alice which they bore to him was not to be so
satisfied. They affected to believe that he had from the first been
aware of Kidd's character and designs. The Great Seal had been
employed to sanction a piratical expedition. The head of the law had
laid down a thousand pounds in the hopes of receiving tens of thousands
when his accomplices should return laden with the spoils of ruined
merchants. It was fortunate for the Chancellor that the calumnies of
which he was object were too atrocious to be mischievous.

"And now the time had come at which the hoarded ill-humor of six months
was at liberty to explode. On the sixteenth of November the House
met.... There were loud complaints that the events of the preceding
session had been misrepresented to the public, that emissaries of the
Court, in every part of the kingdom, declaimed against the absurd
jealousies or still more absurd parsimony which had refused to his
Majesty the means of keeping up such an army as might secure the
country against invasion. Angry resolutions were passed, declaring it
to be the opinion of the House that the best way to establish entire
confidence between the King and the Estates would be to put a brand on
those evil advisers who had dared to breathe in the royal ear calumnies
against a faithful Parliament.

"An address founded on these resolutions was voted; many thought that a
violent rupture was inevitable. But William returned an answer so
prudent and gentle that malice itself could not prolong the dispute.
By this time, indeed, a new dispute had begun. The address had
scarcely been moved when the House called for copies of the papers
relating to Kidd's expedition. Somers, conscious of his innocence,
knew that it was wise as well as right and resolved that there should
be no concealment.

"Howe raved like a maniac. 'What is to become of the country,
plundered by land, plundered by sea? Our rulers have laid hold of our
lands, our woods, our mines, our money. And all this is not enough.
We cannot send a cargo to the farthest ends of the earth, but they must
send a gang of thieves after it.' Harley and Seymour tried to carry a
vote of censure without giving the House time to read the papers. But
the general feeling was strongly for a short delay. At length on the
sixth of December, the subject was considered in a committee of the
whole House. Shower undertook to prove that the letters patent to
which Somers had put the Great Se