This is the truth of the fact, upon which your Majesty will
determine what resolutions are proper to be taken."
His Majesty did determine,--and did take and pursue his resolution. In
all the tottering imbecility of a new government, and with Parliament
totally unmanageable, he persevered. He persevered to expel the fears of
his people by his fortitude, to steady their fickleness by his
constancy, to expand their narrow prudence by his enlarged wisdom, to
sink their factious temper in his public spirit. In spite of his people,
he resolved to make them great and glorious,--to make England, inclined
to shrink into her narrow self, the arbitress of Europe, the tutelary
angel of the human race. In spite of the ministers, who staggered under
the weight that his mind imposed upon theirs, unsupported as they felt
themselves by the popular spirit, he infused into them his own soul, he
renewed in them their ancient heart, he rallied them in the same cause.
It required some time to accomplish this work. The people were first
gained, and, through them, their distracted representatives. Under the
influence of King William, Holland had rejected the allurements of every
seduction, and had resisted the terrors of every menace. With Hannibal
at her gates, she had nobly and magnanimously refused all separate
treaty, or anything which might for a moment appear to divide her
affection or her interest or even to distinguish her in identity from
England.
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