is own pretensions, to a free
Parliament. For no earthly object could it be right or wise that he
should forfeit his word so solemnly pledged in the face of all Europe.
Nor was it certain that, by calling himself a conqueror, he would have
removed the scruples which made rigid Churchmen unwilling to acknowledge
him as King. For, call himself what he might, all the world knew that
he was not really a conqueror. It was notoriously a mere fiction to say
that this great kingdom, with a mighty fleet on the sea, with a regular
army of forty thousand men, and with a militia of a hundred and thirty
thousand men, had been, without one siege or battle, reduced to the
state of a province by fifteen thousand invaders. Such a fiction was not
likely to quiet consciences really sensitive, but it could scarcely
fail to gall the national pride, already sore and irritable. The English
soldiers were in a temper which required the most delicate management.
They were conscious that, in the late campaign, their part had not been
brilliant. Captains and privates were alike impatient to prove that they
had not given way before an inferior force from want of courage. Some
Dutch officers had been indiscreet enough to boast, at a tavern over
their wine, that they had driven the King's army before them. This
insult had raised among the English troops a ferment which, but for the
Prince's prompt interference, would probably have ended in a terrible
slaughter. [610] What, in such circumstances, was likely to be the
effect of a proclamation announcing that the commander of the foreigners
considered the whole island as lawful prize of war?

It was also to be remembered that, by putting forth such a proclamation,
the Prince would at once abrogate all the rights of which he had
declared himself the champion. For the authority of a foreign conqueror
is not circumscribed by the customs and statutes of the conquered
nation, but is, by its own nature, despotic. Either, therefore, it was
not competent to William to declare himself King, or it was competent to
him to declare the Great Charter and the Petition of Right nullifies,
to abolish trial by jury, and to raise taxes without the consent of
Parliament. He might, indeed, reestablish the ancient constitution of
the realm. But, if he did so, he did so in the exercise of an arbitrary
discretion. English liberty would thenceforth be held by a base tenure.
It would be, not, as heretofore, an immemorial inherita