The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 3. Томас Бабингтон Маколей

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      James was accompanied or speedily followed by several of his own subjects, among whom the most distinguished were his son Berwick, Cartwright Bishop of Chester, Powis, Dover, and Melfort. Of all the retinue, none was so odious to the people of Great Britain as Melfort. He was an apostate: he was believed by many to be an insincere apostate; and the insolent, arbitrary and menacing language of his state papers disgusted even the Jacobites. He was therefore a favourite with his master: for to James unpopularity, obstinacy, and implacability were the greatest recommendations that a statesman could have.

      What Frenchman should attend the King of England in the character of ambassador had been the subject of grave deliberation at Versailles. Barillon could not be passed over without a marked slight. But his selfindulgent habits, his want of energy, and, above all, the credulity with which he had listened to the professions of Sunderland, had made an unfavourable impression on the mind of Lewis. What was to be done in Ireland was not work for a trifler or a dupe. The agent of France in that kingdom must be equal to much more than the ordinary functions of an envoy. It would be his right and his duty to offer advice touching every part of the political and military administration of the country in which he would represent the most powerful and the most beneficent of allies. Barillon was therefore passed over. He affected to bear his disgrace with composure. His political career, though it had brought great calamities both on the House of Stuart and on the House of Bourbon, had been by no means unprofitable to himself. He was old, he said: he was fat: he did not envy younger men the honour of living on potatoes and whiskey among the Irish bogs; he would try to console himself with partridges, with champagne, and with the society of the wittiest men and prettiest women of Paris. It was rumoured, however that he was tortured by painful emotions which he was studious to conceal: his health and spirits failed; and he tried to find consolation in religious duties. Some people were much edified by the piety of the old voluptuary: but others attributed his death, which took place not long after his retreat from public life, to shame and vexation, 168

      The Count of Avaux, whose sagacity had detected all the plans of William, and who had vainly recommended a policy which would probably have frustrated them, was the man on whom the choice of Lewis fell. In abilities Avaux had no superior among the numerous able diplomatists whom his country then possessed. His demeanour was singularly pleasing, his person handsome, his temper bland. His manners and conversation were those of a gentleman who had been bred in the most polite and magnificent of all Courts, who had represented that Court both in Roman Catholic and Protestant countries, and who had acquired in his wanderings the art of catching the tone of any society into which chance might throw him. He was eminently vigilant and adroit, fertile in resources, and skilful in discovering the weak parts of a character. His own character, however, was not without its weak parts. The consciousness that he was of plebeian origin was the torment of his life. He pined for nobility with a pining at once pitiable and ludicrous. Able, experienced and accomplished as he was, he sometimes, under the influence of this mental disease, descended to the level of Moliere's Jourdain, and entertained malicious observers with scenes almost as laughable as that in which the honest draper was made a Mamamouchi, 169 It would have been well if this had been the worst. But it is not too much to say that of the difference between right and wrong Avaux had no more notion than a brute. One sentiment was to him in the place of religion and morality, a superstitious and intolerant devotion to the Crown which he served. This sentiment pervades all his despatches, and gives a colour to all his thoughts and words. Nothing that tended to promote the interest of the French monarchy seemed to him a crime. Indeed he appears to have taken it for granted that not only Frenchmen, but all human beings, owed a natural allegiance to the House of Bourbon, and that whoever hesitated to sacrifice the happiness and freedom of his own native country to the glory of that House was a traitor. While he resided at the Hague, he always designated those Dutchmen who had sold themselves to France as the well intentioned party. In the letters which he wrote from Ireland, the same feeling appears still more strongly. He would have been a more sagacious politician if he had sympathized more with those feelings of moral approbation and disapprobation which prevail among the vulgar. For his own indifference to all considerations of justice and mercy was such that, in his schemes, he made no allowance for the consciences and sensibilities of his neighbours. More than once he deliberately recommended wickedness so horrible that wicked men recoiled from it with indignation. But they could not succeed even in making their scruples intelligible to him. To every remonstrance he listened with a cynical sneer, wondering within himself whether those who lectured him were such fools as they professed to be, or were only shamming.

      Such was the man whom Lewis selected to be the companion and monitor of James. Avaux was charged to open, if possible, a communication with the malecontents in the English Parliament; and he was authorised to expend, if necessary, a hundred thousand crowns among them.

      James arrived at Brest on the fifth of March, embarked there on board of a man of war called the Saint Michael, and sailed within forty-eight hours. He had ample time, however, before his departure, to exhibit some of the faults by which he had lost England and Scotland, and by which he was about to lose Ireland. Avaux wrote from the harbour of Brest that it would not be easy to conduct any important business in concert with the King of England. His Majesty could not keep any secret from any body. The very foremast men of the Saint Michael had already heard him say things which ought to have been reserved for the ears of his confidential advisers, 170

      The voyage was safely and quietly performed; and, on the afternoon of the twelfth of March, James landed in the harbour of Kinsale. By the Roman Catholic population he was received with shouts of unfeigned transport. The few Protestants who remained in that part of the country joined in greeting him, and perhaps not insincerely. For, though an enemy of their religion, he was not an enemy of their nation; and they might reasonably hope that the worst king would show somewhat more respect for law and property than had been shown by the Merry Boys and Rapparees. The Vicar of Kinsale was among those who went to pay their duty: he was presented by the Bishop of Chester, and was not ungraciously received, 171

      James learned that his cause was prospering. In the three southern provinces of Ireland the Protestants were disarmed, and were so effectually bowed down by terror that he had nothing to apprehend from them. In the North there was some show of resistance: but Hamilton was marching against the malecontents; and there was little doubt that they would easily be crushed. A day was spent at Kinsale in putting the arms and ammunition out of reach of danger. Horses sufficient to carry a few travellers were with some difficulty procured; and, on the fourteenth of March, James proceeded to Cork, 172

      We should greatly err if we imagined that the road by which he entered that city bore any resemblance to the stately approach which strikes the traveller of the nineteenth century with admiration. At present Cork, though deformed by many miserable relics of a former age, holds no mean place among the ports of the empire. The shipping is more than half what the shipping of London was at the time of the Revolution. The customs exceed the whole revenue which the whole kingdom of Ireland, in the most peaceful and prosperous times, yielded to the Stuarts. The town is adorned by broad and well built streets, by fair gardens, by a Corinthian portico which would do honour to Palladio, and by a Gothic college worthy to stand in the High Street of Oxford. In 1689, the city extended over about one tenth part of the space which it now covers, and was intersected by muddy streams, which have long been concealed by arches and buildings. A desolate marsh, in which the sportsman who pursued the waterfowl sank deep in water and mire at every step, covered the area now occupied by stately buildings, the palaces of great commercial societies. There was only a single street in which two wheeled carriages could pass each other. From this street diverged to right and left alleys squalid and noisome beyond the belief of those who have formed their notions of misery from the most miserable parts of Saint Giles's and Whitechapel. One of these alleys, called, and, by comparison, justly called, Broad Lane, is about ten feet wide. From such places, now seats of hunger and pestilence, СКАЧАТЬ