and was for having the Revolution settled upon the sandy foundation of a Regency, and the discouraging of all the other parties who opposed that madness; and his particular frenzy carried him such extravagant lengths in this particular, yt he endeavour'd to impeach my Lord Oxford for burning the French fleet; and that folly turn'd him out. So that it may by innumerable facts be made appear, that all the Popish plotts both at home and abroad, all the Protestant fatal follies at home, the whole uneasiness of King William's reign, all the traiterous part of Queen Anne's Government, and the disturbances given to his present Majesty, are owing to that first fatal mistake of King William's in employing those two men in the posts of Secretary of State; to the perfidious arts of the Duke of Shrewsbury, and to the foolish tho' inveterate principles of my Lord Nottingham.
And to them, and them alone, was owing the dissolving of the Convention Parliament wch set the crown on the King's head; the passing the Triennial Bill, wch broke to pieces the whole Revolution interest all over the kingdom. And the consequences of the above treasonable counsells were the increase of the Jacobite interest in the House of Commons to that heighth, that they were enabled, by delaying the supplies so late in the year that they were useless for the ends they were design'd, viz. to carry on the war with success, by giving deficient funds, and by cramping the publick credit, to prolong the war and increase the taxes to such an annual exorbitancy yt ye people readily believ'd them when they laid those traiterous acts to the charge of ye King and Government.
And these forc'd King William not only to make the Peace of Reswick upon the French terms, tho' to my knowledge he foresaw all the destructive consequences of it; but likewise, when upon the death of the King of Spain these consequences appear'd and a new war became unavoidable, oblig'd him to throw himself into the Tories hands, that party being now become (by the horrid means abovesd) the majority of the House of Commons. And he was the rather induced to comply with this necessity, my Ld Rochester, Sr Edwd Seymour, and that party, having given him as he told me full assurances that they would not only come in to the vigorous carrying on of the war against France, but to the settling of the Crown on your sacred Majesty's illustrious house.
How they complied with either of these engagements is needless to relate, but sure I am (because I had it from his own mouth more than 20 times) he was fully convinc'd, from their pressing him to own the Duke of Anjou for King of Spain, their backwardness to enter into the war with any vigour, but above all by their manner of proceeding in the passing of the Succession Act, that it was not possible for a King who held under the Revolution settlement ever to be supported by a
