.
A committee of lords was appointed to examine precedents, and inquire
whether impeachments continued in statu quo from parliament to
parliament. Several such precedents were reported; and violent
debates ensued: but the marquis eluded the vengeance of his enemies in
consequence of the following question: "Whether the earls of Salisbury
and Peterborough, who had been impeached in the former parliament for
being reconciled to the church of Rome, shall be discharged from their
bail?" The house resolved in the affirmative, and several lords
entered a protest. The commons having finished a bill for appointing
commissioners to take and state the public accounts, and having chosen
the commissioners from among their own members, sent it up to the house
of lords. There the earl of Rochester moved, That they should add some
of their number to those of the commons: they accordingly chose an equal
number by ballot; but Rochester himself being elected, refused to act:
the others followed his example, and the bill passed without alteration.
On the fifth day of January, the king put an end to the session with
a speech, in which he thanked them for the repeated instances they had
exhibited of their affection to his person and government. He told them,
it was high time for him to embark for Holland: recommended unanimity;
and assured them of his particular favour and protection. Then lord
chief baron Atkins signified his majesty's pleasure, that the two houses
should adjourn themselves to the thirty-first day of March.*

* In this year the English planters repossessed themselves
of part of the inland of St. Christopher, from which they
had been driven by the French.

THE KING'S VOYAGE TO HOLLAND.

William, having settled the affairs of the nation, set out for Margate
on the sixth day of January; but the ship in which he proposed to
embark being detained by an easterly wind and hard frost, he returned to
Kensington. On the sixteenth, however, he embarked at Gravesend with a
numerous retinue, and set sail for Holland under convoy of twelve
ships of war commanded by admiral Rooke. Next day, being informed by a
fisherman that he was within a league and a half of Goree, he quitted
the yacht and went into an open boat, attended by the duke of
Ormond, the earls of Devonshire, Dorset, Portland, and Monmouth, with
Auverquerque and Zuylestcin, Instead of landing immediately, they lost
sight of the fleet, and, night comin