The History of England from the Accession of James II, vol 3 | Page 5

loved the banished King. But they keenly felt that, in the
short campaign which had decided the fate of their country, theirs had
been an inglorious part. Forty fine regiments, a regular army such as
had never before marched to battle under the royal standard of England,
had retreated precipitately before an invader, and had then, without a
struggle, submitted to him. That great force had been absolutely of no
account in the late change, had done nothing towards keeping William
out, and had done nothing towards bringing him in. The clowns, who,

armed with pitchforks and mounted on carthorses, had straggled in the
train of Lovelace or Delamere, had borne a greater part in the
Revolution than those splendid household troops, whose plumed hats,
embroidered coats, and curvetting chargers the Londoners had so often
seen with admiration in Hyde Park. The mortification of the army was
increased by the taunts of the foreigners, taunts which neither orders
nor punishments could entirely restrain.5 At several places the anger
which a brave and highspirited body of men might, in such
circumstances, be expected to feel, showed itself in an alarming manner.
A battalion which lay at Cirencester put out the bonfires, huzzaed for
King James, and drank confusion to his daughter and his nephew. The
garrison of Plymouth disturbed the rejoicings of the County of
Cornwall: blows were exchanged, and a man was killed in the fray.6
The ill humour of the clergy and of the army could not but be noticed
by the most heedless; for the clergy and the army were distinguished
from other classes by obvious peculiarities of garb. "Black coats and
red coats," said a vehement Whig in the House of Commons, "are the
curses of the nation." 7 But the discontent was not confined to the black
coats and the red coats. The enthusiasm with which men of all classes
had welcomed William to London at Christmas had greatly abated
before the close of February. The new king had, at the very moment at
which his fame and fortune reached the highest point, predicted the
coming reaction. That reaction might, indeed, have been predicted by a
less sagacious observer of human affairs. For it is to be chiefly ascribed
to a law as certain as the laws which regulate the succession of the
seasons and the course of the trade winds. It is the nature of man to
overrate present evil, and to underrate present good; to long for what he
has not, and to be dissatisfied with what he has. This propensity, as it
appears in individuals, has often been noticed both by laughing and by
weeping philosophers. It was a favourite theme of Horace and of Pascal,
of Voltaire and of Johnson. To its influence on the fate of great
communities may be ascribed most of the revolutions and
counterrevolutions recorded in history. A hundred generations have
elapsed since the first great national emancipation, of which an account
has come down to us. We read in the most ancient of books that a
people bowed to the dust under a cruel yoke, scourged to toil by hard

taskmasters, not supplied with straw, yet compelled to furnish the daily
tale of bricks, became sick of life, and raised such a cry of misery as
pierced the heavens. The slaves were wonderfully set free: at the
moment of their liberation they raised a song of gratitude and triumph:
but, in a few hours, they began to regret their slavery, and to murmur
against the leader who had decoyed them away from the savoury fare
of the house of bondage to the dreary waste which still separated them
from the land flowing with milk and honey. Since that time the history
of every great deliverer has been the history of Moses retold. Down to
the present hour rejoicings like those on the shore of the Red Sea have
ever been speedily followed by murmurings like those at the Waters of
Strife.8 The most just and salutary revolution must produce much
suffering. The most just and salutary revolution cannot produce all the
good that had been expected from it by men of uninstructed minds and
sanguine tempers. Even the wisest cannot, while it is still recent, weigh
quite fairly the evils which it has caused against the evils which it has
removed. For the evils which it has caused are felt; and the evils which
it has removed are felt no longer.
Thus it was now in England. The public was, as it always is during the
cold fits which follow its hot fits, sullen, hard to please, dissatisfied
with itself, dissatisfied with those who had lately been its favourites.
The truce between the two great parties was at an end. Separated by the
memory of all that had been