e Prince became the unquestioned chief
of the whole of that party which was opposed to the government, a party
almost coextensive with the nation.

There is not the least reason to believe that he at this time meditated
the great enterprise to which a stern necessity afterwards drove him. He
was aware that the public mind of England, though heated by grievances,
was by no means ripe for revolution. He would doubtless gladly have
avoided the scandal which must be the effect of a mortal quarrel
between persons bound together by the closest ties of consanguinity and
affinity. Even his ambition made him unwilling to owe to violence that
greatness which might be his in the ordinary course of nature and
of law. For he well knew that, if the crown descended to his wife
regularly, all its prerogatives would descend unimpaired with it, and
that, if it were obtained by election, it must be taken subject to
such conditions as the electors might think fit to impose. He meant,
therefore, as it appears, to wait with patience for the day when he
might govern by an undisputed title, and to content himself in the
meantime with exercising a great influence on English affairs, as
first Prince of the blood, and as head of the party which was decidedly
preponderant in the nation, and which was certain whenever a Parliament
should meet, to be decidedly preponderant in both Houses.

Already, it is true, he had been urged by an adviser, less sagacious and
more impetuous than himself, to try a bolder course. This adviser was
the young Lord Mordaunt. That age had produced no more inventive genius,
and no more daring spirit. But, if a design was splendid, Mordaunt
seldom inquired whether it were practicable. His life was a wild romance
made up of mysterious intrigues, both political and amorous, of violent
and rapid changes of scene and fortune, and of victories resembling
those of Amadis and Launcelot rather than those of Luxemburg and Eugene.
The episodes interspersed in this strange story were of a piece with the
main plot. Among them were midnight encounters with generous robbers,
and rescues of noble and beautiful ladies from ravishers. Mordaunt,
having distinguished himself by the eloquence and audacity with which,
in the House of Lords, he had opposed the court, repaired, soon after
the prorogation, to the Hague, and strongly recommended an immediate
descent on England. He had persuaded himself that it would be as easy to
surprise three g