614 



BRITAIN. 



Britain. 



Massacre 

 ofGlencoe. 



Trance 

 again pre- 

 pares to 

 make a de- 

 scent on 

 England 



Giencoe had remained unmolested, and confident of 

 pardon, at home, when a detachment arrived from 

 Fort William, under Campbell of Glenlycn, whose 

 niece had married one of Glencoe's sons. The sol- 

 diers were" received on promise of peace and friend- 

 ship, and were quartered among the inhabitants of 

 the sequestered vale, when their orders arrived at 

 midnight not to suffer a man under TO to escape their 

 swords. The orders were obeyed with a dreadful 

 strictness. The inhabitants were massacred in their 

 houses ; some roused from their beds, and others 

 whtn sitting round their fires. Women were butch- 

 ered with their children in their arms. Thirty-eight 

 persons were thus sacrified; but though the ends of 

 the glen were watched, the rest escaped in a tern 

 pc.,:uous night; the carnage, however, was succeeded 

 by rapine and desolation, and the women and children 

 stript naked, were left to explore their way to some 

 shelter, or to perish in the snows. 



Willingly would the mind ascribe to the immediate 

 agents of this horrid business, all the execration that 

 is due to it, and transfer it, if possible, from one of 

 the greatest and best of sovereigns ; but, after all al- 

 lowancei, it is impossible to exculpate William from 

 all knowledge and consent in the transaction. He 

 was beset, indeed, with sanguinary ministers, and he 

 was, in some degree, deceived and betrayed into an 

 act of cruelty, inconsistent with the general tenor of 

 his mild and merciful character ; but no enquiry was 

 made at the time, and no punishment was afterwards 

 inflicted on the authors of the massacre. 



The king having settled the affairs of the nation, 

 went abroad in March to promote the measures of 

 the grand confederacy against France. Whilst he 

 was thus employed, the emissaries of James convey, 

 ed notice to the disaffected at home, that the late 

 king was preparing to make a descent upon Eng- 

 land, at the head of 30,000 men, and that a French 

 (leet which was to convey them would sail from La 

 Hogue. The intrigues of James's friends had al- 

 ready been conducted within the verge of the court; 

 a formidable party of the nobility was implicated in 

 the present conspiracy ; and, if we may believe the 

 assertions of some writers, the Princess Anne, her- 

 self, sought to expiate her past conduct to her fa- 

 ther, by infidelity to her sister. But the court of 

 England was the easier informed of these designs, 

 by pretended converts. * William, abroad, hasten- 

 ed the preparations of the Dutch, and detached se- 

 veral regiments from Holland. The measures of the 

 queen's ministry at home, were prudent and spirited. 



A camp was marked between Petersfield and 

 Portsmouth ; and the militia, both of England and 

 Scotland, were called out. On the 18th of May, 

 the combined fleets of England and Holland, con- 

 sisting of 99 ships of the line, sailed from St Helen's. 

 The main fleet of France, under Tourville, con- 

 sisting of about 50 ships of the line, was at that time 

 at sea in quest of the English, and was descried 

 next day, about three o'clock in the morning, seven 



leagues from Barfleur. By the good fortune and 



food plans of the English council, the four allied 

 eets h;id united before they sailed, a circumstance 

 unknown to the enemy, who, trusting 

 should meet the allies in divisions, had ordered Tour- 

 ville to give battle wherever he found them. The 

 French admiral, cither trusting to the defection of 

 the English seamen, or impelled by his peremptory 

 orders ind his high courage, bore down with his flag 

 ship, the Rising Sun, of 110 guns, upon the Eng- 

 lish admiral, Russel ; and the othtr ships following 

 soon after, the engagement became general. About 

 four in the afternoon, a thick fog parted the com- 

 batants, but a running fight was renewed in two 

 hours, which was again closed by darkness. The 

 chace was continued next day along the French 

 coast. On the third day, Tourville, with a part of Bat |[ ec 

 the remains of his fleet, fled to Cherbourg. Eigh- 

 teen more of the enemy sought refuge near La 

 Hogue, and others escaped through the race at Al- 

 derney. The English Admiral, Delavelle, pursued 

 and burnt several of the former, and then rejoined 

 the commander in chief, who employed the subse- 

 quent days in attacking those ships which had re- 

 paired to La Hogue. They were now reduced to 

 13, but were covered by two forts, while the whole 

 of the French army, and of James's followers, were 

 drawn up on the adjoining shore. The ships them- 

 selves were drawn as far up upon the shallows as 

 tides and cables could bring them. Nothing, how- 

 ever, could resist the British seamen, who crowded 

 in barges, under cover of such frigates as could be 

 brought sufficiently near, boarded the whole fleet, 

 and climbing up the ships on one side, drove out the 

 French with little resistance on the other, and then 

 destroyed them. When James beheld the efforts of 

 his late subjects thus employed against himself, he 

 could not restrain his admiration of their gallantry ; 

 but exclaimed, " Ah, none but my brave English 

 could do this!" 



The victory of La Hogue overthrew, for the pre- 

 sent, if it did not eradicate, the hopes of the Jaco- 

 bites. William spent a considerable part of the suc- 

 ceeding year on the continent, in the conduct of 

 those important campaigns against Louis which do 

 not belong properly to our history. The other war- 

 like enterprizes of England, during the same year, 

 were unimportant ; the p'olitical struggles between 

 William and his parliament were vehement as before, 

 but did not impede the supplies which the commons, 

 in the midst of complaints at the king's rejection of 

 several popular bills, (the bill for triennial parlia- 

 ments in particular), still liberally granted. The Partial 

 king, who had, soon after his accession, thrown rf' an g e 

 himself into the hands of the Tories, was induced, m 

 by the advice of Lord Sunderland, to recal a mix- 

 ture of the Whigs into his councils. The effects of 

 this change were displayed in the enactment of a bill 

 for triennial parliaments in 1691, to which the king 

 gare his assent ; a renovation in the constitution, 



IGK 



* It must be supposed that some of the Whig lords entered into James's designs only to discover and betray them to Wil- 

 Jiam. It is certain that James distrusted many of those new and secret adherents, and that William confided in them in the 

 moment of danger. The most fortunate circumstance for the nation was, that Russel, the most important partizan, would 

 not consent to abstain from fighting the French fleet, if he should meet it, with the king himself on board. 



