of straining every nerve in a
wrestle for life or death, and was immediately found to be unequal to
the exertion. The first efforts showed an utter relaxation of fibre, an
utter want of training. Those efforts were, with scarcely an exception,
failures; and every failure was popularly imputed, not to the rulers
whose mismanagement had produced the infirmities of the state, but to
the ruler in whose time the infirmities of the state became visible.

William might indeed, if he had been as absolute as Lewis, have used
such sharp remedies as would speedily have restored to the English
administration that firm tone which had been wanting since the death of
Oliver. But the instantaneous reform of inveterate abuses was a task far
beyond the powers of a prince strictly restrained by law, and restrained
still more strictly by the difficulties of his situation. [68]

Some of the most serious difficulties of his situation were caused by
the conduct of the ministers on whom, new as he was to the details of
English affairs, he was forced to rely for information about men and
things. There was indeed no want of ability among his chief counsellors:
but one half of their ability was employed in counteracting the other
half. Between the Lord President and the Lord Privy Seal there was an
inveterate enmity. [69] It had begun twelve years before when Danby was
Lord High Treasurer, a persecutor of nonconformists, an uncompromising
defender of prerogative, and when Halifax was rising to distinction as
one of the most eloquent leaders of the country party. In the reign of
James, the two statesmen had found themselves in opposition together;
and their common hostility to France and to Rome, to the High Commission
and to the dispensing power, had produced an apparent reconciliation;
but as soon as they were in office together the old antipathy revived.
The hatred which the Whig party felt towards them both ought, it should
seem, to have produced a close alliance between them: but in fact each
of them saw with complacency the danger which threatened the other.
Danby exerted himself to rally round him a strong phalanx of Tories.
Under the plea of ill health, he withdrew from court, seldom came to the
Council over which it was his duty to preside, passed much time in
the country, and took scarcely any part in public affairs except by
grumbling and sneering at all the acts of the government, and by doing
jobs and getting places for his personal