en averted by timely precaution, or remedied
by vigorous exertion. But the government had foreseen nothing: it had
done little; and that little had been done neither at the right time nor
in the right way. Negotiation had been employed instead of troops, when
a few troops might have sufficed. A few troops had been sent when many
were needed. The troops that had been sent had been ill equipped and ill
commanded. Such, the vehement Whigs exclaimed, were the natural fruits
of that great error which King William had committed on the first day of
his reign. He had placed in Tories and Trimmers a confidence which they
did not deserve. He had, in a peculiar manner, entrusted the direction
of Irish affairs to the Trimmer of Trimmers, to a man whose ability
nobody disputed, but who was not firmly attached to the new government,
who, indeed, was incapable of being firmly attached to any government,
who had always halted between two opinions, and who, till the moment of
the flight of James, had not given up the hope that the discontents of
the nation might be quieted without a change of dynasty. Howe, on twenty
occasions, designated Halifax as the cause of all the calamities of the
country. Monmouth held similar language in the House of Lords. Though
First Lord of the Treasury, he paid no attention to financial business,
for which he was altogether unfit, and of which he had very soon become
weary. His whole heart was in the work of persecuting the Tories.
He plainly told the King that nobody who was not a Whig ought to
be employed in the public service. William's answer was cool and
determined. "I have done as much for your friends as I can do without
danger to the state; and I will do no more," [419] The only effect of
this reprimand was to make Monmouth more factious than ever. Against
Halifax especially he intrigued and harangued with indefatigable
animosity. The other Whig Lords of the Treasury, Delamere and Capel,
were scarcely less eager to drive the Lord Privy Seal from office; and
personal jealousy and antipathy impelled the Lord President to conspire
with his own accusers against his rival.

What foundation there may have been for the imputations thrown at this
time on Halifax cannot now be fully ascertained. His enemies, though
they interrogated numerous witnesses, and though they obtained William's
reluctant permission to inspect the minutes of the Privy Council, could
find no evidence which would support a definite cha