hopes of
success; that a sea war, indeed, might be both safe and successful
against Spain, but would not affect the enemy in such vital parts as to
make them stop their career of success in Germany, and abandon all their
acquisitions; and that the prospect of recovering the Palatinate being
at present desperate, the affair was reduced to this simple question,
whether peace and commerce with Spain, or the uncertain hopes of plunder
and of conquest in the Indies, were preferable? a question which, at
the beginning of the king's reign, had already been decided, and perhaps
with reason, in favor of the former advantages.

James might have defended his pacific measures by such plausible
arguments; but these, though the chief, seem not to have been the sole
motives which swayed him. He had entertained the notion, that, as his
own justice and moderation had shone out so conspicuously throughout all
these transactions, the whole house of Austria, though not awed by the
power of England, would willingly, from mere respect to his virtue,
submit themselves to so equitable an arbitration. He flattered himself
that, after he had formed an intimate connection with the Spanish
monarch, by means of his son's marriage, the restitution of the
Palatinate might be procured from the motive alone of friendship and
personal attachment. He perceived not, that his unactive virtue, the
more it was extolled, the greater disregard was it exposed to. He was
not sensible, that the Spanish match was itself attended with such
difficulties, that all his art of negotiation would scarcely be able
to surmount them; much less, that this match could in good policy be
depended on, as the means of procuring such extraordinary advantages.
His unwarlike disposition, increased by age, rivetted him still faster
in his errors, and determined him to seek the restoration of his
son-in-law, by remonstrances and entreaties, by arguments and embassies,
rather than by blood and violence. And the same defect of courage which
held him in awe of foreign nations, made him likewise afraid of shocking
the prejudices of his own subjects, and kept him from openly avowing
the measures which he was determined to pursue. Or, perhaps, he hoped to
turn these prejudices to account; and, by their means, engage his people
to furnish him with supplies, of which their excessive frugality had
hitherto made them so sparing and reserved.[*]

He first tried the expedient of a benevolence,