another, about the obstinacy of the other House, the alarming
state of the country, the dangers which threatened the public
peace and the public credit. If, it was said, none but Englishmen
sate in the Parliament and in the Council, we might hope that
they would relent at the thought of the calamities which impend
over England. But we have to deal with men who are not
Englishmen, with men who consider this country as their own only
for evil, as their property, not as their home; who, when they
have gorged themselves with our wealth, will, without one uneasy
feeling, leave us sunk in bankruptcy, distracted by faction,
exposed without defence to invasion. "A new war," said one of
these orators, "a new war, as long, as bloody, and as costly as
the last, would do less mischief than has been done by the
introduction of that batch of Dutchmen among the barons of the
realm." Another was so absurd as to call on the House to declare
that whoever should advise a dissolution would be guilty of high
treason. A third gave utterance to a sentiment which it is
difficult to understand how any assembly of civilised and
Christian men, even in a moment of strong excitement, should have
heard without horror. "They object to tacking; do they? Let them
take care that they do not provoke us to tack in earnest. How
would they like to have bills of supply with bills of attainder
tacked to them?" This atrocious threat, worthy of the tribune of
the French Convention in the worst days of the Jacobin tyranny,
seems to have passed unreprehended. It was meant--such at least
was the impression at the Dutch embassy--to intimidate Somers. He
was confined by illness. He had been unable to take any public
part in the proceedings of the Lords; and he had privately blamed
them for engaging in a conflict in which he justly thought that
they could not be victorious. Nevertheless, the Tory leaders