worth three thousand pistoles. This supper
party was, during some weeks, the chief topic of conversation. The
exultation of the Whigs was boundless. These then were the true English
patriots, the men who could not endure a foreigner, the men who would
not suffer His Majesty to bestow a moderate reward on the foreigners who
had stormed Athlone, and turned the flank of the Celtic army at Aghrim.
It now appeared they could be on excellent terms with a foreigner,
provided only that he was the emissary of a tyrant hostile to the
liberty, the independence, and the religion of their country. The
Tories, vexed and abashed, heartily wished that, on that unlucky day,
their friends had been supping somewhere else. Even the bronze of
Davenant's forehead was not proof to the general reproach. He defended
himself by pretending that Poussin, with whom he had passed whole days,
who had corrected his scurrilous pamphlets, and who had paid him his
shameful wages, was a stranger to him, and that the meeting at the Blue
Posts was purely accidental. If his word was doubted, he was willing to
repeat his assertion on oath. The public, however, which had formed a
very correct notion of his character, thought that his word was worth as
much as his oath, and that his oath was worth nothing.

Meanwhile the arrival of William was impatiently expected. From Loo
he had gone to Breda, where he had passed some time in reviewing his
troops, and in conferring with Marlborough and Heinsius. He had hoped
to be in England early in October. But adverse winds detained him
three weeks at the Hague. At length, in the afternoon of the fourth of
November, it was known in London that he had landed early that morning
at Margate. Great preparations were made for welcoming him to his
capital on the following day, the thirteenth anniversary of his landing
in Devonshire. But a journey across the bridge, and along Cornhill and
Cheapside, Fleet Street, and the Strand, would have been too great an
effort for his enfeebled frame. He accordingly slept at Greenwich, and
thence proceeded to Hampton Court without entering London. His return
was, however, celebrated by the populace with every sign of joy and
attachment. The bonfires blazed, and the gunpowder roared, all night. In
every parish from Mile End to Saint James's was to be seen enthroned on
the shoulders of stout Protestant porters a pope, gorgeous in robes
of tinsel and triple crown of pasteboard; and close to the ea