the national Church; and that he might be so brought up ought to be
the prayer of every loyal subject. Dartmouth concluded by declaring that
he would risk his life in defence of the throne, but that he would be no
party to the transporting of the Prince into France. [554]

This letter deranged all the projects of James. He learned too that
he could not on this occasion expect from his Admiral even passive
obedience. For Dartmouth had gone so far as to station several sloops at
the mouth of the harbour of Portsmouth with orders to suffer no vessel
to pass out unexamined. A change of plan was necessary. The child must
be brought back to London, and sent thence to France. An interval of
some days must elapse before this could be done. During that interval
the public mind must be amused by the hope of a Parliament and the
semblance of a negotiation. Writs were sent out for the elections.
Trumpeters went backward and forward between the capital and the Dutch
headquarters. At length passes for the king's Commissioners arrived; and
the three Lords set out on their embassy.

They left the capital in a state of fearful distraction. The passions
which, during three troubled years, had been gradually gathering force,
now, emancipated from the restraint of fear, and stimulated by victory
and sympathy, showed themselves without disguise, even in the precincts
of the royal dwelling. The grand jury of Middlesex found a bill against
the Earl of Salisbury for turning Papist. [555] The Lord Mayor ordered
the houses of the Roman Catholics of the City to be searched for arms.
The mob broke into the house of one respectable merchant who held the
unpopular faith, in order to ascertain whether he had not run a mine
from his cellars under the neighbouring parish church, for the purpose
of blowing up parson and congregation. [556] The hawkers bawled about
the streets a hue and cry after Father Petre, who had withdrawn himself,
and not before it was time, from his apartments in the palace. [557]
Wharton's celebrated song, with many additional verses, was chaunted
more loudly than ever in all the streets of the capital. The very
sentinels who guarded the palace hummed, as they paced their rounds,

"The English confusion to Popery drink,
Lillibullero bullen a la."

The secret presses of London worked without ceasing. Many papers daily
came into circulation by means which the magistracy could not discover,
or would not check. One of th