A motion was then made to reclaim all the improper grants of crown property, and apply the proceeds to the public service; but as this would have touched both whigs and tories, and the grants under the Stuarts as well as under William, it was successfully opposed. It was brought to light in the debate that Montague had received a grant from William, which was held in trust by one Railton for him; but the commons themselves voted that they held the chancellor of the exchequer well deserving, by his public services, of this mark of his majesty's favour.
These were the last transactions of the English government in 1697; but there was at this moment a person residing in this country, who was destined to produce greater changes in the face of Europe and in its relations than any who had gone before him. This was Peter, the czar of Muscovy, who was at this time residing at Sayes Court, a house of the celebrated John Evelyn, at Deptford, and studying the fleet and ship-building of England, in order to create a naval power for himself. He was only a youth of five-and-twenty, and was the monarch of a country then sunk in barbarism, which was unrepresented at all the courts of Europe, was little heard of by the rest of the continent, and whose merchants were forbidden, on pain of death, to trade with other countries. Yet already Peter had raised a regular army, and something of a navy, putting them under the management of Scotch and French officers. By means of these, in 1696, he had besieged and taken Azoph. He had put himself through all the ranks of the army, beginning as a common soldier, and he had then determined to see personally the chief maritime nations, Holland and England, and learn all that he could of the arts that made them so powerful. He set out with only twelve attendants, amongst whom were his two chief princes, Menzikoff, who had been originally a pieman, and Galitzin. These were to act as his ambassadors to the courts of Holland and England, he himself remaining incognito. He first settled at Saardam, in Holland, where he lived in a small lodging, dressed and worked with his attendants as ship-carpenters, learning to forge the iron-work of ships as well as to prepare their woodwork. He had a yacht on the Zuyder Zee, and practised its management, and studied rope-making and sail-making. He found himself too much crowded about and stared at on his removal to London, where he spent his time chiefly in the dockyards of Deptford, Woodwich, and Chatham. William used to go and see him at Sayes Court, and sent the marquis of Caermarthen to attend upon him, where they are said to have drunk brandy and pepper together during the long winter evenings. In the ensuing April disturbances at home called him away, but not before he had destroyed Evelyn's fine holly hedges by driving over them in the deep snows in his sledge, to Evelyn's great mortification. From this singular guest and his vast plans have sprung the present power and status of Russia, the bugbear and incubus of Europe.
At the opening of the year 1698, all appeared peace in Europe, but it was the quiet only which lies in the bosom of a volcano. Enormous expenditure of blood and treasure had been made to repel the unprincipled schemes of Louis XIV. Europe seemed to have triumphed over him. He had suddenly surrendered all that he had striven for, as if he perceived the impossibility of his aspirations. Nothing was less the fact. Never was he so boundless and daring in his plans of aggrandisement as at this moment. Why should he continue to drain his kingdom of its population and its substance to grasp merely at Flanders, when, by exerting the arts of diplomacy, he might possess himself not only of Flanders, but of all Spain, the north of Italy, the Sicilies, the South American and Indian dependencies? That was an ambition worthy of the Grand Monarque, and that Louis had now resolved to compass. The imbecile Charles II. of Spain was fast sinking to the tomb. He had no children, and his dominions were bequeathed by his father, Philip IV., to the emperor of Germany, the Austrian house, nearest to the succession. No matter; Louis XIV. had married the infanta, Maria Theresa, the sister of Philip IV., and aunt of Charles, and had children by her. On marrying her he had sworn to renounce all claims to the Spanish throne through her; but that weighed nothing with Louis. He resolved that a son of the dauphin, that is, his grandson through Maria Theresa, had the best right, and should have the throne. To secure a succession, he had before married his niece, the beautiful Louisa of Orleans, eighteen years ago; but there was no issue, and Charles was now married to a princess of the Austrian house, Maria Ann, sister of the emperor's late wife. Notwithstanding, Louis determined that the house of Austria should be set aside, and his own issue occupy the Spanish throne, from which moment France, in fact, stretching from the straits of Gibraltar to Flanders, and including a large share of Italy, would be able to give law to the continent, and swallow up Flanders and Holland, if not Germany too.
This was the mighty danger which filled the mental vision and wrought on the anxious heart of William at this moment; and we shall see that, through the terror of it, and with a fond hope of avoiding it, he was ere long drawn by the crafty Louis to sink his hitherto fair fame as a far-seeing and honest diplomatist, and to play into the very hands of this grand master of Machiavellianism. Before entering on these affairs, which laid the foundation of fresh and long wars, we must touch on domestic matters of themselves sufficiently embarrassing.
Montague, in the height of his popularity, undertook and carried a measure which eventually, however, did the whigs infinite mischief. Ministers had applied to the East India Company for a loan. The company offered to lend them seven hundred thousand pounds, to be repaid out of the supplies at the convenience of government. The new company, which had so long been striving after a charter, hearing of the proposal, immediately outbade the old company, offering to lend the government two million pounds at eight per cent. The bait was too tempting to resist; a bill was brought into the commons, and passed its first reading by a large majority. The old company, alarmed, petitioned the house, stating the claims it had, from having been encouraged by so many royal charters to invest its capital and to create a great trade with India. It begged the house to consider that a thousand families depended on the stock, and that the great property of the company in India, producing an annual revenue of forty-four thousand pounds, would all be destroyed or reduced to trifling value. They depressed that they
