It will be requisite _Europe_ Should see
you will not be wanting to yourselves."
Baffled as that monarch was, and almost heartbroken at the
disappointment he met with in the mode he first proposed for that great
end, he held on his course. He was faithful to his object; and in
councils, as in arms, over and over again repulsed, over and over again
he returned to the charge. All the mortifications he had suffered from
the last Parliament, and the greater he had to apprehend from that newly
chosen, were not capable of relaxing the vigor of his mind. He was in
Holland when he combined the vast plan of his foreign negotiations. When
he came to open his design to his ministers in England, even the sober
firmness of Somers, the undaunted resolution of Shrewsbury, and the
adventurous spirit of Montagu and Orford were staggered. They were not
yet mounted to the elevation of the king. The cabinet, then the regency,
met on the subject at Tunbridge Wells, the 28th of August, 1698; and
there, Lord Somers holding the pen, after expressing doubts on the state
of the Continent, which they ultimately refer to the king, as best
informed, they give him a most discouraging portrait of the spirit of
this nation. "So far as relates to England," say these ministers, "it
would be want of duty not to give your Majesty this clear account: that
there is _a deadness and want of spirit in the nation universally_, so
as not at all to be disposed to _the thought of entering into a new
war_; and that they seem to be _tired out with taxes_ to a degree beyond
what was discerned, till it appeared upon the occasion of _the late
elections_.
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