial talents of Charles Montague, a young and rising member of the Whig party, first became conspicuous. Early known as a man of letters, and the author in company with Prior of "The Town and Country Mouse," he had been introduced to the King by his patron the Earl of Dorset, and, after strengthening his position by a marriage with the Dowager Countess of Manchester, had entered political life, and had been appointed one of the Lords of the Treasury in 1691. The financial measures recommended consisted of a reorganization of the Land Tax and of the first establishment of Government loans. The extraordinary expenses of Government had in early times been met by subsidies. These subsidies were levied both on moveables and on land, but were chiefly supported by an assessment on the land at the nominal rate of four shillings in the pound. Land had increased greatly in value as the demand for it increased, while gold and silver had fallen greatly in value after the discovery of America. In the assessment for subsidies neither of these circumstances was taken into consideration. The four shilling land tax had come in reality to be less than twopence in the pound. During the Commonwealth, and subsequently, a different method of taxation had been followed. The sum to be raised had been first determined, and each landowner had been called upon to pay a proportional share. In 1692 the Land Tax was reintroduced and reorganized. A new valuation was made, and upon this basis a tax was annually laid upon the land varying from a minimum of one shilling in time of peace to four shillings Origin of the National Debt. Jan. 20, 1693. in times of emergency. Four shillings on this new valuation produced about £2,000,000. This sum fell considerably short of what was required. In addition, therefore, a loan, which is the origin of the National Debt, was raised. Money was plentiful in the country, and was so easily obtained, that bubble companies and stock-jobbing had become rife. Montague determined to turn some of this superfluous wealth to the use of the country, and to spread the payment of the debt over several generations. The plan at first adopted in raising these loans was not exactly the same as our present method of perpetual funding. The lenders were life annuitants, and the interest of the loan was secured on new duties on beer and other liquors. As each annuitant died his annuity was divided among the survivors, till their number was reduced to seven, who would at that time be naturally in receipt of an enormous interest on their original loan. After that, on the death of each of those seven, his annuity lapsed to Government. The whole debt would therefore be extinguished at the death of the longest-lived annuitant.
Disastrous campaign. 1693.
The money thus collected was soon spent upon another disastrous campaign. Louis, in spite of the exhausted condition of his country, made extraordinary efforts in all directions. As far as the English only were concerned, the two great events of the campaign were the battle of Landen and the destruction of the Smyrna fleet. Louis, using his late conquest, Namur, for his point of departure, had formed two armies, one under Boufflers, the other under Luxemburg, and hoped to repeat the triumph of former years by the capture of either Liège or Brussels. But he found it was impossible to take either of those cities without fighting a pitched battle with William. In spite of the earnest request of his generals, he withdrew to Versailles, and removed the army of Boufflers to the Rhine. Though thus weakened, Luxemburg, by a threatened Battle of Landen. July 19. attack upon Liège, induced William to reduce his forces to save that town, and then falling upon him at Landen, defeated him after a battle, the stubbornest and bloodiest of the war. William's skill somewhat neutralized the effect of his defeat, and Charleroi was the only new acquisition of the French in the Low Countries.
The loss of the Smyrna fleet made perhaps even greater impression upon the English than the defeat of Landen. The fleet, in which was accumulated more than a year's supply for the Eastern markets, and which numbered 400 ships, was to be convoyed in safety from London through the Straits of Gibraltar. After passing the Channel Loss of the Smyrna fleet. June. unopposed, the English admirals, supposing that the danger was over, withdrew towards England with their ships of war, and the trading fleet passed onward, guarded only by Rooke with about twenty men of war. Off St. Vincent it fell in with the whole combined navy of France, for the squadrons of Toulon and Brest had joined, and were lying in wait for their rich prey off the coast of Spain. The convoy was completely broken up, many vessels destroyed, while the others fled for safety in all directions. The loss of the English was estimated at many millions. The disaster would certainly have been much worse had not two Dutch ships which formed part of the convoy gallantly sacrificed themselves, and engaged no less than eighteen of the enemy's fleet.
In other parts of Europe the armies of France were equally successful. Catalonia had been invaded and Rosas taken. Catinat had defeated the Duke of Savoy in the great battle of Marsiglia (Oct. 3). The Turks had compelled the Germans to raise the siege of Belgrade. Yet, in spite of these successes, France was so worn out, that hints of a desire for peace began to reach the English King.
The possibility of being called upon to settle this great point, and the necessity of taking speedy advantage of his enemy's weakness, brought more clearly home to William the great difficulty which had beset his reign. For the position which was necessary to enable him William's difficulty with regard to his Parliament. to engage authoritatively in the affairs of Europe, for the money required for the pay of his army, and for the subsidies by which alone the allies were kept true to their engagements, he was dependent upon Parliament. For at the Revolution the Parliament had taken upon itself the supreme authority of the nation. Yet upon that Parliament he was unable to rely; for the representative body, though conscious of its power, had not yet learnt to use it advantageously. It was that worst of all forms of supreme power, a large disorganized assembly. Well aware that, both as head of a confederacy and as a general, freedom of action was necessary for him, William had kept as far as possible the management of foreign affairs in his own hands, and had sought to win the favour of all parties by a judicious impartiality. In the main he had been well supported in his foreign policy; but faction was so rife, the increasing divergence of opinion so great, and the capricious character of the Lower House so evident, that he could take no important step with confidence. He could not