ous failure of the attacks on Somers and Burnet seemed to
prove that the assembly was coming round to a better temper. But the
temper of a House of Commons left without the guidance of a ministry
is never to be trusted. "Nobody can tell today," said an experienced
politician of that time, "what the majority may take it into their heads
to do tomorrow." Already a storm was gathering in which the Constitution
itself was in danger of perishing, and from which none of the three
branches of the legislature escaped without serious damage.

The question of the Irish forfeitures had been raised; and about
that question the minds of men, both within and without the walls of
Parliament, were in a strangely excitable state. Candid and intelligent
men, whatever veneration they may feel for the memory of William,
must find it impossible to deny that, in his eagerness to enrich and
aggrandise his personal friends, he too often forgot what was due to
his own reputation and to the public interest. It is true that in giving
away the old domains of the Crown he did only what he had a right to
do, and what all his predecessors had done; nor could the most factious
opposition insist on resuming his grants of those domains without
resuming at the same time the grants of his uncles. But between those
domains and the estates recently forfeited in Ireland there was a
distinction, which would not indeed have been recognised by the
judges, but which to a popular assembly might well seem to be of grave
importance. In the year 1690 a Bill had been brought in for applying the
Irish forfeitures to the public service. That Bill passed the Commons,
and would probably, with large amendments, have passed the Lords, had
not the King, who was under the necessity of attending the Congress at
the Hague, put an end to the session. In bidding the Houses farewell
on that occasion, he assured them that he should not dispose of the
property about which they had been deliberating, till they should have
had another opportunity of settling that matter. He had, as he thought,
strictly kept his word; for he had not disposed of this property till
the Houses had repeatedly met and separated without presenting to him
any bill on the subject. They had had the opportunity which he had
assured them that they should have. They had had more than one such
opportunity. The pledge which he had given had therefore been amply
redeemed; and he did not conceive that he was bound to