e sleep and appetite of a vast number of
people. To begin with, King Charles had died without doing his
faithful subjects the honour of explaining whether he did so as a
Protestant or a Papist, an uncertainty which caused them endless
trouble. The religion of his brother and successor, though quite
unambiguous, put them to no less vexation by being incurably wrong;
and after four years of heated controversy they felt justified in
flocking, more in sorrow than in anger, round the standard of
William, Prince of Orange, who agreed with them on first principles
and had sailed into Torbay before an exceedingly prosperous breeze.
King James having escaped to Saint Germains, King William reigned in
his stead, to the welfare of his people and the disgust of Captain
Barker and Captain Runacles, who from habit were unable to regard a
Dutchman otherwise than as an enemy to be knocked on the head.
Moreover, they retained a warm respect for the seamanship of their
ejected Sovereign, under whom they had frequently served, when as
Duke of York he had commanded the British Fleet.

Now, shortly after daybreak upon May morning, 1691--which fell on a
Friday--his Majesty King William the Third set out from Kensington
for Harwich, where a squadron of five-and-twenty sail, under command
of Rear-Admiral Rooke, lay waiting to escort him to The Hague,
there to open the summer campaign against King Lewis of France.
This expedition raised his Majesty's spirits for more than one
reason. Not only would it take him for some months out of a country
he detested, and back to his beloved Holland--the very flatness of
which was inexpressibly dear to his recollection, though he had left
it but a month or two--but the prospect of this year's campaign had
awakened quite an extraordinary enthusiasm in England. For the first
time since Henry the Eighth had laid siege to Boulogne, an English
army commanded by an English king was about to exhibit its prowess on
Continental soil. It became the rage among the young gentlemen of
St. James's and Whitehall to volunteer for service in Flanders.
The coffee-houses were threatened with desertion, and a prodigious
number of banquets had been held by way of farewell. The regiments
which marched into Harwich on the last day of April to await the King
were swollen with recruits eager for glory. Addresses of duty and
loyalty met his Majesty at every halting-place, and acclamations
followed the royal coach throughout