be called in question, on account of its having been originally a
convention; and that a new parliament should be summoned that they might
treat about an union of the two kingdoms. The king had this affair
so much to heart, that even when he was disabled from going to the
parliament in person, he sent a letter to the commons expressing an
eager desire that a treaty for this purpose might be set on foot, and
earnestly recommending this affair to the consideration of the house;
but as a new parliament in Scotland could not be called without a great
risk, while the nation was in such a ferment, the project was postponed
to a more favourable opportunity.

HE FALLS FROM HIS HORSE.

Before the king's return from Holland, he had concerted with his allies
the operations of the ensuing campaign. He had engaged in a negotiation
with the prince of Hesse D'Armstadt, who assured him that if he would
besiege and take Cadiz, the admiral of Castile, and divers other
grandees of Spain, would declare for the house of Austria. The allies
had also determined upon the siege of Keyserswaert, which the elector
of Cologn had delivered into the hands of the French; the elector of
Hanover had resolved to disarm the princes of Wolfenbuttle; the king of
the Romans, and prince Louis of Baden, undertook to invest Landau; and
the emperor promised to send a powerful reinforcement to prince
Eugene in Italy; but William did not live to see these schemes put in
execution. His constitution was by this time almost exhausted, though
he endeavoured to conceal the effects of his malady, and to repair his
health by exercise. On the twenty-first day of February, in riding to
Hampton-court from Kensington, his horse fell under him, and he himself
was thrown upon the ground with such violence as produced a fracture
in his collar-bone. His attendants conveyed him to the palace
of Hampton-court, where the fracture was reduced by Ronjat, his
sergeant-surgeon. In the evening he returned to Kensington in his coach,
and the two ends of the fractured bone having been disunited by the
jolting of the carriage, were replaced under the inspection of Bidloo,
his physician. He seemed to be in a fair way of recovering till the
first day of March, when his knee appeared to be inflamed, with great
pain and weakness. Next day he granted a commission under the great
seal to several peers, for passing the bills to which both houses
of parliament had agreed; namely, the act o