第776章 CHAPTER XVI(36)

Torrington requested to be heard at the bar, and spoke there at great length, but weakly and confusedly. He boasted of his services, of his sacrifices, and of his wounds. He abused the Dutch, the Board of Admiralty, and the Secretary of State. The bill, however, went through all its stages without a division.802Early in December Torrington was sent under a guard down the river to Sheerness. There the Court Martial met on board of a frigate named the Kent. The investigation lasted three days; and during those days the ferment was great in London. Nothing was heard of on the exchange, in the coffeehouses, nay even at the church doors, but Torrington. Parties ran high; wagers to an immense amount were depending; rumours were hourly arriving by land and water, and every rumour was exaggerated and distorted by the way. From the day on which the news of the ignominious battle arrived, down to the very eve of the trial, public opinion had been very unfavourable to the prisoner. His name, we are told by contemporary pamphleteers, was hardly ever mentioned without a curse. But, when the crisis of his fate drew nigh, there was, as in our country there often is, a reaction. All his merits, his courage, his good nature, his firm adherence to the Protestant religion in the evil times, were remembered. It was impossible to deny that he was sunk in sloth and luxury, that he neglected the most important business for his pleasures, and that he could not say No to a boon companion or to a mistress; but for these faults excuses and soft names were found. His friends used without scruple all the arts which could raise a national feeling in his favour; and these arts were powerfully assisted by the intelligence that the hatred which was felt towards him in Holland bad vented itself in indignities to some of his countrymen. The cry was that a bold, jolly, freehanded English gentleman, of whom the worst that could be said was that he liked wine and women, was to be shot in order to gratify the spite of the Dutch. What passed at the trial tended to confirm the populace in this notion. Most of the witnesses against the prisoner were Dutch officers. The Dutch real admiral, who took on himself the part of prosecutor, forgot himself so far as to accuse the judges of partiality. When at length, on the evening of the third day, Torrington was pronounced not guilty, many who had recently clamoured for his blood seemed to be well pleased with his acquittal. He returned to London free, and with his sword by his side. As his yacht went up the Thames, every ship which he passed saluted him. He took his seat in the House of Lords, and even ventured to present himself at court. But most of the peers looked coldly on him; William would not see him, and ordered him to be dismissed from the service.803There was another subject about which no vote was passed by either of the Houses, but about which there is reason to believe that some acrimonious discussion took place in both. The Whigs, though much less violent than in the preceding year, could not patiently see Caermarthen as nearly prime minister as any English subject could be under a prince of William's character. Though no man had taken a more prominent part in the Revolution than the Lord President, though no man had more to fear from a counterrevolution, his old enemies would not believe that he had from his heart renounced those arbitrary doctrines for which he had once been zealous, or that he could bear true allegiance to a government sprung from resistance. Through the last six months of 1690 he was mercilessly lampooned. Sometimes he was King Thomas and sometimes Tom the Tyrant.804 William was adjured not to go to the Continent leaving his worst enemy close to the ear of the Queen. Halifax, who had, in the preceding year, been ungenerously and ungratefully persecuted by the Whigs, was now mentioned by them with respect and regret; for he was the enemy of their enemy.805 The face, the figure, the bodily infirmities of Caermarthen, were ridiculed.806 Those dealings with the French Court in which, twelve years before, he had, rather by his misfortune than by his fault, been implicated, were represented in the most odious colours. He was reproached with his impeachment and his imprisonment. Once, it was said, he had escaped; but vengeance might still overtake him, and London might enjoy the long deferred pleasure of seeing the old traitor flung off the ladder in the blue riband which he disgraced. All the members of his family, wife, son, daughters, were assailed with savage invective and contemptuous sarcasm.807 All who were supposed to be closely connected with him by political ties came in for a portion of this abuse; and none had so large a portion as Lowther. The feeling indicated by these satires was strong among the Whigs in Parliament. Several of them deliberated on a plan of attack, and were in hopes that they should be able to raise such a storm as would make it impossible for him to remain at the head of affairs. It should seem that, at this time, his influence in the royal closet was not quite what it had been.

Godolphin, whom he did not love, and could not control, but whose financial skill had been greatly missed during the summer, was brought back to the Treasury, and made First Commissioner.