SECRET TREATY WITH FRANCE.

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Ruvigny, the French minister in London, was not CHAP. blind to this intrigue. When Charles first withdrew A.D. 1675. from the alliance with Louis, Ruvigny, in the bitterness of his disappointment, charged the king with desertion and ingratitude; but he soon received instructions to abstain from irritating language, to keep the English monarch to his purpose of mediation, and even to offer to him, should such an inducement appear necessary, as the price of his neutrality, the same amount of subsidy which he had previously received for his alliance during the war. For eighteen 1676. months Charles resisted the temptation; and it was not till the House of Commons had returned an unqualified refusal to his request of money, that, despairing of aid from his own subjects, he consented to throw himself into the arms of a foreign prince. In a private conversation between him and Ruvigny it was agreed that the king of France should pay a yearly pension to the king of England; that the two sovereigns should bind themselves to enter into no engagements with other powers unless by mutual consent; and that each should lend effectual aid to the other in the event of rebellion within their respective kingdoms. The only persons to whom Charles communicated this Feb. 7. treaty were his brother, and the duke of Lauderdale, and the earl of Danby. James made no remark-he had been previously acquainted with the royal purpose and Lauderdale, according to custom, applauded the wisdom of his sovereign; but Danby, who had deeply engaged himself to the prince of Orange, demurred he asked time for consideration; his consent, he observed, might endanger his life; he wished the king would consult the privy council. But Charles 1 Danby, Letters, 2, 5.

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Feb. 17.

CHAP. cut the Gordian knot with the same facility as he had A.D. 1676. previously done on a similar occasion. He dispensed with the services and the signatures of his counsellors; he put the treaty into writing with his own hand, and signed, sealed, and delivered it to Ruvigny, who, on his part, engaged to return to him within twenty days a copy of the same treaty signed and sealed by the king of France. By this secret proceeding both princes obtained their objects; Charles the money which had been refused by parliament, Louis security that Charles, for some time at least, would not make common cause with his enemies. But the English king, if he possessed the spirit of a man, must have keenly felt the degradation. He was become the yearly pensioner of another monarch; he was no longer the arbiter of his own conduct; he had bound himself to consult, with respect to foreign powers, the master whose money he received. Perhaps he might console himself with the notion, that it was less disgraceful to depend on a powerful monarch, from whose alliance he could disengage himself at pleasure, than on the party among his own subjects, which constantly opposed him in parliament perhaps he felt a malicious pleasure in defeating the machinations of his adversaries, whom he knew to be, in pecuniary transactions, not more immaculate than himself; for it is a fact, that several among those who claimed the praise of patriotism for their opposition to the court, were accustomed to sell their services for money. It seemed as if the votes of the members of parliament were exposed for sale to all the powers of Europe. Some received bribes from

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1 Dalrymple, ii. 99, 102. The exact amount of the pension is not mentioned; but as Charles in a short time, "bientôt après," received four hundred thousand crowns, it was probably about one hundred thousand pounds per annum.-Id. 118.

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the lord treasurer on account of the king; some from CHAP. the Dutch, Spanish, and imperial ambassadors in favour A.D. 1676. of the confederates; some even from Louis at the very time when they loudly declaimed against Louis as the great enemy of their religion and liberties; for that prince, notwithstanding the recent treaty, did rot implicitly rely on the faith of Charles; he sought in addition to secure the goodwill of those who, by their influence in parliament, might have it in their power to withdraw the king from his promise of neutrality. Ruvigny was instructed to seek adherents among them, to offer to them presents on condition that they should refuse supplies to Charles, and to co-operate with them in their attempts to ruin Danby, whom they considered as their political enemy, and whom Louis knew to be the stanch friend of the prince of Orange. His efforts were successful, and, though we have not the means of tracing the progress of the intrigue, we know that he was made acquainted with the counsels and projects of the party. But Ruvigny was recalled; Courtin succeeded him, and the accounts of Courtin will reveal the names of the patriots who sold themselves to France, and of the price at which their services were valued.1

During the long prorogation, and with the aid of his foreign pension, the necessitous monarch enjoyed a seasonable relief from the cares and agitation in which he had lived for several years. Age and satiety had blunted his appetite for pleasure, and the enjoyment of ease was become the chief object of his wishes. He retired to Windsor, where he spent his time in the superintendence of improvements, the amusement of fishing, and the company and conversation of his friends.

1 Brisbane in Danby's Letters, 309, 312, 314, 324. Dalrymple, ii. 110, 111, 129.

CHAP. His neutrality in the great contest which divided the A.D. 1676. powers of the continent, whatever might be its real

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motive, found a sufficient justification in the numerous benefits which it conferred on the country. While almost every other nation in Europe complained of the privations and charges of war, England enjoyed the blessings of peace. She was free from the pressure of additional taxation, and knew nothing of those evils which necessarily accompany the operations of armies. Her mariners monopolized the carrying trade of Europe; new channels of commerce were daily opened by the enterprise of her merchants; and their increasing prosperity gave a fresh stimulus to the industry of her inhabitants.' It was, however, the care of the popular leaders to keep alive, as far as they were able, the spirit of discontent. Political clubs were established; pamphlets, renewing the old charges against the government, were published; the ears of men were perpetually assailed with complaints of the growth of popery, and of the progress of arbitrary power; their eyes were directed to the theatre of war on the continent, as the great arena on which the fate of their liberty and religion was to be decided; and the preservation of these was described as depending on the humiliation of France, though France was aided in the contest by the Protestant state of Sweden, and opposed by the two great Catholic powers, Austria and Spain.

The members of the council were not slow to oppose these arts of their adversaries. They had re

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1 "The king," says Brisbane in a letter to the earl of Danby, hath "succeeded in the improvement of trade and navigation be"yond the hopes of those who talked of it seventeen years ago and now the trade of England is at such a height, that it "is as hard to think it can continue so, as it was hard to believe once it would ever rise to it."-25th June, 1677. Danby's Letters, 315.

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PROCLAMATION AGAINST COFFEE-HOUSES.

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course to the press in vindication of their conduct; CHAP. they warned the people in the king's name against the A.D. i author and retailers of false and disloyal reports; and they resolved to put down the coffee-houses, as seminaries of sedition, and the constant resort of agents employed to spread among the company libels against the sovereign and the government. Though the owners of these establishments had taken out licenses in conformity with the law, it was discovered that the statute made no mention of the time during which the license should remain in force; and from this omission a conclusion was drawn, that it must be considered revocable at pleasure. The judges, who did not agree, would give no opinion; but the question was argued before the council, and the attorney-general received instructions to prepare a proclamation, ordering all coffee-houses to be shut up; "because in such houses, "and by the meeting of disaffected persons in them, "divers false, malicious, and scandalous reports were "devised and spread abroad, to the defamation of his majesty's government, and the disturbance of the "quiet and peace of the realm." The remedy, however, was productive of more mischief than the evil which it sought to abate. It gave a real foundation to charges which before rested merely on conjecture. It was with reason described as an unjust and cruel proceeding towards the occupiers of the houses; as a violation of the right of Englishmen to meet and discuss political subjects; and as an unanswerable proof of the arbitrary projects secretly cherished by the court. Its authors, repenting of their precipitancy, had the prudence to retrace their steps; and on the presentation of a petition to that effect, a general license was granted to re-open the coffee-houses, but