First Appearance of Newspapers.

269

ration, and for the last thirty years the only publication pretending to relate news was the "London Gazette," which was edited by a clerk in the office of the Secretary of State, and was not allowed to mention any incident unfavourable or unpleasing to the Government.1

There had been a few political pamphlets, or rather addresses, for they were usually confined to a single sheet, but they were written and published stealthily and anonymously, both author and publisher knowing that they were in danger of the pillory if discovered.2 Now, however, all this was changed; not, indeed, that it was at all clear that the expiry of the Licensing Act affected the interpretation of the ordinary law on the subject as laid down by the judges of Charles II., but there seemed a general agreement to regard the removal of all restrictions upon pamphlets and treatises as the abolition also of the monopoly previously enjoyed by the "Gazette." And within a few weeks of the vote of the House of Commons a number of newspapers were set on foot, which, though meagre in size, poor in quality, and, in but few instances, appearing oftener than once a week, seemed of inestimable value to a generation which till then had known nothing more than its rulers had chosen to divulge, and which are scarcely of less importance to the present generation, as the forerunners of the copious publications relating the most important occurrences in every country in the world, pointing out their chief features, and examining them in all their bearings, which daily brighten our breakfast-tables.

1 The

Bishops.

"Gazette" of July, 1688, made no mention of the trial of the

2 The Act which was thus suffered to expire covered every kind of political writing. It was entitled "An Act of preventing abuses in printing seditious, treasonable, and unlicensed pamphlets," &c., &c.

One kind of information alone the newspapers did not venture to supply, the knowledge of how the members of the two Houses had spoken and voted in their places in Parliament. The old order, by which a century before the speakers had sought to protect themselves from the tyranny of Elizabeth, was still maintained in its original force, but not for its original reasons. Members who had taken bribes from Danby or from Barillon were as desirous to keep their baseness a secret from their constituents as the followers of Wentworth or of Hobby had been desirous to keep their fidelity to their duties a secret from the Queen. But gradually, though slowly, the spread of political knowledge, arising from the extension of the new system of intelligence, wrought the extinction of this order, of which, as being dictated by selfish timidity, its very proposers can hardly have failed to be ashamed, so that the present generation owes this knowledge also to the fortunate impatience of inquisitorial abuses, which, far more than the appreciation of any large principles of freedom of speech or of thought, led William's Parliament to emancipate the Press.

CHAPTER XIII.

Dangers of the Revolution from foreign wars-Success of the French in Piedmont and Spain-The War in Flanders-Walcourt and Fleurus -In 1691 William crosses over to take the command-Luxemburg takes Mons-In 1692 Luxemburg takes Namur-The battle of Steinkirk Campaign of 1693-Cowardice of Louis XIV. - The battle of Neerwinden-Subsequent campaigns-Recapture of Namur -The battle of La Hogue-Declaration issued by James.

THE different measures which have been enumerated in the last chapter may be regarded as the full establishment of the personal and intellectual freedom of every subject of the British Crown; and consequently as, in another sense, the completion of the Revolution, which had that freedom for its object. Yet it could not itself be said to be fully established so long as there was any danger of the new dynasty being overthrown either by open foreign war, or by secret domestic conspiracy. It was plunged into foreign war from its very birth. We have seen that in the very month in which William and Mary accepted the English Crown, Louis furnished James with military aid to recover his throne. And such an act was manifestly a declaration of war on his part, though more than two months elapsed before the English Parliament addressed William to make formal reply to it by an official proclamation. William had, however, from the first been making energetic preparations for war by forming a coalition of allies; and his diplomacy

had been so successful, that a declaration of war against France from the Empire, from Spain, from the States of Holland, and from the Elector of Brandenburg appeared even before his own.

For six years hostilities were carried on with great vigour on both sides. And at first the genius of the great French War Minister Louvois, and of the marshals whom he placed at the head of the different armies, seemed likely to turn the scale in favour of France. Catinat in Piedmont and Savoy, and the Dukes of Noailles and Vendôme in Spain, proved far superior in skill to their antagonists, though both, by the express orders of Louis himself, followed up their victories by the most inhuman cruelty towards the inhabitants of the districts in which they were carrying on their operations.

But it was in Flanders that the principal efforts were made on both sides; and it was there alone that English soldiers were engaged, and that the events of the successive campaigns could be expected to influence the state of affairs in England; though even in that country, during the first two years of the war, we did not attempt to play more than a subordinate part. The civil war which, in 1689, raged in both Scotland and Ireland necessarily detained the greater part of our troops in those countries; and the only force which William could furnish for the support of his allies in the Netherlands was a brigade on which, as the regiments composing it had formed part of James's army, he could not rely against their old master, and which he therefore sent, under the command of the Earl of Marlborough, to join the Dutch army under the Prince of Waldeck.

During that year Marshal d'Humières was the French Commander-in-Chief; and the scene of action was that

Military Skill of Marlborough.

273

narrow district on the western frontier of Flanders which lies between the Sambre and the Meuse, and which has witnessed more bloodshed than probably any similar space in the whole world. In one smart skirmish, which arose out of an attack made by the French on an outpost occupied by the English brigade at Walcourt, the English troops maintained their old superiority; and Marlborough, on this, the first occasion in which he was ever in command, showed a degree of skill far beyond that of the French officers, veterans though they were. When, the next year, Marlborough had returned to England, Luxemburg, who had been sent from Paris to take the chief command, and who was probably the greatest commander, with the exception of Turenne, who up to that time had ever had the glory of France committed to his skill and valour, had no difficulty in giving the Prince de Waldeck a decisive defeat at Fleurus, on nearly the same ground which witnessed one of the earliest battles of the revolutionary war a century later. But in that battle the English brigade was but little concerned; and, by the confession of the French writers themselves, the victory was of very slight political impor

tance.

It was not till the next year, 1691, that the war assumed a character which caused every event in it to be regarded with the deepest interest by both parties in England. A victory gained or a defeat sustained by our allies, in which our own troops had little share, was not calculated to have any effect on William's reputation or position. But at the beginning of 1691 he conceived that he could safely leave the war in Ireland to be finished by his lieutenants, and that it was in Flanders, where Waldeck was manifestly unequal to cope with the French marshals, that his presence

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