ency do not appear to have made
sufficient allowance for the embarrassing situation of subjects who have
reason to believe that their prince is conspiring with a foreign and
hostile power against their liberties. To refuse him military resources
is to leave the state defenceless. Yet to give him military resources
may be only to arm him against the state. In such circumstances
vacillation cannot be considered as a proof of dishonesty or even of
weakness.

These jealousies were studiously fomented by the French King. He had
long kept England passive by promising to support the throne against the
Parliament. He now, alarmed at finding that the patriotic counsels
of Danby seemed likely to prevail in the closet, began to inflame the
Parliament against the throne. Between Lewis and the Country Party there
was one thing, and one only in common, profound distrust of Charles.
Could the Country Party have been certain that their sovereign meant
only to make war on France, they would have been eager to support him.
Could Lewis have been certain that the new levies were intended only to
make war on the constitution of England, he would have made no attempt
to stop them. But the unsteadiness and faithlessness of Charles were
such that the French Government and the English opposition, agreeing in
nothing else, agreed in disbelieving his protestations, and were equally
desirous to keep him poor and without an army. Communications were
opened between Barillon, the Ambassador of Lewis, and those English
politicians who had always professed, and who indeed sincerely felt, the
greatest dread and dislike of the French ascendency. The most upright of
the Country Party, William Lord Russell, son of the Earl of Bedford, did
not scruple to concert with a foreign mission schemes for embarrassing
his own sovereign. This was the whole extent of Russell's offence. His
principles and his fortune alike raised him above all temptations of a
sordid kind: but there is too much reason to believe that some of his
associates were less scrupulous. It would be unjust to impute to them
the extreme wickedness of taking bribes to injure their country. On the
contrary, they meant to serve her: but it is impossible to deny that
they were mean and indelicate enough to let a foreign prince pay them
for serving her. Among those who cannot be acquitted of this degrading
charge was one man who is popularly considered as the personification
of public spirit, and who,